Arthur Osborne - Advaita

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ADVAITA

 

 

SRI BHAGAVAN was not a philosopher and there was

absolutely no development in his teaching. His earliest

expositions, Self-Enquiry and Who Am I?, are no different in

doctrinal theory from those he gave verbally in his last years.

When, as a lad of sixteen, he realized his identity with the

Absolute, with That which is Pure Being underlying all that is,

it was formless, intuitive knowledge of which the doctrinal

implications were recognised only later. “I did not yet know

that there was an Essence or Impersonal Real underlying

everything and that God and I were both identical with it.

Later, at Tiruvannamalai, as I listened to the Ribhu Gita and

other sacred books, I learnt all this and found that they were

analysing and naming what I had felt intuitively without

analysis or name.” It was no question of opinions but of Truth

recognised; that is to say that he was not convinced by what he

read but simply recognised its conformity with what he already

intuitively knew.

 

All modes and levels of doctrine are comprised within

Hinduism, all of them legitimate and corresponding to the

various modes of approach required by people of varying

temperament and development. The approach through love and

worship of a Personal God exists, as it does in the Western or

Semitic religions. So also does the approach through service,

seeing God manifested in all His creatures and worshipping Him

by serving them. However, the recognition of Pure Being as one’s

Self and the Self of the universe and of all beings is the supreme

and ultimate Truth, transcending all other levels of doctrine

without denying their truth on their own plane. This is the

doctrine of Advaita, Non-duality, taught by the ancient Rishis

and pre-eminently by Shankaracharya. It is the simplest as well

as the most profound, being the ultimate truth beyond all the

complexities of cosmology.

 

Non-duality means that only the Absolute is. The entire

cosmos exists within the Absolute, having no intrinsic reality

but merely manifesting the Absolute which, however, remains

eternally unchanged and unmanifest, as the people and events

in a man’s dream exist within him and have no reality apart

from him and yet add nothing to him by their creation and

subtract nothing from him by their disappearance. This means

that the Absolute is the Self of the cosmos and of every being. Therefore

by seeking his Self, by the constant investigation ‘Who am I?’ it is

possible for a man to realize his identity with Universal Being. It

was the purest Advaita that Sri Bhagavan taught.

 

Some may fear that the doctrine of the One Self deprives

them of a Personal God to Whom they can pray, but there is no

need for such fear, because as long as the reality of the ego who

prays endures so long does the reality of the God to Whom he

prays; so long as a man accepts his ego as a reality, the world

outside it and God above it are also realities for him. This is the

level of a dualistic religion and a Personal God. It is true but not

the ultimate Truth. “All religions postulate the three fundamentals:

individual, God and world. It is only so long as the ego endures

that one says either, ‘The One manifests Itself as the three’ or,

‘The three are really three’. The supreme state is to inhere in the

Self, the ego extinguished” (Forty Verses on Reality, v.2).

 

Some people also revolt against the conception of the world

as unreal, even while admitting the reality of the Spirit, but that

is because they have not understood in what sense it is unreal.

Sri Bhagavan often explained this, and nowhere more concisely

than in the following statement recorded by S.S. Cohen:

 

“Shankaracharya has been criticised for his philosophy

of Maya (illusion) without understanding his meaning. He

made three statements: that Brahman is real, that the universe

is unreal, and that Brahman is the universe. He did not stop

with the second. The third statement explains the first two;

it signifies that when the universe is perceived apart from

Brahman that perception is false and illusory. What it

amounts to is that phenomena are real when experienced as

the Self and illusory when seen apart from the Self.”

 

The teaching of Sri Bhagavan was intensely practical. He

expounded theory only in answer to the specific needs and

questions of devotees and as a necessary basis for practice. When

reminded once (in Maharshi’s Gospel) that the Buddha had refused

to answer questions about God, he replied with approval, “In fact

the Buddha was more concerned with directing the seeker to realize

Bliss here and now than with academic discussions about God

and so forth.” So also, he himself would often refuse to gratify

curiosity, turning the questioner instead to the need for sadhana

or effort. Asked about the posthumous state of man, he might

reply: “Why do you want to know what you will be when you die

before you know what you are now? First find out what you are

now.” A man is now and eternally the deathless Self behind this

and every other life, but to be told so or to believe it is not enough;

it is necessary to strive to realize it. Similarly, if asked about God

he might reply: “Why do you want to know about God before

you know yourself? First find out what you are.”

The process by which this is to be done is described in a

later chapter, but since the next chapter already recounts Sri

Bhagavan’s instructions to devotees, reference is made to it and

to his teaching here.

That his teaching was not ‘philosophy’ in the usual sense

of the term may be seen from the fact that (as will appear in his

replies to Sivaprakasam Pillai in the next chapter) he did not

instruct his devotees to think out problems but to eliminate

thought. This may sound as though the process is stupefying,

but, as he explained to Paul Brunton in the conversation quoted

in Chapter Two, the reverse is true. A man is identical with the

Self, which is pure Being, pure Consciousness, pure Bliss, but

the mind creates the illusion of a separate individuality. In deep

sleep the mind is stilled and a man is one with the Self, but in an

unconscious way. In samadhi he is one with the Self in a fully

conscious way, not in darkness but in light. If the interference of

the mind is stilled, the consciousness of Self can, by the Grace of

the Guru, awaken in the heart, thus preparing for this blissful

Identity, for a state that is not torpor or ignorance but radiant.

Knowledge, pure I-am-ness.

Many may recoil from the idea of destruction of the mind

or (what comes to the same thing) of the separate individuality

and find it terrifying, and yet it happens to us daily in sleep and,

far from being afraid to go to sleep, we find it desirable and pleasant,

even though in sleep the mind is stilled only in an ignorant way.

 

 

In rapture or ecstasy, on the other hand, the mind is momentarily

absorbed and stilled in a fragmentary experience of the bliss that

is its true nature. The very words indicate the transcending of the

individuality, since ‘rapture’ means etymologically being carried

away and ‘ecstasy’ standing outside oneself. The expression ‘it is

breath-taking’ really means ‘it is thought-taking,’ for the source of

thought and breath is the same, as Sri Bhagavan explained when

speaking of breath-control. The truth is that the individuality is

not lost but expanded to Infinity.

 

The elimination of thoughts is for the purpose of

concentrating on the deeper awareness that is behind and beyond

thought. Far from weakening the mind, it strengthens it, for it

teaches concentration. Sri Bhagavan frequently confirmed this.

It is the weak and uncontrolled mind that is constantly distracted

by irrelevant thoughts and harassed by unhelpful worries; the

mind that is strong enough to concentrate, no matter on what,

can turn its concentration to the elimination of thoughts in quest

of the Self, and conversely, the effort to eliminate thoughts in

the manner prescribed gives strength and power of concentration.

When the quest is achieved the faculties of the mind are not

lost: Sri Bhagavan illustrated this by comparing the mind of the

Jnani to the moon in the sky at midday — it is illuminated but

its light is not needed in the greater radiance of the sun which

illuminates it.

 

 

taken from

RAMANA MAHARSHI AND THE PATH OF SELF-KNOWLEDGE

Arthur Osborne