Information on Vedanta - Part 1 of 2

[Guest guest]

Hi everyone,

 

Since Shaivism has been looked into in such detail on the

list, here is some material on Vedanta, from the Vedanta Society of

Southern California.

 

 

Vedanta is one of the world's most ancient religious philosophies and one

of its broadest. Based on the Vedas, the sacred scriptures of India,

Vedanta affirms the oneness of existence, the divinity of the soul, and the

harmony of religions. Vedanta is the philosophical foundation of Hinduism;

but while Hinduism includes aspects of Indian culture, Vedanta is universal

in its application and is equally relevant to all countries, all cultures,

and all religious backgrounds.

 

A closer look at the word "Vedanta" is revealing: "Vedanta" is a

combination of two words: "Veda" which means "knowledge" and "anta"

which

means "the end of" or "the goal of." In this context the goal of knowledge

isn't intellectual-- the limited knowledge we acquire by reading books.

"Knowledge" here means the knowledge of God as well as the knowledge of our

own divine nature. Vedanta, then, is the search for Self-knowledge as well

as the search for God. What do we mean when we say God? According to

Vedanta, God is infinite existence, infinite consciousness, and infinite

bliss. The term for this impersonal, transcendent reality is Brahman, the

divine ground of being. Yet Vedanta also maintains that God can be personal

as well, assuming human form in every age.

 

Most importantly, God dwells within our own hearts as the divine Self or

Atman. The Atman is never born nor will it ever die. Neither stained by our

failings nor affected by the fluctuations of the body or mind, the Atman is

not subject to our grief or despair or disease or ignorance. Pure, perfect,

free from limitations, the Atman, Vedanta declares, is one with Brahman.

The greatest temple of God lies within the human heart.

 

Vedanta further asserts that the goal of human life is to realize and

manifest our divinity. Not only is this possible, it is inevitable. Our

real nature is divine; God-realization is our birthright. Sooner or later,

we will all manifest our divinity--either in this or in future lives--for

the greatest truth of our existence is our own divine nature.

 

Finally, Vedanta affirms that all religions teach the same basic truths

about God, the world, and our relationship to one another. Thousands of

years ago the Rig Veda declared: "Truth is one, sages call it by various

names." The world's religions offer varying approaches to God, each one

true and valid, each religion offering the world a unique and irreplaceable

path to God-realization. The conflicting messages we find among religions

are due more to doctrine and dogma than to the reality of spiritual

experience. While dissimilarities exist in the external observances of the

world religions, the internals bear remarkable similarities.

 

The unity of existence is one of the great themes of Vedanta and an

essential pillar of its philosophy. Unity is the song of life; it is the

grand theme underlying the rich variations that exist throughout the

cosmos. Whatever we see, whatever we experience, is only a manifestation of

this eternal oneness. The divinity at the core of our being is the same

divinity that illumines the sun, the moon, and the stars. There is no place

where we, infinite in nature, do not exist.

 

While the concept of oneness may be intellectually appealing, it is

nevertheless difficult to put into practice. It's no hardship to feel

oneness with great and noble beings or those we already love. It's also not

too much of a stretch to experience a sense of unity with the trees, the

ocean, and the sky. But most of us balk at experiencing oneness with the

cockroach or the rat--let alone the obnoxious co-worker whom we barely

tolerate. Yet this is precisely where we need to apply Vedanta's teachings

and realize that all these manifold aspects of creation are united in and

through divinity. The Self that is within me, the Atman, is the same Self

that is within you--no matter whether the "you" in question is a saint, a

murderer, a cat, a fly, a tree, or that irritating driver at the four-way

stop.

 

"The Self is everywhere," says the Isha Upanishad. "Whoever sees all beings

in the Self, and the Self in all beings, hates none. For one who sees

oneness everywhere, how can there be delusion or grief?"

 

All fear and all misery arise from our sense of separation from the great

cosmic unity, the web of being that enfolds us. "There is fear from the

second," says the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad. Duality, our sense of

separation from the rest of creation, is always a misperception since it

implies that something exists other than God. There can be no other. "This

grand preaching, the oneness of things, making us one with everything that

exists, is the great lesson to learn," said Swami Vivekananda a century

ago. . . . . The Self is the essence of this universe, the essence of all

souls . . . You are one with this universe. He who says he is different

from others, even by a hair's breadth, immediately becomes miserable.

Happiness belongs to him who knows this oneness, who knows he is one with

this universe.

 

Vedanta declares that our real nature is divine: pure, perfect, eternally

free. We do not have to become Brahman, we are Brahman. Our true Self, the

Atman, is one with Brahman.

 

But if our real nature is divine, why then are we so appallingly unaware of

it? The answer to this question lies in the concept of maya, or ignorance.

Maya is the veil that covers our real nature and the real nature of the

world around us. Maya is fundamentally inscrutable: we don't know why it

exists and we don't know when it began. What we do know is that, like any

form of ignorance, maya ceases to exist at the dawn of knowledge, the

knowledge of our own divine nature.

 

Brahman is the real truth of our existence: in Brahman we live, move, and

have our being. "All this is indeed Brahman," the Upanishads--the

scriptures that form Vedanta philosophy--declare. The changing world that

we see around us can be compared to the moving images on a movie screen:

without the unchanging screen in the background, there can be no movie.

Similarly, it is the unchanging Brahman--the substratum of existence--in

the background of this changing world that gives the world its reality. Yet

for us this reality is conditioned, like a warped mirror, by time, space,

and causality--the law of cause and effect. Our vision of reality is

further obscured by wrong identification: we identify ourselves with the

body, mind, and ego rather than the Atman, the divine Self.

 

This original misperception creates more ignorance and pain in a domino

effect: identifying ourselves with the body and mind, we fear disease, old

age and death; identifying ourselves with the ego, we suffer from anger,

hatred, and a hundred other miseries. Yet none of this affects our real

nature, the Atman.

 

Maya can be compared to clouds which cover the sun: the sun remains in the

sky but a dense cloud cover prevents us from seeing it. When the clouds

disperse, we become aware that the sun has been there all the time. Our

clouds--maya appearing as egotism, selfishness, hatred, greed, lust, anger,

ambition--are pushed away when we meditate upon our real nature, when we

engage in unselfish action, and when we consistently act and think in ways

that manifest our true nature: that is, through truthfulness, purity,

contentment, self-restraint, and forbearance. This mental purification

drives away the clouds of maya and allows our divine nature to shine forth.

 

Shankara, the great philosopher-sage of seventh-century India, used the

example of the rope and the snake to illustrate the concept of maya.

Walking down a darkened road, a man sees a snake; his heart pounds, his

pulse quickens. On closer inspection the "snake" turns out to be a piece of

coiled rope. Once the delusion breaks, the snake vanishes forever.

Similarly, walking down the darkened road of ignorance, we see ourselves as

mortal creatures, and around us, the universe of name and form, the

universe conditioned by time, space, and causation. We become aware of our

limitations, bondage, and suffering. On "closer inspection" both the mortal

creature as well as the universe turn out to be Brahman. Once the delusion

breaks, our mortality as well as the universe disappear forever. We see

Brahman existing everywhere and in everything.

 

Human suffering is one of religion's most compelling mysteries: Why do the

innocent suffer? Why does God permit evil? Is God helpless to act or does

he choose not to? And if He chooses not to act, does that mean he is cruel?

Or merely indifferent?

 

Vedanta takes the problem out of God's court and places it firmly in our

own. We can blame neither God nor a devil. Nothing happens to us by the

whim of some outside agency: we ourselves are responsible for what life

brings us; all of us are reaping the results of our own previous actions in

this life or in previous lives. To understand this better we first need to

understand the law of karma. The word "karma" comes from the Sanskrit verb

kri, to do. Although karma means action, it also means the result of

action. Whatever acts we have performed and whatever thoughts we have

thought have created an impression, both in our minds and in the universe

around us. The universe gives back to us what we have given to it: "As ye

sow, so shall ye reap" as Christ said. Good actions and thoughts create

good effects, bad ones create bad effects.

 

 

Mental Imprints

 

Whenever we perform any action and whenever we think any thought, an

imprint--a kind of subtle groove--is made upon the mind. These imprints or

grooves are known as samskaras. Sometimes we are conscious of the

imprinting process; just as often we are not. When actions and thoughts are

repeated, the grooves become deeper. The combination of

"grooves"--samskaras--creates our individual characters and also strongly

influences our subsequent thoughts and actions. If we anger easily, for

example, we create an angry mind that is predisposed to react with anger

rather than with patience or understanding. As water when directed into a

narrow canal gains force, so the grooves in the mind create canals of

behavior patterns which become extraordinarily difficult to resist or

reverse. Changing an ingrained mental habit literally becomes an uphill

battle. If our thoughts are predominantly those of kindness, love, and

compassion, our character reflects it, and these very thoughts will be

returned to us sooner or later. If we send out thoughts of hatred, anger,

or pettiness, those thoughts will also be returned to us.

 

Our thoughts and actions aren't so much arrows as boomerangs--eventually

they find their way back home. The effects of karma may come instantly,

later in life, or in another life altogether; what is absolutely certain,

however, is that they will appear at some time or other. Until liberation

is achieved, we live and we die within the confines of the law of karma,

the chain of cause and effect.

 

 

Reincarnation

 

What happens at death if we haven't attained liberation? When a person

dies, the only "death" is that of the physical body. The mind, which

contains a person's mental impressions, continues after the body's death.

When the person is reborn, the "birth" is of a new physical body

accompanied by the old mind with the impressions or "grooves" from previous

lives. When the environment becomes conducive, these samskaras again

reassert themselves in the new life.

 

Thankfully, this process doesn't go on eternally. When we attain

God-realization or Self-realization, the law of karma is transcended, the

Self gives up its identification with the body and mind, and regains its

native freedom, perfection and bliss.

 

 

An Absurd Universe?

 

When we take a hard look around us, the world doesn't seem to make much

sense. If we go by appearances, it would seem that countless people have

escaped the noose of fate: many an evil person has died peacefully in bed.

Worse, good and noble people have suffered without apparent cause, their

goodness being repaid by hatred and torture. Witness the Holocaust; witness

child abuse. If we look only on the surface, the universe appears absurd at

best, malevolent at worst. But that's because we're not looking deeply;

we're only viewing this lifetime, seeing neither the lives that precede

this one nor the lives that may follow. When we see a calamity or a

triumph, we're seeing only one freeze frame of a very, very long movie. We

can see neither the beginning nor the end of the movie. What we do know,

however, is that everyone, no matter how depraved, will eventually, through

the course of many lifetimes and undoubtedly through much suffering, come

to realize his or her own divine nature. That is the inevitable happy

ending of the movie.

 

 

Karma=Fatalism?

 

Doesn't the law of karma make Vedanta a cold and fatalistic philosophy? Not

in the slightest.

 

Vedanta is both personally empowering and deeply compassionate. First, if

we have created--through our own thoughts and actions--the life that we are

leading today, we also have the power to create the life that we will live

tomorrow. Whether we like it or not, whether we want to take responsibility

or not, that's what we are doing every step of the way. Vedanta doesn't

allow us to assign blame elsewhere: every thought and action builds our

future experience. Doesn't the law of karma then imply that we can be

indifferent to our fellow beings because, after all, they're only getting

what they deserve?

 

Absolutely not. If a person's karma is such that he or she is suffering, we

have an opportunity to alleviate that suffering in whatever way we can:

doing so would be good karma. We need not be unduly heroic, but we can

always offer a helping hand or at least a kind word. If we choose not to do

whatever is in our limited power to alleviate the pain of those around us,

we're chalking up bad karma for ourselves. In fact, we're really hurting

ourselves. Oneness is the law of the universe, and that truth is the real

root of all acts of love and compassion. The Atman, my true Self, is the

same Spirit that dwells in all; there cannot be two Atmans. Consciousness

cannot be divided; it's all-pervasive. My Atman and your Atman cannot be

different. For that reason Vedanta says: Love your neighbor as yourself

because your neighbor IS yourself.

 

 

"Truth is one; sages call it by various names," the Rig Veda, one of

Vedanta's most ancient texts, declared thousands of years ago.

 

We are all seeking the truth, Vedanta asserts, and that truth comes in

numerous names and forms. Truth--spiritual reality--remains the truth

though it appears in different guises and approaches us from various

directions. "Whatever path people travel is My path," says the Bhagavad

Gita. "No matter where they walk, it leads to Me." If all religions are

true, then what is all the fighting about?

 

Politics, mostly, and the distortions that cultures and limited human minds

superimpose upon spiritual reality. What is generally considered "religion"

is a mixture of essentials and nonessentials; as Ramakrishna said, all

scriptures contain a mixture of sand and sugar. We need to take out the

sugar and leave the sand behind: we should extract the essence of

religion--whether we call it union with God or Self-realization--and leave

the rest behind. Whatever helps us to manifest our divinity we embrace;

whatever pulls us away from that ideal, we avoid. The carnage inflicted

upon the world in the name of religion has precious little to do with

genuine religion. People fight over doctrine and dogma: we don't see people

being murdered over attaining divine union! A "religious war" is really

large-scale egotism gone berserk. As Swami Prabhavananda, the founder of

the Vedanta Society of Southern California, would smilingly say, "If you

put Jesus, Buddha, and Muhammad in the same room together, they will

embrace each other. If you put their followers together, they may kill each

other!"

 

 

Truth is one, but it comes filtered through the limited human mind. That

mind lives in a particular culture, has its own experience of the world and

lives at a particular point in history. The infinite Reality is thus

processed through the limitations of space, time, causation, and is further

processed through the confines of human understanding and language.

Manifestations of truth--scriptures, sages, and prophets--will necessarily

vary from age to age and from culture to culture. Light, when put through a

prism, appears in various colors when observed from different angles. But

the light always remains the same pure light. The same is true with

spiritual truth. This is not to say that all religions are "really pretty

much the same." That is an affront to the distinct beauty and individual

greatness of each of the world's spiritual traditions. Saying that every

religion is equally true and authentic doesn't mean that one can be

substituted for the other like generic brands of aspirin.

 

 

Every Religion Has a Gift

 

Every religion has a specific gift to offer humankind; every religion

brings with it a unique viewpoint which enriches the world. Christianity

stresses love and sacrifice; Judaism, the value of spiritual wisdom and

tradition. Islam emphasizes universal brotherhood and equality while

Buddhism advocates compassion and mindfulness. The Native American

tradition teaches reverence for the earth and the natural world surrounding

us. Vedanta or the Hindu tradition stresses the oneness of existence and

the need for direct mystical experience. The world's spiritual traditions

are like different pieces in a giant jigsaw puzzle: each piece is different

and each piece is essential to complete the whole picture. Each piece is to

be honored and respected while holding firm to our own particular piece of

the puzzle. We can deepen our own spirituality and learn about our own

tradition by studying other faiths. Just as importantly, by studying our

own tradition well, we are better able to appreciate the truth in other

traditions.

 

 

Deepening in Our Path

 

Just as we honor the various world religions and respect their adherents,

we must grow and deepen in our own particular spiritual path--whatever it

may be. We shouldn't dabble in a little bit of Buddhism and a little bit of

Islam and a little bit of Christianity and then try a new combo plate the

following week. Spiritual practice is not a smorgasbord. If we throw five

varieties of desserts into a food processor, we'll just get one unpalatable

mess. While Vedanta emphasizes the harmony of religions, it also stresses

the necessity of diving deep into the spiritual tradition of our choice,

sticking with it, and working hard. To paraphrase Ramakrishna, If you want

to dig a well, you have to choose your location and keep digging until you

reach water. It doesn't do any good to dig a bunch of shallow holes.

 

While a shallow spiritual life is probably better than no spiritual life at

all, it nevertheless doesn't take us where we want to go: to freedom, to

God-realization. Once we choose which spiritual path we wish to follow, we

should doggedly pursue it until we reach the goal. The point is, we can do

this while not only valuing other traditions, but also learning from them.

 

 

Different Paths to the Same Goal Vedanta says that all religions contain

within themselves the same essential truths, although the packaging is

different. And that is good. Every human being on the planet is unique. Not

one of us really practices the same religion. Every person's mind is

different and every person needs his or her own unique path to reach the

top of the mountain. Some paths are narrow, some are broad. Some are

winding and difficult and some are safe and dull. Eventually we'll all get

to the top of the mountain; we don't have to worry about our neighbors

getting lost along the way. They'll do just fine. We all need different

approaches to fit our different natures.

 

Despite external variations in the world religions, the internals are more

alike than not. Every religion teaches similar moral and ethical virtues;

all religions teach the importance of spiritual striving and the necessity

of honoring our fellow human beings as part of that striving. "As different

streams having their sources in different places all mingle their water in

the sea," says an ancient Sanskrit prayer, "so, O Lord, the different paths

which people take through different tendencies, various though they appear,

crooked or straight, all lead to Thee."

 

Swami Shivananda, one of Ramakrishna's disciples, said: "If God does not

come down as a human being, how will human beings love him? That is why He

comes to human beings as a human being. People can love Him as a father,

mother, brother, friend--they can take any of these attitudes. And He comes

to each in whatever form that person loves."

 

Throughout the ages, spiritual renewal has come to humanity through God

manifesting in human form. The Sanskrit word "avatar" literally means

"descent of God." Most of the world's religions have been given impetus and

direction by these spiritual giants--the incarnations, prophets, and

messengers of God. Jesus and Buddha, Rama and Krishna, Moses and Muhammad,

Chaitanya and Ramakrishna--all have been torchbearers in the world of

spirituality, pouring new energy into religions that were sliding into

hypocrisy and self-indulgence. The Bhagavad Gita declared thousands of

years ago:

 

When goodness grows weak, When evil increases, I make myself a body. In

every age I come back To deliver the holy, To destroy the sin of the

sinner, To establish righteousness.

 

One of the great distinctions between Western and Eastern thought is that

the West tends to think in terms of linear time--the world and human

history having a definitive beginning, middle, and end. On this horizontal

time line, God has specific, historical interventions. In contrast, the

East thinks in terms of great cycles: ascension and descension, creation

and destruction, growth and decay; these cycles are seen as continually

repeating waves in an eternal cosmic process. Civilizations, religions, and

individuals are all part of this ongoing cycle. The appearance of the

avatar is essential to this eternal movement of spiritual decline followed

by regeneration.

 

According to Vedanta, spiritual truth is eternal and universal: no

particular religion or sect can have a monopoly on it. The truth that

Christ discovered is the same truth that was revealed to the sages of the

Upanishads; it is the same truth that Krishna and Buddha taught as well.

Gautama said that there were many Buddhas before him, and in the years to

come there will be many more manifestations of God on earth.

 

Is there a purpose in all this? Yes. First, every avatar has a specific

message to impart to humanity: Muhammad taught equality and the brotherhood

of humanity; Christ revealed the primacy of God's love over the letter of

the Law; Buddha rejected priestcraft and taught people to be lamps unto

themselves; Krishna taught mental equanimity and detached action;

Ramakrishna taught the ideal of the harmony of religions. Each incarnation

has a message particular to the age in which he appears.

 

The second reason why the avatar incarnates is to reestablish the one

eternal religion--spiritual truth. While every avatar has specific

teachings, all incarnations come to pour spiritual fire into a world

sinking into religious mediocrity. No matter where the avatar appears on

earth, the entire world is uplifted and regenerated by his advent.

 

Does this mean that, according to Vedanta, God can be realized only through

his personal aspect? No. Does this mean that Vedanta says that we must

think of God as a person? No.

 

What Vedanta says is that God can and does manifest through human form, and

that, for most people, it is easier to meditate upon and love a God with

form rather than a nebulous idea of infinite being, consciousness, and

bliss. This, however, is a matter of temperament. Many people achieve

spiritual growth through meditation upon the avatar; they are followers of

the path of bhakti yoga. Yet for others this is entirely the wrong

approach: those who are more intellectual than emotional may well achieve

greater spiritual awareness through jnana yoga.

 

While in recent years the word "yoga" has been heard more in gyms than in

religious discourse, "yoga" in its original sense has little to do with

exercise. "Yoga" comes from the Sanskrit verb yuj, to yoke or unite. The

goal of yoga is to unite oneself with God; the practice of yoga is the path

we take to accomplish this.

 

Spiritual aspirants can be broadly classified into four psychological

types: the predominantly emotional, the predominantly intellectual, the

physically active, the meditative. There are four primary yogas designated

to "fit" each psychological type. We should state from the beginning that

these categories are not airtight compartments. Indeed, it would be

psychologically disastrous for anyone to be completely emotional,

completely intellectual, completely active or completely meditative. Each

yoga blends into the next; each yoga balances and strengthens the others.

 

For those more emotional than intellectual, bhakti yoga is recommended.

Bhakti yoga is the path of devotion, the method of attaining God through

love and the loving recollection of God. Most religions emphasize this

spiritual path because it is the most natural. As with other yogas, the

goal of the bhakta, the devotee of God, is to attain

God-realization--oneness with the Divine. The bhakta attains this through

the force of love, that most powerful and irresistible of emotions.

 

Love is accessible to everyone: we all love someone or something,

frequently with great intensity. Love makes us forget ourselves, our whole

attention being devoted to the object of our adoration. The ego loosens its

grip as we think of our beloved's welfare more than our own. Love gives us

concentration: even against our will, we constantly remember the object of

our love. In an easy and totally painless way, love creates the

preconditions necessary for a fruitful spiritual life. Vedanta therefore

says, Don't squander the power of love. Use this powerful force for

God-realization. We must remember that when we love another we are really

responding--though unconsciously--to the divinity within him or her. As we

read in the Upanishads, "It is not for the sake of the husband that the

husband is dear, but for the sake of the Self. It is not for the sake of

the wife that the wife is dear, but for the sake of the Self." Our love for

others becomes unselfish and motiveless when we are able to encounter

divinity in them.

 

Unfortunately, we usually misplace our love. We project our vision of

what's true, perfect, and beautiful and superimpose it upon whomever or

whatever we love. It is God alone, however, who is True, Perfect, and

Beautiful. Vedanta therefore says: Put the emphasis back where it

belongs--on the divine Self within each person that we encounter. That is

the real object of our love.

 

Rather than obsessing on a limited human being, we should think of God with

a longing heart. Many spiritual teachers have recommended adopting a

particular devotional attitude towards God: thinking of God as our Master

or Father or Mother or Friend or Child or Beloved. The determining factor

here is, Which attitude feels the most natural to me and which attitude

brings me closest to God?

 

Jesus looked upon God as his Father in Heaven. Ramakrishna worshipped God

as Mother. Many great saints have attained perfection through worshipping

God as the baby Jesus or the baby Krishna. Many have attained perfection

through worshipping Christ as the bridegroom or Krishna as the beloved.

Others have attained perfection through worshipping God as their master or

friend. The point to remember is that God is our own, the nearest of the

nearest and dearest of the dearest. The more our minds are absorbed in

thoughts of Him--or Her as the case may be--the closer we shall be to

attaining the goal of human life, God-realization.

 

Many people are drawn to worshipping God through love and devotion. Yet

other spiritual aspirants are more motivated by reason than by love; for

them, bhakti yoga is barking up the wrong spiritual tree. Those who are

endowed with a powerful and discriminating intellect may be better suited

for the path of jnana yoga, striving for perfection through the power of

reason.

 

Jnana yoga is the yoga of knowledge--not knowledge in the intellectual

sense--but the knowledge of Brahman and Atman and the realization of their

unity. Where the devotee of God follows the promptings of the heart, the

jnani uses the powers of the mind to discriminate between the real and the

unreal, the permanent and the transitory.

 

Jnanis, followers of nondualistic or advaita Vedanta, can also be called

monists for they affirm the sole reality of Brahman. Of course, all

followers of Vedanta are monists: all Vedantins affirm the sole reality of

Brahman. The distinction here is in spiritual practice: while all Vedantins

are philosophically monistic, in practice those who are devotees of God

prefer to think of God as distinct from themselves in order to enjoy the

sweetness of a relationship. Jnanis, by contrast, know that all duality is

ignorance. There is no need to look outside ourselves for divinity: we

ourselves already are divine. What is it that prevents us from knowing our

real nature and the nature of the world around us? The veil of maya. Jnana

yoga is the process of directly rending that veil, tearing it through a

two-pronged approach.

 

An Unreal Universe The first part of the approach is negative, the process

of neti, neti--not this, not this. Whatever is unreal--that is,

impermanent, imperfect, subject to change--is rejected. The second part is

positive: whatever is understood to be perfect, eternal, unchanging--is

accepted as real in the highest sense.

 

Are we saying that the universe that we apprehend is unreal? Yes and no. In

the absolute sense, it is unreal. The universe and our perception of it

have only a conditional reality, not an ultimate one. To go back to our

earlier reference to the rope and the snake: the rope, i.e., Brahman, is

perceived to be the snake, i.e., the universe as we perceive it. While we

are seeing the snake as a snake, it has a conditional reality. Our hearts

palpitate as we react to our perception. When we see the "snake" for what

it is, we laugh at our delusion. Similarly, whatever we take in through our

senses, our minds, our intellects, is inherently restricted by the very

nature of our bodies and minds. Brahman is infinite; it cannot be

restricted. Therefore this universe of change--of space, time, and

causation--cannot be the infinite, all-pervading Brahman. Our minds are

circumscribed by every possible condition; whatever the mind and intellect

apprehend cannot be the infinite fullness of Brahman. Brahman must be

beyond what the normal mind can comprehend; as the Upanishads declare,

Brahman is "beyond the reach of speech and mind."

 

Yet what we perceive can be no other than Brahman. Brahman is infinite,

all-pervading, and eternal. There cannot be two infinites; what we see at

all times can only be Brahman; any limitation is only our own

misperception. Jnanis forcefully remove this misperception through the

negative process of discrimination between the real and the unreal and

through the positive approach of Self-affirmation. Self-Affirmation

 

In Self-affirmation we continually affirm what is real about ourselves: we

are not limited to a small physical body; we are not limited by our

individual minds. We are Spirit. We were never born; we will never die. We

are pure, perfect, eternal and free. That is the greatest truth of our

being. The philosophy behind Self-affirmation is simple: as you think, so

you become. We have programmed ourselves for thousands of lifetimes to

think of ourselves as limited, puny, weak, and helpless. What a horrible,

dreadful lie this is and how incredibly self-destructive! It is the worst

poison we can ingest. If we think of ourselves as weak, we shall act

accordingly. If we think of ourselves as helpless sinners, we will, without

a doubt, act accordingly. If we think of ourselves as Spirit--pure,

perfect, free--we will also act accordingly.

 

As we have drummed the wrong thoughts into our minds again and again to

create the wrong impressions, so we must reverse the process by drumming

into our brains the right thoughts--thoughts of purity, thoughts of

strength, thoughts of truth. As the Ashtavakra Samhita, a classic Advaita

text, declares: "I am spotless, tranquil, pure consciousness, and beyond

nature. All this time I have been duped by illusion." Jnana yoga uses our

considerable mental powers to end the duping process, to know that we are

even now--and have always been--free, perfect, infinite, and immortal.

Realizing that, we will also recognize in others the same divinity, the

same purity and perfection. No longer confined to the painful limitations

of "I" and "mine," we will see the one Brahman everywhere and in everything.

 

 

 

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