Lectures on Vedanta and Unitary Consciousness (An Old and Rare Book)

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The word is a special faculty endowed only to human beings amongst the living beings. It makes the communication of subtle experience possible. Hence Siva revealed the secret of his being along with the means to experience him through the word. This is called sruti for it was heard by the rsis and comes down to us in the form he himself gave. The rsis gave u in their own words what they understood by the scared revelation through the practice of meditation and other spiritual disciplines. These are called Smrtis. Both of the mare verbal testimony is the special revelation to the aspirant. These three form the only source of supersensuous knowledge . It necessary Precedes the direct realization or aparokshanu bhuti all other means of knowledge can only communicate the facts of sensible universe. Hence the great Master Sankara in his magnum opus declares.

‘ शब्दमूल एव अतीद्रिंयार्थ याथार्त्म्याधिगमः ’

(Brahma Sutra 2.1 ) the only source of knowledge of the truth regarding the supersensuous is the verbal testimony .

Sense perception and reasoning based on it can never reveal the truth about God , Soul , their relation , Soul’s journey after death , heaven hell the origin of the universe , merit an demerit acquired from virtue and vice, man’s highest destiny, its fulfillment and related methods to attain it. Without knowing these and related topics one cannot live as a human being , thought one way survive as an animal who does not possess the means to unveil the secret of the perceptual phenomenon, viz., the world as revealed through the senses. The explanation of the seen is in the unseen. Perception does not exhaust reality, nor does it provide a solution to our enquiring intellect. Every experience reveals the existence of an object which is sensible, but along with it is also revealed the subject. One is as much aware of the experiencing self as one is of the experienced object. There may be experiences where the existence of an object can be doubted, but there cannot be a single experience where one can doubt the presence of the experience. And yet the senses cannot reveal any knowledge about the perceiver, nor can the other means of knowledge based on sensuous perception. And yet how surprising that even the so-called intellectuals try to unveil its secrets, especially when one realizes that objects are constantly changing and it is the subject who eventually stays constantly with us. Similarly to an en-quiring mind the finite points out the infinite, change reveals the changeless, the imperfect betokens the perfect. Reality is ten times more than the three dimensional perceptual universe. Reason founded on sensuous experience always fails to unveil what is veiled by the senses. Reason moves within a small area of sensuous experience. It is beyond this area of reason where lies all that the humanity holds dear. Without knowing the truth of these values, human life becomes purposeless. A secular state controlling education leads the population towards agnosticism or atheism where ethics, moral attitudes and all that is great and good is lost. We see in India the degeneration of values in a short span of forty years, and it is only a blind intellectual who will fail to perceive it. The stark selfishness and related corruption is the inheritance bestowed upon the nation by our rulers from Nehru down to this date.

Generally, an enquiring mind gets bogged down by the divergences, ever stark contradiction. But Bossuet instructs us not to be dismayed by these, but accept the mass trustworthy as the golden chains that meet amortal sight at the meet mortal sight at the throne of God. Revealed thought is perfected by intuition which catches the vision of the real. It is only then that opposites do not clash anymore and the opposites of soul and God are also merged into one Siva. The super conscious state is filled with truth ‘. Sankara declares:

एनमात्मानन्निरस्तसमस्त प्रपञ्चव्यक्तं संराधन काले पश्यन्ति

In the superconscious state one directly and vividly realises the unmanifest bereft of all the manifestations . Man is endowed with the faculty of mystic intuition by which he transcends and soves the riddles of reason. Of course one has to discipline by

भक्ति ध्यान प्रणिधानाद्यनुष्ठानम्

Unswerving love, one –pointed concentration and complete surrender.