People believe that teacher or
mystic or priest has got so many followers and therefore there must be some
truth in their teaching, is a common fallacy accepted by the mass due to their
inherited conditioning. It proves only an ignorant can find a number of greater
ignorant to follow him.
The one who identifies
himself as swami, guru or yogi is not a Gnani. A Gnani never identifies himself
as swami, guru, pundit or yogi. Swami, guru, pundit or yogi belongs to
religious and yogic path not to path of truth or wisdom.
Sri, Sankara's commentary:-
Page
489: "The knower of Brahman (self-realized or Gnani) wears no signs. Page 500 asks in effect "Tell us what
you know, show it, and let us examine it under the mental microscope." It
means we must bring notions and beliefs out of vagueness into clearness. It
also criticizes the mystics who claim superior knowledge but who cannot
communicate it for purposes of verification.
On
page 482: On Gnani: "The knower of Brahman wears no signs. Gives up the
insignia of a monk's life,…his signs are not manifest, nor his behavior."
The path of wisdom is not for those who have the firm
conviction about religion, yoga and theories as the only means to higher truth
and what they knows or believes is ultimate truth.
In practical life, religion and yoga are needed. Religion is the tool to give samskara or conditioning
to the mass, -- to be, to believe, to behave
and to live in cultured society with its code of conduct with the fear of God,
but are of no value as proof.
Intellectuals think that Ultimate truth cannot be known.
They do not want o discuss nor accept anything whatever they know and accepted
as truth. "What I know is right,
what another man knows is wrong." This unfortunate vanity is common to all
men and prevents realization. A man must begin by doubting his own knowledge,
therefore. Only when doubts begin to arise does a man start in quest of Truth.
And such doubts usually first take the shape of asking why God sends or permits
epidemics, calamities and wars and unrest.
Quotation from others should come only after verification convinced by the use of reason based on facts,
and then only may one introduce quotations in order to show that others have
reached the same conclusion.
One must go to the very fundamentals, to the root of
thinking, to "grasp the ultimate truth, which is beyond form, time and
space.
How does one know what others say and quote is true? When this question arises from within than the
inner dialogue starts within and the truth will start revealing on its own. .
When all the doubts are cleared within, that is the doubts
on every question. However, ultimate understanding cannot be reached without
having doubts and asking questions and demanding proof from one’s own innermost
self.
To overcome doubt by the sword of wisdom, it does not mean
that the seeker should give up his doubt and believe, as the religionists and
intellectuals interpret it, but that he should keep on thinking about his
doubts until they are solved; that he should not stop until this point is
reached.
