The scriptures are for ignorant masses,
who wholly accept the material world as it presents itself. Gnana is for those
who have begun to realize that things are not what they seem.
Scriptural citations may be quoted only
after one has shown the reality and proved the truth, for then he can point out
that the texts teach the same thing. If one quotes them before having
demonstrated truth, then it is scholasticism.
Scriptures are of value only when
dealing with persons who are incapable of understanding truth. They have no
value as authority for those who use reason.
Reason is the common ground for all
humanity, whereas the appeal to scriptural relations reaches only groups. Because
all the religions are based on the false self and the false experience, there are
so many conflicting ideas , many
changes, divisions and subdivisions ,which leads to all sorts of doubts and confusions. When one meets with suffering and
disappointment doubts arises. Doubts are absolutely necessary to make one inquire.
Pursuit of truth is for getting rid of all doubts. The pursuit of truth begins with doubt, that doubts
one’s own self, one’s own beliefs.
Those that want ultimate truth Brahman
will not practice control of mind. (Mandukya p.231).
One who knows the universe as illusion
by making use of reason becomes aware of ‘what is truth’ and ‘what is untruth’.
One who loses touch with the external world and gives himself over to his
thoughts alone takes the illusory world to be reality and remains in ignorance
believing the experience of birth, life and death as reality.
Both sides of experience have to be
inquired into—waking or dream and deep sleep, mind and matter if one to find
truth. Yogi avoids external inquiry, hence cannot find truth. If he thinks he
does not see the world by shutting his eyes and omitting it from his thought,
he is an ignorant and not a Gnani. If there is nothing to be seen, if mere
absence of the universe from cognition gave self-knowledge, then every creature
would attain knowledge of truth because it loses the universe n deep sleep.
It is not possible by mental control
alone, by yoga, to realize ultimate truth, but at best one falls into a sleep.
It is like draining an ocean drop by drop, to try the yogic way. When the yogi
shuts his eyes and does not see the universe because he
takes that universe as real but only his body is unreal. He does not examine
the phenomenal universe and hence cannot realize ultimate truth.
The people who speaks of knowing, seeing, existing,
intuiting a second being--God, betrays thereby, that he is of limited
intelligence; unable to grasp non-dual truth.
People who talk of sending spiritual telepathic
waves or energies to help world is only a mind game. People do not want reason,
but blind faith.
The whole universe must be included in
the inquiry. Gnana cannot come if anything is left out. Only when all is known
can all be known to be but ideation. Hence yogis blotting all out in Samadhi
cannot lead to Gnana.
The ‘I’ or ‘I AM’ thought, the ego, belongs to
the duality as does the universe thought. The yogi may get the knowledge that the
formless witness [subject] is separate from three states [object], but he will
never know ultimate truth or Brahman, without inquiring into the universe,
because he is giving up the universe, and hence cannot discover his unity with
the universe or diversity. The Gnani regards everything in the universe as consciousness,
which is ultimate truth or Brahman; the yogi rejects the universe. Thus there
is a fundamental difference.
Yoga is alright so far as it goes but one
has to look at the world, which confronts him. Everyone has to eat and they
have to attend to all these physical necessities of the body. Therefore no yogi
can remain without ideas in Samadhi throughout the 24 /7. Once out of Samadhi
he is like every other ignorant man, unless he indulges in deeper self-search.
As soon as the yogi comes down from Samadhi
he finds the world that confronts his to be real. If he did not why does he
seek their food again?
People who say the world is unreal are
like the fox in the sour grapes in the fable. The people do not know ‘What mind is?’ ‘What the universe is?’ , and are unable to prove that, hence their glib
statement is worthless, not proceeding from understanding, or realization of Mind 's true nature, following inquiry into
it, but proceeding from some feeling of disappointment.
Without knowing what is mind and what is
the substance of the mind and without inquiry into the universe that confronts
him and its nature i.e. matter, there can be no such thing as Gnana.
The yogi assumes that he has realized ultimate
truth or Brahman. And he claims he realized it through by practicing Samadhi.
A
Gnani can explain what ultimate truth is,
but yogi says his experience of Samadhi
is ultimate state or Brahman. The yogic literature says this mystic experience
is liberation.” People being self-deluded they accept and indulge practicing
Samadhi without verifying their validity of the claim if they are true.
People say that they enjoy mystic
exaltation, trances, meditations and peace by practicing yoga for many years. Then
this state passed away. This proves he had attained a yogic condition, but not
Gnana. It vanished because it was not the highest insight. The Gnani, however
never loses his Gnana. Dislodging a Gnani from his insight is impossibility.
Once he has thoroughly seen the truth he simply can't fall away from it.
Many claim that they are enjoying mystic
exaltation and peace, but whether it passes away soon or endures the whole of
life, it is not Gnana, because it did not come through striving to investigate
the nature of the mind and universe, it came only through meditation on the
self; that is the yogic reward for such meditation but it is only one half. The
Gnani not only gets such inner peace but also truth because he has turned
outwards also and grasped the truth about matter, which is as much
consciousness as his self.
Yogi and mystics immersed into their
selves but they do not understand that that is only one half of the truth and
that this immersing is also a mental
discipline to fit their minds to understand the true nature of the mind or universe ,which confronts them, which
understanding they must next get if they are to become Gnani.
Gita,
Chap.XII Krishna tells Arjuna: - that knowledge of both
matter and mind is the True knowledge.
Everyone has the
inborn conviction or samskara that, he is an individual separate from the world
and world existed prior to him the born in this world afterwards. Until this conviction is there the ignorance
is there. Until ignorance is there one
thinks he is living in this world, and he has to eat and move and work in the
external environment. No one can get away from it. It is one’s life. But one is unaware of the fact that, the
universe in which man experiences his individual life as reality itself is mere
illusion. This illusion is experienced
as reality due to ignorance. Thus one
has to get rid of the ignorance to realize our experience of the birth, life,
death and the world are falsehood. Therefore we ought to know, understand and grasp
on what standpoint the universe is illusion to realize what is real and what is
unreal. The yogi or mystic who refuses
to do so is refusing to face the whole of reality. Visions and Samadhi’s are
illusions from ultimate point of view.
In Sutra
Bashya and Mandukya it is given that Samadhi and sleep are identical. And Brihad Upanishad does not
advocate Samadhi.
It is not possible to stop thought for
more than a half-second whilst in the waking experience. If one succeeds in
controlling thought and then banishes it, one passes into Nirvikalpa Samadhi,
which is identical with deep sleep. The only difference between ordinary deep
sleep and Samadhi therefore is that the ordinary man falls asleep involuntarily
whereas the yogi has the satisfaction of knowing that he has passed into sleep
by his own effort of will in banishing thoughts.
Patanjali warns against sleep as a hindrance
to yoga, he means when it occurs in the early stages of the practice before one
has obtained the power of control and consequently to banish thought. This fact
that Samadhi is deep sleep is kept secret because people would not be tempted
to take up yoga. Then what is the value of it? Why, to sharpen the mind, to
enable it to keep away all extraneous thoughts when one gets out to reason in
the practice of the next higher stage, i.e. Gnana.
Yoga is thus simply a sharpening-stone for the
mind to enable it to take up Gnana. Living without thoughts is Impossible. The
very thoughtless state itself is a thought.
Holding the thoughtless thought and entering the Samadhi is
impossible without the thought of thoughtlessness. How can one enter the
Samadhi without the thought of thoughtlessness?
He does not know the Gnanic truth
if he says thoughtlessness is the perfect stage of self.
When thoughts are stilled, it is not the
Self that is found. It is only mind. Thus Yogic Samadhi is not Gnana and
therefore yogi does not know highest truth. Yoga is good to give peace and
concentration, but only in order to start reasoning, i.e. thinking again to
find truth.
Yogic Samadhi is not the goal but a
means to an end, i.e. Gnana. Samadhi in itself is useless, because the mind is
withdrawn and there is no memory of it until after it is over and one returns
to waking experience. Yogi who attains Samadhi:
it is only sleep.
Yogi who is said to experience
non-duality in his ecstasy must still come back to normal state and see the world
confronts him, after his ecstasy. And then he will find that world separates
from him because he has ignored it and not tried to understand it. Only the
Gnani can say of the external world, "This is Brahman, Mind." and
prove his statement, and that it is none other than the innermost-self.
Many yogis are largely pretenders or
self-deluded. They think they are masters who can lead the whole humanity. They
set themselves up as different from others. Many yogis promise blessings etc.
to those who surrender their wealth or person to them. Many here live
questionable lives with women disciples. They seek influence over others, or wealth, by
thus differentiating themselves. They
market their yogic product in spiritual super market. A Gnani never does this.
If a yogi says "I feel Bliss"
who is having the experience? His 'I' is the ego. Hence that is not the highest
Gnana. If one carefully examines the
experiences of mystics, than he finds that they do differ. It is superficial to
say that yogis and mystics all have the same experience.
In dream one knows that the dream
figures are also mind, not different from it; similarly when one knows that
everything is consciousness, there is no need for yogic control of mind.
Control presupposes second, a duality. Hence yoga is in the sphere of duality
and is unnecessary to one who knows non-duality.
Self-Knowledge requires the mind to be
active in order to examine the world and discriminate. Hence non-dual wisdom
means knowing that there are no ideas different from the inner most self, which
is in the form of consciousness, as the dream mountain is not different from
Mind, knowing which they automatically the mind reaches stillness. This is
different from Yogic Samadhi, which is only deep sleep.
The Yogis and Mystics want meditation,
sitting still, etc. only because it gives them pleasure: the satisfaction is
for their own selves only, not others; hence it is something sought by the ego
and cannot get ultimate truth or Brahman in consequence.
The Yogi wants to do something, some action, even that of
sitting still, to control this or concentrate that. This means he is still
attached to his physical body. He wants his physical body to be quiet. He is
still thinking of illusory physical body. He does not know that, the physical
body is part of the mirage. On the contrary, he takes it for a reality.
The world must be seen before one can
know its true nature in Gnana. The yogi, who shuts it out, thereby deprives
himself of the opportunity to achieve Gnana.
The yogi must go to the ashram, some
special place, some cave or other. Whoever must sit in a posture is attached to
the body.
Inquiry must begin with duality, i.e.
with a world to inquire into. It will end with unity. The yogi tries to avoid
this duality by ignoring the universe. Hence he gets a false unity only.
The seekers of truth will inquire and
practice discrimination. The ultimate
truth has to be attained not by intuition but by reason, which is superior to
it. Not even a combination of intellect and intuition will find truth.
