Seeker has to have courage to accept the
truth and reject the untruth. Most people will not be able to subscribe to path
of truth because they sentimentally and emotionally involved with their
inherited belief system and even if one does he has to overcome all his doubts
confusion and despair. These are problem
for the seekers who are from religious back ground because of their
conditioning and they are made to accept their blind belief as truth and their
interest or insight is not deep. Thus
all my blogs are useful analyze these problems because they highlight the what
is not truth according to their own religious scriptures and make
them to accept the truth and reject all the false conditioning and move
ahead in pursuit of truth.
It becomes difficult for the orthodox cult
to accept anything else as truth other than their accepted belief, which they
hold as truth. Although all religious followers are participants alike in the
spiritual endeavor of the world, overzealous followers of each religion are not prepared
to accord equal status to other faiths and assert the superiority of their own.
Thus universal brother hood is total impossibility because it is difficult to
accept anything other than their inherited belief system.
Most of the pundits are egoic and they try
to snub others who question them. They
think they are unquestionable authority.
They quote the citation from the scriptures as proof without verifying
the validity. All punditry is a great
obstacle in realizing the Advaitic truth expounded by the Sri, Sankara and
Goudapada.
The foreign disciple come to India to study
scriptures and write great books to feed the seeking crowd but all this bookish
knowledge of ornamental worlds can satisfy only the emotions and feeling. The
truth is beyond emotions and feelings. The religious path is emotional path and it is
for the worldly people. Considering the traditional path as path of truth is
great mistake. There is no need to
condemn the traditional paths but seekers of truth have to realize the fact
that, they are not the means for Self-Realization. Thus it is necessary to
realize the fact that, traditional path which are based on the scriptural
authority cannot transport the seeker to their non-dual destination as declared
by the Upanishads. Self-Realization
cannot be bought in spiritual super market because truth cannot be patented as
individual property because it is universal.
Thus if one is seeking non-dual
or Advaitic truth he need not go anywhere
because it is within his mind and it is without his mind. Thus perfect
understanding is necessary to assimilate and realize it.
Seeker of truth has to avoid getting
involved with the guru or teaching if wants acquire Self-Knowledge because
emotionally getting involved with guru or teaching becomes great hindrance and
one will permanently remain in the prison of physicality or duality.
One
finds lots of differences between traditional Adavitic preaching and practice.
There is need to bifurcate religion, concept of god and scriptures from
Adavitic philosophy to assimilate the essence of Adavita.
Sri,
Sankara says in Brahma Sutras: that Brahman is the cause of the world, whereas
in Mandukya he denies it. This is because he says that at the lower stage of
understanding, the former teaching must be given, for people will get
frightened as they cannot understand how the world can be without a cause, but
to those in a higher stage, the truth of non-causality can be revealed.
Sri,
Sankara himself has warned us not to use ambiguous words, and to practice
semantic analysis in his book "Definition of one's own Self. [" Page 199, v.24 of
"Sankara's Selected Works]
Sri, Sankara founded his Advaita
Vedanta either on reason independent of sruti or on sruti confirmed by
reason." Sri, Sankara's commentary on the Mandukya Upanishad,
II, 1: This [the unreality of duality] is borne out by the Srutis
... But it is possible also to show the unreality of the object world even from
pure reasoning, and this second chapter is undertaken for that purpose.
Sri, Sankara
himself had often said that his philosophy was based on Sruti, or revealed
scripture. This may be because Sri, Sankara addressed the ordinary man,
who finds security in the idea of causality and thus in the idea of God—and
Revelation is indispensable to prove the latter. He believed that those
of superior intelligence, have no need of this idea of divine causality, and
can therefore dispense with Sruti and arrive at the truth of
Non-Dualism by pure reason.
Sri, Sankara, in debates with
Buddhists and others who did not recognize the authority of the Vedas, had been
obliged to prove the truth of Advaita by means of reason alone. Mandukya
Upanishad, a scripture which appealed to reason to the exclusion of
Revelation.
Non-duality does not need the support
of any Scripture or Revelation like the Veda. For it is based, not upon the
varying theological fancies, which are as numerous as the sands of the sea, but
upon reason, the common heritage of all mankind, irrespective of colour or
creed or clime.
Thus, self-knowledge is meant only
for those who have intense urge, and courage to accept the truth with humility
and reject the untruth. Since people start comparing with their scriptural
knowledge, it becomes impossible to assimilate and realize the non-dual
truth. Therefore, there is no need to convince anyone other than
our own-selves to get the firm conviction.
I am not trying to prove my
views, but it is for every seeker who is in the path of truth to prove himself
to know “What is truth, “and “What is untruth?” to assimilate the self
-knowledge.
When one is unable to quench his spiritual thirst from his guru or
teaching he has to look elsewhere to clear the cobwebs of his understanding and
to move forward in his spiritual quest.
It
is difficult for tradition-bound people to accept anything as truth other than
what they inherited from then parental grooming. Only intense urge to know the
truth and courage to accept the truth after verification with better
understanding one will be able to drop all his accumulated dross, which is the
main obstacle in self-realization.
Religion
needs a guru to propagate its belief system, whereas in pursuit of truth there
is no need for a guru. The ultimate truth has to be ascertained by him alone. Yoga needs guru to guide its student to
practice Samadhi.
Religion
encourages one who can induce himself to
feel convinced that he has realized the Self, or has an admirer who believes that he has done so,
the it opens up for him the way for the founding of a new sect
based on Guru-worship. People, too, have developed curious credulousness. Often
they would install an earnest seeker and devotee, or a pious saint, on the
throne of God and begin to offer him worship and homage even if he protested
and resisted such acts. They would lay prostrate, sing hymns, wave lights
(arati) and burn incense before him, and present to him food which was to be
returned by him as prasdda, wash his toes and sip the wash. At times the disciple
would go to the length of getting food, fruit or a betel-nut leaf chewed by
him, and taking the morsel back from it.
They
would place his photo in the private temples of their homes and perform all
these rites and ceremonies which are usually offered to temple-idols. In this way there might be at present in our
country scores of individuals who are worshiped as living God, with a
following varying in numbers.
If
one is seeking truth he has to drop religious baggage and move forward in
their pursuit of truth.
