Buddha
said: - Believe nothing just because a so-called wise person said it.
Believe nothing just because a belief is generally held. Believe nothing just
because it is said in ancient books. Believe nothing just because it is said to
be of divine origin. Believe nothing just because someone else believes it.
Believe only what you yourself test and judge to be true.
Each person sees in his own Samadhi
whatever is uppermost in his mind. How does he/she or anyone know that what he/she
or anyone sees is truth? Similarly each has intuitions agreeable to what is
uppermost in his mind.
Believers who are anxious for a mystic
or occult experience often get it. But it is only a mental construction of
their own, suggested originally from outside.
Mystic may say that the spirit is the
source of all good, but the question of questions is how does he know that it
is the source? That is mere scholastic dogma until an attempt to show, to
analyze and prove that it is the source, is made, then it becomes higher truth.
How is one to know that He is God
suppose he sees God? His mere statement
is not enough. He must have proof; he must show that what he saw is God. How can anyone sees God when whatever seen,
known, believed and experienced as person of the world are reality within the
waking experience but the whole waking
experience itself is falsehood.
The orthodox class who criticized rational
based non-duality by saying that they will not agree other than their accepted
truth shows only hypocritical attitude. They think what they know is
ultimate truth because orthodox way is the only way because their gur said
so. They feel everybody else is in error
because they do not follow orthodoxy –priest craft. They think their cult is more in numbers but
they are unaware of the fact that, mere numbers do not make truth.
One
has to inquire, analyze and reason. No
orthodox knows the ultimate truth or Brahman truth
because he bases his- self on birth, life, death and world. The ultimate truth has to be proved not assumed.
People think what the majority believes
must therefore be true." People stop with their imaginations about God,
Reality, Truth, and do not go to the ultimate end.
Religious faith creates misconceptions because it is based on
the individuality and also it holds the experience of the practical life within
the practical world as reality.
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 scripters as
proof without verifying the validity.
All punditry is a great obstacle in realizing the Advaitic truth expounded
by the Sri, Sankara and Goudapada.
One finds lots of differences between Adavita 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.
Ish upanishds says :-Avidya is Karma and
therefore a hindrance. You perform Avidya - i.e., you perform Agnihotra
and other sacrifices. This is a roundabout way of purifying the mind, and it is
also groping in the dark. But it may not have as heavy a toll on your time and
energy as the other.
Ishopanishad "They are steeped in
ignorance and sunk into the greatest depth of misery who worships the matter,
instead of the All-Pervading God and those who worship things born of matter
like trees, animals, man, etc. are sunk deeper in misery."
Religious
propagation of good deeds, virtues and leading conduct oriented orthodox life
to Moksha is meant for those who are not ripe enough to receive self-knowledge.
Karma is reality
only on the base of false self within the false experience, where one thinks
body and the universe as reality. When one becomes aware of the fact that, the
true self is formless soul, then the karma becomes part and parcel of
illusion. My point is that, if one
accepts the karma theory as reality, he will never be able to come out of the
ignorance. And ignorance makes him believe the cycle of birth, life and death
or pain and pleasure as reality. Thus
the freedom which one is seeking will remain distant dream. For the one who
accepts the birth life and death as reality, Self-knowledge is impossible.
Thus it is
necessary for the seeker of truth to know the fact that, the body which is
born, lives and dies is not the self. Since he is taking the body to be the
self, he is experiencing the duality as reality.
That is why Sri,Sankara says in Aparokshanubhuti:-
90. The theory
one hears of from the scripture, that Prarabdha does not lose its hold upon one
even after the origination of the knowledge of Atman, is now being refuted.
91. After the
origination of the knowledge of Reality, Prarabdha verily ceases to exist,
inasmuch as the body and the like become non-existent; just as a dream does not
exist on waking.
92. That Karma
which is done in a previous life is known as Prarabdha (which produces the
present life). But such Karma cannot take the place of Prarabdha (for a man of
knowledge), as he has no other birth (being free from ego).
93. Just as the
body in a dream is superimposed (and therefore illusory), so is also this body.
How could there be any birth of the superimposed (body), and in the absence of
birth (of the body) where is the room for that (i.e., Prarabdha) at all?
94. The Vedanta
texts declare ignorance to be verily the material (cause) of the phenomenal
world just as earth is of a jar. That (ignorance) being destroyed, where can
the universe subsist?
95. Just as a
person out of confusion perceives only the snake leaving aside the rope, so
does an ignorant person see only the phenomenal world without knowing the
reality?
96. The real nature of the rope being
known, the appearance of the snake no longer persists; so the substratum being
known, the phenomenal world disappears completely.
97. The body also being within the
phenomenal world (and therefore unreal), how could Prarabdha exist? It is,
therefore, for the understanding of the ignorant alone that the Shruti speaks
of Prarabdha.
98. “And all the actions of a man perish
when he realizes that (Atman) which is both the higher and the lower”. Here the
clear use of the plural by the Shruti is to negate Prarabdha as well.
99. If the ignorant still arbitrarily
maintain this, they will not only involve themselves into two absurdities but
will also run the risk of forgoing the Vedantic conclusion. So one should
accept those Shrutis alone from which proceeds true knowledge.
When the whole
universe, movable and immovable, is known to be the self, who is in the form of
consciousness, and thus the existence of everything else is negated, then
consciousness alone is real, all the three states are mere mirage created out
of consciousness.
If self is not the body, then the karma theory
has no meaning. on the standpoint of the
true self no second thing exists other than consciousness
because the consciousness itself is the true self.
Ultimate truth or Brahman is nothing to do with religious rituals.
That is why in Mundaka
Upanishad says: - The rituals and the sacrifices
described in the Vedas deal with lower knowledge. The sages ignored these
rituals and went in search of higher knowledge. ... Such rituals are unsafe
rafts for crossing The sea of samsara, of birth and death. Doomed to shipwreck
are those who try to cross The sea of samsara on these poor rafts. Ignorant of
their own ignorance, yet wise In their own esteem, these deluded men Proud of
their vain learning go round and round Like the blind led by the blind.
And also in Isa Upanishads indicates
that: By worshiping gods and goddesses and going to the world of gods after
death is of no use. The time one spends in ritualistic practices is
wasted; one can spend same time moving forward towards Self-knowledge, which is
the main goal. One cannot reach the nondual destination by glorifying god and
goddesses and by doing that, one goes deeper and deeper into darkness. It
surely indicates the fact that, the seeker of truth has to drop the worshiping
god and goddess in order to get self-knowledge.
It also indicates that, Religious
Rituals [Avidya] is Karma [action] and therefore a hindrance. By
performing Agnihotra and other sacrifices [Avidya] is a roundabout way of purifying the mind, and it is also groping in the
dark.
In addition, it indicates the karma
is limited only to the religious rituals, not on the whole human life. This
karma theory based on the human conduct must have been adopted from Buddhism
and other theories based on human conducts.
When it says: Perform the obligatory
karmas without any attachment to the fruits, and at the same time worship gods
and goddesses, again without any desire to go to heaven - then you can get the
benefit of both, liberation and bliss. For those who are not yet ready to
renounce, this path is recommended, it mean that the religion and its
idea of god and goddesses and code of conducts, and its rituals are meant for
the mass who are incapable of thinking of the beyond.
In addition, it also speaks of heaven
the abode of gods, where one goes after death, and it speaks of rebirth, this
contradiction, seeker has to conclude that Religion, rituals ,god and guru glorification and its code
of conducts are meant for the mass which is not receptive to
self-knowledge.
