By studying various scriptures one cannot be established in consciousness (soul) , the innermost self . Seeker has to drop all accumulated
knowledge in order to acquire Self-Knowledge or Brahma Gnana or Atma Gnana. Scriptures and yoga are preliminary steps but they are not the means
to acquire self-knowledge or non-dual truth.
Getting certainty and irrefutable proof of our true
existence without dogmatic assertion and assumption and speculation is the
attitude of true seeker. One has to know the self in the truth.
All the study of scriptures and texts and teachings has to
be dropped when one becomes aware of the fact that, the self is not physical
but self is the soul [consciousness].
One must think of always of the soul [consciousness] the witness of the
three states; rather than the three states.
58. Loud speech consisting of a shower of words, the skill in expounding the Scriptures, and likewise erudition - these merely bring on a little personal enjoyment to the scholar, but are no good for Liberation.
59. The study of the Scriptures is useless so long as the highest Truth is unknown, and it is equally useless when the highest Truth has already been known.
60. The Scriptures consisting of many words are a dense forest which merely causes the mind to ramble. Hence men of wisdom should earnestly set about knowing the true nature of the Self.
61. For one who has been bitten by the serpent of Ignorance, the only remedy is the knowledge of Brahman. Of what avail are the Vedas and (other) Scriptures, Mantras (sacred formulae) and medicines to such a one?
62. A disease does not leave off if one simply utter the name of the medicine, without taking it; (similarly) without direct realisation one cannot be liberated by the mere utterance of the word Brahman.
Thus what is the use
of holding the scriptures as proof or pramaana or source of knowledge? When
Sri, Sankara instructed clear cut message it is foolish to hold scriptures as
authenticated authority.
One may enjoy work or practice meditation but he will still
yarn of that which is beyond all imagination ,all thinking and the objects and in which all the desire are extinguished. The subconscious goal of one’s search can only
be non-duality.
Many seekers are unhappy because they exert themselves by
running one teacher to another, one scripture to another, one teaching to
another and when they don’t find the truth, they are in uncertainty, they are
unable to accept anything else as truth, because they are sentimentally and
emotionally involved with the teacher or teaching. And they are unable to drop
them, and also unable to accept any new truth. They are interested only which please or
attracts them and they do not make an effort to know the higher truth, which
requires mental effort to understand and assimilate. They prefer the teachings
which are based on imagination because there is no strain of thinking deeply.
Both Gnani and the ignorant outwardly exerting and acting,
the difference is the Gnani is soul- centric and the ignorant is
egocentric. Gnani thinks his body and
the world are unreal because he is fully aware they are created out of
consciousness. The ignorant thinks
he is an individual separate from the world, and world existed prior to him,
and he is born in the world afterwards. Until he has this conviction he will
not be able to assimilate non-dualistic truth.
Activity begets attachment; and abstention from it
aversion. The one who is soul –centric is free from pair of opposites, like a
child, and is thus established in the consciousness (soul , the innermost self). The nature of the soul is equilibrium. The
psychology proves that ego comes later in life than birth, thus the child
consciousness is free and not at egocentric.
One who is egocentric is attached to the world wants to
renounce it in order to avoid the miseries of life. But one who is soul-
centric – he is in the world but not of it.
The one who is ego-centric feels even towards liberation
and considers even the body as his own he is neither Gnani nor yogi he suffers
the physical life as reality.
Until one forgets all the accumulated knowledge he cannot
be established in ultimate truth.
One has to master the self-knowledge by his own thinking,
his own realization through inquiry analysis and reasoning on the true base.
One may learn the doctrine and master them buthe will not
be able to realize them that is for certain, not hear say.
The man of truth does not identify his self with body but
he considers the self to be the soul, which is in the form of consciousness.
The one who considers his-self as body with the name will
not be able to cross the threshold of duality and he keeps experiencing the
duality as reality. Therefore, he
refuses to accept the physical existence as illusion because he is in the
intoxication of its reality.
