Pundits who take
scriptures for granted are not Gnanis. Pundits teach that all is your-self, but
none of them can show that this is so, none has analyzed it scientifically, and
none can prove it. Rational proof is needed, so that one arrive at knowing
truth i.e. wisdom; punditry is mere dogma, parrotism, repetition of what they
read in scriptures. Scriptures are not yardstick and scriptural truth is not
proof. Pundits take scriptures as
authority.
Authoritarianism merely
assumes as true what another says, but what has yet to be proved.
Pundits have to
test truth in this world not in the next world.
There is no proof other than blind belief based on the scriptures,
belief is not truth. So, doctrines are
not the means to realize the ultimate truth. There is no need to follow them.
Doubts and
Confusions arise when seeker finds the scriptures and yoga are inadequate or
useless to quench his spiritual thirst.
Disappointments in religion or yoga or even science imply error or
ignorance.
How do the people who expound their
knowledge know they have experienced the whole? Where is the proof they have
seen it? When they say “I know from experience” they merely mean “I think so.”
If they experience bliss, they cannot be egoless, for who is having the joy?
And if they retain the ego they cannot know the Universal Brahman, the whole.
Thus their individual experience is not derived from Gnana or Self-Knowledge or
Brahma Gnana or Atma Gnana.
Without
knowing the nature of the mind or universe world, it is impossible to know the
ultimate truth. What is the use of trying to find one’s inner self before he
understands the mind or universe? Thus
it is necessary to investigate the truth about the world, which confronts him
to realize this world which confronts him as being consciousness.
That is why Sage Sri, Sankara says:-
VC- 63. Without
causing the objective universe to vanish and without knowing the truth of the
Self, how is one to achieve Liberation by the mere utterance of the word
Brahman ? — It would result merely in an effort of speech.
65. As a treasure
hidden underground requires (for its extraction) competent instruction,
excavation, the removal of stones and other such things lying above it and
(finally) grasping, but never comes out by being (merely) called out by name,
so the transparent Truth of the self, which is hidden by Maya and its effects,
is to be attained through the instructions of a knower of Brahman, followed by
reflection, meditation and so forth, but not through perverted arguments.
Whatever have appeared (birth, life, death and world) has
appeared on its own and it disappears on its own. Whether a person takes it as reality or
illusion it all depends on his mental and intellectual conditions will
determine the phenomenal world observed and experienced. The look of an object
will depend upon the medium through which the observer views it. A Gnani
viewing the universe (practical life within the practical world) different from
the ignorant is viewing the same universe (practical life within the practical
world). Each one of them interprets the universe he sees in term of his
existing knowledge.
The Gnani sees his
body, his ego and his experience of the world as mere mirage created out of
consciousness whereas the ignorant sees his body as body, his ego as ego and
his experience of the world as world.
This doubt and confusion exists only for those who thinks
external world already exists as real and who think their physical body also
exists as real. For person who is aware
of the fact that he and his world exists only in waking experience, and waking
is unreal. When one sees their unreality the problem collapses.
Gnani do not want anything, not even God or Heaven,
because he knows that even Heaven and God are reality only on the base of
waking entity.
Unreality has different meanings,
that which does not exist and that which is mistaken for something else. In
pursuit of truth the meaning is the three states which appear in succession,
which seem to exist as reality. Hence the first work in pursuit of truth is to
learn to analyze the three states which appear and disappear. After analyzing
the dream, one knows that it could not have been inside the small space of his
physical body during sleep; hence it must have been a dream. The physical body
would not have contained the dream world; hence the dream is unreal, because of
its inconsistency. Hence on further analyses and examination he realizes it is
only an idea. It is the fact of inconsistency which is emphasized here.
Seeker of truth is neither he is an
atheist nor religionist; he sticks to God as non dual Truth and not to God as
imagined by every religionist. He does not accept an unreal God. When he is
dreaming he does not regard the objects as unreal; only after awakening. Many
yogis are under the delusion that if world disappears in meditation they are
having Brahmic wisdom. They shut their eyes to the non dual truth.
