Yoga Vasishtha :-
"Teachers, interpretations of sacred texts, the force of religious
merit--none of these lead to the realization of that Ultimate Truth which is
revealed in the clear reflection of the heart, engendered from contact with the
good."
There
is no practice as such but perfect understanding of 'what is what" is needed to acquire
Self-knowledge or Brahma Gnana or Atman Gnana.
Deeper inquiry, analysis and reasoning revels the fact that, the self is
not physical but the self is formless consciousness. Therefore, all the
accumulated knowledge, experiences and understanding based on physical self (ego or body as self) are falsehood based on the false self, within the false
experience (waking). Thus, whatever is
based on the waking entity is bound to be falsehood because waking experience
itself is false hood. Since many teachers and teachings are based on
the false self (ego or body as Self) and they consider the false experience (three states) as reality, they are incapable of grasping the witness, which is
within the three states, but it is without the three states.
Thus, the formless knower of the three states
has to be grasped mentally and realize the fact that, all the three states,
which comes and goes, are mental. They
are impermanent. The formless witness or knower of the three states is
permanent and eternal. Therefore, there
is a need to understand “What is Mind?” and “What is the substance of the
Mind?” in order to understand and assimilate the non-dual truth.
For this one has drop all his accumulate
knowledge, which he is using as a yardstick and lands himself in pursuit of
argument without reaching anywhere. One
has to think deeper and analyze and verify everything and accept only
un-contradictable truth. Nothing has to
be accepted as truth because some great thinker says it or I am saying it.
Those
who lack the intelligence to discriminate between formless witness [subject]
and three states [object] will not be able to grasp what is real and what is
unreal. Both subject and object are consciousness, not subject alone.
The
truth can never change. The nature of truth is, it can never be changed under
any circumstances. It may be misrepresented. It must apply to the whole of
existence, to the whole of the universe. It is in the object (three states)
alone that one has all changes, as deeper analysis points out.
The subject ([formless witness) remains
unchanged. The subject (formless witness), as such remains immortal. It can
never die for it never changes. The body and world are an object, and goes, but
the subject or knower of the body and the universe, can never go. Seeker has to
take this principle as his guiding thread and non-dual truth becomes easy to
grasp. The formless witness can never be subject to the changes of the object;
it is unchanged. The mistake usually made is that subject becomes object, or
that object is subject.
If
one wants to have absence of contradictions, absence of duality, there must be
one entity, one being. If one has experience which is an object (mind), there
is contradiction between subject and object, for "mind” is an object.
The
duality is reality on the standpoint of the false self (ego or body as
Self). The duality is mere mirage on the
base of the true self, which is formless consciousness. This understanding
comes only to the serious seeker, who has real urge to know the ultimate truth,
which is beyond the all the teachings and teachers. There is neither teaching,
nor teacher, nor student in the realm of truth.
