In the Regeneration and Divinisation of Human Beings

Chapter 3: The Need for Integral Knowledge -4 4. UNITY BEHIND DIVERSITY-3 The ordinary man of the world has his mind and senses turned extrovert. Childish, he runs after external pleasures and walks into the net of death which pervades all created things. The wise, however, knowing the Immortal, seek not that Eternal Being among things fleeting here. Some blessed one turns his gaze inward and beholds the glorious light of the Self. This Self is dearer than the dearest of things, this Self is nearer than the nearest. If one would speak of anything else than the Self as dear, he would certainly lose what he holds as dear. One should adore the Self alone as dear. He who adores the Self alone as dear does not lose what he holds as dear. The Self is Imperishable. It is further suggested that by going to the source of things we know the essential nature of things, even as by grasping the drum or the beater of the drum we grasp the sound produced by the drum. The ...

Chapter 3: The Need for Integral Knowledge -4 4. UNITY BEHIND DIVERSITY-2 "Arise! Awake! Obtaining men of wisdom, know (it)." —Katha Up., III. 14. "Those who know this become immortal; but others go only to sorrow."——Brih. Up., IV. 4. 14. Therefore, the imperative "Know Thyself." The Svetasvatara Upanishad is emphatic that only "when men roll up space, as if it were a piece of leather, will there be an end of sorrow without the knowledge of the Divine Being" (VI. 20). It further affirms that there is nothing more to be known than this essence of the Self, nothing is there higher than this, nothing greater ever existent. There is no other way for going over there—na anyah pantha vidyate ayanaya—than to know that Purusha who shines like the sun beyond the realm of the darkness of ignorance. To know Him is to be saved. Not to know Him is death. Swami Krishnananda To be continued   .....

Chapter 3: The Need for Integral Knowledge -4 4. UNITY BEHIND DIVERSITY-1 Becoming the object seems to be the aim of the subject in its processes of desireful knowledge. The greater the proximity of the object to the subject, that is, the lesser the distance between the subject and the object, the greater is the happiness derived; whereby we are able to deduce that the least distance, nay, the loss of distance itself in a state of identity, a state of infinite oneness, where things lose their separateness, where perception and relatedness are no more, where the subject and the object coalesce and mere "Be"-ness seems to be the reality, should be the abode of supreme bliss. This consciousness-mass is the one integration of knowledge where it is no more a means of knowing but the essence, the existence and the content in itself. The Upanishads are keen about turning our attention to this truth. Swami Krishnananda To be continued   .....

Chapter 3: The Need for Integral Knowledge -3-3. 3. THE GREAT ABNEGATION AND SEARCH-3. "The good is one thing and the pleasant is another... Both the good and the pleasant come to a man. Examining the two, the wise man discriminates and chooses the good rather than the pleasant; the dull-witted man chooses the pleasant and falls short of his aim." —Katha Up., II. 1, 2. The desire-centres shift themselves from one object to another and the pleasure-seeker is left ever at unrest. The chain of metempsychosis is kept unbroken and is strengthened through additional desires that foolishly hope to bring satisfaction to the self. Living in the midst of ignorance and darkness, conceited, thinking themselves learned, the deserted individuals seek peace in the objects of sense that constantly change their forms and natures. The objective value in an object is an appearance, created by the formative power of the separative will to individuate and multiply itself throu...

Chapter 3: The Need for Integral Knowledge -3-2. 3. THE GREAT ABNEGATION AND SEARCH-2. Even Devarshi Narada's knowledge is regarded by Sanatkumara as "mere name", mere words. Narada gives a long list of the branches of knowledge in which he has specialised. He implores Sanatkumara to teach him. "Bhagavan, such a one, merely learned in sacred lore, I know not the Atman. It is already heard by me from people like you, Bhagavan, that he who knows the Atman crosses over sorrow. Such a one, Bhagavan, I am in sorrow. May Bhagavan take me, who am such a (sorrowful) one, across, to the other shore of sorrow." —Chh. Up., VII. 1. 3. Even the highest intellectual perception belongs only to the realm of relativity. No human being can claim to be omniscient and so he has no occasion to rejoice at his profits or grieve at his losses here. The real is not this; the attainment of That alone can liberate the soul from sorrow. Even death is not a bar in t...

Chapter 3: The Need for Integral Knowledge -3-1 3. THE GREAT ABNEGATION AND SEARCH-1. Truth is covered by a golden vessel. The individual is cheated by the appearances of the forms of nature. The lifting up of this vessel and uncovering the Truth is the task of the seeker of perfection. The fervour of a Nachiketas is expected in every spiritual aspirant. "Ephemeral things are these that are of the mortal! The vigour of all the senses they wear away. Even a long life is indeed very slight! Thine be the vehicles, thine the dance and the song!.... What there is in the great Beyond—tell me about that; nothing short of this does Nachiketas choose" (Katha Up., 1. 26, 29). The glorious aspiration for Truth which the characters of the Upanishads depict before us speaks of the grand perseverance of some of the souls in regaining the lost kingdom, in recovering from the disease of life, in centring themselves in conscious plenitude, the birthless and deathless imm...

Chapter 3: The Need for Integral Knowledge -2 2. THE GOAL OF LIFE-2. "Not, verily, for the love of the all is the all dear, but for the love of the Self is the all dear." —Brih. Up., II. 4. 5. All actions are done for the sake of the Self, not for external persons and things. It is not the existence of joy in the object as such that brings pleasure to the individual enjoying it, but the cooling of the fire of craving that is brought about by its contact with a particular object which is specially demanded by that special mode of desire generated in the ego-consciousness. The satiation is caused by a temporary turning back of the mind to the Self. The whole of the happiness of the world is, thus, purely negative, an avoiding of the unpleasant, and not the acquirement of any real, positive joy. This positive bliss is found only in the Self, the root of existence. The bustle of life's activity is a struggle to respond to the cry of the anxious ego which ...

Chapter 3: The Need for Integral Knowledge -2 2. THE GOAL OF LIFE-1. The purpose of life on earth is the realisation of this stupendous depth of the Being of all beings, without which life becomes a failure. "If one would know it here, then there is the true end of all aspirations. If one would not know it here, then great is the loss for such a person. Knowing it in every particular being, the wise, on departing from this world, become immortal" (Kena Up., II. 5). There is a severe reproach to those who do not attempt at and succeed in the realisation of Truth. "Godless are those worlds called, with blind darkness covered over, to which, on death, those who are the slayers of the Self go." —Isha Up., 3. "He, who departs from this world without knowing That Imperishable Being, is wretched." —Brih. Up., III. 8. 10. The teacher of the Brahmavidya is praised in glowing terms. "You, truly, are our father, who take us across to the ...

Chapter 3: The Need for Integral Knowledge -1 1. THE INWARD URGE-3. "From the unreal lead me to the Real, from darkness lead me to Light, from death lead me to Immortality." —Brih. Up., 1. 3. 28. Everyone is marked by the general character of the struggle to become infinitely perfect. This Infinite Being is the highest Truth. This is the Goal of the life of all. The Upanishads stress in a hundred ways upon the need for this integral knowledge of Reality. There is nothing greater than or equal to the knowledge of the Atman. Atmalabhat na param vidyate. "This Atman, which is free from evil, undecaying, deathless, sorrowless, hungerless, thirstless, whose desire is Truth, whose will is Truth—That should be searched after, That should be known. He obtains all worlds and all desires who has known and who has realised That Atman." —Chh. Up., VIII. 7. 1. "Know That, the Brahman." —Tait. Up., III. 1. "For the sake of the knowl...

Chapter 3: The Need for Integral Knowledge -1 1. THE INWARD URGE-2. Truth does not shine as Truth, owing to the inner instruments, the clogging psychological modifications. The crossing the barrier of these limiting adjuncts seems to lead one to a vaster reality, greater freedom and fuller life. There is a common desire-impulse in every being to exist for ever, to know all things, to domineer over everything, and to enjoy the highest happiness. The statement of the Upanishads that the cognition of manifoldness is the path leading to self-destruction is adorned by the supreme exhortation that the perception of Unity leads to the exalted state of Immortality. Every form of cogitation in spite of individualistic cravings that may try to obstruct it, flows, being impelled by an imperceptible power that moves towards the recognition of the indivisibility of existence, and a finding of oneself in the centre of its experience. The aspiration of every living being is to fin...

Chapter 3: The Need for Integral Knowledge -1 1. THE INWARD URGE-1. The world, as it appears, is found to be lacking in reality, and so, is unreal. Hence the need for the higher Light. "What is That by knowing which this everything becomes known?" —Mund. Up., 1. 1.3. "By which the Unheard becomes heard, the Unthought becomes thought, the Ununderstood becomes understood." —Chh. Up., VI. 1. 3. The knowledge of everything through the knowledge of One Thing implies that everything is made up of that One Thing. That the misconception of things being really made of differing natures has to be set aright is pointed out by the disgust that arises in clinging to the notion of the multiple permanence of beings and a passion for catching completely whatever that must exist. The growth of intelligence tends towards urging the individual to grasp the totality of existence at a stroke. This constructive impulse is inherent and is vigorously active both in the...

Chapter-2.The Nature of the World (d). THE IDEA OF PROGRESS-8. The decision of the intellect that Reality is a process is the effect of its trying to compromise with what fundamentally presents itself as a self-contradiction. However reasonable this view may be from the standpoint of man, it cannot be held that the intuitional Upanishads declare as their essential proposition that the Infinite Whole is a constantly changing process attempting to reach itself, a doctrine which contradicts reason itself. To them the form of the world is in the main an appearance and there is nothing but Brahman. We have already dismissed the possibility of evolution in Eternal Existence as self-contradictory. Evolution is change, and change is becoming, which would mark the transient nature of Existence itself. But Existence is eternal. Nothing that is perfectly real can be said to change or evolve. Brahman, therefore, does not change. If it is something else than Brahman that cha...

Chapter-2.The Nature of the World (d). THE IDEA OF PROGRESS-7. This is what will appear to the individual situated in a world of relativity, for the relative individual cannot help conceiving the Absolute in relative terms. We cannot know anything except in terms of what we are. Because everything changes, change itself is classed as a separate category of Reality. It is true that, strictly speaking, there can be no such thing as a complete wrong or error, falsehood or evil, or any kind of pure negative of truth, but only a lesser truth or a higher truth, that the negative is not "existence" and so is not, that all is one positive indivisible Truth, though it may appear to have degrees when it is objectively experienced. But, nevertheless, it has to be remembered that to hold that Truth really undergoes a change can have no meaning. Evolution is not an absolute category but an experiential interpretation. Swami Krishnananda To be continued...

Chapter-2.The Nature of the World (d). THE IDEA OF PROGRESS-6. Even apparent contradictions are a sporting of the Absolute within itself. Life is not a mistake of the soul or a delirium of spirit. Samsara is not a curse but the process of the expansion of the self into Absoluteness. Every act of existence is a turning for the better until the Absolute is realised. The state of Perfection is neither an Indivisibility nor a Multiplicity but an Indivisible Multiplicity. Diverse experiences in life are not contradictions but the multiple form of the one Nature felt diversely by different ego-centres due to their attachment to particular forms of experience. The moment they begin to embrace the entirety of Nature, diversity will be experienced as a Self-revelation of the Absolute. The world is not an illusion but a form of the Absolute. The lower forms are steps to reach higher forms of experience and are not to be rejected as apparitions. All forms, speeches and a...

Chapter-2.The Nature of the World (d). THE IDEA OF PROGRESS-5. Objective contact is meant to effect an escape out of faith in pluralistic independence. The body has to be kept well as long as the individual is in the process of spiritual evolution. If the body which is meant to effect a particular process of evolution in a particular stage of life is destroyed before the fulfilment of its duty, Nature will take a revenge against that individual and will compel the same to hang on in a condition necessary for the manifestation of another suitable body demanded by the need for continuing the previous work left unfulfilled. The systematic Nature does not have discord within itself, and, hence, is not filled with conflicting forces. The forces of life are the different urges for a unification of the self with the all-inclusive Reality. The universe with its inhabitants is transforming itself every moment with an inconceivably tremendous speed in order to exist as the absolut...