In the Regeneration and Divinisation of Human Beings

Chapter 4: The Nature of Reality : 1-16. 1. BRAHMAN AS EXISTENCE OR BEING : 16. Lying, it moves everywhere.” “It is manifest and hidden.” Such metaphorical definitions of Reality point to the central meaning of its absoluteness of character. That which does everything does nothing in particular. All speculations about the nature of the Ultimate Principle finally lend themselves to the unanimous conclusion that it is eternal, infinite, unconditioned, non-dual, absolute, existence. “It is without an earlier and without a later, without an inside and without an outside, the Being of the Self of all, the Experiencer of everything.” Yajnavalkya describes the Supreme Being thus: “An Ocean, the One, the Seer, without duality it is. This is the State of Brahman. This is the supreme goal. This is the supreme prosperity. This is the supreme abode. This is the supreme bliss. On a part of this bliss other creatures are living.” “It does not become greater by good action,...

Chapter 4: The Nature of Reality : 1-15. 1. BRAHMAN AS EXISTENCE OR BEING : 15. “Brahman alone, the Greatest, is this whole universe.” —Mund. Up., II. 2. 11. “Verily, that Great, unborn Self, undecaying, undying, immortal, fearless, is Brahman.” The whole of Reality is not exhausted in this world-process. “Encompassing the whole universe He extends beyond it to infinity. Whatever is here is this Purusha alone, whatever was and whatever will be. He is the Lord of immortality. Such is His greatness yet the Purusha is greater still. All beings are one-fourth of Him, His three-fourths hail as the immortal beyond the dust of the earth” (Rigveda, X. 90). “Unmoving, it is swifter than the mind”, for the Real which is the Self is presupposed by all forms of thought. “The senses fall back in trying to reach it.” “Ahead of others running, it goes standing.” “It moves, and it moves not”; it is other than what is static and kinetic. “It is far, and it is ne...

Chapter 4: The Nature of Reality : 1-14. 1. BRAHMAN AS EXISTENCE OR BEING : 14. Brahmam is established “on its own Greatness, or, rather, not on greatness at all” (Chh. Up., VII. 24). It is the divisionless, partless, mass of plenitude— on what can it establish itself ? The Self-existent Brahmam is supported by nothing, for everything is supported by it. It is childish to say that it has established fame, though its Name is “Great Fame” (Svet. Up., IV. 19).  “Here, on earth, people call cows and horses, elephants and gold, servants and wives, fields and houses as constituting greatness”; but Brahmam is not of the greatness of this type, because here greatness is dependent on an external object. The greatness of Brahmam lies in its own Being, and not on anything second. Swami Krishnananda To be continued   .....

Haridwar Chapter 4: The Nature of Reality : 1-13. 1. BRAHMAN AS EXISTENCE OR BEING : 13. The truth of Being as the highest principle is ingrained in the consciousness that underlies all cogitating beings. The Maitrayani Upanishad says that Brahman is :- “One and limitless, limitless to the east, limitless to the south, limitless to the west, limitless to the north, and above and below, limitless in every direction; for it directions like east exist not, no across, no below, no above; this Paramatman is incomprehensible, infinite, unborn, not to be reasoned about” (VI. 17). Such a one cannot be a non-being. It is existence in its greatest completeness. Extreme and intense existence appears as non-existence. The extreme of positivity of the Real appears as a negation of everything. It is dark due to the excess of Light. It is imperceptible, for it alone is the perceiver. It is unknowable, for it alone is the knower. It appears to be nowhere, because it alo...

Haridwar Chapter 4: The Nature of Reality : 1-12. 1. BRAHMAN AS EXISTENCE OR BEING : 12. “How can being be produced from non-being?” —Chh. Up., VI. 2. 1. “The sacred teaching is that It is Being of being.” —Brih Up., II. 1. 20. It is Being that gives existence even to non-being. Being covers non-being from both sides. In the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad (V. 5. 1), the word “satyam” is explained as constituting the three syllables ‘sa’, ‘ti’ and ‘yam’, the first and the last syllables being truth and the middle one untruth, thus, truth covering untruth from both sides, and the unreal world acquires the semblance of truth by being within the Truth which is incorruptible Being. And, further, Truth alone is said to triumph, not untruth (Mund. Up., III 1. 6), thus giving a distinct reality to what “is” as contrasted from what “is not”. That which changes is untrue and that which is constant is true. Non-being vanishes into Being which comprehends in itself the highest possi...

Haridwar Chapter 4: The Nature of Reality : 1 1. BRAHMAN AS EXISTENCE OR BEING : 11. But, if anything is at all to be said about the Ideal and Goal of life of an individual, we cannot get on with such a perplexing conception of Reality. To us Reality is what can be the highest in the strict logical sense. Though Reality transcends logic and reason, philosophy cannot do so, for nothing in this world is possible without the functioning of thought in some way or the other. We are thinking beings, and to us all that is real must be intelligible. If anything is unintelligible, we can have no relations with it. The Real is, therefore, Being, rather than non-being, Consciousness, rather than unconsciousness, Bliss, rather than pain. There is no sense in non-being, for non-being also must at least “be”. Consciousness itself is being, and unless even non-being and unconsciousness are objects of consciousness, there can be no meaning in them. Swami Krishnananda To be co...

HARIDWAR Chapter 4: The Nature of Reality : 1 1. BRAHMAN AS EXISTENCE OR BEING : 10. These references depict the absolutely transcendent nature of Reality. “It is not obtainable by many even to hear of, and even when heard of, it remains unknown to many. Wonderful is the declarer of it! Blessed is the obtainer of it!” The awe-inspiring Absolute is described as “soundless, touchless, formless, imperishable, tasteless, constant, odourless, beginningless, endless, higher than the high, eternal, by knowing which one is liberated from the mouth of death.” It exists in such a homogeneous and differenceless condition that “whatever is here, is there also; whatever is there, is here,” and hence the spatial nature of existence with its concomitant differentiations of time and individuality is overcome in the indivisible constitutive essence of Brahman. It, therefore, is and is-not. Swami Krishnananda To be continued   .....

HARIDWAR - - - Chapter 4: The Nature of Reality : 1 1. BRAHMAN AS EXISTENCE OR BEING : 9. Brahmam cannot even be conceived of as light, for it has nothing to shine upon. Not even is it consciousness, for it is conscious of nothing. Consciousness or light in the absolute condition cannot be called as consciousness or light, for such conceptions are dualistic categories. Being as it is in itself is nothing to the individual. It is not an object of knowledge. Truth is independent, unrelated, self-existent; but there is no such thing as an independent, unrelated, self-existent quality. The only recourse to be taken is to admit the failure of the intellect in determining the nature of Reality and resort to negative propositions. “The Atman is not this, not this.” —Brih Up., IV. 5. 15. “The Atman is not that which is inwardly conscious, not outwardly conscious, not bothwise conscious, not a consciousness-mass, not conscious, not unconscious; it is unseen, unrelated,...