Gems on the Way to the Absolute by Swami Krishnananda

Created on Tuesday 11 February 2014 15:47

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108 sentences selected and compiled from The Realisation of the Absolute on the occasion of Swami Krishnananda's 72nd birthday in 1994.

Philosophy is the dear delight of the reason; the great joy of the understanding.
True philosophy is the solace of the heart, the peace of the mind, the refuge of the human individual.
Philosophy examines the entire gamut of possible experiences and lifts human thought to the Divine Consciousness.
Only a citizen of the Universe can be an enjoyer of peace – the peace that passeth understanding.
The Upanishads have always been acknowledged and acclaimed as veritable mines of Transcendental Wisdom.
It is a mistake to be interested in the different forms of perception. Nothing is worth considering except the realisation of Brahman.
This intellect is a very inadequate means of ascertaining Truth. But however much imperfect, it is the only human faculty of knowledge nearest to Reality.
To express what is complete is not within the capacity of the knowing process. All knowing is a process, and all process is imperfection.
Intellect is never free from subject-object relationship – and every such relation falls short of Reality.
Reason should always be aided by tolerance, and should not forget its own limitations.
The only condition, however, is that the aspiring intellect should be pure and unattached.
Even death occurs through wrong belief, and even life is saved through mere belief.
Perfection on Truth cannot be two, and there cannot be two Absolutes.
Existence is really the existence of Consciousness.
Nothing that is related to another is real. Relation always means interdependence and not Self-Existence.
Even the emperorship of the entire Universe cannot give perpetual satisfaction as long as it falls short of the Infinite.
The Upanishads are the ripe fruits of fine flowers blossomed out in the light of the Wisdom-Sun.
The quickness of the process of Attainment depends upon the intensity of the power of Meditation – both in its negative and assertive aspects.
The Bliss of unlimited Consciousness is the Zenith of Existence, and every thing other than this is condemned as untrue.
The delight of the Self is the delight of Being. It is the Bliss of Consciousness-Absolute.
Change is the quality of untruth and the Upanishads assert that Reality is self-satisfied, self-existent, non-dual, tranquil and utterly Perfect.
The Truth "Knowing which every thing becomes known" is the subject of enquiry and the object of quest in the Upanishads.
Blessed is he, and he has truly lived a purposed life, who attains to the height of undying joy in this very life; and he is a great loser and has lived his life in vain, who has failed to realise the Truth here. (Kena Up. 2-5)
All is well with him, whose heart is turned towards acting in accordance with the deathless law of Infinite Life. No disease, physical or mental, can ever assault him.
The welfare of society rests in its spirituality.
The ills caused by wrong methods of education, the social and political strife, the individual evils and the world-degeneration are all effected by the one terrible fact, that humanity turned against the law of the Spiritual Reality.
The Upanishads are our guidelights in the Supreme Pursuit. Let us understand and follow them with sincerity, faith, calmness, surety and persistence.
Change is the law of life; nothing is without changing itself.
Tranquility can well be said to be non-existent in the history of the space-time world.
Cognition is impossible without a pre-existence link between the subject and the object.
All contacts presuppose an immovable ground which supports all movements.
That objects exist also cannot be proved unless there are minds to cognise and know them. Each is explained only by the other and not by itself.
The test of Reality is non-dependence, completeness and imperishability.
One Reality appears as the knower as well as the known.
The Substance by itself does not change; only the mode of perception changes.
In order to have the experience of Reality we have to discard the forms as mere appearances.
To assert diversity is to deny Absoluteness.
To say that we are not yet the Reality, and we have yet to 'become' It, may be true with partiality to empirical Consciousness, but it is not the Highest Truth.
Realisation is not an actual 'becoming', but an unfolding of Consciousness, an Experience of Truth – Truth that already is, Truth that is eternal.
The Self is not really bound by space and time.
The Absolute of the Upanishads is the only Reality and all forms must, therefore, be nonexistent from the point of view of Its exact nature.
A faithfulness to diversity must necessarily end in a failure in the practical walk of life.
Truth is the undivided Absolute. Truth cannot be twofold.
The Absolute and the relative are not two different entities standing like father and son.
If Brahman has expressed Itself as the world, then the world cannot exist outside Brahman.
Even space is Brahman.
If we are not Brahman at present, we can never be That at any time in future. A Not-Brahman cannot be turned into Brahman.
Absolute-Existence does not admit of differentiation of any kind.
Nothing can be said about the Absolute, except that It 'Is'.
Brahman which is the cause, and the world which is the effect are basically identical, and hence change and causation lose their meaning.
Absolutism satisfactorily solves all the problems of life.
Everyone is inside the prison of his own experience and knows nothing outside his consciousness.
A God, who changes Himself, is not a permanent Being.
The richness of the part is not equal to the magnificence of the Whole.
The world 'All' does not refer to the reality of the plurality of things.
Duality cannot survive and individuality cannot exist in the Truth of Brahman.
The infinite Bhuma alone hails Supreme. It is established in Its own Greatness. It is not dependent on anything else, for anything else is not.
All that appears to exist need not really exist as such.
Reaching the Real is not an action.
We seem to be doing many things, though actually we do nothing.
A perishable means cannot lead to an eternal End.
The world exists, because the mind functions on a dualistic basis. There is sound, because there is the ear and there is colour, because there is the eye. The human individual exists as such, because it thinks.
No form is self-existent.
The dance of ideas is the world of experience.
Though no thing exists, it is not true, that nothing exists – for Consciousness exists.
There is no duality. All modification is illusory.
The form of the world of plurality is an illusion, though the ultimate Essence of the world is real.
Truth persists even in the extreme of untruth. Untruth is a lesser truth and evil is a lesser degree of goodness.
The individual is the footprint of the Absolute.
The individual is a copy or miniature of the Cosmic.
Truth is inclusive of everything in the world.
Man begins from the physical body and ends in the imperishable Soul.
Life is a dramatic struggle for Self-Realisation, and Truth-Experience.
The state of perfection is neither an indivisibility nor a multiplicity, – but an indivisible Multiplicity.
The world is not an illusion, but a form of the Absolute.
Even materialism is a step in the path to Perfection.
Death is the beginning of a better life. Evil is the starting point of a state leading to good.
Every thing is only a part of the Infinite Completeness.
We cannot know any thing except in terms of what we are.
The knowledge of everything through the knowledge of One Thing implies that everything is made up of that One Thing.
Thought is objectified consciousness. The greater the objectification, the denser is the ignorance and the acuter are the pains suffered.
The aspiration of every living being is to find rest in the blissful possession of Eternal Life and nothing short of it.
The march of the soul is from the false to the true, from the apparent to the real, from the shadow to the light, from the perishable to the ever-enduring.
There is nothing greater than or equal to the knowledge of the Aatman : "Aatmalaabhaat Na Param Vidyate".
When we turn our face away from this One Reality, we open the door to Self-imprisonment.
The love of life is based on the love of the Self.
The fervour of a Nachiketas or Dhruva, of a Prahlaada or Meera is expected in every spiritual aspirant.
Even Devarshi Narada's knowledge is regarded by Sanatkumara as "mere names, mere words".
Even death is not a bar in the process of the Realisation of Truth. Death is a reshuffling of Consciousness to adjust and adopt itself to a different order of life.
To know Him is to be saved. Not to know Him is death.
The ordinary man of the world has his mind and senses turned extrovert.
Some blessed one turns his gaze inward and beholds the glorious light of the Self.
The Self is imperishable.
Consciousness gets diffused through the distractive intellect and creates the perception of multiplicity.
Forms float in Truth, even as bubbles in the ocean. They cannot exist apart from the Ocean of Truth.
The deceived Soul fears death of its body, death of what it considers as dear. It loves objects, which do not promise real satisfaction.
The dream-objects have to vanish if waking experience is to be had.
Every true civilisation, if it is not meant to deceive itself, has to gird up its loins for Self-Realisation.
The value of a person is nothing if he does not aspire for the realisation of the Eternal Good, the Good not merely of this or that class of men, but of the entire Universe.
Perfection is Absolute-Experience, 'Brahma-Anubhava', the Consciousness of Reality.
Omnipresence, Omniscience and Omnipotence are said to be the characteristics of God.
Brahman is That, which is permanent in things that change.
The whole Universe is a spiritual Unity and is One with the essential Brahman.
The knowledge of the Self is the knowledge of Brahman.
When Brahman is known, all is known.
There is no seer but That, no hearer but That, no thinker but That, no knower but That.
According to the Rig Veda, even "immortality and death are It's shadows". What ever truly exists is the Real.
Brahman is Infinite, the Universe is Infinite; from the Infinite proceeds the Infinite, and after deducting the Infinite from the Infinite, what remains is but the Infinite.

[Extracted from Swami Krishnananda Maharaj's discourses Divine Life Society ]

The Gospel of the Bhagavadgita