Spiritual Message for the Day – Sarvam Khalvidam Brahma by Sri Swami Krishnananda
Baba Times Digest© | 8 September 2014 14.20 EST | New York Edition
Sarvam Khalvidam Brahma
Divine Life Society Publication: The Philosophy of Religion by Sri Swami Krishnananda
In the knowledge process there are three ingredients involved: Pramatr, Pramana and Prameya, – the knower, the process of knowing, and the object of knowledge. The knower, or the Pramatr, comes in contact with the Prameya, or the known object, through the medium called Pramana, or the knowing process. What does one mean by these three items, – the knower, the knowing process, and the known object? The knowing process is the illuminating link connecting the knower with the object that is known. It has to be an illuminating or illumined process, because knowledge is always illumination. It is a light which is of a peculiar nature, not like others as the sunlight. It is a movement of self consciousness.
With difficulty can one explain what consciousness is. Everyone is aware that oneself is, and one need not ask for an explanation of what that phenomenon is. This clarity of one's awareness that one exists is an illustration of what consciousness, or awareness, is, or has to be. If anybody wants to know what consciousness is, he has only to close his eyes for a few seconds, and feel how he knows that he is. This intriguing experience of one's knowing that he is, is consciousness operating. In this consciousness of one's being there is also the root of the urge to know that other things are also there, apart from oneself.
Consciousness of the knower is called Pramatr-Chaitanya. Chaitanya is consciousness; Pramatr is the knower. The knowing consciousness of the knower as existing in himself, or itself, is Pramatr-Chaitanya. It moves in some particular manner, or rather, it appears as if it is moving. It is omnipresent and, so, to say that it moves would be an inaccurate statement. Yet, it looks as if it is moving, for a reason which is to account for the 'externality' of the world of objects.
There is a thing called mind within man. The mind is charged with consciousness, as a copper wire may be charged with electricity: The wire becomes live when it allows the movement of electric energy through it. Likewise, the mind becomes live, and one says 'the mind moves'. The wire is not electricity; even so, the mind is not consciousness. Yet, when one touches the wire, one receives a shock, because the force and the medium cannot be separated from each other. In the same way, we may say, the mind is consciousness. It is not consciousness in one way, and it is consciousness in another way. The process of the enlivening of the mind by the presence of consciousness within is the incentive given to the knowing process. It is as if life is induced into an inanimate object. The mind is an urge within to move outwardly. It is not a thing or a substance. It is a faculty which pushes everyone outside. The mind pushes itself beyond itself. And, so, when consciousness operates through the mind, it looks as if the consciousness is also drawn towards an external something. What moves actually is the mind and not consciousness. This movement of the mind attended with consciousness is called Pramana, or the knowing process.
The Vedanta psychology holds that the mind assumes the shape of its object. This form which the mind assumes is called a Vritti. A Vritti is a modification of the mind in terms of a particular object. When a form is known, or an object is contacted, the mind is supposed to envelop that object. This process of the enveloping of the object by the mind is called Vritti-Vyapti. Vyapti is pervasion. The pervasion by the mind of a particular location called the object is Vritti-Vyapti. However, it is not enough if the mind assumes merely the shape or the form of the object. One has to be aware that the object is there. This awareness that the object is there is due to the presence of consciousness in this moving process called the mind. The illumination of the presence of the form called the object is termed Phala-Vyapti. So, a twofold activity takes place when an object is known, viz., the mind pervades the form and the consciousness illumines the form. The knowledge of the object is actually the knowledge of a form. The form is made available to perception by the activity of the mind, and the awareness of it arises on account of the consciousness attending upon the mind.
The point is that the object cannot be wholly material. If it is to be material, consciousness cannot illumine it. Consciousness is qualitatively different from the object which is material, supposing that it is material. The Vedanta psychology holds that the object cannot be material because consciousness knows that the object is there, and it comes in contact with the object. This is possible only if it has some similarity with the object, which, again, makes one conclude that the principle of consciousness is somehow inherent in the object, also. This is a gradual deduction that is made from the premise that knowledge of the object is possible. The conclusion, therefore, is that consciousness is potentially inherent in the object. The Vedanta calls it Vishaya-Chaitanya (object-consciousness), and not merely Vishaya (object). Here, Vishaya-Chaitanya or object-consciousness does not mean consciousness 'of' the object, but object which is itself a phase of consciousness.
Consciousness is indivisible, and so it has to be infinite. It cannot be finite, for the very knowledge of the finitude of consciousness would suggest the infinitude of it. It has to be infinite, and, therefore, external to it none can be; no object can exist outside consciousness.
Thus, what is called an object turns out to be a phase of consciousness. It is a formation of consciousness itself. The Self collides with the Self; the Atman comes in contact with the Atman. This is the reason why we love the things of the world. This is the view of Sage Yajnavalkya as propounded in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad. There is so much love for things because one is seeing one's own Self in things. The attraction that one feels for the objects of the world is caused by the presence of one's own universality hidden in the objects. Otherwise, nothing can attract anyone. One would not even know of its existence, what to speak of attraction.
The World Is a Flood of Consciousness
The knowledge process, which is the blending of the Pramatr and the Prameya through the Pramana, illustrates that the world is a veritable flood of consciousness. "Sarvam Khalvidam Brahma," says the Upanishad; the whole universe is the Absolute appearing as if it is external to itself. The objects of the world, the things that are before everyone, are facets of consciousness. God Himself is in front of man, as it were. The Purusha Sukta of the Veda tells us that all these things that are seen are the limbs of the One Purusha, the All-Being. Every atom, every ingredient, every location or point of objectivity is the head of the Cosmic Being. God alone is. The Absolute is the only reality. This is the conclusion that metaphysical idealism draws, which does not mean that external objects do not exist. Only, the objects are not isolated material entities. Things are not what they seem.
The outermost probe of science has coincided with the innermost probe of the philosophers. The deepest self of man is identical with the outermost reality that is the universe. The Atman is Brahman. Thou art That; Tat Tvam Asi.
The process of knowledge has led to a grand discovery that there is One Being in the universe and that God alone exists.
Excerpts from: Sarvam Khalvidam Brahma - The Philosophy of Religion by Sri Swami Krishnananda
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