Spiritual Message for the Day – Means to Realisation by Gurudev Sri Swami Sivananda
Baba Times Digest© | 7 January 2015 13.14 EST | New York Edition
Means to Realisation
Divine Life Society Publication: Vedanta for Beginners by Gurudev Sri Swami Sivananda
Om! Om! Om!
THE GOAL OF LIFE is Self-realisation. It is not the attainment of anything external to us, but it consists in our simply knowing or becoming aware of our eternally Free nature. If it were an impossibility to get convinced that we are Existence-Absolute and eternally Free, why should the Srutis repeatedly teach us that doctrine like an affectionate mother? On the other hand that doctrine contradicts not but asserts our own inner urge, ‘Let me ever live in a blissful state free from all pain and misery.’
How the idea of a snake is negated from a rope-snake, so too, the non-Self is negated from the Self that is eternally existing. That is done through reasoning on the evidence of Sruti passages like, ‘Tat Tvam Asi’ etc. With the dawn of true knowledge, the Self-luminous Self alone shines and the non-self totally disappears into an airy nothing like the disappearance of the snake when the rope is known as such with the aid of a lamp.
Is there a means that can be handled by the aspirant to attain realisation? Are injunctions and prohibitions on Vedic lines applicable to the seeker after Truth?
To put it in a nut-shell, the seeker after Truth cannot be subjected to Vedic injunctions and prohibitions.
The injunctive side of the Scriptures merely restates popular conceptions and beliefs when it says ‘do this,’ ‘Thou art the doer and enjoyer’ etc. It points out to a certain object for our attainment. The injunctions and prohibitions are made with sole reference to the object that has got to be attained. Hence, in that case, injunctions and prohibitions are justified.
In all Vedanta (i.e., the Upanishads), nowhere do we find a clear mention of the Self as the object to be attained. The only way by which the Upanishads point the Truth is through the words ‘Neti, Neti.’ The Self is never an object for our attainment. Sruti passages like ‘Tat Tvam Asi’ proclaim the Truth or give us the right Knowledge from the transcendent level, Paramarthic standpoint. They do not, however, point out an object for our attainment. Further, the knowledge arising out of injunctive scriptures gets contradicted by the knowledge arising out of Sruti passages like, ‘Tat Tvam Asi.’
Of the two ideas, ‘I am Existence-Absolute,’ and ‘I am the experiencer,’ both of which have the Immortal Self as the Witness, the latter which owes its origin to ignorance and which springs up from apparent evidences like sense-perception gets negated from the implied meaning (Lakshyartha) of the word ‘I’ (the implied meaning of ‘I’ is represented by the former) on the authority of the Sruti passages like, ‘Tat Tvam Asi.’
Excerpts from: Means to Realisation - Vedanta for Beginners by Gurudev Sri Swami Sivananda
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