Spiritual Message for the Day – The Path of the Seeker by Sri Swami Krishnananda
Baba Times Digest© | 7 March 2015 13.09 EST | New York Edition
The Path of the Seeker
Divine Life Society Publication: Essays on the Upanishads – Kathopanishad by Sri Swami Krishnananda
(Spoken on September 10, 1972)
The sruti says, “Arise, Awake! Through obtaining men of wisdom, know it. A sharpened edge of a razor, hard to tread, a difficult path it is, - thus sages declare.” The individuals of the universe are all sleeping persons or dreamers in the night of ignorance. They are exhorted to wake up to the day of knowledge. The path of sadhana is beset with great dangers. The sadhaka has to experience sorrows and very unpleasant conditions in the process of the transformation of the individual into the Supreme.
Knowledge arises, in the beginning, not through more self effort but through the company of the wise, the result of which is accelerated by the effects of past meritorious deeds. Self-effort takes the form of an intellectual undertaking, and the intellect being very strongly influenced by internal convictions and experiences of the individual concerned, the effort is many times not well directed. Every right effort should be preceded by right thinking, and no right thinking is possible as long as the individual is controlled by personal prejudices and desires. Hence the need for the company of the wise, which shall break open the fort of preconceived notions in the individual. Further, the path is a very difficult one to tread.
The search for truth is attended with many dangers. The sadhaka is likely to be tempted, opposed, misled or held up on the way. The inner propensities take concrete forms and present themselves before the seeker because of his attempt at concentration of mind. Concentration is a death-blow given to mental desires, and hence they rise up with all might to put an end to the practice of concentration.
Moreover, sadhana is the method of the disintegration of the entire personality consisting of the five material sheaths. These sheaths include within themselves the substance of the entire universe. Therefore, when the aspirant turns his face against these sheaths, he is actually acting against the lower natural current of the whole external universe of manifestation. Here lies the danger of the practice.
The objective powers of the universe rebel against the internal consciousness, and though this consciousness is more powerful than any objective power, it does not appear to be so because of its non-manifestation. The aspirant seems to be defeated, because his condition is one where the external tendencies are opposed and the internal Self is not known. Hence, he has no help until a higher state is reached, though he is unconsciously being led higher by the law of the Absolute. It is in this helpless condition of the absence of knowledge that the power of the result of previous discriminative practices raises the individual above the material entanglements.
The object of knowledge is too subtle to be easily known, and the object of the senses is too gross to be easily avoided. This is the reason why there is every likelihood of the seeker’s falling back into relative experience. But there is one great helping hand that pushes forward every sadhaka, in spite of the several oppositions before him. Every bit of action that is done as a sadhana for perfection produces such a power that it can never be destroyed by any material force of the universe. When a sadhaka is opposed by an external power, the impression of the previous practice urges him forward, and this forward march is another act which adds another fresh stock of power to the already existing one. Every step taken forward adds more power to the previous stock, and the cumulative effect of sadhana-shakti becomes so great that it is able to overcome any external power.
The subject is always more powerful than the object, because the subject is conscious and is the influencer of the object. The knower has a power over the known. The fact that the knower has the power to know the entirety of nature shows that nature is subservient to the knower. If the knower were less than the known, it would never have been possible for the knower to have complete knowledge of anything. Knowledge of everything means transcending everything in quality as well as in quantity.
The path to perfection is, therefore, the way to the expansion of the localised being into the limitless existence. Since every being is essentially consciousness, it is possible for everyone to become the greatest and the best, and exist as the Absolute.
Excerpts from: The Path of the Seeker - Essays on the Upanishads – Kathopanishad by Sri Swami Krishnananda
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