Articles for Saadhana

Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru.

See, why are we complicating matters, can you not think in a simple manner? The entire world is consisting of matter and energy except when we come to the life forms including plant, cellular, bacterium life. Neither matter nor energy has got the power of sensing or knowing. A dead body will not be able to sense anything. Think of the cornea of the dead body. It cannot see. But you extract the cornea and graft it to a blind man, then the same cornea helps in seeing. In the dead body, it is fully inert but here in the living body it becomes animated. The dead body is inert, insentient, the living body is not so. That livingness is not in the body because it becomes dead. The livingness is something different from the body though it is associated with the body.

This Ashram is one where at least now the jñāna-sādhana is really practiced. It is a jñāna-nishta that is constantly being propagated, discussed or transmitted here. In Aparokshanubhuti, Sankara says.

In the name of meditation, people generally meditate upon the tip of the nose, the lower one, or the upper one in between the eyebrows. It is a very common practice. Sankara says that, that is not the real dṛṣṭi. See how jñana-sādhanā works.

Dṛṣṭim jñānamayīm kṛtvā paśyet brahmamayam jagat - Take to the jñana dṛṣṭi. Judge matters on the basis of spiritual wisdom and understand that the entire jagat – universe is brahmamayam. It is a display of sentience.

Early in the morning we get up. Somewhere from the corner of the globe, we look at the sun and we say “The sun has risen.” ‘P’, think properly. We ourselves say that the sun is at a great distance. Sun doesn’t say that. Distances are before the eyes. If we have no eye, there will be no colourful object and there will be no distances also. So the distance is created by the eye when I say, why is it that you find it difficult to accept?

If there is no eye, there cannot be any distance. If there is no eardrum there will be no sound. If there is no nose there will be no smell. And these experiences, my dear ‘P’, are they had one millimeter away from the sensory center or in the sensory center itself? Where am I seeing the sun? The sun, we ourselves say is at a great distance. We don’t go to that distance and the sun also does not come to us. Then how do we say that the sun has risen?

The rising of the sun is an experience we have. The moment you say experience, it is within the body helped by the senses in the sphere of the mind. Our mind or inside is the focus of all experiences. Let the experience be anything. Experience by itself is where the experience is felt and for whom it takes place. So the rising of the sun is what I see and understand and that ‘I’ who sees the rising sun is not an external product, it is within the body. Even your own daughter or son, suppose you have no eyes, there will be no complexion for them. You may feel them with your hand and feel the bulk of it. Suppose you have no sensation in the hand, even if you touch them you will not feel the bulk. But there is a feeling that it is all external and gross.

The weight of an article upon the earth is five kilograms. The same article when you take it to the moon, it will be only 1 kilogram. When you take it to the empty space, it has no weight at all. Even the mass and weight of substances are nullified, what to speak of other things!

So here he says, dṛṣṭim jñānamayīm kṛtvā paśyet brahmamayam jagat, you try to judge, think, repeatedly, see, let your vision be wisdom-oriented. Then you will find, though I perceive an objectful world, the perception itself takes place not in the body but within the body and that too in no physical part of the body. The physical part of the body will be inert. The eye muscles are inert, the cornea is inert. Everything inside us is inert. Brain is inert. The sentience that we have is not part of the body. It is associated with the body. It is in that sentient level that we are perceiving and experiencing.

So here Sankara says, make your vision or assessment knowledge-oriented and then you say, “brahmamayam jagat”. This jagat is not a mere matter-energy world. In as much as it is seeing, felt, by us, the seeing and the feeling are not taking place in the matter-energy level. It is taking place in the mind level, sentient level. And in my sentient level, whatever I see becomes sentient.

When a thought arises in the mind, is not the thought mental, mind-born? Is it not a mental something? Or it is a physical something, it is an energial something? Thought is not matter, much less is it energy. Then what is this thought? This thought is a mental product, though I cannot use the word product there. By product we mean matter-energy substances. Any experience is inner and it is subjective and it is had in the sentient part of our being. And the sentient part is not at all in the matter-energy-body aggregate.

So when I see the sun, I myself say that the sun is at a distance. That the sun rays come, it is our eyes feeling. And when they touch the cornea, then only the image is formed. So whether the image is of a one kilometer distant object or it is of a one million kilometer distant object, both the objects are equally felt by the sentient mind within. So where is the distance then? The distance is an idea created by our mind. The idea is not material nor is it physical. The idea is mental. Matter cannot create an idea nor can energy create an idea. The mind alone can create an idea. And the mind is a sentient note of whatever we have.

So, Dṛṣṭim jñānamayīm kṛtvā paśyet brahmamayam jagat, Sā dṛṣṭiḥ paramodārā, that vision or that dṛṣṭi is the most magnificent, it is the most sublime. Na nāsāgrāvalokinī, not looking at the tip of the nose, he says.

My dear souls, why don’t you think a little? For a dead body there is no world, there is no body also. It is all an experiential process. And the experience is not one millimeter away from the body nor is it resting with the matter and energy. So this is something. But nevertheless we have feelings that there is a world, there is an object, these are concrete, gross etc. But in reality when you experience a gross object, the experience is not gross. The experience is subtle if at all, and it is sentient.

So when I experience something in my sentient mind as a sentient note, how can I say it is inert? So the entire world that you perceive is Brahman and not matter and energy. Matter and energy are only ideas produced by the sentient mind. There is something very great to think about it. If intelligent people like you are not prepared to do it, who else will do it? Dogs and monkeys will do it? Please listen to it. It is so very important.

I am putting it in such a nice manner that I don’t deny anything at all but I only say experience of any object in this world is not inert. Experience is sentient and that is had in the sentient part of our being which is within the body. I will discuss it in the evening.

Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru. Jai Guru.