INVESTIGATION OF REALITY AND UNREALITY
If one is known, the other is not far behind.
If Reality is one, Truth is one, Existence is one, and Self is one, nothing
else remains outside, including the illusionary unreal of Maya, visible only in
the Samsāra Chakra (wheel of birth and death). It is all in One, complete,
full, imperishable, eternal, and an infinitude of infinity. The scriptures
clearly affirm the Reality of Existence and the non-relativeness of Absolute
Truth. If that's the case, exploring both
reality and unreality aims to seek to realise the Source in the elevatory
journey of Self-knowledge, salvation, and liberation. It is through
demystification that one can unravel the veil of ignorance, from an outward
projectory orientation that obscures one's identity to an inward journey towards
self-realisation. It is not to know what I was or will be; rather, it is to
realise that, through conscious effort, I am Brahmān. The scriptures succinctly
say Reality is One that may be “Prajñānam Brahma” (Intelligence is Brahma),
Aitareya Upanishad of the Riq Veda; Ayam Atmā Brahma" (This self is
Brahmān), Mandukya Upanishad of the Atharva Veda; “Tat Tvam Asi” (That you
are), Chandogya Upanishad of the Sama Veda; and “Aham Brahmāsmi” (I am
Brahmān), Brihadaranyaka Upanishad of the Yajur Veda. Consciousness is Brahmān
(Cosmic Self, or Absolute Existence). Brahmān refers to the Absolute, complete,
unchanging, and continuous presence in all things, from the creator to the
smallest matter. It is present in every place and throughout every creature. It
would be better to articulate its transcendental nature rather than
characterise it in terms of coincidental qualities, like creatorship, etc. If
that is the case, unreality does not have any existence of its own. Whatever we
visualise with our sensory organs is an illusionary reflection of Maya.
The non-relative nature of Absolute Reality, or Existence, is all complete, comprehensive, and full in every respect. Reality is that, according to sage philosopher Swami Krishnananda, which never changes, which is absolute, unlimited, and is never contradicted by any other thing or experience. He stresses that intelligence, subtlety, illumination and understanding, constitutes the essential nature of consciousness. The opposite of that is unreality, or unconsciousness, signifing the existence of a continuous thing, even under different and varying conditions, forms or modes. The point of investigation is to know or realise Reality. But Reality is changeless and so the instrumentalities to know Reality. Existing instrumentalies consisting of mind and senses are subject to change and have no capacity to know the changeless. However, at one stage leaving aside the waking and dreaming, one can know the Reality at the stage of deep sleep when all sense organs are withdrwan completely. However, at the first two stages, waking and dreaming one can prepare oneself by dismantling the facade of ignorance that blurs our myopic vision of reality that considers everything or every aspect of the phenomenal world as real. It refers to eye consciousness, a state of heightened awareness and self-awareness, which allows one to understand the boundless nature of infinity. It involves perceiving and reflecting upon one's own thoughts, emotions, and experiences. The investigator of reality must imbibe, practice, cultivate, and reject certain virtues of steadfastness in the extremes of opposites; equilibrium and remaining centred, regardless of the circumstances he may encounter; the capacity to remain calm and composed, maintaining inner balance even-minded when confronted with unfavourable circumstances or external stimuli; and detachment at the levels of body, mind, and intellect as well. It refers to a state of being emotionally detached from worldly desires and attachments, leading to a sense of freedom and liberation. The investigator needs to cultivate virtuosity intertwined with truthfulness, knowledge, purity, restraint, patience, tolerance, acquiescence, and composure in the processes of investigating reality with disregard for consequences. The practitioner gains insight when they begin to view themselves as a nonentity rather than an entity. An entity represents the baggage of attachments, such as egos in identification with the body-mind-intellect complex. Egos cloud one's intellect, blur the vision, and limit the power of judgement based on discrimination. An earnest practitioner of discrimination needs to discriminate between the real (Self), or the eternal, and the unreal (emanating from non-Self), or the transient, by cultivating the virtues of equanimity, detachment, truthfulness, and forbearance. He needs to imbibe the qualities, according to the Srimad Bhagavad Gita (13.8-13.12), Humbleness; freedom from hypocrisy; non-violence; forgiveness; simplicity; service of the Guru (teacher); cleanliness of body and mind; steadfastness; and self-control; dispassion toward the objects of the senses; absence of egotism; keeping in mind the evils of birth, disease, old age, and death; non-attachment; absence of clinging to spouse, children, home, and so on; even-mindedness amidst desired and undesired events in life; constant and exclusive devotion toward Me; an inclination for solitary places and an aversion for mundane society; constancy in spiritual knowledge; and philosophical pursuit of the Absolute Truth. These virtues are basic to the pursuit of the knowledge of the Brahmān, or Cosmic Self.
The scriptures profoundly assert that the purpose of investigating reality is to derive instructions for knowledge, consciousness, and self-realisation. Such an investigation based on truthfulness, equanimity, honesty, transparency, detachment, sincerity, and forbearance propels one more inward to be with Self, the indivisible essence of Absolute Reality. This perspective affirms unreality as not another oppositional aspect of reality but rather as a vacuous, illusionary notion emanating from Maya. Regardless of the nature and methods of inquiry, one maintains equilibrium amidst the extremes of opposites—heat and cold; prosperity and poverty; equal to friends and enemies; honour and dishonour; happiness and distress; fame and infamy. This practitioner, always free from contaminating associations, remains silent and content with everything, remains fixed in knowledge, and engages in devotional service, regardless of time, space, or situation. The Srimad Bhagavad Gita (2.15, 12.18-19) is in affirmation and proclaims so. In a similar vein, the Yoga-Vasistha (4.31.5-) contends that the investigator of reality needs to be truthful in any events, context, and outcomes in disregard to consequences. It requires unselfishness of mind and enormous patience at first, but vain desires and vanity of egotism derange the direction to nullity. One should be diligent to wipe off from thy heart the sense of thy egoism and try to be happy by thinking always of the nullity of thyself. It (4.31.9) says the error of egoism, like a dark cloud, hides the bright disc of the moon of truth under its gloom and causes its cooling beams to disappear. Reality is one, existence is one, and Brahmān is the Only Reality-Existence, so asserts Yoga-Vasistha (4.31.9–4.31.18). It proclaims that an entity can become a nonentity at any time, just as gods and demigods can become unrealities, yet we, as ignorant people, assume that all these phenomenal existences are real. The learnt and the ignorant cannot agree on this subject, claims Yoga-Vasistha, 4.31.22–27, as the drunken and sober men cannot meet together. One who can distinguish light from darkness, shade from sunlight. It is as impossible to turn the ignorant to truth from their belief in the reality of unrealities. Their prohibition is an admonition given to the ignorant; as for the learnt who know themselves to be Brahmans, it is useless to lecture them on this subject. The intelligent man, who believes that the supremely quiescent spirit of Brahma pervades the whole universe, is not to be led away by anyone from his firm belief. So nothing can shake the faith of that man, who knows himself as no other except the Supreme Being who is all in all and thinks he is dependent on God's substantiality like a gold ring. Whatever that being purposes himself to be, Yoga-Vasistha (4.31.35) contends,He conceives himself to be immediately the same: it is that vacuous Intellect only that is the true reality, and all others are also real, as viewed in it and rising and setting in it out of its own will.
Consciousness as such is Reality. We realise
it through deep meditation and direct experience. Only this can be the Reality,
says sage philosopher Swami Krishnananda. That is, consciousness should be
unlimited. The essential existence of the knower, therefore, is unlimited
knowledge—absolute consciousness. Here, the object and the subject coalesce and
become one existence. The knower and the known are one. The universe is not
objective, not a phenomenon outside. Consciousness is not inert, not divided, not
a mass of particles called atoms, protons, and electrons, not waves of
probability, not an indistinguishable, indeterminable, dark mass of energy, but
pure consciousness—indivisible, infinite, immortal, eternal, absolute. This is
the only Reality, and it is identical with pure experience as one with itself,
not to be known by any other—known as itself by itself, as existence,
consciousness, and bliss in one, independent of body, senses, the vital
energies, mind, intellect, ignorance, cause, effect, and all relative
phenomena. Therefore, Yoga-Vasistha (4.31.36) claims that the three worlds are
all the same to the intellect and rise before it in spontaneity. Based on his
discourses with Sri Rama, Sage Vasistha (Yoga-Vasistha, 4.31.37) says that we
too came from the Will Divine and other beings. This means that none of us are
real or not real except when we exist or cease to exist. According to
Yoga-Vasistha (4.31.38-42), this infinite and formless void of the Intellect is
ubiquitous and all-pervading, and in whatever form this intellect manifests
itself in any place, it appears there just in the same figure and manner. it is
like a hollow bubble rising in the empty ocean of the Intellect and appearing
like water in a mirage. in the empty ocean of the Intellect and appearing as
the water in the mirage. The waking state of the vacuous intellect is styled
the phenomenal world, and its state of sleep and rest is what we call
liberation, emancipation, or salvation from pain.
-Asutosh Satpathy
Comments
Post a Comment