Friday, September 20, 2013

(Sep 20,2013) Spiritual Message for the Day – The Search for Reality

The Search for Reality
Divine Life Society Publication: The Search for Reality by Swami Krishnananda

What is Reality? Reality is that which never changes, which is absolute, unlimited, and is never contradicted by any other thing or experience. How is it known that Reality is changeless? Well, then, let us take for granted that Reality is changing. Now, what is change? Change is a modification of something from one condition to another condition. All actions presuppose an actionless being. How does one know that there is change in anything? The consciousness of change means the consciousness of the death of one condition of a thing and of the birth of its other condition. That means, the knower of change exists even when one condition of that changeful thing ceases to be, and it exists also when another of its conditions rises or is given birth to. The knower of change does not change. If the knower of change changes, there can be no such thing as knowledge or awareness of change. The changeless consciousness, which is the unaffected and undivided witness of all change, is the Reality. Thus it is proved that Reality is changeless.

Now, can Reality be known? If it is known, what is its nature? If one particle is different from another particle, what is that which exists between two particles. If there is no distinction among the particles, there can be no particles or protons and electrons, but there can only be a huge mass of energy which is indistinguishable. Is it conscious or inert? If the whole universe is but this one energy, the scientist who is the knower of this energy cannot be excluded from it or be outside it. If this energy is inert in its nature, the knower of this energy, also, should be inert, for the knower is a part of Reality, which is this energy, according to the scientist. The final conclusion therefore is that if knowledge exists in the knower, this energy must be knowledge in its nature, so that the ultimate Reality becomes not an inert mass of energy but indivisible consciousness.

What is the basis for consciousness? If consciousness is to proceed from matter or energy, the essential nature of this matter or energy should be consciousness or intelligence. Illumination, understanding, constitutes the essential nature of consciousness.  If the very existence of consciousness is denied, matter becomes a myth when it is bereft of relation to consciousness. Consciousness is the fundamental being.

Now, does the scientist admit the existence of an ultimate Reality? How does he know that Reality exists? He knows this through observation and experiment. His experience consists of the knowledge of Reality, which he derives as a result of observation through the senses. If Reality can be known through the senses, the senses should be changeless, even as Reality is. But, are the senses changeless? Definitely not. The senses are instruments of knowledge, and if the instruments which are used in observation are defective, the knowledge which is received through them cannot be perfect. The senses have a particular constitution, they have a particular make-up, and if this constitution or make-up is changed, the knowledge which is received through them also will change. The senses are changing, and therefore Reality which is changeless cannot be known through the senses. Even the changeless, when it is seen through the changing, will appear as changing, for the object of knowledge always partakes of the qualities of the means of knowledge. The senses cannot give us Reality. As the man of physical science has the senses as his sole means of knowledge, he cannot know Reality with his knowledge.

Then, what is Reality, and how can one know Reality? The only means of knowledge which remains to be considered, other than the senses, is the mind. Can the philosopher know Reality with the help of his rationalistic mind? For this, the mind itself has to be examined. The mind changes from one person to another person, and from one condition to another condition even in the same person. The stronghold of the mind is reason, logic and argumentation. But the mind works within the realm limited by its own constitution built up by the hypothetical notions of space, time and causation (quantity, quality, relation and modality). These categories which constitute the nature and the workings of the mind limit its operations, and thus it cannot have a changeless knowledge of Reality as such, independent of its modes. Therefore, the philosopher who is totally dependent upon the workings of the schematizing mind, too, cannot know Reality. The mind is an individualistic principle, and so it is changeful. The mind works in the waking and the dreaming states. The Reality cannot be known in these two states – the waking and the dreaming states, because here the mind is functioning with its categories, and as long as this mind is the means of knowing Reality, one cannot have perfect knowledge of Reality as such.

Perhaps, there is a possibility of knowing Reality as such in the state of deep sleep. In deep sleep there is no action of the mind and the senses. Therefore the individual in the state of deep sleep is not obstructed by the categories of the mind and the limitations of the senses. But, unfortunately, one does not have experience of consciousness in the deep sleep state. Hence, in this deep sleep state also, Reality cannot be known, for, when there is no conscious experience at all, there can be no knowledge of Reality. And all people have the experiences only of these three states, and nothing else. Hence no man on earth, who is limited to these three states, can know Reality as such.

Memory is the effect of impressions left of a past immediate experience. There is a common consciousness which is the link connecting the three states of waking, dreaming and sleeping. But for this one consciousness there would be no continuity or survival of personality. Therefore there should have been the consciousness of existence in deep sleep, even if it appeared to be covered by ignorance. As everything – ignorance, change, objectness and every phenomenon – is known to a conscious subject, and nothing prior or antecedent to knowledge or consciousness is ever possible, the essential existence of the knower should be pure consciousness or knowledge itself.

All objects in this universe are limited by space and time. Is consciousness also limited in this way? In order to have a consciousness of something outside consciousness, consciousness should exceed and extend beyond its limitation. That is, consciousness should be unlimited.

In conclusion, the essential existence of the knower, therefore, is unlimited knowledge – absolute consciousness. Only this can be the Reality. 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. Consciousness as such is Reality. It is realized through deep meditation, in direct experience.

Excerpts from:
The Search for Reality by Swami Krishnananda

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