The Thing to be Known
May the divine grace of the
Supreme Being and the loving and compassionate benedictions of the Holy Master
grant that we many all live a life of simplicity and dignity, truthfulness and
fearlessness, compassion and loving kindness—a life of ceaseless remembrance of
God and continuous inner meditation in the midst of outer physical action and
activity!
May God and Gurudev give us
the gift of a synthesis of the inner and the outer. May they grant us their
insight that there is neither the inner nor the outer, but there is only one
single undivided God-principle to which everything is an inseparable part of
Itself.
It is in dualities that we
have inner and outer—action and inaction, remembrance and forgetfulness. In
that state of absolute faith in the non-dual, all-pervading presence of the one
Reality that is subtler than the subtlest, the self-created delusion of
distinctions and the self-created delusion of the dual throng, the pairs of
opposites, cease to exist, and God alone exists. So there is no possibility of
there being such thoughts and such concepts as near and far, past and present,
inner and outer, presence and absence, when whatever is is an eternal,
all-pervading, non-dual IS of the Supreme Being.
Modern science prides itself
in being impartial observers and relentless pursuers of truth. They want facts,
facts that are verifiable, tangible, reproducible any number of times given the
same circumstances. So they say, "We are the seekers of truth. We are in
search of practical realities, of verifiable and provable facts, not in
presumptions or assumptions." They are seekers in pursuit of tangible
facts, and they have marvelously succeeded in making themselves aware of ever
so many facts in ever so many fields of human knowledge in this outer universe.
But our ancients experienced
something without which no other experience is possible. They declared,
"We have not bothered ourselves about searching, observing, experiencing
and becoming aware of facts in this passing projection or manifestation. We have
made our quest in another dimension of the human being, and we have discovered
the fact of awareness.
"But for awareness,
nothing can be cognized. But for awareness, no knowledge is possible. Knowledge
itself has as its basis the knower. The knower can be the knower only if It is
a center of luminous awareness, knowing all things.
It shines everywhere as
awareness—prajnanam brahma. That ultimate Reality is awareness,
consciousness, which existing all things become known to exist. Without
consciousness there would be nothing, no knowledge. Nothing is possible.
Because the irreducible, axiomatic reality or the truth is that there is a
great awareness—chaitanyam sashvatam santam vyomatitam niranjnanam
(…who is pure Consciousness, eternal, peaceful, beyond ether, and untainted).
Beyond all categories, beyond all phenomena there is pure consciousness, which
alone knows everything and is able to proclaim anything and everything.
Our scientists of the inner
realm of the Spirit loudly proclaimed: "We have come across the thing to
be known, knowing which everything else becomes known. It is of the nature of
consciousness, awareness."
The greatest of all knowledge
is that which makes all knowledge possible, that is the alpha, the source. May
you become thus blessed with that supreme experience beyond all things
perceived by the senses, thought of by the mind, inferred by the intellect,
felt in the deepest depths of your feelingful heart. Beyond all this is
something indescribable, imponderable, which makes all these things possible—the
awareness and the consciousness which says that I am.
May divine grace and the
benedictions of the Master grant us that experience of pure consciousness. That
consciousness is your identity. That consciousness you are. For other than That
you cannot be anything else. Because that consciousness is supreme and
non-dual.
That experience is peace, that
experience is unutterable bliss, that experience is silence—a depth of silence
where no articulate words are possible. For that experience this rare gift of
the human status has been given. That is what makes it the most supreme of all
gifts in spite of all things that may seem to be the contrary of peace and
bliss. It is what makes the supreme gift of our human status unparalleled in
value.
Knowing this to be so, may we
apply ourselves with all earnestness, with total sincerity, with humility and
determination. May we apply ourselves to making the highest and best use of
this status, and thus putting it to the highest use attain the highest joy.
May this be the quest, and may
full success be granted. May the quest cease to be, and may the experience
absolute prevail in all its fullness at all times. To be established ever in
that great experience is the vision of the ancients of this country, where God-realization
was declared to be the highest of all goals of humanity.
Excerpts from:
The Thing to
be Known by Sri Chidananda
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