Nididhyasana
Divine Life
Society Publication: Discourse 5 -
Commentary on the Panchadasi by Sri Swami Krishnananda
God cannot be conceived as
finite. Nor is it possible to conceive the infinite. No contact with Brahman is
possible, ordinarily. Vikalpatva or nirvikalpatva, that is
finitude or infinitude as associated with Brahman, may be considered as futile
arguments in the case of quality, action, species, objectivity and relation. Guna
is quality, kriya is action, jati is species, dravya is
object, sambandha is relation, vastu is anything whatsoever.
Hence, in any one of these categories that we find in this world, the same
difficulty will arise if we start envisaging these things either as finite or
as infinite.
Nothing finally can be looked
upon as either finite or infinite. If we think that a thing is neither finite
nor infinite, it is inconceivable. Anything that is relative cannot be
conceived. The modern science of relativity also takes us to the same
conclusion that it is not as it appears to us. That is why it is called maya
– a jugglery-like thing that is appearing before us. If we try to probe into
it, we will find it is not there at all, as night vanishes when the sun rises
or darkness vanishes when the flash of a torch is thrown on it. It is because
our knowledge is not operating, the whole thing looks very solid, so
three-dimensional, so real. If we throw the flashlight on our understanding, we
will find it vanishes. It cannot be conceived at all as either existent in this
manner or existent in that manner – neither finite, not infinite, which means
to say that it is not there at all. Such is this world.
The category of finitude and infinitude,
and the category of relation of one thing with the other are all imagined by
the conditioning factors of the mind. Brahman is above all that we can imagine
in our mind. This kind of study that we have made is called sravana. We
have heard a lot about the nature of the world, the nature of the individual,
the nature of Brahman. We have studied Ishvara, jagat and jiva in
some measure. What is the nature of these great principles God, world and
individual?
But mere hearing or studying is not sufficient. When you return home, you
must ponder over this deeply. The ideas that have been made to enter into your
mind through the medium of your hearing should enter your heart. They should
become objects of deep investigation, Self-investigation. The mind withdraws
into itself all the ideas that it has collected by hearing and deeply bestows
these considerations. That is called manana.
Sravana is hearing,
learning, studying. Manana is deep thinking. If you merely hear and go
away and again hear tomorrow, it will be what is humorously called ‘Eustachian
philosophy’, which means that what you hear through one ear goes out through
the other ear. Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj used to say there are Eustachian
philosophers. They understand nothing. It does not go inside.
Unless we bestow deep thought
on what we have heard, that knowledge which we have gained by hearing will not
be part of our nature. We will be sitting independently as we were earlier, and
knowledge will be outside in space. So it has to be brought into the depths of
our understanding by deep reflection. That process is called manana.
Even that is not sufficient. We have to become that knowledge itself.
The deep association of
ourselves with this knowledge is nididhyasana. Firstly, we hear and
study. Secondly, we bestow deep thought and investigate into the substance and
essentiality of what we have heard and studied, and make it a part and parcel
of our daily thought and understanding. But when this process goes on
continuously day in and day out, it becomes the very spirit of our nature. We
do not merely know, we actually become the existence of it. Knowledge is not
merely a property that we have gained by hearing or studying. It is not a
quality of our intellect, as an academic qualification. It is our very
substance. Knowledge is Being. Chit is Sat. So when knowledge
that we have gained by sravana and manana becomes our very
substance itself, we move like God Himself in the world. That is jivanmukta
lakshana. That condition is nididhyasana tattva, a continuous flow
of knowledge without break, which becomes the essence of our person. This is
called nididhyasana.
Deep meditation, which is nididhyasana
is, in the beginning, involved in three processes – the meditating
consciousness, the object on which meditation is carried on, and the process of
meditation. Therefore, three things are involved – triputi. There is
someone who is meditating, there is something on which meditation is being
carried on, and some process of knowledge is linking the subject with the
object, connecting the meditator with the object meditated upon. So when we
meditate, in the beginning we will have a consciousness of three things. We
will feel that we are there contemplating, meditating. We will feel that there
is something on which we are concentrating. And we will also know that there is
a relation between us.
When by deep concentration –
going further, deeper – the consciousness of our being there and the
consciousness of a process going on also are dropped, our consciousness merges
into that object, and we become the very object itself. The very artha,
the very target, the very ideal, the very aim becomes us. We are not
contemplating something; we have become that. That becoming of the identity of
our consciousness with the very object which we are concentrating upon, losing
the consciousness of an individuality and the process of concentration – the
identity of the subject with the object, the merger of the consciousness
perceiving with the object concentrated upon – is called samadhi.
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