(June 19,2013) Spiritual Message for the Day – Discrimination of the Mahavakyas (The Great Sentences)

Discrimination of the Mahavakyas

Divine Life Society Publication: The Philosophy of the Panchadasi by Swami Krishnananda

There are four Mahavakyas, or great statements in the Upanishads, which have a profound significance as pointers to Reality. 

The Mahavakyas

 These Mahavakyas convey the essential teaching of the Upanishads, namely, Reality is one, and the individual is essentially identical with it.

‘Consciousness is Brahman’

In the sentence, ‘ Prajnanam Brahma’ or Consciousness is Brahman, a definition of Reality is given. The best definition of Brahman would be to give expression to its supra-essential essence, and not to describe it with reference to accidental attributes, such as creatorship etc. That which is ultimately responsible for all our sensory activities, as seeing, hearing, etc., is Consciousness. Though Consciousness does not directly see or hear, it is impossible to have these sensory operations without it. Hence it should be considered as the final meaning of our mental and physical activities. Brahman is that which is Absolute, fills all space, is complete in itself, to which there is no second, and which is continuously present in everything, from the creator down to the lowest of matter. It, being everywhere, is also in each and every individual. This is the meaning of Prajnanam Brahma occurring in the Aitareya Upanishad.

‘I Am Brahman’

In the sentence, ‘ Aham Brahmasmi,’ or I am Brahman, the ‘I’ is that which is the One Witnessing Consciousness, standing apart form even the intellect, different from the ego-principle, and shining through every act of thinking, feeling, etc. This Witness-Consciousness, being the same in all, is universal, and cannot be distinguished from Brahman, which is the Absolute. Hence the essential ‘I’ which is full, super-rational and resplendent, should be the same as Brahman. This is not the identification of the limited individual ‘I’ with Brahman, but it is the Universal Substratum of individuality that is asserted to be what it is. The copula ‘am’ does not signify any empirical relation between two entities, but affirms the non-duality of essence. This dictum is from the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad.

‘That Thou Art’

In the Chhandogya Upanishad occurs the Mahavakya, ‘ Tat Tvam Asi’ or ‘That thou art’. Sage Uddalaka mentions this nine times, while instructing his disciple Svetaketu in the nature of Reality. That which is one alone without a second, without name and form, and which existed before creation, as well as after creation, as pure Existence alone, is what is referred to as Tat or That, in this sentence. The term Tvam stands for that which is in the innermost recesses of the student or the aspirant, but which is transcendent to the intellect, mind, senses, etc., and is the real ‘I’ of the student addressed in the teaching. The union of Tat and Tvam is by the term Asi or are. That Reality is remote is a misconception, which is removed by the instruction that it is within one’s own self. The erroneous notion that the Self is limited is dispelled by the instruction that it is the same as Reality.

‘This Self is Brahman’

The Mahavakya, ‘Ayam Atma Brahma’ or ‘This Self is Brahman’, occurs in the Mandukya Upanishad. ‘ Ayam’ means ‘this’, and here ‘thisness’ refers to the self-luminous and non-mediate nature of the Self, which is internal to everything, from the Ahamkara or ego down to the physical body. This Self is Brahman, which is the substance out of which all things are really made. That which is everywhere, is also within us, and what is within us is everywhere. This is called ‘Brahman’, because it is plenum, fills all space, expands into all existence, and is vast beyond all measure of perception or knowledge. On account of self-luminosity, non-relativity and universality, Atman and Brahman are the same. This identification of the Self with Absolute is not any act of bringing together two differing natures, but is an affirmation that absoluteness or universality includes everything, and there is nothing outside it.

Continue to read:

The Philosophy of the Panchadasi by Swami Krishnananda

Mahavakyas by Gurudev Swamiji Sivananda

A Call to Liberation by Swami Chidananda

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(May 19,2013) From the Scriptures and Wise Ones

From the Scriptures and Wise Ones

Divine Life Society Publication: Thus Awakens the Awakened One by Swami Krishnananda

·         Manu Smriti says: One-fourth of one’s knowledge comes from the Teacher, one-fourth from study, one-fourth from co-students and one-fourth by experience in the passage of time.

·         “He who is humbler than a blade of grass and more patient than a tree; who respects others but wants not any respect for oneself, is fit to take the Name of the Almighty Lord.” This was the famous instruction of Sri Gauranga Mahaprabhu.

·         Samsara or world-existence comes to an end only when the jiva recognises its true identity with the Absolute. The condition of the jiva-consciousness is just the condition of the sheath with which it identifies itself at any given time. When the Atman is discovered to be different form the sheaths, it is at once realised as Brahman. - Panchadasi

·         “He is called a ‘man’ who, when anger rises forcibly within, is able to subdue and cast it out as a snake casts away its slough with ease,” said Hanuman to himself when he suspected that the fire he set through the whole of Lanka might perhaps have burnt Sita, too.

·         “Poison is not real poison. Sense-objects are the real poison. Poison kills one life, but sense-objects can devastate a series of lives.”

·         These persons do not get sleep, says Vidura to Dhritarashtra: Those who are sick, those who have been overthrown by others and are deprived of power and assistance from any side, those who are afflicted with lust, and those who are scheming to deprive others of their possessions.

·         The Mahabharata says that the Vedas are afraid of him who tries to approach them without a knowledge of the correct import of the Epics and Puranas. Here is a covert suggestion that the Absolute of philosophy should also include the variety and conflict of practical life, in order to be real and not merely an object of speculation.

·         The four noble truths of the Buddha that there is suffering, that there is a cause for suffering, that there is a way out of suffering and that there is a state beyond suffering, are proof enough to show that he was not a nihilist in the sense in which the word is used today, but a practical man who had an eye to doing something than merely conjecturing about Truth and its realisation.

·         The teaching of the Yoga-Vasishta emphasises that when there is perception of an object by the seer or observer, there has to be pre-supposed the existence of a consciousness between the subject and the object. If this conscious connecting link were not to be, there would be no perception of existence. There cannot be a consciousness of relation between two things unless there is a consciousness relating the two terms and yet standing above them. The study of the perceptional situation discloses the fact that the subject and the object are phases of a universal consciousness.

·         “By excess of passion Ravana was destroyed; by excess of greed Duryodhana was killed; by excessive charity Kama came to ruin; excess is always to be avoided,” says a hitopadesa.

·         “By pranayama one should burn all dross; by pratyahara sever all attachments; by dharana all distraction; and by dhyana all undivine qualities.” - Manu Smritis

·         Krishna and Arjuna should be seated in one chariot. Isvara and jiva should partake of a single objective in all action. This mutual transfusion of the universal and the individual is Krishna-Arjuna-Samvada, the eternal Gita of the cosmos which is Dharmakshetra and Kurukshetra.

·         Tena tyaktena bhunjithah, is the exhortation of the Isopanishad. It means that our enjoyment in the real sense is possible of achievement only when we renounce everything. But what is this renunciation? It is implied in the earlier sentence of the verse, which states - isavasyam idam sarvam. All this universe is indwelt by the Lord. As such, desire for objects is an impossibility. This is true renunciation; which is also the true freedom and joy.

·         Sarvam paravasam duhkham, sarvam atmavasam sukham - ‘All dependence on persons and things is pain; all self-dependence is joy.’ This has to be practised gradually, by rise from the grosser to the subtler, from the external to the internal.

·         Each and every contact which the desireful nature establishes with the outer world is a piercing dart thrust into the heart of the person cherishing such nature.” - Vishnu Purana

·         “Our prosperity, our friends, our bondage and even our destruction are all in the end rooted in our tongue,” says a famous adage.

·         Draupadi exclaims in the court of the Kauravas: “That is not an assembly where there are no elders; they are not elders who do not know dharma; that is not dharma which is not in consonance with truth; that is not truth which has crookedness behind it.”

·         “He who knows, knows not; he who knows not, knows.” This is a statement in the Upanishad, meaning that one who has realised the Truth has no personality-consciousness, and one who has it knows not the Truth.

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From the Scriptures and Wise Ones - “Thus Wakens the Awakened One” by Swami Krishnananda

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