SELF-KNOWLEDGE

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Adhyatma Yoga and Advaita Vedanta

The highest wisdom experienced by the Seers of Truth has been passed down from ancient times to the present day through a line of traditional teachers. Its metaphysical side, Advaita Vedanta, establishes by reasoning a non-dualistic explanation of the universe; its practical side, Adhyatma Yoga, gives guidance on the life of thought and action, so that the purpose of life may be fulfilled. The essential teachings are:

The universe is a phenomenal expression of the supreme Reality, which is by nature Existence-Consciousness-Bliss Absolute.

Our innermost Self transcends the limitations of body, mind and ego, and is not other than the supreme Reality.

The purpose of life is conscious realisation of this identity, and this can be achieved while engaged in the duties of life.

Self-realisation gives unbroken peace, poise and bliss. It is the ultimate goal sought consciously or unconsciously through philosophy and religion, art and science.

The one Reality reveals and pervades all beings, and underlies the highest teachings found in the world’s religious traditions.

Shanti Sadan is a Centre of Adhyatma Yoga, founded in 1933 by the late Hari Prasad Shastri, where the teachings continue to be given and practised in the traditional way.

Information about meetings and events can be found at shantisadan.org/meetings

SELF-KNOWLEDGE

Summer 2025

Vol. 76 No. 3

Contents

The Humorous Dimension

The Aitareya Upanishad

The Advaita and Life

The Rose and the Water

Creating the Valuable

Is Vedanta Dogmatic?

Self-Forgetfulness

No Friends or Enemies

Meditation Practice

How Can Non-duality Help Me Now?

The Humorous Dimension

The scriptures of the world are not generally thought of as humorous, either in the teachings they impart or the narratives and parables they unfold. On the contrary, they are more likely to be revered in a spirit of seriousness and solemnity. Yet the sense of humour is a part of human nature, and it would be strange if a humorous dimension were entirely absent from texts whose real subject matter is our higher nature and potentialities. This is not the case, and, with guidance, we may learn to recognise and enjoy a lightness of touch which prompts, at the least, a widening smile, if not an audible chuckle.

If we turn first to the Sanskrit texts, who can fail to be discreetly amused at the depiction of Rama’s armies as comprising, not men, but monkeys and bears. Similarly, the stories of the infancy of Krishna may, for countless devotees, transmit delight mingled with the laughter that usually ensues when toddlers are approached by friendly and warm-hearted adults. Krishna wants cream and butter, and regards the moon as a vast dairy; but alas, the moon only appears when it is dark. When his mother explains this fact, Krishna promptly closes his eyes, and pleads: ‘Now it is dark mother. Give me the moon.’

Even staid philosophical texts are sometimes seasoned with illustrations which contain a humorous dimension. This applies to the story of the ten men who crossed a river and grieved at the loss of one of their group—because everyone forgot to count himself. We are not expected to regard the tale as gloomy, but to taste something of the laughter which accompanied the ensuing realisation that ‘I myself am the tenth.’

The ancient Chinese traditions, especially those of Taoism, are unashamedly amusing in many of their teaching stories, as when a man approached a teacher who asked him who was the crowd of people he had brought with him. The man spun round, for he had travelled alone; the crowd was the crowd of restless thoughts that was the real source of his bondage, and, when transformed through training, would prove to be the vehicle of his release.

The mildly anarchical strand in Taoism is well reflected in a poem by Han Shan, where the two protagonists compete for the last laugh:

In the house east of here lives an old woman.

Three or four years ago she got rich.

In the old days she was poorer than I.

Now she laughs at me for not having a penny.

She laughs at me for being behind.

I laugh at her for getting ahead.

We laugh as though we’d never stop,

She from the east and I from the west.

We find the same openness to all levels of experience in the writings of the mystics of Islam. The whimsy that often overpowers our judgement is illustrated in the story of the man who happened to notice the smooth neck of a Sufi who was sitting by the river, and who conceived an irrepressible urge to give that neck a good slap—with disastrous consequences. The author, Rumi, does not hesitate to call up the anecdotes and tales of his predecessors if they transmitted a good spiritual point, as in the story of the painting contest, which was won by the team who painted nothing, but polished the wall so that all the other paintings were reflected in it, but with greater depth.

Every story which bears on Self-knowledge is, in fact, our own story. As Rumi commented in the course of his rendering of the biblical account of Moses and Pharaoh: ‘You may think these tales relate to people of long ago—but both Moses and Pharaoh are within you.’

The Aitareya Upanishad

The Upanishads contain statements that contradict the duality of everyday experience and indicate, as a higher truth, the state of non-duality. This applies to the apparent differences at all levels: differences of qualities which distinguish one thing from another; differences of metaphysical value or status, as between the divine and the human; divisions in the operations of our thinking, as between subject and object. To one whose knowledge is free from all trace of error or nescience, ‘there is no duality whatsoever’.

This realisation of universal unity and our oneness with that unity, is not the only form of teaching found in the Upanishads. There are also instructions in moral guidance or ‘dharma’ which, being practised, serve to prepare our mind for the final breakthrough in understanding. There are also references to the rituals and symbolic meditations which were to be performed as part of the Vedic religion of the day. Yet, in the Upanishads, there is always a hint, or specific call, to the effect that ceremony and ritualism must be outgrown in favour of the quest for direct experience of Reality.

The Aitareya Upanishad does not provide us with details of this quest. In fact, most of its content is concerned with an account of the creation and development of the universe, similar but more elaborate, to that found in other Upanishads. And yet the Aitareya Upanishad also includes one of the Maha-vakyas, the ‘great sayings’, in which the highest teachings are distilled and communicated in the most direct possible way. And so this is considered one of the principal Upanishads, on which Shri Shankara wrote a detailed commentary showing how the preliminary teachings are superceded and culminate in the supreme truth of universal non-duality.

The Upanishad is in three parts, which present, respectively: the stage of being immersed in the phenomenal world; a recognition of one Reality underlying all phenomena; the realisation of the supreme Being as Self.

The first verse declares:

In the beginning this was but the absolute Self alone. There was nothing else whatsoever that blinked. He thought: ‘Let Me create the worlds.’

‘In the beginning’ has two meanings. It refers to what we understand as logically ‘prior to’ space-time, the transcendent Being unchanged by any change, apart from which there is no other. Thus the ultimate Truth is affirmed in the opening words. And this is also the beginning of the account of the origin of the known universe: the ordered appearance of the elements; the emergence of the natural world and its living beings; the provision of nourishment; the pre-eminence of humankind; and the crucial role of prana—the life-force—as the servant of the Absolute.

He created these worlds... He thought, let me create a guardian shepherd for this world... He formed the first Person... He brooded on the Person and separated the eyes and the ears and sight and hearing emerged... (Part one, chapter one)

These powers fell into the Ocean [of being and becoming]... they felt hunger and thirst... they needed a form in which to take food... cows and horses were offered but these were insufficient... there came a [human] person... this was good... the powers entered him... hunger and thirst were always present... (Part one, chapter two)

So far this account evokes the divine origin and essence of conscious experience, and also the tinge of need and want that pervades the world.

The creator produced food... food resisted... He tried to grasp food with speech and mind and the rest... these failed... otherwise it would be enough merely to speak or think of food!.. He shaped food with life-force... it is life-force that takes food. (1:3:1-10)

Natural science describes how life depends on the ability of organisms to overcome entropy and sustain themselves by absorbing and transforming nutrients from the environment. With deep insight and a touch of shrewd humour, the Aitareya Upanishad highlights the same essential challenge to be overcome in the development of life-forms.

But the main purpose of these ‘process of creation’ teachings is not to present a historically true sequence of primeval events; it is to affirm the ultimate fact of a deeper reality alone abiding ‘in the beginning’, and which remains eternally the inner ruler and the only substantial reality. The intention is not to show how a real material, under divine supervision, is fashioned into a real world. The whole process is known to be a play of phenomena, which misleads only those who have not yet recognised the phenomenal nature of the world and believe it to be absolutely real.

Amidst the experience of apparently divine powers and also of want, a new degree of self-awareness arises. In the Upanishad’s mythological narrative, the supreme reality, as if personified, contemplates its own presence within the primordial Person, emergent humanity:

How could this exist without me? By what entrance do I come to be within? If it is sight that sees, and hearing that hears, and the rest, who or what am I?

The entrance is called ‘the crown of the head’, the place of bliss.

The Person was perceived as the Real (Purusha as Brahman). (1.3.11-13)

With such expressions, abstract thought and philosophical speculations begin.

Now human beings gain a new perspective on the life-cycles in which they participate. This is the subject of part two:

A man is born... The life force is contained in his seed... his wife nourishes the embryo... The child is born and eventually takes over the duties of the parents... The parents pass away and new life begins. (2:1-4)

The wise understand that all these apparent stages of life are revealed and transcended by one unchanging Consciousness. The Upanishad recalls the words of a legendary sage:

While lying in the mother’s womb I knew the origin of all worldly powers. A hundred bonds like iron held me down, yet I flew like a hawk. The sage knew this while lying in the mother’s womb. Thus all desires were fulfilled and immortality attained. (2: 5-6)

The sage had realised that one timeless consciousness underlies all life and experience. In this way, the text leads us to the central upanishadic teaching that the supreme reality is ever present at the core of our own being, and that our aspiration for the highest must in the end become a search for Self-knowledge.

The third and final part of the Upanishad begins:

What is it that we worship [literally, sit beside] as Self? Is it that by which one sees and hears? (3:1)

Is the true Self the one who acts, the agent of seeing and hearing and the rest? A preliminary answer is given in the next verse:

[Self] is the heart and mind, awareness, knowledge of what is right and true and useful, memory, perception, conception, ingenuity, vitality, desire; all these are various names for consciousness [prajnanam]. (3:2)

The sense of sight does not hear, and hearing does not see, so neither can be the Self. The senses and various mental faculties are aspects of an integrated ‘organ of knowledge’, here called ‘heart’ or ‘mind’ as a whole. And this too has no life, purpose or sentience without consciousness, the ultimate knower, the true Self.

It has been established that Self is Consciousness. Finally, the supreme non-dual truth is given:

This is Brahman; all the powers, all the elements, all creatures, all these beings have Consciousness as the giver of their reality; all these are impelled by Consciousness; the universe has Consciousness as its eye, and Consciousness is its end. Consciousness is Brahman. (3:3)

The great sentence: ‘Consciousness is Brahman’ (Prajnanam Brahman) indicates, without ambiguity, that our own innermost consciousness, our ‘I’ in its deepest sense, is not other than Brahman, the All, and there is no duality whatsoever. The consciousness, which seems to play a finite role in illuminating and witnessing the ever-changing details of our experience, is in reality free from all limitations, ever complete, ever itself and unrelated to anything. It is the All.

The same truth of identity with the All applies to every living being. It is an awakening which replaces all divisions and separateness with the changeless light of non-duality.

B.D.

The Advaita and Life

Advaita (non-dualism) is a system of thought and an art of living. It has an ideal, a system of logic which examines the ideal, and a discipline which is essential to the realisation of the ideal. Its philosophy in the form of speculative thinking is not only profound, satisfying all the demands of the intellect, but also highly instructive. The promise of life it holds is most inspiring, and in case of affliction, it is an unfailing consolation.

There are some passages in the Upanishads which, recognising fear to be a basic element in life, and its effect being to restrict the flow of life in the right direction, ethical and aesthetic, prescribe the philosophy as a sure means to the elimination of fear. Release means freedom from fear, and the consequent tranquillity of mind and inner illumination. It sanctions a code of morality which is of the highest order and gives reasons for it which are perhaps unique. Virtue, according to the Advaita, is not the end but a means to the great end—enlightenment.

Advaita is chiefly a search for Self. The unconditional and all-abiding Truth is our real being, and the purpose of philosophy is to reveal to us what we really are. The body and the mind are adjuncts, the necessary means to the highest achievement; but beyond them is the ever-shining light of Consciousness, our ‘I am.’ Self-consciousness is God-consciousness. Some writers insist on nearness to God, a sense of dependence, and prescribe fellowship with God as a means to security. But in the philosophy of Shri Shankara the goal of life is identity consciousness, expressed in the Vedic formula ‘I am Shiva,’ the highest reality.

Consciousness is immanent and also transcendental. The divided consciousness is not denied by Shri Shankara. The duality of subject and object, the existence of the delight and sweetness of the higher love, the sense of devotion and surrender of the personality to God are fully recognised in the philosophy of Advaita. But these experiences are all tentative and not ultimate. The ultimate is transcendence, which is called vidya (knowledge), the fullest vision of truth, ‘All is Brahman.’ Though the Self has the individual consciousness as its accompaniment, it soars far beyond it; it is all-inclusive and yet exclusive. To confound the empirical consciousness with the absolute consciousness is called avidya (ignorance). The cosmic experience is in avidya; it spins a universe out of itself under the direction of its Lord, the cosmic subject Ishvara. This is all in maya. Complete freedom and joy are found in the transcendental consciousness. All intuition is avidya. Brahman is absolute; it can be called by no other term except Sat-Chit-Ananda (Existence-Consciousness-Bliss).

Self is non-relational and opposed to all determinations. Thought is relational and therefore not competent to establish or prove the Self. ‘How can the Knower be known?’ says Yajnavalkya in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad. The changing character of thought cannot be adequate to establish the immutable. Thought is merely analytical or synthetical. It presupposes something which illumines it and reveals its own existence and objects. In short, cognition is cognition, and both subject and object are revealed in it.

Is there any basis of our experience, or is it all haphazard ideation like snow falling on a wood or a lake of water? There is reality underlying experience. Under the experiences of pleasure and pain, unity and multiplicity, there is a reality which combines them into a whole. To determine the nature of this reality, which is called Self or Atman, is an advanced function of the mind.

The system of non-dualism offers a reasoned consideration of the nature of knowledge. Another problem which must be met is that of duty and the ultimate ideal of human life. The orthodox theological basis can hardly help us in the solution of these great problems or riddles of life. The claim of Advaita, to humankind in general, is based not on its reference to Shruti (revelation) but on the great dialectics and independent reasoning which the traditional teachers have used in consideration of the thesis.

The students of Advaita must remember that the problems they have to solve are: (a) the ontological problem of reality, (b) cosmology, (c) psychology, and (d) the problem of striving to realise the ideal, final liberation from nescience. Having stated the problems which are to be solved under the light of the philosophy of Shri Shankara, we ask the reader to study them in the great classics of Advaita and to apply independent reasoning in examining the dialectics of the great philosophers.

It is dull-headed to take life at its face value. In the depths of the life of thought, emotion, inspiration and intuition, are hidden the springs of the water of immortality, peace, ethics, enjoyment of beauty and truth. These are open to a serious student of Advaita and to the one who experiments in the methods given with a serene mind and a loving heart. The assaults of ignorance upset the balance of our soul and make us foolish enough to run after the bubbles of the world—wealth, fame, false ideologies, sex, fanaticism, and so forth. Is there any defence against nescience? Not our untrained intellect. Not our hope-laden soul. Not our narrow nationalism. Not the deceptive excitement of drink and gambling. There is a sure shield against ignorance and it is non-attachment, elimination of non-essential desires and devotion. The final note is mukti, absolute deliverance.

Meditation is the key to liberation. Meditation on what? Is it to be on a supposed deity who lives in the clouds and whose realm, under the light of science, is shrinking daily? No, our subject for meditation is our own Self as truth and bliss.

A simple-minded man went to a fair on the banks of the river Ganges. He saw the shops, the abbots riding elephants and the ascetics delighting in dirt and dust. He worshipped at a temple and, at the injunction of a priest, offered his head to the deity, that is, he believed that his head was no longer on his shoulders. He told the people of the offering he had made: ‘Look, my friends, I have no head now I have offered it to the deity in the great temple.’ They laughed, they tried to convince the man that he had his head as ever. ‘No, no, no, you do not know. I have no head. It is in the temple,’ he cried.

The revealed texts and the Guru, the great Seers and the Mahatmas declare, ‘That thou art! That you are!’ They insist and say: ‘Thou art not the mind and the body. Thou art pure consciousness. There is no sin and no merit in thee. Free from grief and all duties, Shiva art thou!’ You think of the individuality and the personality and insist you are a crying mortal, that your happiness depends on the favour of a king or a youthful woman. Like the man who had offered his head, you believe in the reality of the body and the mind, and not that Consciousness under which perception and cognition are made possible, the absence of which cannot be imagined. ‘He shining, all else shines,’ says the Shruti. It is Atman, the Self, the attributeless Consciousness, Chit. Who confers interest on an object? Who creates values? The Self. It is rightly called Shiva, the highest good.

You cannot know the majestic, the immortal, the all-blissful Self by logic or by Hatha Yoga. The intellect in its quest for Self, the one and only reality, Sat, turns away baffled from its door. That is Sat. That is Self. Will you believe David Hume? He says you have no abiding self. The Sages say: ‘You are Chit (consciousness). You are Ishvara (God).’ Think who is reliable.

What logic can establish the existence of Self as Consciousness? Can the sun be lit by the light of a candle? According to the Sankhya doctrine, the purpose of Nature (Prakriti) is to help the release of the soul from the bondage of ignorance. The earth with its changing seasons, the rolling heaven with its stars and planets, the dawns and the sunsets proclaim His glory—and that Purusha, that spirit, thou art.

Hari Prasad Shastri

The Rose and the Water

The mystical tradition is that the Supreme Consciousness, which is transcendent, beyond time and space and causation, could never be known or express itself unless it had apparently created the world of manifestation, of names and forms. Just as a face can never see itself unless it has a mirror to look into, so the supreme Consciousness has created the universe as a mirror in which to see its own reflection. In the Islamic faith this is expressed by the tradition: ‘I was a hidden treasure, and in order to be known I created the world’.

So the knowability of the Creator depends on the universe which He creates. In the non-dual teachings it is held that the creation is not absolutely real; only Consciousness is Real. Or perhaps it may be said that the manifest universe is an apparent form into which the Consciousness has conjured itself.

An acquaintance of one of the pupils of Wang Yang Ming, a Chinese thinker of the 15th century CE, complained to his friend: ‘Why is the old Master always talking about Consciousness? Take Consciousness out of the discussion, and what else can he talk about?’ to which the reply was: ‘Take away Consciousness, and what is there to talk about?’

It is the position of Advaita. Consciousness is absolutely fundamental. The real and only real element in everything in the universe, is Consciousness. The Sufi poet Jami has expressed the same thing poetically: ‘The rose has gone from the garden; what shall we do with the thorns? The rose is what makes the garden worthwhile.’ He means that if the supreme Consciousness is not recognised as the substratum, of what use is anything in the world?

Abdul Qadir, another great Sufi, arrived at the gate of Baghdad. The other lesser teachers in the city, perhaps fearful of losing disciples, sent him a bowl full to the brim with water; the message intended was ‘Baghdad is already full of teachers; no more can be accommodated here.’ Abdul Qadir produced a beautiful rose and placed it on top of the water and sent it back. He was welcomed into the city with reverence and thereafter was known by the title of ‘The Rose of Baghdad’. That rose, which ‘moved upon the face of the waters’ in the bowl, symbolised the Consciousness which can never be excluded from any part of the universe, yet which transcends manifestation as if floating on it, and which is reflected in it especially as Beauty.

So Jami underlines the primacy of Consciousness: ‘The rose has gone from the garden; what shall we do with the thorns? The Shah is not in the city; what shall we do with his court? When the bird has flown, what shall we do with the cage?’

If we talk of anything other than Consciousness, we are talking of appearances and phenomena. Hari Prasad Shastri has written:

At the back of all the forces of nature and the mental forces of thought, ideation, emotion, etc., is the one great universal force of which all others are modifications. Even our life and the force of cohesion in nature are expressions of that great force. Matter is merely a condensed form of it. We can say it is the cause of all that we know or we can ever know, and it is also the knower.

The identification of Consciousness as the knower is important, both theoretically and practically. Consciousness is not an abstract concept; it is the real marrow of our being. By ‘the knower’ is meant that element in me, the ‘I’ which knows, which is the subject of experience. Of course, everyone is aware of it through introspection, but being aware of it is not necessarily to see it clearly as it really is. Wang Yang Ming says that to grasp its true and complete nature is more a matter of realisation than being convinced by arguments, and that everyone can realise it who strives for it. He himself ‘found it among a hundred deaths and a thousand difficulties’ and warned his pupils to treat it as a ‘living thing, never as a dead letter’.

Set over against the category of the knower is the category of the known. Chapter XIII of the Bhagavad Gita relates this to human nature in its analysis of the ‘Knower of the field’ and ‘the field’. One of the merits of non-dual psychology is its distinction between Consciousness and mind, which are often confused. As the witness of all mental activity, Consciousness must be different from that activity. To quote Hari Prasad:

Consciousness is the inner light which reveals the thought processes and the subject-object relationship. If you negate the thought processes, the picture-making faculty called imagination and also ratiocination, there still remains something which needs an explanation.

‘The field’ is the sphere of incessant activity, where the seeds are sown and nurtured and the harvest reaped and enjoyed; and there is the Consciousness in which all this change is being enacted: the ‘Knower of the field’. The identification of the ‘known’ with the mind may not be immediately obvious, but it is indisputable that everything we have known, or will ever know, is presented as a content of the mind. The whole world of our experience is within the mind. The mind can roam the whole world of actual or potential experience, but it can never go beyond the limits imposed by time, space and causation. Philosophically, ‘the field’ embraces the whole region of change, while ‘the Knower of the field’ is the changeless Consciousness which sustains it.

An analogy may be found in the physical world where the sun, without moving or exerting itself, sustains and illumines all earthly activity; it is, for instance, the cause of day and night and yet itself transcends day and night. The sun is beyond the reach of the earth’s weather, and so also is Consciousness unaffected by the weather of the mind with its moods and feelings.

The same analogy also helps to clear up a possible ambiguity in the term ‘the knower’. There is Consciousness, and also its manifold expressions as self-consciousness: the feeling of individuality in the personalities of men and women which appears to be very active. When the sun is reflected in patches of water, little images of the sun are reflected and appear to be in constant movement because of the surface disturbance of the water. This reflection of the sun of consciousness in the ‘water’ of the mind, gives rise to the feeling of a limited, finite ego. Unfortunately, this reflection forgets its true nature as consciousness and becomes identified with the swirling activity of the water.

It was with this in mind that Lu Kuei Meng, a Chinese writer of the 9th century CE, told the story of two dragons who were captured and kept in a pond by a peasant who fed them on scraps. One day a wild dragon flew by and took pity on them; he reminded them of the freedom and opportunities which would be theirs if they escaped from captivity. But the two tame dragons were unwilling to renounce the security of their known routine for an adventure into the unknown, and they rejected his advice. Shortly afterwards, when they were fat enough, their keeper killed them as food for a rich man’s table.

The story illustrates the maxim: ‘When a man is a beggar, he thinks small change a fortune.’ The implication is that, in order to rise above beggarhood, he must rise above small change. Of course he may have to use small change initially as a means, but if he regards it as the be-all and end-all, it will become an end and he will never escape from beggarhood. A yogi cannot be satisfied with the small change of wealth or social position or power which the world offers; a true seeker wants nothing less than Godhead.

This was brought out by a Sufi Master of the Maulavi sect who was approached by a novice for permission to take part in the mystic dance. His advice to the novice was: ‘Fast completely for three days. Then have all your favourite dishes prepared by a good cook. If you then prefer the dance to the chance of sitting down when hungry to an appetising meal, take part in it.’

The novice begins by restraining the desires for worldly advantages because these are a major cause of the reflection (chidabhasa) being identified with the water (the kaleidoscope of changing impressions presented by the mind) instead of recognising its own nature as the changeless Consciousness. The ordinary person does not watch the happenings in the mind as if they were a drama on the stage; on the contrary, there is identification with them and they are treated as real. By contrast, the Sage takes as real the changeless Consciousness and regards the ever-changing images of the mind as ephemeral; he does not cling to them since he knows that they will pass away after a short time. As Hari Prasad has written:

The changeable objects will change whether we wish them to or not. It is in their nature to change. No change is per se either good or bad. The attached, deluded jiva (limited individual consciousness) labels them as ‘good’ and ‘bad’ according to its own reaction to change... We must recognise the immutability of the jiva and the jiva must smile at the changes. When Consciousness is fixed in its own state of changelessness, it goes beyond fear and sorrow.

During the battle in which the samurai Saigo was defeated and died, one of his friends, anticipating what might happen, asked the Sage: ‘Is it victory or defeat?’ Saigo replied: ‘It is Saigo: do not grieve for anything. In undertaking anything, the heart must be at the disposal of Heaven.’

The non-dual teachings provide the technique of establishing one’s centre or focus in the changeless Consciousness, instead of in its expression as self-consciousness identified with the changing contents of the mind. By this adjustment, all problems are solved, all difficulties are overcome.

W.P.H.

Creating the Valuable

Amidst the religious ferment of 17th century Europe, new sects arose, and in some instances men and women of eminence emerged to give a lead to the people. The Quakers, or ‘Society of Friends’, was one such grouping, and Isaac Penington, the subject of this article, was one of the Society’s leading lights.

Isaac was born in 1617, the son of a puritan alderman, who was at one time the Lord Mayor of London. He received a good education and when he grew up threw himself into the fashionable, but somewhat decadent, life of contemporary London society. In this period he married the already divorced Lady Mary Springett. They moved in the favoured circles which surrounded the government of the Commonwealth.

The Society of Friends began to form in about 1647, influenced by the preaching of George Fox. The daughter of Lady Mary by her first marriage was a Quaker, and married William Penn, the later founder of Pennsylvania. Isaac Penington married into this circle, and in 1658 he and his wife both joined the Society, rejecting the worldly advantages which they had hitherto enjoyed. He became one of the greatest of the Quaker mystics and left a large body of writings on the inner path.

The Quakers laid great stress on silence. The form of their meeting was then, as it is now, that of a group silence, waiting upon the inspiration of the spirit. It is not quite formal meditation; anyone who felt moved to speak was free to do so. But they regarded this silent communion as their special form of worship, and they understood that real love can only be expressed in silence and concentration; it is not effusive. There is, in fact, an art in loving which needs to be learnt. Love is an attempt to overcome the feeling of separateness and isolation, which besets the individual in an alien world. But love is not only an urge to break through the barriers of an alien world and establish some real communication, it is also an urge to break out of the limitations of the empirical personality itself. It is, in other words, an urge towards self-transcendence.

There is a deep significance in the feeling of love, because it is quite overtly a feeling for infinity and immortality. Even the physical love of parents is an instinct towards immortality— perhaps a blind instinct, but nonetheless an instinct to go on existing in the child on the physical plane, and so to escape the inevitable death of the body. And the love of the parents for the child is another form of self-transcendence, an escape from the confines of limited self-love.

But, as all the wisdom teachers tell us, if love is limited to the physical plane it is superficial and soon disappointed. We must love another person for their personality, for their inner being, not only their outer shell. Higher still is the love of a person for what they really are. For there is an innate perfection in each and everyone. The Quakers knew this, and they spoke of it, sometimes as the divine seed in human beings, and sometimes as the inner light. The only really abiding love is the love of this divine element in the heart of all. Penington says:

This talent which God has placed in man, to witness for him and to guide man from evil unto good, is the seed, which is freely bestowed on man to spring up and remain in him, and to gather him out of himself, into itself. The pure living heavenly knowledge of the Father, and of His Son, Jesus Christ, is wrapped up in this seed. God is light; and the seed, which comes from Him, is not darkness, but light; and in the springing light of this seed, God and Christ are revealed... And he that is united to the seed, to the measure of grace and truth from Christ wherein and whereby the soul is united, is united to God.

It is significant that this element is spoken of by the Quakers as a ‘seed’. In the Bhagavad Gita we find the same word used to describe the divine element hidden in each and every person. The Lord says in chapter nine:

I am the imperishable seed. The deluded despise Me clad in human form, not knowing My higher nature as Lord of all existence. The Mahatmas who abide in the divine nature, knowing Me as the imperishable source of all beings, worship Me with an undistracted mind.

The significance of the word ‘seed’, as Penington points out, is that this element exists as a centre of potential life—an element with almost infinite possibilities for expansion and growth, but ordinarily lying dormant in most people. It is for this reason that it is spoken of as a ‘talent’, or as being like a grain of mustard seed. For it is, as Penington says, ‘of an improving, growing nature’. Moreover, it carries within itself the secret of immortality:

It is a seed that can never die in itself, though it may be as it were dead in man, not putting forth any of its hidden life or virtue in the man that hath slain it as to himself; who, having slain that whereby God gives life, is dead in trespasses and in sins, and cannot live any more till God breathe upon and quicken this seed in him, and him by this seed. This is a great mystery. Doubtless the seed of life and godliness, wherein the life and godliness of the soul lies hid, must needs be a great mystery, and cannot be known but as God reveals it.

Penington in this passage speaks of the one who has slain the seed whereby God gives life, and the Upanishads speak in similar terms. The Isha Upanishad says that the unregenerate, who delight only in physical life and are addicted to sensual pleasures, go to the worlds which are enveloped in blinding darkness and that they are indeed slayers of the Self.

But this seed of the Self, even if it can appear as if dead, is immortal. It does not die with the death of the body, as the second chapter of the Bhagavad Gita emphasises, nor can its infinite potentialities be extinguished, even if they are unrealised. This is the birth-right of each and every person, and it means that everyone has the capacity to awaken and create the valuable, by awakening this seed of divinity within oneself.

One of the deficiencies of the modern, scientific outlook is that it has made us cynical and forgetful of the great promise and reward held out by the illumined teachers. We are chary of giving ourselves to the life-enhancing feeling of reverence and hope which these teachings can inspire in us, because we have lost that clear vision of the child, which sees the essential, just because it is uncomplicated and direct. Beauty in art, music, or literature, should be able to induce in us a feeling of awe and joy. And the person who loses this capacity has lost more than just an aesthetic experience; for them everything is belittled, and nothing is really valued or valuable.

A cynical and iconoclastic attitude makes it difficult to understand or enter into the feeling of worship. The word ‘worship’ means literally ‘to make valuable’. Its old meaning was ‘worth-ship’, and it applied not only to the religious observances which we all associate it with, but to any eminent or respectable person, as when we still speak of His Worship the Mayor, or the Worshipful Company of Pewterers. But the true meaning of worship is to make something valuable—to give it worth.

Not that the object of worship is necessarily changed by worship; on the contrary, the feeling of worship changes us and not the object of worship at all. But it is nonetheless a creative activity. It is only when we have begun to recognise the hidden talent which we possess that we begin to understand true worship. And then one begins to create something really valuable out of oneself by developing this talent.

The Sufi mystic, Rumi, says that love is like capital, and that we should endeavour to increase it by every means in our power like a good investor. This is an important aspect of the practice of worship or devotion. In the ninth chapter of the Bhagavad Gita, the Lord reveals to his pupil, Prince Arjuna, the sovereign secret that worship is the way in which we gain access to this divine seed seated in our own heart. For God is not a distant deity who exists in some cosmic heaven far from mankind: He is our innermost being, nearer than the jugular vein. When we approach in the right way we get the response from Him.

My worshippers come to Myself. When one offers to Me with devotion a leaf, a flower, a fruit or water, that I accept, offered with devotion by the pure-minded. Whatever you do, whatever you eat, whatever you sacrifice, whatever you give, in whatever self-restraint you engage, do it as an offering to Me.

It is by our loving efforts to worship and adore that Lord who is the source of all, from Whom, as He says in the Gita, everything evolves, that we promote the growth of this little seed of divinity in us. Does He not say Himself:

The same am I to all beings; to Me there is none hateful or dear. But whoso worships Me with devotion, they are in Me and I am also in them.

The divine seed within us is indeed the pearl of great price, for which, the Gospel tells us, a merchant sold all that he had in order to buy it. It is a hidden treasure. Penington writes:

It makes the wise merchant very rich who sells all for it and buys the field and it. He that buys the Truth, and will by no means sell or part with it, but gives up to it and makes it his treasure, O how it doth enrich his heart with that which is holy and heavenly! How rich does it make him!

In reading Penington, one has the sense of someone who has really experienced what he is talking about. And he is much concerned that people will not talk themselves out of facing up to this reality. In one passage he says:

Ah, do not imagine, and talk away the rest and salvation of thy soul. The Gospel state is a state of substance, a state of enjoying the life, a state of feeling the presence and power of the Lord in his pure, holy spirit. A state of knowing the Lord, and walking with Him in the light of his own spirit.

Permissiveness puts the onus on the individual to make the right choice. And it is, as we all know, associated with subtle pressures and suggestions that urge the ordinary person to sensualism as the way to the fuller life. These are false suggestions, for the resort to this mode of life leads to greater limitations and bondage. In this way we ‘slay’ the Self, and the divine seed within us lies dormant, as if dead, not realising any of its potentialities.

Through love we can be redeemed. Love means expansion of consciousness, not individualism. It expresses itself naturally in service and in joy in service. It gives life a meaning and the individual a raison d’etre. But love, if it is to last, has to be love of something higher than one’s own individuality. The object of love will be disappointing if its potentialities are soon exhausted. The more finite it is, the sooner it will be exhausted.

What really matters in loving another person is the depth at which we love them. If it is only physical, it is soon exhausted. If it is at a mental or psychological level, it is more lasting. How wisely Shakespeare spoke, in Sonnet 116, of the marriage of true minds. If we love the person for themselves, as they really are in their essence, then we can have a love which is inexhaustible, because whatever conception of their Self we start with, we shall go on discovering the great inner potential of this divine seed of the Self, hidden within them as within everyone. The saints and the sages love each and every individual for their real Self, because they see in them this infinite storehouse of higher potentialities latent in their inner being.

According to the mystics, to live fully is to learn to love fully. And that means to love the Highest, both in the individual and in all beings. This is the real revolution for which the world is waiting. This is the basis on which a Utopian society, and equality in the real sense, can be built. So many of the supposed political gospels which we are offered are bankrupt when considered from this point of view. Indeed, if one thinks from this point of view, totalitarianism is nothing but a failure in love, and a resort to force or power as an imagined substitute for it.

The wisdom teachers, too, hold that the full life demands self-expression. But the question is what level of our being we express: the animal, emotional, intellectual or the spiritual.

Penington puts it that the person who is born of God is born of love, and being in love cannot but be tender. While one who is born of earthly wisdom, he says, cannot but persecute. Because the former knows that people will only receive the Truth by loving recognition and acceptance of it in their heart. While those who rely on worldly wisdom inevitably want to coerce, or force their opinions on others. It is for this reason that the Quaker tradition relies on the inspiration of the inner light.

In this tradition, no individual is to become the teacher or the priest. They will not have any priests, because they believe that the inspiration can come from the inner light in anyone at any time because of this inner potentiality. Penington writes:

I have met with the seed. Understand that word, and thou wilt be satisfied and enquire no further. I have met with my God. I have met with the true knowledge, the knowledge of life, the living knowledge, the knowledge which is life. What shall I say? I have met with the true peace, true righteousness, the true holiness, the true rest of the soul, the everlasting habitation which the redeemed dwell in. And I know all these to be true, in Him that is true. And am capable of no doubt, dispute or reasoning in my mind about them.

A.M.H.

Is Vedanta Dogmatic?

A CRITICISM sometimes levelled against the Vedanta (the conclusion of the Vedas—the Upanishadic non-dual teachings) is that it is dogmatic, since its starting-point is the acceptance of the Vedic texts, and the use of reason is confined to elucidating their meaning. At the beginning of his commentary on the Brahma Sutras, Shri Shankara remarks:

The comprehension of Brahman takes place by the ascertainment, consequent on discussion, of the sense of the Vedanta texts, and not by inference or any other means of valid knowledge.

This is taken to mean, by those ignorant of Shankara’s true position, that he has no real philosophy in the sense of an independent critical investigation of truth, that he rejects the claims of reason in all major issues, and substantiates his arguments by reference to Upanishadic revelation (Shruti). Thus, they hold, he cannot be called a philosopher in the true sense of the word, since his reasoning rests on certain claims and presuppositions which not all are prepared to accept.

The deeper and dedicated enquirer will come to recognise that Shankara’s acceptance of the Vedic texts is not the starting point of his philosophy but the culmination, arising out of his theory of knowledge and metaphysical conclusions derived from a purely rational enquiry.

Let us consider first: what do we mean by knowledge? When we use the word ‘knowledge’ to denote that which reveals an existent entity, and not merely in the sense of formal logic which is not concerned with the question of reality, then the following observations can be made.

Knowledge is always conditioned by the nature of the object to be known and not by the individual notions of the perceiving subject. This is what distinguishes it from imagination, opinion or illusion, and gives it the characteristic of universality. Shankara remarks: ‘To say of a post that it is either a post or a man or something else, is not to give it its truth.’ There can be no option about knowledge: the nature of the entity itself determines it. For example, the nature of fire is heat, of water wetness, of space extension, and so on; facts, being independent of time, place and circumstance, are open to verification by all. This, in principle, holds good for all existent entities, whatever their nature, either empirical or otherwise.

What then are the means of knowledge (pramanas)? Not only knowledge, but also the means of knowledge, are governed by the nature of the existent entity. The inherent nature of fire determines the knowledge ‘fire is hot’ and also the fact that it is to be apprehended by the sense of touch. The means of knowledge stand in direct relationship to the nature of the objects to be known. It would be useless to try to know the scent of a rose by any other sense but that of smell, or the sound of bird-song except by hearing; every sense operates and is valid within its own particular sphere only. Reason has a much wider sphere, since it operates on the reports of all the senses; but if there is any reality beyond the realm of the senses, reason will be incompetent to reveal it. Shankara does not draw the conclusion that such a reality would be unknowable, but merely makes the point that it would require a different means of knowing. But have we any grounds for believing that such a supersensuous reality exists? Could it be that all is illusion?

We find in our everyday experience that we are sometimes deceived by what we consider to be real. An object curled up in a dim corner may be judged to be a snake; a stump of a tree in a shady lane may be seen as the crouching figure of a man. Such examples of illusion are common enough to necessitate a means of differentiating between truth and falsity, and this is found in the principle of non-contradictability. The apparently real snake, which is found to be a rope when a light is brought, does not fulfil this condition and is therefore termed illusory. It is not non-existent, like the horns of a man, since it is actually perceived, but its existence is that of the rope, not the snake. It is only when there is some impediment to correct perception that such a ‘snake’ is apprehended.

What then is the status of empirical objects? For Shankara, the objects of the empirical world are more substantial than the illusory objects, because they have a relatively more permanent existence, and also a pragmatic value (although this latter point may be true of certain illusory objects also, which makes the distinction more difficult to define). But when we critically examine the empirical objects themselves, do we not find that they too are riddled with contradictions? Scientists and philosophers admit it. This being so, are we not justified, in the light of our experience of illusion, in assuming that such contradictions point beyond themselves to an underlying reality which is free from contradictions? All objects of the world, including our empirical selves, our minds and bodies, come and go, are born and die; whence do they derive their existence? Either we must decide that they come out of nothingness, appear for a while and then pass into nothingness, or else we must infer that there is some unchangeable reality behind them, of which they are apparent forms. Such a reality must necessarily be non-dual, since plurality implies finitude with its attendant contradictions.

Now we need to carefully analyse what is meant by the word ‘I’. If we focus the investigation on that particular part of the universe which is nearest to ourself, our own ego, we meet the same contradictions. We are conscious of ourselves as a unity, yet all we can find on examining the ego is a series of shifting mental states. Logically, the self-contradictory nature of the ego alone should lead us to suspect that it is an appearance veiling an underlying reality. But Shankara has an even more convincing argument, which solves the mystery of the felt unity but apparent diversity of the self. He points out that we have direct evidence that there is something beyond the perceiving ego. These fleeting cognitions and changing mental states, the sum total of which we term ‘I’, are surely themselves apprehended by some experiencing entity which does not change. Being the Knower, we miss it in our search, yet its presence cannot be denied, for it is under its light that the diversity of mental operations is revealed. When we consider the nature of such an unchanging Witness of the empirical knower itself, we are led to the conclusion that, being free from all contradictions, it must be infinite and therefore the common substratum of the whole universe, not merely of the ego where its presence is first detected.

The question as to how the ultimate reality can be known now resolves itself into: ‘How can the Knower be known?’ This is a riddle because there is no separation between the Knower and the Self who wishes to know it. In a sense, therefore, it cannot ever be unknown! The problem only arises because we are firmly identified, as ego, with those very mental activities which serve to obscure the underlying reality and make it appear to be unknown. Obviously, no form of mental activity can give a direct cognition of Self: it will only perpetuate the obscuring of it. On the contrary, the only barrier to direct perception of reality is mental activity together with its roots. If this can be subdued, a direct perception must result. This is what Shankara refers to as anubhava—supra-mental intuition—and he holds that it is the only pramana which is valid in this sphere.

Why, then, does he attach so much importance to Shruti? Because Shruti is anubhava, the personal anubhava of the Seers embodied, as far as is possible, in written form. For the one who has realised the truth, there can be no proof of its validity other than one’s own experience. Shruti is not his authority: it becomes, so to say, the words out of his own mouth. But for the one who is treading the path, Shruti is accepted as authoritative, pending its verification in the pupil’s own intuitive experience. This does not mean that he accepts it blindly, but that he treats it with the respect of a student towards a master and applies his reason to understand it. We cannot afford to ignore this valuable part of the heritage of the human race. No scientist dismisses the work of his predecessors, but makes his own personal discoveries through first pondering over theirs. So Shruti indicates the most profitable way in which reasoning can be used if it is to lead to the highest discovery.

Our aim is anubhava, but this anubhava is conditional on the ability to suppress, consciously, the mental activities whose very roots are ignorance of that reality. Our own unaided efforts would keep us in the same circle of ignorance. The illusory snake cannot be suppressed until its substratum, the rope, is known; the rope will not be known until the snake which veils it is removed. But both processes will take place simultaneously on hearing the words of one who sees correctly: ‘That snake is a rope!’ It is by thoroughly investigating the Vedanta texts, whose origin is direct experience of reality, that the ignorance is dissolved, worldly desires drop away, and the agitation and outward-going tendencies of the mind are corrected. An intense desire arises to know that highest reality, and the mind turns inwards towards it. As the understanding deepens, the capacity develops to subdue the activities of the mind and focus the whole intent on the Light which lies behind it. The culmination takes the form of a sudden awakening to reality, when the revelations at last achieve their purpose.

M.A.

Self-Forgetfulness

One of the phrases that appeared in the 1960s was ‘It blew my mind’. It was particularly associated with the psychological effects of hallucinogenic drugs. The phrase is still used, but its meaning has softened. Nowadays, we may hear it applied to any experience that makes a deep, pleasant or powerful impression on our mind, or induces forgetfulness of our situation with its worries and responsibilities. Thus our mind can be blown not just by intense sensory experience, but in the presence of genuine excellence in entertainment, instruction or outstanding achievement.

The problem with blowing the mind in the original sense is that the joy induced depends on outer props. It also suffers from a ‘diminishing margin of satisfaction’: the original satisfaction can only be matched by increased dosages, as side-effects harm the body and depress the mind.

Let us ask why the mind feels a need to be blown at all, and whether this need can be met in a harmless and creative way.

The first thing to note is that the thirst for an improved state of consciousness implies that there is something absent or undeveloped in our present psychological functioning. We note also that where there is a deep and persistent desire, there must exist the means to fulfil that desire, even though these means may be concealed to start with. The words of Aristotle towards the end of his Ethics, suggest the true range of human aspiration:

And we ought not to listen to those who counsel us: ‘...O mortal, remember your mortality’. Rather ought we, so far as in us lies, to put on immortality and to leave nothing unattempted in the effort to live in conformity with the highest thing in us.

For Aristotle, there is ‘something divine within us’. He associated this ‘divine particle’ with our intellect, and held that its higher facets could be revealed, at least partially, through abstract contemplation on metaphysical problems. This, for him, was the way to true happiness.

What, then, is the seemingly missing or undeveloped aspect of our nature, which drives us to experiment with ‘blowing the mind’? It is surely the thirst for lasting happiness, based on a deeper understanding of our own nature.

It may seem that lasting joy is the one condition that is not available to human beings, due to our limited powers and the fact that life’s changes culminate in death and the loss of everything. But this is not the whole story. Before Aristotle, the sages of the non-dual tradition fathomed the mystery of the human mind, and thereby achieved a breakthrough in understanding which brought a complete end to the restlessness of ‘not knowing’. They found that once the mind was suitably prepared, the supreme and fulfilling knowledge that underlies life would be revealed of itself as self-evident. No new knowledge would be born within us, because there was no need for any new revelation. The knowledge of absolute truth is innate in our being, as our true nature, our ‘I’. The suitable preparation of the mind (and not of the pure ‘I’ itself) was a process of removing the obstacles to knowledge, which would then shine through.

Needless to say, this preparation for higher knowledge has nothing to do with artificial aids to upliftment; rather the opposite is the case. The true quest calls for inner purification and deliberately to foster pure thoughts, speech and actions. Christ taught that those who are ‘pure in heart’ shall realise the supreme being, and the Bhagavad Gita holds that there is no purifier equal to wisdom, which will be revealed as our true nature in the course of time. Central to this course is the removal or dissolving of the ego as the authoritative centre of our individualised experience. This is because self-recognition is replaced by the vision that ‘I am the Self of all’.

The expression ‘blowing the mind’ will itself be more meaningful if re-expressed as ‘transcending the mind’, considered not as an uplifting interlude, but as the realisation of the fundamental nature of the Self at all times. We can then set about the task of adjusting our inner life in the most rewarding way.

The first consideration is a critical review of our tastes and preferences—the type of stimuli we favour as our constant resort in daily life. Our mind has not evolved randomly. We are the ones who develop our own fixations, choosing the themes and images we fill our minds with in our spare hours. The mind thus has a sponge-like nature, holding certain qualities as a sponge holds the liquid it is soaked in. We have to decide, from self-observation, what content to augment and what to reduce as unhelpful to the mind’s ultimate quest for self-realisation.

This monitoring and reflection is one aspect of a wider endeavour. We need to consider what it is in our makeup that renders us receptive to certain kinds of input and not others. These inner tendencies may have conditioned our state of mind for much of our life and may be the cause of serious limits in the way we think and meet experiences. So in addition to applying quality-control over the incoming stream of impressions, we need to learn sufficient inner control to influence for the better what are sometimes called the ‘knots of the heart’. In this matter, the more we can familiarise ourselves with the enlightened thought of our predecessors, the better equipped and informed we will be in finding the best way of personal advance.

The world is like a stage where misunderstandings often eclipse empathy, and this habit applies to our own personal interpretation of self. Most people naturally live lives that show a high degree of self-interest, and a deep wish for success and significance. On our pure quest we have to ask ourselves why the ego thirsts for this enhancement and glory. One answer is that the human mind generally, and the ego as its innermost element, is pervaded by the real Self, and therefore does partake, in a hidden way, of the grandeur of that Self. Sometimes this aspect of ego is called a reflection of the ultimate light (and true life) of Self; in other teachings it is said to be a divine spark, not separate from the whole. It is as if we are aware of something great at a subconscious level, and feel an urge to reclaim this eminence. This is not a conscious remembrance; rather it is a sensibility, at present vague and misty, of a state of being that is never separate from us, but which is curiously hidden by our own mental processes. The true way forward is by learning more about the true nature of the ‘I’.

From the highest standpoint, if our mind is ‘blown’ so that there is forgetfulness of our individuality, we are verging on a condition that is as rare as it is truly desirable. The Sufi master, Jalaluddin Rumi, has taught that ‘dying to self is the fundamental principle’. But the meaning of this consummation will only dawn in one who has followed a traditional path to higher knowledge, and not to one who is intoxicated in the worldly sense.

We may doubt that our mind is capable of this transformation. After all, we are using the mind to transcend the mind, and this process is bound to leave the most important part of the mind, that which manages the transcendence, as itself untranscended; thus we will never really escape from limitations. But regular practice with deep interest will prove that the mind is meant to be a servant of that which is highest in us, where what prevails is Self-experience which is infinite, ever the same, and totally free from the transiency of the phenomenal realm of time, space and causation.

Self-forgetfulness is the key, but it applies to the personal, seemingly individualised self, and not to ‘the one Self in all’, which is the pure and infinite consciousness in which we live, move and have our being.

A.H.C.

No Friends or Enemies

The Thousand Teachings of Shankara, Prose Part, Section Three

We want to be free. What is freedom and how to achieve it? True freedom is more than political or economic freedom. It is freedom from all the limitations imposed on us by the workings of the law of cause and effect. Ultimate freedom means being free of all the effects of past causes and not accruing new ones. How to do this? Shri Shankara writes:

Ignorance causes imperfections, which cause us to make efforts to overcome them. These efforts are the causes of more results. [from The Thousand Teachings, Prose Part, Section Three, Paragraph 112]

Here, ‘making efforts’ means doing something with the intention of bringing about a result, together with attachment to that result. It is this attachment that binds us to the process of cause and effect, not the action in itself. The motive for action with attachment to the results is a sense of imperfection and the conviction that we need something to overcome that imperfection. Desire is the wish to overcome a need, an imperfection. And the sense of imperfection is rooted in ignorance, in not knowing our true Self, which is untouched by any need or imperfection.

There is a popular view that human bondage consists in an endless cycle of birth and death from which one must escape. Here Shankara makes clear that the essential need is to overcome ignorance of Self, and that action is a problem only in so far as action reinforces the wrong view that the individualised doer of action is the Self, which happens when there is attachment to the results of action. The binding effects of action and how to be free of them is a central teaching of the Bhagavad Gita also. In the Thousand Teachings, Shankara shows logically how the problem is ignorance of Self and that the only solution is Self-knowledge.

He continues by reminding us that sense objects are not conscious in themselves; they have no knowledge of themselves or each other. They are objects perceived through the senses, and they are different in kind from the one who knows them. Objects have manifold qualities: they combine, change, and produce pleasurable and painful effects. The true knower is entirely unlike them, being the unchanging one that knows all the changing qualities equally. [From paragraph 113]

Remembering this, whenever what we see and hear disturbs us, we can repeatedly reason with ourselves:

Sound cannot touch me, I am unrelated to it. Sound cannot touch me as mere noise, or as notes, nor as words of praise or insult. It may affect someone who does not discriminate and identifies what is heard with one’s self. But sounds cause no good or harm to one who practices discrimination between Self and not-Self. Similarly, objects of touch cannot affect me any more than blows affect space. Equally, I am not affected by sights, because my Self does not belong to the realm of what can be seen. [From paragraph 115]

What is being presented here is not a one-off proof that sense objects cannot affect the true Self. The meaning is that such cogitation needs to be maintained, as long as our mind continues to present unhappy, disturbing thoughts. Self is bliss, and this is obscured only by mistaken identification.

Elsewhere, Shankara argues that repeated meditation is not necessary to understand the texts which reveal the identity of Self and Absolute Reality, and it has been suggested that he is unclear or inconsistent on this point. What Shankara says is that the knowledge ‘I am the Absolute Reality’ is conveyed by the direct statements in the Upanishads, which are the records left by the enlightened sages. There is no other valid source of this knowledge, and without those statements, no amount of meditation could lead to this knowledge. It is important to approach these special statements with the respect and care due to them as the only valid source of this knowledge. In the section of the Thousand Teachings that we are currently considering, Shankara makes the separate point that repeated reasoning is needed to correct thoughts which are opposed to this teaching and which affirm one’s identity with the finite, so long as those thoughts continue to appear in the mind.

Shankara demonstrates how such reasoning may proceed:

It is those very elements which we perceive through the senses that combine to form the bodies and sense organs and the mind. [Bodies are objects formed from the same elements as other objects.] Therefore, for the one who knows these elements [and is quite different from them], there can be nothing helpful or harmful.

Shankara is emphasising that nothing can ultimately help or harm the true Self, which does not belong to the realm of cause and effect. For this reason, the true Self has no friends or enemies.

My friends and enemies, taking note only of the body and senses, may try to cause me pleasure or pain. But this, together with the merits and demerits that flow from it, belongs only to them and not to me, who am ‘beyond decay, deathless, beyond danger and fear’. [From paragraph 116]

This is an insight for careful reflection: if friends try to cause us pleasure through praise, or if others try to afflict us with hard words, it is only they who are affected by these acts. Of course, the same applies whenever we are prompted to pursue our self-interests in relation to others by thought, word or deed.

The text concludes with a reaffirmation of the highest truth and the fundamental reason why nothing can harm the Self: ultimately, there is nothing other than Self.

P.H.

Meditation Practice

In meditation we deliberately turn our attention away from the outer world towards the deeper levels of our mind. Within us all there is a centre of peace, strength, purity and fulfilment. Meditation is a means of uncovering this level of our being.

This innermost realm has its source in the supreme Truth. It is neither material nor mental. We can perhaps refer to it as transcendent. The subjects, images or sentences we focus on in meditation, point to the truth of our inner Being which transcends all limitations. This quality gives meditation a special value, and evokes the feeling of reverence with which we approach the practice.

There should be no sense of hurry when the time for meditation comes. We establish that receptive mood by taking a few deep, conscious breaths, through the nose if possible, and with each breath letting go of any tensions. Do this for a minute or two. Then:

Continuing to breathe slowly and deeply, imagine that the breath is being drawn up from the region of the navel and ends at the space between the eyebrows. At the same time, as you breathe in, say to yourself inwardly the word ‘peace’, and as you breathe out, ‘light’.

There is great teaching behind this practice. Beneath the mind’s restlessness there is peace in the core of our being. Beneath confusion and tension there is the pure and clear light of consciousness that reveals the whole mental process but ever transcends thought. This practice helps calm the mind, gather up our concentration, and remind us of these deeper values of peace and light awaiting expression in and through our own mind. Do this for two to three minutes.

Next comes an exercise in visualisation:

Imagine the morning sun shining in the heart centre. Visualise the morning sun radiating there, filling your body with light, and sending out rays of peace and power.

This visualisation has three stages. First, establish this picture of the bright sun shining in the heart centre. Then, see the light from the sun in the heart centre spreading to fill your whole body. Finally, see the light that fills your body spread outwards in all directions.

Thoughts will arise to distract you. When this happens, stay relaxed. Gently, but firmly, bring the attention back to the visualisation of the sun and its radiations within and around you. No burdens or limitations remain; you are one with the light. Spend a minute or two on each stage of the practice.

Finally, we meditate on this text:

I WITHDRAW MY CONSCIOUSNESS

FROM THE SENSES AND THE MIND

AND REST IN THE PEACE AND LIGHT

OF MY TRUE SELF.

Establish the sentence in your mind, by calmly repeating it to yourself a few times, in full or in part. As you say it, allow its meaning to enter your being more deeply. Each part has a special meaning and appeals to our higher nature. See the practice as a kind of return home for the mind. Thus, we recognise that we are not just body and mind but something much greater that always abides within at the root of our being. Absorb yourself in this meditation for five to six minutes.

Close your meditation practice by sending out thoughts of peace and goodwill to all, in the awareness that the same light shines in the heart of all living beings, without exception.

B.D.

How Can Non-duality Help Me Now?

Non-duality can help us now by showing where to find four precious and life-giving resources. These are: a refuge, a foundation, a direction and a purpose.

Where do these boons come from? Their source is Reality itself, non-dual, one without a second. This source is transcendental, but in the world of relativity we encounter it in the form of teachings, recorded in ancient texts, and presented in the language of our time, by those who have discovered the essence in themselves and thus apparently assumed the role of teachers, although no agency can truly be attributed to them.

The teachings disclose that we are living under the burden of a misapprehension regarding our own situation. Until now, our human consciousness has revealed to us a world of opportunities and dangers, together with some limited and fragile capacities that we have been granted in order to survive and perhaps prosper. We attain or achieve moments of well-being and happiness, but these prove incomplete and impermanent. We feel a want of security, strength, purpose and fulfilment, and so a cloud of anxiety hangs over us.

The non-dual teachings can guide us to a source of security, strength, purpose and fulfilment. On the way, an obstacle must be overcome. This obstacle is more apparent than real, but it gains stature from an effective disguise. The obstacle is a preconception, which prevents us from hearing the teachings, or rather, worse, it distorts and dilutes their meaning. This expectation assumes the disguise of ‘being realistic’, but in fact stems from ignorance of Reality.

The assumption is that non-duality will be another assemblage of ideas and strategies, similar to those we have already encountered—some related to our religious heritage, others presenting themselves as innovations—all purporting to make the most of those fragile and limited capacities to survive, prosper and endure our situation. This presumption is dignified as an attitude of realism, because so far we have not been able to form an idea of anything greater.

The non-dual philosophy is presented in combination with practical teachings. Our preconceptions cause us to misunderstand the goal of these techniques and to believe that they are further ways to make the best of our circumstances. In fact, the intended outcome of these methods, rightly applied, is that we will be enabled to receive and absorb the full meaning of the non-dual teaching. This essential message is not how to cope with our situation, but that our true position is entirely other than we currently believe it to be. This is because, from the highest standpoint, the world of opportunities and dangers is a phenomenal appearance, not the absolute truth. Our real nature is not a part of the phenomenal world and its constrictions, but the Consciousness in which the universe of forms appears.

In order to assimilate this revelation, we require inner qualities including the capacity for voluntary mental quiescence and sustained one-pointed concentration. These resemble skills prescribed by those schools of personal development whose purpose is to enhance our individual condition, rather than to transcend it completely. Thus our preconceptions lead us to mistake the means for the end, and the teachings bring no relief of our fundamental problem. It is only when we have been brought to a point of readiness by much experience of life, that a fresh possibility emerges. When all attempts to find happiness by enhancing our individual inner resources have failed, then we may be receptive to a message which is not a variation on anything our mind has, or could have, formulated before, and the true import of the teachings makes some impression on our understanding.

Now there appears before us a further divide between our present standpoint and the objective, as we understand it. We may intuitively recognise, or intellectually accept, that the non-dual teaching on the essential identity of the human and the transcendent, does follow from the principle that the whole transcends the parts. But this rational consent is accompanied by a sense of regret. Direct knowledge that the individual consciousness is not in essence different from the Universal, may be, we acknowledge, in principle possible for rare spiritual heroes. But, we confess, it is certainly beyond the scope of our own, quite ordinary, capabilities.

Yet once again, the apparent defeat arises from a misapprehension regarding what is required and expected of us. We imagine that we must somehow journey across the vastness that seems to separate us from the mountain peak. But this assessment is the offspring of what has been exposed as a primal error, and it is distracting us from the real task ahead. That task is to unlearn the lessons which have convinced us that we are no more than a mind and body striving to survive.

The need is not to bring about a marvel, but to remove the veils that obscure the living Truth. This is the ultimate challenge of life, but the means necessary to meet it are available, and not only to an exceptional few. What may prevent us from recognising and employing those means, is a continued belief that life, that is, the life of a body and mind in the world, can yield enduring satisfaction, and that if it has not done so yet, this is because we have not explored and exhausted all its possibilities.

The determination to seek and discover fulfilment in the world revealed by our mind and senses, may be sustained by our currently incomplete understanding of the wisdom teachings. There we find reasons, and perhaps courage, to persevere with the search, and also further grounds to fear that if we have not succeeded, it is merely because our individual efforts so far have been insufficient, and therefore we must, once again, try harder.

At this point, our need for a refuge, foundation, direction and purpose, is becoming urgent. Our efforts appear to lead only in circles. We are obliged now to consider the possibility that there is something fundamental about which we are mistaken. The willingness to consider this possibility of an error in the fabric of our world-view, is the embryo of teachability, which is another name for humility. Now it is possible that we will really listen to, and hear, the non-dual teaching, without holding up an internal wall against the subtle and liberating message at its centre.

That message is adapted to our capacity and presented with two aspects. One is an indication of the supreme Truth, which is our Self; it cannot be otherwise, because ultimately there is nothing else. The second is what our true nature is not.

The mind attends first to the positive indication of transcendental identity, which produces a spark of interest, but the usual mental faculties cannot be engaged in it, and the appeal tends to give way to aridity. If our need is urgent enough, interest is sustained by what remains, the apparently negative aspect of the teaching. We recognise, or at least consider, the truth that if complete security and fulfilment are to be found, it cannot be in the realm of forms and change.

This meaningful conception of what would ultimately fulfil us, and what cannot, is called ‘discernment of the Real’, and it is an essential item of equipment for every seeker of Self-knowledge. It is not the goal, but it does provide a refuge, which will shelter, and not detain, a traveller on the way.

With discernment comes revaluation. We have long known that what is attractive does not always lead to happiness, and we have understood the wisdom teaching to be that we should practise detachment, or at least restraint, regarding what is unconducive to our overall welfare. But what is the highest good, and how to attain it, remains uncertain. Our own defences and preconceptions deflect our efforts, until we discern that the world revealed to the senses does not contain the completeness we have been seeking. With this discernment comes true detachment, which is not from features of the world, but from the belief that anything that changes could ever free us from fear and want.

The mind will repeatedly re-assert its conviction that lasting happiness can be composed from the materials within its scope. Therefore, to sustain detachment does require effort, but when our diligence and restraint are guided by discrimination and discernment, it is possible. In turn, discernment is refined in the quietened mental environment provided by detachment, which is therefore another prerequisite for the seeker of Self-realisation. Now we have a refuge, and also a foundation to build on.

Discernment and detachment bring us to reconsider the lessons we learn during our attempts to find satisfaction in the world and in pursuit of the attractive. Chief among those lessons are: the value of being selective in what we think about and where we engage our senses; that moderation in our expectations reduces the likelihood of disappointment; and that well-informed advice is likely to prove a better guide than our raw impulses and inclinations. We look on these measures as compromises, but accept them as our best chance of avoiding unnecessary suffering. And we understand the wisdom teachings to be codifying the results of this experience, and extolling selectivity, moderation, and obedience to good counsel, as exemplary disciplines.

Applying these conclusions brings some advantages, including a feeling of personal respectability. But the benefits are limited. Our fundamental problems remain unsolved and we find ourselves still afflicted by insecurities and anxiety. This failure may weaken our confidence in the teachings.

But the real failing is in regarding the teachings as mere restatements of the conclusions drawn from life-experience: that restraint and discipline should be exercised in practical matters in order to avoid mistakes and mishaps. The non-dual teachings are more interior than this. The practices of directing our thoughts and the rest are not a conduit for worldly consolations; their foremost purpose is to enable us to keep in focus whichever aspects of the non-dual philosophy are relevant to us at each moment. Only the Absolute is absolutely real; appearances are incomplete and misleading. This truth never changes, whether we are engaged in meditation or mundane tasks, and however sunny or stormy the prevailing conditions may be. But to remain aware of this fact, and to express its implications by our thoughts and actions, requires constant inner adjustments, which we make by directing our mind and senses, practising moderation and endurance, and following wise counsel once we have assimilated it. This is not to accept a compromise; it is to affirm the highest of all potentialities. Thus the ability to guide the mind is true inner wealth, and it fulfils a further requirement for the seeker of Self-realisation. As well as a refuge and a foundation, we now have a working sense of direction.

Are we now in possession of all that was needed and all that the teachings had to offer? We are ready for a life of journeying and enquiry, but with this comes the possibility that we shall once again mistake the means for the end and allow our assets to become impediments. We may find some felicity and comfort in the role of a traveller and lose sight of the need to reach the destination. To have a destination is to acknowledge that something is lacking in our present position, and we would prefer not to have the quality of our life spoiled by such dissatisfaction. We also know that to strive towards a destination requires effort, and that effort involves some discomfort. To fully recognise that there is a goal, is also to expose oneself to the fear of failure. Thus, awareness of the need to reach an objective, brings once more a sense of strain on our inner resources and balance, and now there is a possibility of evading despair by turning from real enquiry to distractions.

Noticing that to have a destination is to be in want, the mind can point to that phase of the non-dual teaching which asserts the ever-established identity of our true Self and the Absolute, and concludes that it would be a mistake to affirm that there remains a distance between oneself and the ideal. The intellect thus finds a way to dismiss, as they arise, any calls to strive for substantial change or progress, and this, the mind assures itself, is the proper use of the skills and refinements it has so far acquired.

However plausibly it may be presented, the inadequacy of this position must become apparent eventually, as our anxieties persist and our energies ebb away. With deepening discernment it is understood that the non-dual teachings do affirm that Reality is always real and that our own nature is at one with it, but the teachings also recognise how this is hidden from us.

What hides the truth is, necessarily, other than truth, and may therefore be characterised as ‘illusory’ or ‘unreal’, but this does not negate the fact that we experience separation and suffer the bonds of limitation. From this comes an intense desire to be free of not-knowing. Because it is a desire to be free of an error, this desire does not contradict the eternal non-dual truth which the intellect recognises in theory, while it does provide the motive force needed to overcome inertia. Knowing that we are dealing with an appearance, not ultimate reality, obviates the fear of acknowledging the challenge, and reassures us that here no effort is ever wasted. With this acquiescence we become aware that a subtle attraction is now acting from our inner being. We cease to hope that a mighty power will help us in our distress, and resolve instead to know Beauty Absolute as our true Self.

The non-dual teachings constitute the visible aspect of a living force emanating from the source of all life, and this force acts upon whatever is sensitive to it, whether we realise it or not. Exposed to the light, our life-experiences have grown into discrimination, right detachment, a sense of direction, and a supreme purpose that does not deny the eternal truth. We are now endowed with the potential and strength to flourish at every stage of the path to Self-realisation. This is how non-duality will help us right now.

B.D.