Agony of the soul (?) etc

Swami Vishvarupananda omkar at GIASDL01.VSNL.NET.IN
Wed Jan 15 01:10:36 CST 1997


> Ultimately any system of logic depends on certain postulates which cannot
> be proven but even those can be known and understood.  It is only in that
> extremely restricted area that you have to take anything on faith alone.

Thank you. Now we come closer. I was not debating
the virtues and usefulness of intellectual study of the scriptures.
Otherwise, why would I myself engage in it? But I was saying, that this is
definitely not enough. One has to go beyond mind and intellect. The
goal can be put into focus by the intellect and understood in theory (like
a blind man understanding the color red), and it is an undeniable, and, I
would say, for most intellectual people very necessary help. But
practically realizing what the intellect has understood in _life_ is a very
different chapter all together.
The reason why I elaborated on this point is, that living in Rishikesh, the
"City of Saints" I can tell you a few things about mere intellectual
understanding of the scriptures.
I could show you Mahamandaleshwars who know the Prasthanatraya forward and
backward. They intellectually grasp and are able to comment and debate, for
hours on end, on every nook and aspect of the scriptures one may think of,
and their talks are trilling and convincing. It is what they have been
doing ever since they have acquainted themselves with the scripture as
fully as the intellect can. So, if Brahman could be realized through the
intellect, one should believe, these learned ones have reached the pinnacle
of realization and are Jivanmuktas, embodiments of Brahman if you would say
so.
Yet, if you look at their personal lives, they are puffed up with pride and
ego, and however much vairagya may be written over their strictly
disciplined lives, and I am sorry to say, one cannot find very much of
inner detachment and indifference toward sukha and duhkha in them, though
they keep assuring "Aham Brahmasmi".
Then there are those humble Jnanis, some of whom have not read a word of
Sanskrit or the scriptures, and may not even have learned to read and
write, but whose words are a reflection of their inner state and of a
direct experience of what the scriptures say, and whose lives are a
natural, unaffected demonstration of the state of "Aham Brahmasmi", of the
absence of ego, of equality in all states, whatever the challenges of
practical daily life. A realized soul is, in his daily life, himself proof
of his state, as well as of the words he speaks.
Why I am talking of this at such length is, that many people just like you,
who believed in the sufficiency of the intellect and thought they had found
someone who had achieved the ultimate in scriptural learning and logic,
were so disappointed in seeing the lack of a practical achievement of that
state, that their faith collapsed. Therefore I stress the necessity of
basing one's faith on more than the intellect. Truth reveals itself from
_within_ for the simple reason, that our real nature _is_ Truth.

Greetings and Om,
Swami Vishvarupananda



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