[Advaita-l] Self-knowledge

[mwadhwa at uwm.edu]

Pranaam all,


          I would beg my pardon if this email goes longer - as I always do, but
I also request you to read it with all your patience.... :-) my intentions are
always to be simple and direct, though it makes me write more, for whatever
comes I write.....

Also a lot have I heard of this discussion on intellect and non-intellect
As Maheshji said:

""You consider love to be part of the manas? I think you are watching too much
Discovery and reading too little Rumi! :-)IMHO, it is like putting the
proverbial cart before the horse! Love commands, the intellect obeys.""


          It is really nice to have somone saying things boldly of truth...I
appreciate your effort..Also for the effort to give love as its right place in
that trinity of sat-chit-ananda, where ananda is what this love is...and as
chit makes the infinite consciousness, nonetheless it is still a way to put it
in this way that enquiry is that jNAna....

	 I tried to bring as per my understanding, this point before also that Self
Knowledge is both, though non-intellectual, is considered to be the culmination
of this jNana when jNAna and Bhakti merge like indivisible, before that
intellect tries to take possession of the beyond along with staying aloof and
bhakti stays submerged but not attaining to the heights of intellectual enquiry
until both become one....

	       From the point of spiritual awakening the intellect takes into hand the
responsibility of spiritual growth and unfolding, without love it starts
drying. One comes to much greater understanding that something beyond all the
equipments of direct sensory perception is there which is to be reached.  The
star seems far away though it is closest. All those that can be observed are
instruments and so is mind and broadly speaking all the antahakaraNa
ChatusHtaya (mann, buddhi, chitta and ahamkAra) is but one continuous stream of
so-called mind. The division is only made to see things in a better light. Love
tries to bring the idea of something beyond... intellect tries to understand
things from its stand point but without love even intellect doesn't think to go
beyond. It is also true that inefficacy of human love and the suffering opens up
one to such an extent that one gets the sudden sight of something beyond.

	      After the Intellectual enquiry subsides, which happens because of
inefficacy of it to reach the truth, that one reaches utter surrender..  The
mind starts growing subtle till it finally merges into the infinite
consciousness.  When the mind (or call it intellect if you like), also finally
merges itself then the apAra jNaNa merges wholly into parA, where there remains
no jNAna anymore. Before that it is all a preparation though it doesn't mean
that we can not call it Atma-JnAna, but in loose terms. I have seen that most
of the people have the habit of looking at things in breaking them down but 
when would you like to look at the bigger picture, in which all faculties be it
intellect or love have their right place...sat-chit-ananda is not something
separate but a whole......where is the fighting on love and intellect...

A simpler way or a logical way or an intellectual way to understand the concept
of Atma jNAna  further is .... for every thesis there does exist an
antithesis....let's see it like this:

        for life - death,  darkness - light, mind - no-mind, changing -
something un-changing.... so there is something non-intellectual which is
beyond..which in true sense is called Atma  jNAna but also when you are talking
about these issues with all your intellect involved then it is a step towards
that jNAna through all the efforts, and this is in one way Atma jNAna - for
there wasn't even a single possibility of turning towards all these things if
something inside hadn't touched..that touching itself is a part of Atma
jNAna... a jAgrti from a long slumber...though it takes its own time to
unfold...

           Regarding the beyond thing...as the example of mango. given by sri
sastriji...
then it is true that for every picture to run there is needed a changeless
screen on which all that show can keep going...without it there is no show.....
also I feel there is a better word for Atma jNAna...that is.. BEING for when you
are in that BEING there is no jNAna in the external terms...nonetheless it is
understandable through intellect as to what we mean when we say just BEING....
it is about BEING...there is no subject-object relationship that stays....it is
a submersion of the wave into the ocean.......and it maybe seen that Atma jNAna
is for the others for whom subject-object relationship exists not for the one
who stays in that state. It is in the same way as a man sleeping is but BEING
and he has no awareness of any subjet-object relationship, yet for others there
does exist duality of experience. TRUTH, LOVE, BEAUTY,
(satyam-shivam-sundaram),AWARENESS, BEING are but words of the same advaita
beyond any subject-object and hence so they transcend everything that this
seeming garment has to offer...


	Love is the culmination of even intellect and in that Maheshji has tried to
bring a better point but I won't say that intellect is not important for even
intellect when it finally finds itself incapable submerges into love ....this
is the whole gist of all the Vedas....

         Rumi is beautiful, read it.... there is great knowledge there...
He will tell you of both and will say boldly, "pothi padh 2 jag muya, pandit
bhaya na koi. Dhai aakhar prem ka padhe to pandit hoye."

If you want to learn about Self enquiry then read Sri Ramana Maharshi, if bhakti
then there are endless examples needless to quote...

          Kabir, Tagore's gitanjali and other works, Vivekananda's poetry,
Mirabai's outbursts with heart's submersion into so called KRISHNA, tulsi's
submersion into the ocean of love called RAMA,  drink these, for these will add
that love and devotion along with those intellectual works...Drink Mirabai to
your heart's abyss and there will be love all around...drink Tulasi's
devotional outbursts in terms of tulasi raamayana, drink it...don't read...make
it a part...
         there will be better whole, read shankaracharya alongwith rumi and
there will be love along with intellect, read vivekananda's poetry and work and
there will be intellectual strength along with emotional strength, read Bhagvada
Gita along with gitanjali, and there will be submersion into that ocean, read
Yogic scriptures along with kabir and you will find as to what is that which is
important and which isn't, what is that which is worth doing and worth not
doing, or if there is anything that should be done or shouldn't be.
Intellectualize till the point you don't feel like anymore need....and then
there will be submersion then there is nothing to debate upon love and
intellect....

	Read physics and it will present you many models, of the world at large .. ..a
quantum  model, black holes, holographic universe, string theory of subatomic
existence, Einstein's relativity, loop gravity, and you will be able to
understand as to if there is anything you can learn of the truth behind this
whole passing scene,
	Read chemistry and biology and you will find if there is even a single place
where any of these sciences could reach in their understanding of love or even
intellect and you will understand if love is phenomenal or noumenal, or if even
intellect could be touched at all by these, then what of love....

 	 Read psychology and you will find there if freud wasn't as much lying in a
world of instinctual and physical realm, as Adler tried to explain human
behaviour through quest for power or security. Read Jung's ideas about self and
see if anyone could reach truth...
  	Drink socrates/ plato, Gurdjieff and there will be some reaching near...
        Drink Upanishads - Brahadaranyak, Kath, taittiriya and add to it as many
as you like...all 108 if you like
	Drink Bhagvada gita, yoga vasishtha, panchdasi, vivek cudamani, patanjali yoga,
or even hath yoga and tantra if you like

all as much as you like...till mind starts subsiding due to its own inefficacy
to reach the truth and once that is done, truth is always near.....as it always
was...before that it is always blasphemy to say things...and it will remain
so....for perfection is not the way of the world outside...it is of the beyond
and the inside...and once that comes inside, the world is already perfect.....

      We very boldly try to say that science has reached here or there in order
to understand love or even intellect.....i will appreciate the human endeavor
and struggle to reach the truth through all these means..and more so being here
in US where technology finds its growth like hair grow on head....but if you
have to declare anything then it is always good to look at the bigger picture
directly....and that too US finds itself into the crisis of love and devotion,
dry intellect cannot hold on too long....both together can do wonders for if
sat-chit-ananda is one, then so are existence-consciousness-love....

          I really couldn't understand as to why there was such a great cry
about this Atma jNana when  there are so many examples or so  called Agama or
testimonies for the proof, that Atma jnAna is in truth
parA .. and they have lived it and told it boldly to all, how come there so much
confusion. Maybe our minds couldn't trust them....We talk so much of scriptures
but BG talks about this Bhagwada rupa that Arjuna could see through internal
eyes....

If anything questionable, please correct me..... I am saying all this as per my
understanding of all that I have read, sought, learnt,  experienced and
felt.....whoever has to speak through me speaks, I don't restrict myself to
just a part but the whole is the goal.....

Also I feel, it is not always needed to look for answers outside all the time,
there is much greater source inside when external is but a reflection of the
same internal.....also when all these intellectual ticklings will be over there
will be greater light, for in that - love doesn't separate intellect and neither
intellect-love....for they submerge into that BEING... then call it with
whatever name you like.....

Pranaam,
Manish







Quoting Mahesh Ursekar <mahesh.ursekar at gmail.com>:

** Pranams:
**
** A common misconception - chemicals react to give rise to love. How do you
** not know that it is love that is causing the chemicals to behave in the
** manner you suggest?
**
** To illustrate this point some more:
**
** There is a story of a saintly lady (I forget her name now) who radiated love
** to such an extent that she could sit among wild tigers and they would treat
** her as her own! This cannot be due to a tiger's hormones gone wild, can it?
** If it were local to her mind, there was no way the tiger would have sensed
** it!
**
** Humble pranams, Mahesh