[Advaita-l] What is true Knowledge?

[kuntimaddi sadananda]

What is true knowledge?

Shree Sankara discusses this what is true knowledge (pramaa) and what is false knowledge (bhramaa) in his brilliant introduction to Maithreyee Brahmana of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad,   and thus defines what a real science is.

The objective sciences he dismisses are not absolutely real since they exclude the subject, I, in the very analysis of the total world. Here is the discussion why Vedanta forms the absolute science as it provides the means of knowing who am I, what is this world, and how am I related to this world. He dismisses so-called the objective sciences as not really sciences since they are incomplete as they exclude the subject, the knower who is doing the investigation. 

All objective knowledge including the Quantum Mechanics does not come under pure Science as it excludes the subject, the conscious entity, who is doing the discovery. It is a relative knowledge or knowledge of the transactional world and is valid only within its frame of reference. In this first talk, we explore based on Shankara Bhashya, an epistemological analysis that involves analysis of what is 'knowledge' and how to gain the absolute knowledge, and why Vedanta forms the absolute science.  

Science means knowledge derived from the word, scier, meaning ‘to know’. ‘Vid’ in Sanskrit also means to know and veda means ‘knowledge’ –Vedanta means ultimate knowledge or absolute knowledge that involves the totality – both the subject and the object. Hence Shankara says that which includes both the subject and the object in total is the absolute science. Why should I know Vedanta? He provides the answer.

Everyone is searching for only one thing in life – that is absolute inexhaustible happiness – but searching in the wrong place. Shankara says Vedanta is an absolute science since it reveals what one is searching for all the time, and cannot find anywhere. What one is searching for is what one is searching with – says a sage. That is the seeker himself is the sought and therefore any seeking on the part of the seeker is going fail miserably since in the very seeking one has resolved that the sought is not there where the seeker is. To understand this clearly and how to stop the very seeking, Yagnavalkya says in this Upanishad that one has to go a teacher since it involves very subtle science and involves the very subject which cannot be objectified. Hence he says one has to listen to the teaching, then contemplate on the teaching and abide in that by constant contemplation on the truth – shrotavyaH, mantavyaH, nidhidhyaasitavyaH. –tavyaH means one has to do – as there is no other way one can re-analyze and realize the truth that one is happy as he is without any further seeking.

This Upanishad also is well quoted. Here the husband says to the wife – Wife does not love her husband, what she loves is the happiness that she gets when she is associated with her husband. To be fair, he also says – husband does not love his wife, what he loves is the happiness that she brings in. Similarly, nobody loves anything in the world other than the happiness that they get from the objects. aatmanastu kaamaya sarvam priyam bhavati. Love for an object is not for object sake, but for one’s own sake.

We took this text in a two-day camp at Chinmayam, at Washington Regional Center, a few years ago, and was made available in the yu-tube format by Advaita Academy. My salutations to the Advaita Academy team and its leader, who are constantly providing the valuable service to the earnest seekers around the world. Currently we are doing Ashtavakra Geeta that echoes what has been discussed in this Upanishad.

Hari Om!

Sadananda

Chapter 2 - Maitreyi Brahmana - Part 1


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Chapter 2 - Maitreyi Brahmana - Part 1


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