Lights on Advaita: -1

Lights on Advaita:

Selected Teachings of

 V. Subrahmanya Iyer

CHAPTER 1: BEYOND YOGA

(1.1) On Light: How do you see various objects, scenes and persons during your dreams?

If the dream world were covered with darkness you can never see it. Therefore there must

be a light in the dream world. This light is similar to the light (joti) seen by the yogis in

samadhi.

(1.2) The gross world is merged into the mental world in the sense that when it is

analyzed, it is found to exist inseparably in and as the mind alone. All "spiritual" planes

are really mental.

(1.3) Is impossible to prove the existence of God by any reasoning: you can only say "I

believe." The most rational position is that of the agnostic, "I do not know."

(1.4) Mystics see visions of gods and goddesses and adepts according to their own

vasanas (impressions remaining unconsciously in the mind from past karma).

(1.5) Authoritarianism merely assumes as true what another says, but what has yet to be

proved.

(1.6) You may believe in a position, but you are required to prove the truth of your belief.

A belief is a feeling, truth is knowledge.

(1.7) Disappointments in religion or mysticism or even science imply error or ignorance.

Create the question. "Am I in the right?" Where is the certainty that I am proceeding on

right lines?" Thus doubts arise and the inquiring spirit comes and impels to search elsewhere

for truth where it will not be possible even to have doubt. The test is therefore in

experience. And only in non-duality, where there are no two to argue about views or to

have difference of opinion can such doubtlessness be possible.

(1.8) There is a controversy as to the meaning of Maya. One Advaitic School says it is a

shakti1 of Brahman whereby both illusion and creation are brought about. I reply: How

do you know that it is the truth? If you base it on the sayings of Rishis and saints I say,

granting that they honestly believed in their experiences, there is still the query how do

they know that these experiences were the truth? For even lunatics believe in what they

1 Cosmic creative power

see and feel and yet their experiences are often quite untrue. What then is it in us which

ascertains the truth of these experiences? If you say it is anubhava2, mystic experience,

then my experience differs from yours: Such disagreement does not settle the matter.

Thus these are the two common sources--authority and samadhi--but both are shown

untenable. Some object that the differences of samadhi or anubhava experience are like

different parts seen of same single elephant. I reply, how can you prove that it is the same

elephant and how know that each man is seeing the same part? Others say that mystic

experience always gives the same result in peace and bliss. I reply: You can only assume

thus: it is impossible to know whether the taste of sugar in one man’s mouth is the same

as its taste in another’s. For to know you would have to use his tongue and his mouth

which is impossible: you can only assume.

(1.9) Unless you give up the ideas of heaven and hell, philosophy is impossible. Truth

must be proved here and now, on this earth. If that cannot be done, we cannot consider

any such idea, as existence of heaven and hell, as true.

(1.10) Religion is “My Truth”; Philosophy is “Truth for All.” This means religionist

takes his feeling of truth whereas the philosopher takes his reasoned judgment, which will

be the same under test everywhere in the world.

(1.11) My position is this: I have not seen God. I do not know his capacities, what He can

do, and what he cannot do. Therefore any statement I might make about God would only

be a lie. I do not wish to tell a lie. Therefore I do not accept your God nor deny Him; I

simply refuse to make any statement about Him.

(1.12) God is only a settled fact for believers, but for others His existence is problematic.

(1.13) When Francis Bacon said that a little philosophy leads to atheism, he was right but

profounder thought leads to agnosticism. He who says, "I know there is no God,” is

foolish.

(1.14) How do the mystics know they have experienced the whole? Where is the proof

they have seen it? When they say “I know from experience” they merely mean “I think

so.” If mystics experience joy, they cannot be egoless, for who is having the joy? And if

they retain the ego they cannot know the Universal Brahman, the whole.

(1.15) How do you know asks Sankara3, that God who tells about himself in meditation

or mysticism is truthful! He may tell you a lie! His statements must therefore be tested.

Supposing a mystic has a vision, which experience is true, but he must prove that it is

really what it purports to be, and that he is not deluded.

2 anubhava – actual experience

3 Sankara, the Great Hindu Philosopher, founder of the Advaita school

(1.16) Appearances and quotations have nothing to do with Philosophy. Why does not

Krishna say in the Gita that it is found in the Veda? How many times has Buddha quoted

the scriptures? Never. So also Gaudapada4 and Sankara.

(1.17) Suggestions may come to you from a book or person read or seen some years ago,

and thinking of them a number of times; then when you meet and sit before a yogic guru

for first time, the suggestion comes up from the past or subconscious and gives you

vision or mystic experience. The whole thing is a super-imposition. So the mind is led by

constant dwelling on a thought, to the manufacture of it as a projected experience.

Similarly with worshippers in church who fall into tears. The complex overcomes them.

(1.18) Two ways of religious cheating have always existed and are always successful (1)

Say what happens after death-- nobody can deny it (2) Say you have seen God by

intuition--who can disprove it?

(1.19) No mystic experience ever reveals truth. The feat of a guru, touching people and

thus putting them into mystic states is purely a physical or at best a psychological one;

based on the power of suggestions it has nothing to do with epistemology, with the

question of truth. It is just a higher variation of the effect produced by patting a friend on

the shoulder to encourage him.

(1.20) Scriptural tenets may be quoted in philosophy as authoritative only after you have

shown the reality and proved the truth, for then you can point out that the texts teach the

same thing. If you quote them before having demonstrated truth, then it is scholasticism.

(1.21) Doubts come to man when he meets with suffering and disappointment. The latter

are absolutely necessary to make men inquire. Thus when man gets an internal pain he

begins to question whether he has eaten something bad. Philosophy is the getting rid of

all doubts.

(1.22) When we say philosophy begins with doubt, we mean doubting yourself, your own

beliefs.

(1.23) How is truth to be attained? Not by intuition but by reason, which is superior to it.

Not even a combination of intellect and intuition will find truth.

(1.24) Proof is the first thing in Indian Philosophy, "How do I know that you are God"

they would ask Him, if He appeared.

(1.25) If yogis practice Yoga up to the limit and extent of getting a strong and

concentrative mind, and to be able to think of particular subjects, it is good; beyond that

if they begin to weaken their mind and accept what they imagine as real, they begin to go

insane.

4 Famous commentator on the key text The Mandukya Upanishad

(1.26) Yoga belief is a self-mesmeric condition out of which it is extremely difficult to

escape.

(1.27) Reason is the common ground for all humanity in modern times, whereas the

appeal to scriptural relations reaches only groups. The great Sages of Advaita, knew that

one day the world would throw up scriptures, hence they provided for the appeal to

reason and met the objections of skeptics in their literature, no less than those of religious

believers.

(1.28) Vedantic position is: first prove your standpoint true before we can accept the criticism

or objection made from it.

(1.29) Intuitions exist, yes. But nevertheless although they flash into the mind without

any process of thought to mark the intervening stages, still they are ideas, mental

phenomena in their full nature. They must project themselves into the mind as ideas.

(1.30) Yogic and mystic experiences are imaginations projected outwards as the dreamer

projects his dream visions.

(1.31) If God answers prayers it means He interferes and thus changes; hence he can't be

relied on as the unchanging eternal one: he may even die, if he can change. It also implies

that He could free us from our own troubles but won’t, hence he is cruel. If you blame

Karma why did he make with the certain possibility of all creatures falling into error and

consequent pain, as we see everywhere, which possibility he must have foreseen as He is

Omniscient? No, the theory cannot hold. And if God is unchanging and does not alter his

mind, what is the use of praying to him?

(1.32) Do not be carried away by the confusion of issues and say “He is such a good man,

such lofty character, that what he says must be true." A man may be sincere, enthusiastic,

high charactered, but withal a shallow thinker.

(1.33) The whole of life has to be resolutely weighed, and accurately, observed in

philosophy. We must ask: What is this world, What Am I? Hence Science is a necessary

foundation. Hence too, the Yogi who looks only inside and ignores the world throws

away part of the materials needed to find truth.

(1.34) Without knowing the nature of the world, it is impossible to know truth. What is

the use of trying to find your inner self before you understand the world. The very

opening words of the first and second slokas of the Mandukya refers to "all this" meaning

“this world which confronts you as being AUM."

(1.35) Look at everything in nature because in every thing there is Brahman. Do not

avoid them, do not shut your eyes to Nature; do not shut yourself away from the world

which is as much Brahman, as anywhere else. But those who are brainless or of dulled

mind tell you to be non-observant and to withdraw: keen powers of observation are

desirable and will help, not hinder your pursuit of truth. Take experiences as they come to

you, do not run away from the world in ascetic fear or shyness of them. To say they are

Maya without first examining them, and inquiring into them thoroughly is to delude

yourself. This world is common to all of us, therefore we must begin our inquiry with it

and not flee. It is only after you have inquired into the nature of the objective world, that

you should inquire into who is the knower. If, however you inquire into the knower

before the inquiry into the universe, then it is mere mysticism. What is the world? must

precede Who am I? in philosophy.

(1.36) Yoga will give steadiness of mind, education of mind, but never Truth because it

ignores the external world.

(1.37) Our chief argument against yoga is that it shuts its eyes against the world and then

has the temerity to declare that it knows the world to be Brahman! Because it has not

inquired into it, it knows nothing.

(1.38) Yoga's secret from Vedantic viewpoint is this: it helps the yogi by giving him the

feeling that the world is not worth bothering about, it detaches him from world; it makes

him treat the world as a dream, i.e. an idea. It does the same to his ego to some extent

because he becomes indifferent to what happens to him. But the great secret is that this is

only feeling, he feels these things only but does not know that the world is an idea. Such

knowledge can come only after philosophic inquiry and in no other way. That is why

yogi cannot be gnani. It is the difference between feeling and knowledge. Feeling of the

yogi that the world is unreal may change tomorrow because all emotions are liable to

change; and the fact is that yogis do change, as when going after women they lose their

sense of world unreality though previously they felt it. A permanent view of world as

unreal can come only after intellectual inquiry; such knowledge cannot change. Were the

yogi of sufficiently sharp intellect he could discover the ideality of world by reasoning

alone and then it would not be necessary for him to have gone through yoga practice at

all; that is why we say yoga is for dull or middling intellects.

(1.39) Man is primarily interested in himself. Hence, to get him started on a higher quest

we advise him to go to the root of his own self, i.e. to ask "Who Am I?" This is a mystic

formula. When as a later consequence of this mystic practice he gets more impersonal we

teach him to go to the root of all existence, i.e. to ask "What is the Meaning of the

World?"

(1.40) In the old times Vedanta was taught, not by putting a pupil in a cave and telling

him to sit quiet, but by taking him to a peepul tree and by breaking a seed off, and

showing it to the pupil and breaking it into smaller and smaller fragments and pointing

out to him the wonder of a great living tree growing out of the seed. Thus the chela5 was

shown the objective world first, and taught to question about it.

(1.41) All is self. We cannot get away from body or thoughts. They are part of us, so is

the world of our life. Hence need to understand world, if we want ultimate truth.

5 beginning student

(1.42) All other yogas lead finally to Gnan which transcends and fulfils them. The highest

form of yoga is Gnana Yoga, according to which the individual soul realizes through

knowledge its identity with the universal soul.

(1.43) Yoga cannot remove ignorance. It is only a step. It removes obstructions.

(1.44) It is not possible by mental control alone, by yoga, to achieve Brahman, but at best

one falls into a sleep. It is like eating fire or leading an elephant by a thread or draining an

ocean drop by drop, to try the yogic way. When the yogi shuts his eyes and does not see

the world he is like the cat in the Indian proverb who shuts its eyes when drinking

forbidden milk although other people are there, and it imagines it is unobserved because

it cannot see them. He does not examine the phenomenal world and hence cannot see

Brahman for he takes that world as real but runs away from it.

(1.45) Gnana cannot come if anything is left out. The whole universe must be included.

For only when all is known can all be known to be but ideation. Hence yogis blotting all

out in samadhi cannot lead to Gnan. The I-thought, the ego, belongs to the drsyam6 as

does the universe thought. The yogi may get the knowledge that the drg7 is separate from

drsyam, but he will never know Brahman without inquiring into the world, because he is

giving up the world, and hence cannot discover his unity with the world. The Gnani

regards everything in the world as Brahman; the yogi rejects the world. Thus there is a

fundamental difference.

(1.46) There is a theory that in primitive antiquity before the Aryans came to India, and

perhaps before the Dravidians arose either, the first inhabitants of India were extremely

few in number; food was plentiful (Nature giving fruit trees etc), climate lethargic. So

these inhabitants had no struggle for existence: so they sat quietly and practiced

meditation, quiet contemplation, sitting still, mentally and physically. Thus they

originated Yoga. The invaders, Aryans and Dravidians learnt yoga from them and

adopted it into their own religion. It was never intended to yield truth, only the bliss of

inactivity.

(1.47) Of the symptoms of incipient and advanced insanity described in Hart's

psychology of insanity you will find in many yogis and mystics of Ashrams in India.

(1.48) In non-duality, contemplation has no meaning.

(1.49) It is not possible to stop thought for more than a half-second whilst in the waking

state. If one succeeds in controlling thought and then banishes it, one passes into

nirvikalpa samadhi, which is identical with deep sleep. The only difference between

ordinary deep sleep and samadhi, therefore is that the ordinary man falls asleep

involuntarily whereas the yogi has the satisfaction of knowing that he has passed into

sleep by his own effort of will in banishing thoughts. And where Patanjali warns against

sleep as a hindrance to yoga, he means when it occurs in the early stages of the practice

6 Phenomenal world, objective experience, other

7 Seer, self, knower

before one has obtained the power of control and consequently to banish thought. This

fact that Samadhi is deep sleep is kept secret because people would not be tempted to

take up yoga. Then what is the value of it? Why, to sharpen the mind, to enable it to keep

away all extraneous thoughts when one gets out to reason in the practice of the next

higher stage, i.e. gnana. Yoga is thus simply a sharpening-stone for the mind to enable it

to take up Gnana. But you say that some holy man or teacher lives without thoughts.

Impossible. How can he walk from one spot to another without thought? He does not

know the gnanic truth if he says thoughtlessness is the perfect stage of self.

(1.50) What happens when thoughts are stilled? It is not the Self that is found. Rubbish. It

is only mind. Patanjali has not reached Gnana and therefore does not know highest truth.

His yoga is good to give peace and concentration, but only in order to start reasoning, i.e.

thinking again to find truth.

(1.51) Mystics who promise a Garden of Eden, a joyous outlook on life, do not see that

this must be a drsyam, an object which is seen and must inevitably vanish. How long can

it last? We Vedantins regard peace as higher, because it is apart from joy or sorrow,

ecstasy or pain, and because it belongs to the drg and is therefore unbroken, permanent.

(1.52) In dream you know that the dream figures are also mind, not different from it;

similarly when you know that everything is Brahman, there is no need for yogic control

of mind. Control presupposes second, a duality. Hence yoga is in the sphere of duality

and is unnecessary to one who knows non-duality.

(1.53) Vedanta requires the mind to be active in order to examine the world and

discriminate. Hence Vedantic Nirvikalpa samadhi means knowing that there are no ideas

different from myself, as the dream mountain is not different from Mind, knowing which

they automatically come under control. This is different from Patanjali Yogic Nirvikalpa

samadhi, which is only deep sleep.

(1.54) There is nothing to drive out. Even the yogi's ecstasies may be retained, provided

you do not let yourself be deceived about them and accept them like everything else, as

part of Brahman.

(1.55) The mystic who sees God in vision has seen Him during the waking state: but as

Reality is not in a state, therefore he is in the world of drsyam.

(1.56) The Yogi wants to do something, some action, even that of sitting still, to control

this or concentrate that. This means he is still attached to body. He wants his body to be

quiet. He is still thinking of illusory body. He does not start with Vedanta idea that the

body is but an idea. On the contrary, he takes it for a reality.

(1.57) To be desireless means to feel that you have everything in you; that there is

nothing outside you; therefore, what have you to desire? The populace misunderstand and

think desirelessness means asceticism. The gnani has nothing to give up, when all is

Brahman.

(1.58) If a man gets Moksha after undergoing any discipline, his moksha is only

temporary: it will go again. Atman cannot be got because it is already there. Drg has

never been in bondage because it is always apart from, untouched by drsyam, idea or

object. This argument cannot be turned against Advaitins by yogis and religionists,

because they regard ignorance as an integral part of the soul to be got rid of by their

practices, whereas we say Drg is ever pure, ever free from ignorance, being Knowledge

itself, and that even all Gnana-yoga practice is within the realm of drsyam, never Drg.

(1.59) The final state is that God is Everything, the All, there is nothing but God, whereas

to say "God is in me" is mysticism.

(1.60) Mystics claim that their ego disappears in the mystic experience: we say it is not

so. It is the ego that sees and enjoys the experience, otherwise they would not say

afterwards "I had this great ecstasy, I felt such peace."

(1.61) Pantheism is a step higher than theism.

(1.62) Truth cannot be got in fragments or parts. How could you know they are different

parts of the same thing? Only by imagining it. There is no proof. Similarly those who say

the various yoga-paths lead to the same realization, cannot prove it; they only imagine it

is so.

(1.63) Mystics who imagine they can unite with reality, are attempting the impossible

because they imagine reality as apart from themselves; then there will be two, hence

duality.

(1.64) There are two kinds of Peace (1) Where you withdraw from the world, actually or

mentally or where you practice samadhi, thus avoiding troubles. (2) Where everything is

faced and known, its true nature understood as Atman and henceforth you are always

undisturbed by wants. The first is lower, delusive, mystic; the second is higher, genuine

and gnanic.

(1.65) Both real and unreal, seen and unseen, trance and activity are Brahman, whereas

mystics wrongly divorce one from the other. It is absurd to think that anything can be left

out of Brahman.

(1.66) How can anything be rejected? How can the world be renounced? Only those who

delude themselves think so. Everything is Brahman, and remains so.

(1.67) No name, no form can be given to the Brahman. Any Yogi who says he "sees"

something within as Brahman is no sage.

(1.68) When you think you are a reflection, a ray of Brahman, you thereby separate

yourself from Brahman and imagine an individual soul. Give up all these imaginations

and you will find yourself to be what you are.

(1.69) The whole universe that you see is Brahman. Unless the world is there in your

realization, there is no Brahman.

(1.70) It is not enough to see a mere blank, Nirvikalpa8. You have to see you are the

universal self. You are free from ignorance not when you see nothing at all, as in Yoga

but only when you see all this universe is yourself. Hence you must ask the question

“What is this universe?” The attention must be drawn to the outer world. Thus Gnana will

make you feel for the universal welfare. This is the highest aim and test.

(1.71) It is no use seeing God everywhere. You must see Atman, the same soul, the same

self, everywhere, and then you will treat all people alike, with equal beneficence.

(1.72) Every man needs money. Vedanta says: “Do not beg. Earn your livelihood, and

then give to poor.” But so long as Sanyasins are disciplining themselves, so long as they

are learning or teaching, and are students, let them wear the yellow robe. But the most

valuable service is to remain in the worldly life and set an example to others, of what can

be done to live spiritually amid worldly difficulties. This will encourage others to live

like you and yet get on with the inner quest.

(1.73) The chief purpose of analyzing the external world is to discover that it is part of

the ultimate reality and thus to enable us to carry on with activity from the highest

possible viewpoint; where people fail to make this analysis, as with so many

religious-minded seekers, they fail to do anything worthwhile in the material world. To

effect this discrimination, we need an intelligence much sharper than the average,

whereas too much religion and not a little mysticism drugs this intelligence. The highest

state is to be the “All”--not to shut your eyes to the world and to go off into the deep

sleep of trance.

(1.74) Vedanta does not teach aversion to existence, as do the ascetics and yogis; on the

contrary we teach that you should go on living in the world, acting, working, etc. that you

should accept life.

(1.75) Philosophy does not tell you to give up anything, but to know all.

(1.76) There are two stages: 1st - detachment of the Drg, the seer, as unaffected. 2nd – that

everything is Brahman. The yogi may stop at the first stage, which is incomplete and

leads to selfish indifference to others. The Gnani must pass through both for the 2nd stage

leads him to serve mankind and seek the well being of the whole.

(1.77) Only pretenders give blessings; what has been the worth of all the blessings which

have been given to poor India for centuries? The real sage neither blesses nor curses.

(1.78) The greatest mistake is to think that a gnani sees nothing. This blind reverence for

samadhi is as valuable as revering a man who has taken a dose of chloroform.

8 Pure Consciousness, Void

(1.79) The Gnani sees the essential universal unity and the multiplicity of objects

simultaneously. The person in deep sleep or samadhi leaves out the objects and sees the

essence; hence he has not full gnana. That is why the yogis have done nothing to uplift,

strengthen or protect India; they have refused to see the nation inside the essence, merely

obliterated sight of it.

(1.80) You know of dream that the dream-figures are also mind, not different from it;

similarly when you know that everything is Brahman, there is no need for yogic control

of mind; control presupposes a second thing, duality. Hence yoga is in sphere of duality

and is unnecessary to one who knows non-duality.

(1.81) "What is experience as a Whole?" is the formula to be asked after "What is the

world?" as latter is not enough.

(1.82) In spiritualistic phenomena or occult performances the mind of audience or sitters

is paralyzed during that period and all sorts of fraudulent tricks can be performed. It is

really mass mesmerism. If however, a counter-suggestion is present in the mind, then it

may be difficult or impossible to mesmerize the person. The mind weakens itself by

accepting the slightest suggestion that the feats are possible; the next step of being

mesmerized follows.

(1.83) Only yogis who have not studied philosophy would make such nonsensical

statements as that the soul, i.e. mind is situated in the heart, or in the chakras of the spine

or in the pineal gland. For how can mind, be spatially located?

(1.84) Give up all imaginations; then alone can you know truth. That which knows them

to be such is the Real.

(1.85) The first step is of knowing "your Self." The second is to know your self as

Brahman, the "All." Then alone you know Satyam and Gnanam, i.e. the whole truth.

Your Self is the key that opens the door of Brahman. This yoga referred to here is

certainly necessary at the first stage, when the mind is wandering. At the end of this yoga

the mind gets stilled and knows the self--individual self. Then it is free and fit to know

Brahman, the All.

(1.86) When I say it is the stronger mind that alone can telepathically influence another, I

mean by 'strong' one which has reasoning power well developed. Thought-transference is

a fact but only under this condition.

(1.87) Why did Krishna show Arjuna the vision of the Universal form and not stop there,

if it was the highest goal? Why did not the Gita end there? Instead he went on to teach

Gnana. This shows that he regarded yogic vision as not the ultimate.

(1.88) Yoga is intended to remove the hindrance to enquiry such as sexual desire,

worries, anxieties, desire for money etc. Also to enable the mind to keep out irrelevant

thoughts whilst making enquiry. All this has to be done before enquiry can begin.

Therefore yoga has only a negative value and is a preparatory stage. It is quite

unnecessary for enquiry itself. If you say that yoga and vichara9 must be equal partners

what is it that tells you that the removal of these hindrances is necessary? Is it not vichara

reasoning? Therefore vichara must be the ruler and yoga only a subordinate.

(1.89) The question "Who am I” is a religious, not a philosophical question. It is a most

selfish one. It is on a par with "What shall I be after death?" and "What shall I get if I

offer these coconuts to God?" It is purely ego-centered: it is an appeal to the interest in

selfishness only. Only the philosophically-minded can lift their thoughts above ego and

ask "What is the world.?"

(1.90) What is the first thing that a man sees? It is the world. The mystic and religionist

disregard this in order to think of self.

(1.91) If you don't see objects, it does not mean you have Gnana. Whoever looks at

objects alone, at the external world, he is wholly ignorant. But he who looks at both the

outside and inside, inquires; he is led towards knowledge.

(1.92) Those mystics who ask "Who am I?" may succeed in finding the common factor in

all ‘I’s, the I-ness but they have to come back afterwards to the world. Their task is

incomplete. They do not know the world is Brahman.

(1.93) It is a defect to make "What Am l?" a philosophic interrogation. It is not. The

stages are: scientific: What is the world? Mystic: What am I? philosophic: What is the

whole. For philosophy puts both the world and the ‘I’ together after having examined

each separately; it is interested in the whole of life, not a part. The world is only a part

just as the ‘I’ is a part.

(1.94) The “Who am I? formula is useful as a first stage to show the illusoriness of ego

and thus help seeker to get rid of it. This prepares him to consider the higher question:

What is the world, the truth about which cannot be learnt by those attached to their ego,

with its prejudices against idealism, etc.

(1.95) If you ask why there are so many different animals and natural objects in the world

you may regard them as teachers, there are lessons to be learnt from them by using

Buddhi10. Why did Brahman produce all these varied forms? It is so that the ignorant man

may study them and get Gnan. We have to study the whole world.

(1.96) There are two things you have to consider: 1. My duty to the world to remove

others sufferings, 2. My duty to myself to remove all my doubts.

(1.97) We do not deny the existence of intuition; only it must be tested if it be true; it

must be verified. Everyone has intuition, for it comes spontaneously.

9 philosophic inquiry

10 Buddhi – The highest faculty of the mind, Reason.

(1.98) Imagination is allowable in philosophy provided it is tested. Then, if it passes the

test, it becomes a fact. We cannot kill any of the faculties of man. The same applies to

intuition. In addition to both these faculties there must be reason.

(1.99) The first thing we are aware of after waking, just as the first thing in an infant's

experience, is the world outside. Therefore the first thing we ought to study is the world,

not the self; to that of which we are aware, not that which is aware.

(1.100) Vedanta is not anthropocentric like mysticism for the simple reason that it takes

away the 'I' and eradicates the ego.

(1.101) Since the ultimate truth is the truth of this world which we see, how can it

possibly be got by refusing to look at it, as yogis do?

(1.102) Mystic Ananda11 is a drsyam, for even if it did last all day, it disappears nightly in

sleep.

CHAPTER 2: FALLACIES OF RELIGIONS

(2.1) With the Greeks philosophy began with wonder, with moderns it begins with

doubts.

(2.2) Quotation from others should come only after you have shown your arguments,

convinced by use of reason based on facts, and then only may you introduce quotations in

order to show that others have reached the same conclusion. But when a man quotes very

extensively it is because of his inferiority complex.

(2.3) "How do you know that what you have seen by the intuition which you praise as the

highest faculty, is true?" I asked Bergson12 in Paris. He confessed that that was a difficult

question and he begged me to remain in Europe and go into the point with him.

(2.4) Everyone says "This is a fact. I know. This is my experience." None stops to doubt

or to understand, or to inquire as to what is a fact, or what is the definition of experience.

The fool takes the simplest path, that of the uninquiring mind, because the other way, the

search for truth, is hard and difficult and laborious. Such questions do not worry the

religionist, the mystic or the ordinary men.

(2.5) Vedanta: Pursue this quest until your questions will be answered, until your

problems will disappear and your doubts will be solved.

(2.6) How do you know that you are related to God? Have you seen God? That He

created the world, that he has manifested himself is merely supposed. It may be, but how

do you know? How do you know that Veda, Bible, Koran are true? The Rishis might

11 The Bliss of the Higher Self

12 Henri Bergson, French philosopher

have been mistaken. To accept these scriptures without reasoning is to possess the slave

mentality.

(2.7) Mayavadin13 does not start with idea of God. We do not know whether there is God

or not. There is no proof. If you mention God you must prove his existence.

(2.8) We need not doubt that mystics saw Shiva, Jesus, etc. That they saw visions may he

an undeniable fact. But the question is “Was what they saw the Truth?" In insane asylums

you find patients who make similar claims. They no doubt had such vision but they never

stopped to inquire if their visions be true. Vedantins take all the facts, science, religion,

art etc. and then ask of them, which is the truth? We collect as much evidence as possible,

even contradictory, and then proceed to examine all of it. We are not opposed to

anything, but say, "Analyze, how far is it true?”

(2.9) What is the value of mystic experience, what is the value of the words of great men?

In philosophy we examine and evaluate them all in order to find truth.

(2.10) Why did God create pain? Why does he torture men with new diseases? Has God

no better business to do? It is useless to say that he is teaching people lessons through

these sufferings. What lesson can God teach the little child destroyed by fire the other

day? How can we believe that God is all-merciful when he constantly displeases all

humanity?

(2.11) Suppose you say you have got faith in a religion or teaching. Suppose I say I have

no faith in them. Thus there is contradiction. What are you going to do about it? Nothing

can be done. In the real truth there can be no contradiction, nor any possibility of it. In

real truth even a man who does not know that two plus two equals four cannot contradict

it any more than the educated man.

(2.12) Mind splitting i.e. one part of the mind is perfectly sane, in regard to worldly

duties, but in the other part generally dealing with religious beliefs they are insane. This

is the condition of many yogis.

(2.13) How am I to know that what I believe is true? That question must prick the seeker.

(2.14) You cannot know the mind of a man in front of you. So how can you know the

mind of a Being who is invisible—God? You will only know your imagination of a God.

You have no more reason to say God is all-merciful than to say He is all-merciless.

(2.15) The purified intellect (Buddhi) is the Reason.

(2.16) Logic is misunderstood. People cannot distinguish between reasoning and intellect

as Vedanta does. Buddhi applied only to waking state is called logic, intellect. Vedanta

learns not only such reason but also reasoning based on waking sleep and dream. To say

rise above logic, is generally confused with saying "Rise above Reason." It is wrong to

13 Mayavadin – The world is thought, ideation, illusion

give up reason. Life does not consist only of waking state. We must take all three

(Waking, dream and deep sleep).

(2.17) The scholastics like all religionists have to start with an assumption that there is

some unseen Being or Power or World, and then they start to interpret this assumption.

Whereas the first Karika of Mandukya starts with the world, going up from the objective

world to truth by inquiry. No assumption, no faith, is needed by Vedanta, which demands

thinking. People do not want to think: it is too troublesome. Why worry about

philosophy, they say. This is their excuse, an alibi for being too lazy or incompetent to

think. They do not want to be bothered to inquire.

(2.18) Yogic trance is no better than hypnotic trance as there is no duality in the deepest

stages of both, because they are both deep sleep. The intermediate stages of dream are

paralleled by hypnotic and yogic and mental experiences and visions. The only

differences between all these three lies in the manner in which the state is induced and

whether it is involuntary or voluntary.

(2.19) Vedanta is the philosophy of verification.

(2.20) Patanjali takes for granted that there is an Iswara--God, gives it to you for

concentration purposes, and then you naturally find God in your meditations. But it is

only your imagined God. Mystics see what they are looking for or that whose existence

they presuppose. Therefore Patanjali Yoga belongs to religion, not Philosophy.

(2.21) Who has proved that there is a God? Who has proved that the individual is God or

Brahman? Personal experience which is not universally valid is no proof, neither is

ecstatic feeling.

(2.22) An advaitin prefers not to state his case but for opponents to do it first and let him

cross examine them and expose their fallacies. By showing that all other doctrines are

erroneous, he reveals that Advaita is left as the only alternative.

(2.23) If you have a belief, it is because somebody else believes it; or the majority

believes it--or it is your own experience. Is it religious authority, or religious sanction or

is it based upon a feeling of certainty? Do you believe it merely because it works well or

is it true. If you ask the question of Truth, it becomes a question of philosophy. Does your

belief rest upon Reason?

(2.24) The very mystical critics who denounce science should be asked, How do you

write, What pen do you use, How do you get news from Europe, How do you know there

is a war, Where do you get paper from, How are your ideas published? The answer to all

these is-—Science! So they are convicted by their own lives.

(2.25) Newton's keen eye saw a fact, then his imagination worked on it. Thus he

formulated his law. This is good scientific procedure. But note that it begins with facts;

imagination enters later. Similarly in philosophy you must start with facts--the facts of

this world.

(2.26) Wonder possesses implicit doubt, not explicit doubt, and in this sense is the

beginning of philosophy. When you are so impressed by anything as to wonder at it then

to some extent, however little, you begin to reflect upon it. This leads to realization that

there is something about it which you do not understand or know, hence to doubt your

grasp of it. This again leads to further inquiry, i.e. philosophy.

(2.27) There is no agreement among the views of mystics. Eckhart's experiences are not

the same as those of the Sufis or of the Hindu mystics. Therefore we say that mysticism

does differ and is not fundamentally the same everywhere as is claimed. But more

important than this is the epistemological question which we ask of the mystics. That

they have had experiences is true, but that what they experienced is true is another matter.

How do they know that it is the Ultimate or the Almighty or the Reality that they have

come in contact with through their ecstasies?

(2.28) You should have as few theories, use as few words and formulate as few doctrines

as possible, according to "Occam's Razor" which is a leading principle of science. Thus

the danger of opening the door to errors and false views, imaginations, fancies, is greatly

lessened. Simplicity in explanation is safer than profusion.

(2.29) A sane level-headed mind is always willing to examine facts and judge them

calmly whereas the partly unbalanced minds (who have insanity to a small degree

although outwardly normal) will be immune to all facts and hold hard to their delusions.

Such people do not want truth but only what pleases them. This is because the aham in

them is so strong. “What pleases me is true, what I dislike is false" is their attitude.

(2.30) The mystic is convinced by the feeling of immediacy in his intuitions, and

therefore he takes them as true. In plain language, this simply means that he is swept

away by the strength of his emotion and regards its irresistibility as the evidence of its

truth. His attitude is fundamentally wrong. The warmer his feelings, the stronger the

enthusiasm, the more certain his intuition, the more he should suspect and doubt them,

the more he should try to make his mind cool and calm again, and then only examine this

idea.

(2.31) Sastras are simply books which are held in reverence and deemed to be infallible;

they may have nothing to do with truth. For philosophers they have no value. Yet

common people worship them.

(2.32) If you stick to the old formal logic, you cannot get at truth. People seeing this

insufficiency of logic, therefore wrongly say "Give up logic and go to intuition." Their

error is “What is it that told them that logic was not enough?” It was Reason itself; not

intuition. Thus there is a confusion between logic and reason.

(2.33) How do I get this knowledge? What is meant by knowledge? Which kind of

knowledge is true? Those are the questions which epistemology asks.

(2.34) I repeat a thousand times Faraday’s quotation: “A philosopher is one who is no

respecter of persons, but of facts."

(2.35) Authoritarianism as a source of knowledge means slavery. People who compile

philosophical books on a basis of quoting from others as authorities are compiling useless

rubbish, from epistemological and philosophical standpoint. But in practical life, for

empirical purposes authorities are acceptable, because they are experts in such

specialized knowledge.

(2.36) Eating, drinking and sleeping are instincts which you share with all animals. Sex

desires are also instinct, but you as a human being bring it under control by thinking.

Thus reason must be brought in to check instincts. Such instinctive thoughts strike you of

their own accord. In the same manner, intuitive thoughts dealing with loftier matters than

mere animalism also come to you without your effort, but they must similarly be

controlled by your thinking power.

(2.37) We do not deny that it is possible to get some knowledge through intuition, as we

do through various other sources, as the senses, etc. but the question will still arise, “Is

this true knowledge?” Even sense observation must be checked for truth e.f. snake/rope,

how much more non-sensual intuition.

(2.38) Inquiry implies doubt, proof, evidence, so that even if God were to come and say

that He is God, one would inquire into the truth of the statement. People are overawed by

doctrines enunciated upon authority of some famous man or institution or scripture. The

one answer must be: How does he or it know? Truth must be tested. If it is true, it will

survive the test and will bear proof, but everything else must inevitably find the props of

pontifical authority to support it. How am I to know that this is Truth? The first test is--is

it universally applicable, which means--will it be true in every other part of the globe,

will it be true in two million years’ time? Will it be true for all people who pursue inquiry

to the utmost extent? An idea often appears to be a reality when it is not properly inquired

into. Even if forty million people declare that this world is the ultimate reality, their

assertion is of less value than the assertions of a Jeans or Eddington who have inquired

into the nature and reality of the world and found it to be an idea.

(2.39) The religious way says: Believe! and you will be saved. The Vedantic way says:

Doubt! and you will be saved.

(2.40) The desire to know is everywhere but the capacity to understand is limited. The

result is that people resolve the conflict by jumping to the first and simplest and easiest

conclusion as the correct one, and smugly but unjustifiably thinking “I know”: Thus they

commit the fallacy of primitivity.

(2.41) Why do we appeal to reason, and not to intuition, belief, authority etc? Because of

its universality, because all over the world and in all times there is only a single rational

truth, because reason is the only way to obtain worldwide agreement amongst all peoples,

nations, groups etc. Faith, intuition etc. varies tremendously in its imagined doctrines,

scripture is interpreted by every man as he likes, but reason cannot vary in its truth.

(2.42) Once truth is known it can never be given up: you will never change your outlook

again; whereas religion, being a matter of taste, or temperament or like, is changed by its

devotees occasionally or they even become converted.

(2.43) What is wanted in Advaita is thinking it out for yourself all the 24 hours, and not

merely reading books or hearing words.

(2.44) Katha Upanishad says, beyond mind is Buddhi, beyond the buddhi is the Atman.

Therefore it is Buddhi, reason alone which is the door directly opening on to Atman.

(2.45) The intellect which you use for everyday waking life, cannot grasp the Atman. The

Buddhi which can grasp it, is the sharp intelligence which can perceive that waking itself

is but a mental state.

(2.46) Buddhi (Reason) is the higher mind. It is simply that in you which says “This is

true; this is not true.” It is that which evaluates thought. As thoughts come and go and are

therefore evanescent, it may be said that “Buddhi” is comparatively the permanent part of

the mind, whereas Intellect is the lower faculty of mind which builds up the logical

chains. Buddhi is the Judge. Intellect is the advocate arguing his case.

(2.47) It would be better to use the word intellect in terms of waking experience only and

Reason in terms of the totality of the three states (waking, dream, deep sleep states.)

(2.48) Intuition is the stage between animal instinct and developed human reason. It is

unripe reason but ripened instinct.

(2.49) Intuition is a lower faculty of mind than reason, not a higher one. As the mind

develops reason becomes explicit and supplants or complements intuition and instinct.

The superior man will have all these--reason, intuition and instinct--functioning in his

mind, but he will always keep reason on top because he knows that intuition is sometimes

unreliable.

(2.50) When people say God is merciful they attribute to him a quality which they find in

good human beings --there is no proof that God is merciful and it is just as

anthropomorphic as to make Him the creator.

(2.51) Most commentaries on the ancient books are merely the work of imagination.

Every commentator goes on imagining as he likes.

(2.52) Life is too short to waste 25 years at a Sanskrit College to learn the mere

interpretations of words. It is far better to devote the few years we have, to truth rather

than to the punditry of interpretations of texts.

(2.53) Dull minds take the world to be real, miracles to have occurred, and scripture to be

truth; they are content to have judged without enquiry. Hence the dull are also the

deluded.

(2.54) We have no quarrel whatsoever with religionists and dualist philosophers. It is

only when they claim to have the highest truth that we must interrupt and ask, "What is

Truth?"

(2.55) Where there is no ego, there can be no religion. When ego goes, then only

philosophy comes in. What is it that attaches you to this body? It is the I.

(2.56) Our criticism of religionists is "Show us your God and we shall believe," but they

cannot.

(2.57) Where is the proof that your belief is true? This is what we say to those whose

attitude is based on belief, whether in God or scriptures. Our principle is truth. Truth

means proof.

(2.58) Religion means imagination. You imagine what you like, and what pleases you. Its

cure is science.

(2.59) Nobody will go to hell, but everybody will go to the heaven that he imagines. But

remember that all imaginations are drsyam, they come and vanish.

(2.60) How do we know that all the Gods ever known to history are merely imaginary?

Reply: Because they are all thoughts, ideas, hence drsyams, i.e. all ideas have to go, you

can not catch hold of them.

(2.61) People give a name and form to Atman as God creating according to what they are

most familiar with. Thus some give a man's face and figure, others worship snakes, others

revere spirits, others female deities, other universal forces, others Agni, the fire-deity,

Kala, the deity of time and death, others abstract infinite duration, etc. All, whether

anthropomorphic or abstract are merely imaginary--nothing more. There is no proof.

(2.62) Scriptures may be quoted for the common people who are unable to think well, but

for educated persons the final appeal should be to reason.

(2.63) There can be no proved answer to the question "How do you know there is God?"

other than "I feel it" or "I believe it," etc.

(2.64) The omniscience and omnipresence of God are mere assumptions. How is it

possible for anyone to test or prove these assertions: how can he discover whether God is

in the sun as well as here, whether He knows what is going to happen a hundred years

hence?

(2.65) The fundamental thing is to get a knowledge of truth by your own experience and

reason; to say that Sankara writes the truth implies that you already know the truth, and

hence can certify Sankara's work. Until then you have no right to say whether his work is

true.

(2.66) Those dualists who say God is unchanging but his environment (the world) is

changing, and that the world is in or part of God, are inconsistent. For how can a part

change if the whole is changeless?

(2.67) People talk that God is immortal, but how can they know that he will not change

tomorrow? To say anything about the future is merely to imagine it. It is impossible for a

second thing to be immortal, because it will always change. To change is to be mortal.

(2.68) Re: God's omnipresence at the same time. Unless you yourself became God and

are everywhere present with him simultaneously you have no possible means of verifying

the truth of this doctrine. Therefore we say "Atman is God, and God is Atman."

(2.69) Men who have made similar inquiries, i.e. the Rishis have found the same

Vedantic truth but must inquire independently and verify it for yourself. The sages and

scriptures may teach the same thing but you must prove it yourself by facts.

(2.70) My opponents accuse me of also using quotations. That is true. But it would only

be a fallacy if I depended on them to prove my case, which I do not. I first prove my case

by reason and quote afterwards.

(2.71) Advaita goes to the very root where there is nothing more to doubt, nothing more

to question.

(2.72) A man may be truthful and yet what he says may not be truth. He who mistakes the

stump of a tree for a bear will be personally truthful in saying he sees a bear but the

content of his statement will yet be false. Or he may say he sees God and yet it is not

God. Hence we can not accept authority.

(2.73) We are not to take any doctrine to be truth merely because it is very old or because

it is very new.

(2.74) The reason why I advance the argument against religionists and mystics who make

assertions of God's plans and wishes, that they cannot look into God's mind for they

cannot look into their neighbor's mind, is not to deny telepathy and thought-reading--on

the contrary I accept them as scientific facts but it is because they (1) treat God as a

separate person, set Him up as apart from themselves (2) because it implies that they have

seen God and (3) because it implies there is more than one mind. From the practical

standpoint thought-reading and thought-transference are genuine enough but from the

philosophical they must be untrue because they imply the existence of two

communicating minds, i.e. duality.

CHAPTER 3: THE MEANING OF RELIGION

(3.1) If a man must pray to God, let him pray only to Buddhi.

(3.2) Our position is not agnosticism nor atheism. It transcends both.

(3.3) The great majority of men are like children, not sufficiently educated. Hence they

need religion to keep them in check. But when they grow up they become adikaris14, fit

for reception of philosophical truth.

(3.4) The only prayer you ought to make is that for Truth. Do not pray to God to give you

this or that, it will be useless and wrong. Ask only for truth and you will be put on the

path towards it.

(3.5) If a man is purely religious, he lives an ethical life, does not injure others, and does

not attempt to convert others by force. This sort of religion benefits society and is

therefore to be praised.

(3.6) The various religious ceremonies and customs which have been laid down in

Hinduism have a tremendous psychological value from the practical standpoint, even

though from the philosophical standpoint they might be irrational, unsound and

worthless. For instance the ceremony you witnessed today on behalf of a woman who

was seven months pregnant has the effect of making her happier with the belief that she is

more likely to get a male child who will be healthy and of good character than she would

have been had the ceremony not been performed. This has been brought about by the

suggestive power of the ceremony. Her thoughts will hence forward be bright and

optimistic and to that extent will definitely help to produce a better child. In order to

induce this frame of mind she had to be taught about Gods and Goddesses etc. What does

it matter whether they exist or not so long as the practical end in view is achieved.

Similarly when people believe that they must live a good life in order to secure a better

fate after death it helps to keep them within moral bounds and even to perform works of

charity. It is for this reason that Sankara did not condemn religion but only tried to purify

and lift it, and encourage people to do their religious duties properly, but the whole

system depends upon the belief and faith of the devotee and falls to the ground when he

loses his faith in the existence of God and in the efficacy of religious rituals. It is at this

stage of his mental development when the mind is filled with doubts that Vedanta permits

him to obtain outward peace, grows with his criticisms to religions and affords him the

philosophy of truth with which to replace it. Thus you must either uphold or attack

religion according to the mental state or evolution of the individual to whom you are

talking.

14 Quester, student

(3.7) Religion has been tried for 2,000 years. What has it done to prevent wars and all the

other evils? Its future promise must be judged by its past performance.

(3.8) It is utterly impossible to unite the different religions or churches together. Even if

such a thing were possible (which it is not) what are you going to do with the millions

who are atheists or agnostics? They will not unite with religionists. You can only say

"Let there be tolerance"--and that will be useful work--but you cannot bring them

together in a unified structure. The only way to real unity is the search for Truth.

(3.9) People talk of religion being the cause of love, but they mean love only among

themselves, among their own sect, and not the wider love of humanity.

(3.10) As the intelligence of the masses slowly rises, they will begin to ask questions and

to find religion unsatisfactory, thus they turn to atheism and with it communism. They

begin to want satisfaction of a visible and tangible kind, not promissory notes on Heaven.

(3.11) If you say that God has creative power, then if God created us, why did he create

in us the capacity to do evil? If He made evil, He is a rascal. This fallacy exists in all

religious reasoning.

(3.12) A world unity of religions, such as Sir Francis Younghusband's Congress is not

possible. Religions will arrive at a common understanding when men cease to think

altogether for so long as thought continues they will hold different opinions. The idea of

world religious unity is imagination. I and my wife are so close together yet we cannot

agree on so many points every day. The only possible harmony is "Let us agree to

disagree." To say that essential religious truths are the same everywhere, is to use

meaningless words, because no two definitions of truth are the same. But to advocate

inter-religious tolerance is another matter and is good.

(3.13) A deputation of villagers came to His Highness the Maharaja of Mysore yesterday

to ask for a gift of an idol for a small shrine which they were putting up. His highness

gave them the required money although he was himself an Advaitin. He realized that the

villagers could understand nothing higher and it would be cruel and useless to tell them

the idol will not help them. Similarly the Vedantin has to meet people on their own level

and just as I give toys to my children so he has to give the religious people things such as

rites, ceremonies, creation stories, histories of Gods and Goddesses, etc. to those of

undeveloped intellect.

(3.14) The Western world is giving up religion. That is inevitable owing to the decay of

religious organizations. But their mistake is to rest satisfied with such negative inner life

and not to aspire to something higher than religion after giving it up.

(3.15) Religions keep people within moral bounds; without their help there would have

been no hope for mankind. That is, religions prevent the masses from becoming even

more beastly than they already are.

(3.16) Religion is a matter which must be left to individual feelings, not to intelligence.

(3.17) Every man has got a right to believe in whichever religion he pleases. No religion

should be criticized. Only in the sphere of philosophy and truth can criticism arise and do

personal rights of faith disappear.

(3.18) Religion is for the purification of the mind and not for the perception of Truth.

(3.19) It is wrong to tell deeply religious people to abandon religion. Don't unsettle their

minds when they cannot rise higher.

(3.20) If you displace common people's faith in God and give them nothing to replace it,

they will lose ethical restraints and descend to steal and murder. Hence their faith should

not be prematurely disturbed. It serves a useful social purpose, when operative.

(3.21) Plunging into Lake Manasorowar15 means plunging into the mind and seeing the

whole world in it. The physical journey is prescribed for those who are incapable of

performing the mental journey.

(3.22) Scriptures are like diaries, after experiences of truth have been written down for

others' reference and guidance; but the full truth may be only partly revealed; the rest is

fable.

(3.23) Individual happiness is sought by religion, whereas Truth seeks universal

happiness.

(3.24) For social purposes a religion is needed because it unites a body of people, brings

them together in a common fold. Hence it is useful as a value: people however

erroneously confuse social value with ultimate truth, for they jump to the conclusion that

because it is useful in keeping people moral, for instance, a religion is therefore true.

(3.25) If by God you mean the highest truth we are worshippers of God. If however you

mean a God with moustaches, hat, etc. then we are atheists.

(3.26) Every man has a right to hold his religion as being true, but he has no right to

thrust it upon others.

(3.27) Religion and yoga are useless to the seeker after highest truth, but never say they

are useless to others. They are helpful to 99.9% of humanity for one in a 100,000 is

passionately seeking truth.

(3.28) Religion is essential for bringing up children in the way of good life. Therefore we

say, do not quarrel with religion; it has its valuable place for those whom it alone can

help, who cannot even rise to the stage of mysticism. Those that criticize religion are

quite correct so far as they themselves are concerned, but they are wrong where the world

15 Sacred Lake in Tibet

at large is concerned. It should not be taken away; to say the world can get on without religion

is foolish.

(3.29) Religion enables man to get consolation, some satisfaction, and to do his duty in

the world, but it will not enable him to get at truth.

(3.30) The best illustration of the evolution of primitive ideas of God to the most exulted

is given by the Vedas, which is a conspectus of all these varieties within a single system.

(3.31) The history of religion is the same all over the world even among lands far apart

for it history of the evolution of the human mind.

(3.32) Religion will always change. New interpretations, new rites, new dogmas will

inevitably be born within old religions. Change rules the universe. Religion cannot escape

it. What is useless in it will vanish. Notice how few believers keep up the full rituals

nowadays. Modern economic social system alone prevents it because it is outworn.

People must change their religious and social customs or they will suffer.

(3.33) The teacher has to consider the kind of society in which he lives and their

prevailing beliefs, and adapt his teaching to suit, i.e. to help them.

CHAPTER 4: THE MEANING OF MYSTICISM.

(4.1) Ascetic renunciation of the world and its desires may be usefully recommended as a

temporary discipline to those who lack self-control. It will act as an antidote, counteract

their inherent tendency, but the man who is already sufficiently level-headed and calm

needs no such external discipline. In any case this ascetic regime is to be recommended

only until the practitioner achieves some degree of self control after which he may

relinquish his external asceticism.

(4.2) Renunciation of the world is a temporary discipline and for the training of the mind,

for the mind to become detached and to achieve external peace, remaining unaffected

amid troubles. It has no other purpose.

(4.3) Keep the mind unconfused and unconfounded by other thoughts than those

pertaining to the theme selected for concentration. This is the principle and virtue of

yoga.

(4.4) Peoples’ minds have natural tendency to run in various directions through pressure

of attachments, environments, upbringing etc. Hence retreat into solitary place for yoga is

good for them to stop this tendency, to get concentration. After that they should take up

Vichara and not remain in yoga. This is the order. Yoga first, next inquiry. At this first

stage it may be useful to kill mind, keep it quiet, but it should awaken into full vigor in

Vichara.

(4.5) Concentration is merely having as few thoughts as possible. It is helpful because

you then stop exhausting the mind in the drsyam, and give it the chance to know there is

a drg. That is the philosophic value of yoga.

(4.6) Vedanta does not say that Yoga has no value: Everything in this world has its value,

but that is not the highest permanent value.

(4.7) Ignorant people who are impressed by the appearance of sadhus16 with long beards,

and show reverence to them, are really prostrating to a beard!

(4.8) The glamour of yoga, mysticism and religion is mesmeric. It is extremely difficult

to get anyone out of it, but when the spell does break they regrettably rush to the opposite

extreme of gross materialism, as in Russia. That there is a third and higher path

available-philosophy--they do not know.

(4.9) This body is useful; treat it as it deserves; don't torture it by asceticism.

(4.10) Dissociation of Mind is what has occurred when a man who is quite sensible and

balanced and practical in worldly or professional affairs, falls victim to some idiotic

charlatan of a pseudo-guru. In other words the 'I' predominates, and refuses to listen to

reason.

(4.11) Sublimation, the process of diverting the mind to something higher, is what is

good in asceticism, for in this any bad thoughts drop away.

(4.12) It is merely seeking individual gratification, i.e. the asserting of the ‘I’ to take to

Sanyas17 merely to escape from the responsibility, the bother of worldly duties. But if you

start with the idea of taking Sanyas as a discipline to be more useful in the service of

humanity, then it is right, correct and noble.

(4.13) Yogis who set up Ashrams, Swamis who travel with retinue, Sadhus who wear no

loin cloth are all types which may be grouped under the "the theatre" because they are

really displaying their body and thinking of the ego. The true Gnani will exhibit no

outward signs of difference whatsoever. Similarly the other two types of physical and

egoistic display may be grouped under the heading "cave" and "couch." This three-fold

classification was made by Bacon.

(4.14) The Sanyasins who renounce the world but take food from others without doing

some service (say, giving instructions) in return, are thinking only of their ego, of getting

food without trouble.

(4.15) The wearing of the yellow robes was intended to remind the wearer of his vows

and aspirations and thus acted as a check on his impulses. This is its good point.

16 Renunciate yogis, a common sight in India

17 Vow of Asceticism

(4.16) The body is valuable. It must be preserved and not ill-treated by asceticism. For it

is our instrument of living. And whilst alive we know that we can reflect about truth.

What happens after death, what opportunity to learn truth is there we do not know. Truth

is the object set before all human beings as the purpose of their lives. Hence we must care

for the body, keep it alive and avoid death.

(4.17) Sanyas is really given to divert your mind from all pleasures of body and mind and

give it wholly to truth.

(4.18) The ascetic who teaches that the realized soul can give up all temporal and

religious duties is teaching people to give up Brahman. What is there to give up for a true

sage? He sees Brahman everywhere.

(4.19) The yogi has to undergo a particular discipline, he has to practice, so for him it is

really necessary to abandon the world and retire into ashrams or forests. It is quite a

correct duty for him. But for gnanis, this is quite wrong. The gnani goes to the opposite,

he goes into the world but is not of it. He wishes to set an example to others.

(4.20) If you pay too much attention to your body, if you over-eat and over-drink, then

you hinder higher development. This is all the meaning of physical self-denial and

asceticism. As the Gita teaches, do not go to extremes, be moderate, neither feast nor fast

in food. If you fast too much you can't think effectively. It is alright for mysticism but not

for philosophy.

(4.21) The Buddhistic attitude towards woman to regard her body as a bundle of decaying

corrupt flesh is given only for beginners. Later when this has detached them, they must

alter, they must raise to higher level of regarding her as Brahman.

(4.22) Don't take a living unless you work. Renounce really means look upon the world

as an idea.

(4.23) If people cannot practice meditation, if their mind is too uncontrollable, then

advise them to read wise books or inspired scriptures.

CHAPTER 5: THE MEANING OF PHILOSOPHY

(5.1) The facts of Vedanta are open to all but the individual capacity to understand them

will naturally vary. This the only esotericism of Vedanta.

(5.2) Vedanta says Truth is reached by stages. Hence there is one version for children,

another for the more advanced. It is not a question of "esoteric" but of capacity to receive

truth fit for one's stage. Hence it reconciles all versions, whilst pointing to the highest

goal.

(5.3) Do not say that modern scientific and educational development has spread use of

reason; it has not reached that high point--call it intellect, if you wish but not reason. Still

we have progressed; we shall progress beyond religion and beyond science; after that we

shall use reason and achieve philosophy.

(5.4) First find out what stage a man is in. Does he want merely to get on in life, if so,

prescribe religion; does he want peace? then prescribe yoga; or does he want truth? Then

alone should you initiate him into philosophy.

(5.5) Men are divided into three classes of intelligence. Those with lowest are given

religion, those in the intermediate are given yoga, those in the highest are taught truth.

We do not say religion and yoga are bad; but only that are steps, not the highest level.

(5.6) Sri Ramakrishna adapted his teaching to the people he was talking to. To common

people he said "If you utter the name of God it is enough." This was the highest they

could practice. But he had quite a superior teaching for the few who could grasp it. So

when people say Ramakrishna taught this or that, and the teachings contradict each other

you must stop to inquire to whom did he teach this and with what idea?

(5.7) The different castes were prescribed for varying grades of intelligence. According to

Mandukya Karika III men are divided into three grades of intelligence (Buddhi), high,

middling and low. Religion is prescribed for the lowest; they are there and not to be

condemned, but us a man of more wisdom you must pray and worship with them because

they are like children, not knowing better. The highest stage is that of the man who can

think for himself, he has the right to think; whereas the lowest regards questioning as

blasphemous and dangerous to religion. My own guru refused to teach Mandukya to most

persons, for they could not understand it, even though they were sannyasins, and they

would only misunderstand it. Hence we permit and approve of religion for others who

cannot rise higher, but they ought not have the conceit that this is the highest. The former

Dewan of Mysore wanted to spend his life with my guru to study the highest, but he was

not accepted because unready. There is no inconsistency because this is meant for the

lower stage, while that is meant for the higher stage; each is a stop upwards. The

Vedantin helps people according to their stage, telling religious or mystic fables to

intellectual children but truth to the thinking man. In the Vedantin worshipping in a

temple with the masses practicing yoga with yogis and then denying God with his fellow

Vedantins, there is thus no inconsistency.

(5.8) Indian philosophy gives a connecting link from primitive religion to the highest

truth "knowing which nothing remains to be known."

(5.9) You must not yourself instill doubts in the minds of others: these doubts must arise

of their own accord and only then may you answer them. If the young college students

are beginning to question the truth of religion and come to ask you to clear their

problems, then you may give them one point nearer the truth; but it would be unwise to

go and tell them that their religion is untrue. To unsettle a satisfied mind is to lead it into

bewilderment, with probable immorality as a consequence.

(5.10) The name "system of Advaita" should not be used because incorrect. All systems

are ours, because there is non-contradiction in our view. The Advaitin feels there is no

clash with others, he quarrels with none. He sees all their points of view. He knows that

they take things as they seem to be, hence are necessarily dualists. Our religion is Truth,

our philosophy is truth, call it "search for truth" and leave out names.

(5.11) We do not object to giving the masses the spiritual pabulum they are fit for; that is

alright. But always do something to lift them one step higher; always mix with the

pabulum, or say something as some slight impetus towards Truth. This can be done with

temple worship.

(5.12) The Truth of Vedanta is so strong that it makes one feel impregnable in argument

and invulnerable in exposition. Hence it gives intellectual courage.

(5.13) You may be born an animal, an insect, a plant, to be born a human being is the

highest privilege because it is much less common numerically than the preceding

(animal, plant, mineral) forms. Hence we should use this great opportunity to seek truth

and reality.

(5.14) At every stage in life, wherever you turn or go, ignorance meets you. What is

going to happen tomorrow to me, or to the world (war) this year? What will happen to

this seed if I plant it, will it grow? What is happening inside my body? What is the

ultimate condition of this table matter? You must finally answer "I do not know.'' Why a

are there so many schools? All seek some kind of knowledge, the removal of ignorance.

When you visit a foreign country as a tourist for the first time what do you seek? The

satisfaction of it? But that really means that, at first you did not know this country, you

wanted to know it; the satisfaction really consisted in removing your ignorance of this

country. Hence everywhere everyone is seeking knowledge and the putting an end to

ignorance.

(5.15) The form of philosophy must be adapted to our present 20th century environments

if it is to become a living force and not a museum curiosity.

(5.16) Indian philosophy alone has pursued Truth to the farthest end. Many Westerners

say "Ultimate truth is unknown." But Indian philosophy says, "if you will stick to the

pursuit you will get it.”

(5.17) Philosophy means an enquiry into the nature of the world. How it came to be?

What is it? What is it for?

(5.18) Philosophy is not making various theories about the Absolute, nor hairsplitting of

words, nor imagining things. It is directed towards life and has the highest value in

weighing life properly.

(5.19) Science is true so far as the world of science is concerned, yoga is true so far as I

sit quiet in meditation: the yogi's experiences are not lies but truly described; all these are

however only relative truths, true only from a certain narrow point of view, they come

and go, they contradict each other; whereas we seek the Supreme Truth which is higher

than all these, which is uncontradictable and does not conflict with anything else.

(5.20) We need all phases of human thought and belief to help us if we want a complete

answer to the problem of human life. Philosophy is all-comprehensive, assigns a place for

everything, and thus supplies this answer. It surveys the whole. If you exclude religion,

you have no philosophy. If you take only religion, if you view life from a particular

standpoint, again you have no philosophy.

(5.21) Philosophy wants to understand the world as much as it was a million years ago as

it is now, i.e. it does not depend on and is unaffected by the personality, the coming and

going of avatars: that belongs to religion. Nor does it deal with the next world: it can deal

only with the world in which we live. It studies truth irrespective of time (epoch) or

locality.

(5.22) The first step in the study of philosophy is to "analyze" e.g. as cloth when analyzed

is found to be nothing but thread.

(5.23) Truth is an interpretation of the whole of man's life. Thousands of men have given

their interpretations, which sages call mere co-opinions. But Truth is universal and

ultimate.

(5.24) Why do you refuse to read Ramanuja? It is not a waste of time. The Vedantic

student should be willing to examine everything, to inquire into all views and then only

reject those that are unproved.

(5.25) Philosophy is the pursuit of truth. Metaphysics is speculation. The philosopher

weighs metaphysics even as he weighs religion and other subjects in order to find out

how much they contain.

(5.26) Nothing is outside the scope of Vedanta's inquiry. The various religions, the

different forms of art, the numerous systems of philosophy, the opposing democratic and

totalitarian political doctrines,--all these are equally carefully examined by Vedanta and

found to be but single steps leading upward, not ultimates. They are alright in their places

as steps. Vedanta alone deals with all the steps plus the highest goal too.

(5.27) Philosophy is the interpretation of the whole of life. You are obliged to see, hear,

eat, walk and read newspapers in the whole. Philosophy is not the interpretation of the

Koran, Vedas etc.

(5.28) What distinguishes truth from science, metaphysics, art and other departments of

knowledge is that it takes the view of the totality of life---a comprehensive view of the

whole.

(5.29) In Vedantic discipline we do not give up the objective world; but along with all the

phenomenal we inquire. Nothing is given up. All the data are taken into account, and

each is analyzed, tested and found to be of the nature of the mind or Atman.

(5.30) If you view a subject from your own standpoint alone, or from one technical

standpoint only, you cannot view it rightly. Philosophy is the interpretation of the whole.

Is it possible to get knowledge of the All? Vedanta says: Yes, not in its details but in the

sense of knowing its essence.

(5.31) What is this human life? So many million persons are born and so many die. What

does it all mean? Every man has got a right to imagine, and so he may say God has willed

it and leave it there. But we wish to know whether there is any proved evidence to help

get this meaning: that is philosophy. There must be ascertained facts before we open our

lips.

(5.32) This philosophy is not mine, is not Sankara's, is not any one's. Hence it cannot be

labeled. It has come down to us from time immemorial. Who originally taught is

unknown.

(5.33) Truth is the most important problem in philosophy.

(5.34) Truth means the evaluation of all knowledge and experience with a view to attain

to the highest truth. Why are you quarrelling with each other? It is because each man

thinks what he sees is truth and they fall out.

(5.35) We speak of the ancients as being all knowing, but the truth is that they knew

some things but were ignorant of others. We have to use discrimination when estimating

their knowledge.

(5.36) Philosophy is the search for truth. It is not opinion, not speculation, but reality

which is verified by appeal to life as a whole.

(5.37) The Indian belief that philosophy has a threefold aim, i.e. Sat, Chit, Ananda is

matched by the Western belief that it aims at reality, knowledge got from study and

happiness. There are three classes of men in this world, the majority seeking happiness,

ananda, overcoming misery, whereas others seek Chit, knowledge, while pure

metaphysicians and scientists seek reality. All these are merely aspects which appeal to

different tastes, or temperaments or tendencies. But Vedanta goes beyond these three for

it seeks Ultimate Truth.

(5.38) After having done everything, achieved everything, had the greatest pleasures,

even then I shall be taken away and must die. Hence the thoughtful man inquires into the

meaning of death. Thus philosophy springs out of death.

(5.39) Philosophy is not the totalization but the general interpretation of experience.

CHAPTER 6: LOGIC SCIENCE & PHILOSOPHIC REASON

(6.1) There are three stages of mental development, first, instinctive, which deals with

sex, herd, nutrition and other animal instincts, second, Intuitive, which arises from

repeated human experience, third, Rational. The last must be made supreme.

(6.2) Buddhi is the highest mental faculty. It is next to Atma. Buddhi is wanted. Gita

says: "Through Buddhi you reach me." Even in material affairs it is the man with the

sharpest intelligence who wins.

(6.3) Logic is not the same as my Reason. There should be a distinction between them.

Logic cannot know the Absolute. It is of intellect, not reason. Reason can know the

Absolute. Logic applies only to the objective (seen) world. Europeans have not analyzed

the mind itself yet. Hence they cannot understand us. If your Witness Self could see

itself.

(6.4) Reasoning in Advaita is thinking applied to all three states to prove something. It is

in this sense that Sankara used the word, which pundits do not grasp.

(6.5) Reasoning must not be confused with intellectual argument. The latter is used by

lawyers for logical building up of evidence of seen objects only but the former is used in

philosophy to refer to evidence of all three states (avastatraya). Reason (Buddhi) sees the

appearance and disappearance of objects including ego; whereas logical intellect (manas)

is limited to them alone.

(6.6) How can you witness the mind of another? All you can do is to witness his bodily

actions and guess at the mind behind them. Yet Western psychologists, especially

behaviorists and Freudians make this error. Vedantic view is that you can only know your

own mind; never another man's mind. Even thought-reading is only looking first into

your own mind, and saying what you believe is in the other man's mind. Hence it is your

own mind, and saying what you believe is in the other can's mind. But is your mind confined

to your body? No. It is everywhere; hence it is the same as the other man's mind.

This renders telepathy possible, but the thought reading must still be done by your own

mind, not another's; you know of the other man's only such thoughts as appear in your

mind, and therefore it is really and ultimately your own mind you know.

(6.7) When I advocate science, I do not mean mere elementary scientific facts about

oxygen and hydrogen, but advanced science, that truth to which it leads, the meaning and

aim of all science.

(6.8) Those mystics who say you have to rise beyond reason are insane. Common sense

tells you that the only way to distinguish between stone and a fruit is to use your

intelligence. Otherwise you will try to eat stones! That is, to arrive at the truth of any

matter or objects, you must use reason. How much more when you want to arrive at the

truth of life, and the universe? This is the only way.

(6.9) Vichara means that without thinking about the truth of it you cannot attain it. The

mind must be used in reasoning: it is kept quiet in yoga, there is no possibility of

knowing the final truth, because the instrument of knowledge--the mind--is not

functioning. Vichara depends entirely upon Buddhi, i.e. reason.

(6.10) If contradictions are present, how can we be certain anything is true? Hence truth

must be the uncontradictable.

(6.11) To the extent that you show there is no possibility of difference, you get at truth.

(6.12) If people ask why should reason arrogate the final appeal to itself, we reply: Your

use of the word why is sufficient proof that you are seeking a reason for your satisfaction.

Thus unconsciously you make the reason highest.

(6.13) Until you verify any doctrine, whether it be dualist or non-dualistic, it remains

only a hypothesis.

(6.14) Vedanta is not so much interested in the results of Science as in its method of

verification. Experiment and observation we agree and follow as far as possible, but it

cannot deal with ideas and thoughts. Hence it is the verification method used by science

which we base our philosophy on. The collection and change of theories is not our task.

(6.15) Hasty generalization is another fallacy. We should decide only after having

examined and inquired into as many facts as possible.

(6.16) Knowledge is the only means of attainment, not yoga.

(6.17) People cannot distinguish between ethical truth and philosophic truth, between a

man's speaking what he honestly believes to be true and what really proves such after test

or experiment and all others also agree.

(6.18) Reason is that which distinguishes real from appearance. There is a difference

between reason (buddhi) and thinking which is most important you should grasp. Both

are two different kinds of thought. When thought starts to reflect about itself, it becomes

reason, but to do this requires the utmost concentration, which is difficult. The thinking

process must critically return to itself, examine its own nature. When it does this, it will

discover that it can only produce dualities, drsyams, ideas and never yield the real

perceiving that the Real is unity. Reason ceases to work for it is no longer needed. All is

then real. So judgment, discrimination etc. becomes unnecessary. This is quite different

from the intuition of mystics. But the mystic never achieve abolition of thought; he only

changes one imagination for another. With the latter thought must disappear, the world

objects must disappear, whereas with the philosopher, thought remains, world remains,

but they are known as non-different, as Brahman.

(6.19) Intellect is precisely the same faculty as Reason, only the former is confined to

waking whereas the latter applies to the three states.

(6.20) The question of verification follows immediately after the question of truth,

because every man says, I know truth. "How does he know that what he sees or what he

thinks is true? This is the work of verification. It is most important and most essential

part of Vedanta.

(6.21) What is the test of truth. The first test is its universality, as two plus two make

four. The second test is that truth is beyond all possibility of contradiction.

(6.22) Vichara or enquiry is of the highest value. We can begin Vichara at any time for

all the 24 hours the mind is with you. Discrimination, company of the wise, practice of

detachment etc. are only helps to enquiry.

(6.23) Verification is the chief characteristic of science and essential to philosophy. In

this sense I say that even ancient Vedanta possessed the scientific method.

(6.24) The two main features of science in which Vedanta is interested are generalization

and verification.

(6.25) The characteristic of Truth should be like the characteristic of fire which is hot to

all men. Truth means that which is accepted by all to be alike. It is impossible to mistake

truth, when you have it for anything else. If it is not like this then you have not truth but a

conviction.

(6.26) Scholasticism says "According to this theory it is so" or "According to that theory

it is so" or "According to Sankhya18 it is so" etc. All this is being based on assumption,

not fact, and can never arrive at truth, only opinion. We have to follow a certain method

which is not followed by non-philosophical. People interpret the same thing in different

ways. How are we to know which is the correct one? The aim must be to know truth;

otherwise we fall a prey to imagination.

(6.27) Those who talk of other worlds, whether mystic planes or religious death-worlds,

go beyond our experience and I can only bow to them and withdraw. I can deal only in

the world before me, the only world I know. Ask a Christian, a Jew, a Muslim and a

Hindu to put their finger in a fire. Will they disagree about its power to burn and pain

them? No. They will all agree about the nature of the fire: i.e. there will be noncontradiction.

That is precisely the same as the Vedantic definition of truth: when men

really rise to it they will never disagree about it.

(6.28) In the absence of philosophy science is supremely valuable because it tends toward

racial nondiscrimination and because it rises above national distinction and prejudices.

Hence its spread is one of the most fitting ways to spread universal understanding

especially if complemented by mysticism.

(6.29) Non-contradiction is the test of truth, says Max Planck.

18 Dualistic school of Hindu philosophy.

(6.30) It is by the process of negation and affirmation that Brahman becomes the subject

of reasoning. It is by reasoning that the identity of Jiva and Brahma is established. A

direct knowledge of Brahman can never arise through any mystic initiation. Yoga has no

place in it. It can arise only through reasoning. Want of faith is the obstacle to religion.

Want of inquiry is the obstacle to philosophy. Even Vamadeva reached Brahman by

inquiry. To one who makes no use of his reasoning faculty, knowledge of Brahman is

impossible. If a person cannot undertake the inquiry through want of time etc. he should

be engaged in meditation etc.

(6.31) Philosophy is reasoned proved truth; mysticism relies on personal experience as

truth; scholasticism takes private interpretation as truth.

(6.32) There are two samadhis, one yogic empty trance, and the other keen concentrative

thinking.

(6.33) The Yogi who practices discrimination and enquiry during his meditation is simply

thinking and using his reason; to what extent he is practicing Vedantic Vichara and is like

one of us. There are unfortunately so many different kinds of Yoga. But which yogi uses

reason? When Yoga means killing reason, as in most cases it also does, then we refute it.

Hence the meaning of yoga referred to in speech or writing should be given. Sankara

upholds yoga as a preparation only.

(6.34) Conversion can occur only in the sphere of religion, never in the sphere of true

Vedanta. When a man knows Truth, how are you going to get him to give it up for

imagination?

(6.35) "All men are mortal". Have you seen all men? How are you going to see them all?

Therefore as logic is built upon more imagination, as assumptions, therefore it is no path

to philosophical truth. It is like religion and mysticism. You postulate certain things and

show they agree with others that you have already taken for granted. This is called the

"coherence" theory of truth. But it is fallible. Logic is based on experience. Experience

changes from time to time. Hence it is fallible. Thus the 18th century people said talking

at a distance is impossible, today we have radio. The 18th century people went by their

experience. Mathematical truths come under the head of logical truths. When we speak of

God, we cannot give either the correspondence or coherence theories. We cannot verify

ideas of God. But these difficulties come only to a man who seeks Truth.

(6.36) Vedanta means fact, verification, proof.

(6.37) Truth is that on which no two persons can disagree, in which there can be no

contradiction, no difference and no doubts.

(6.38) We cannot say human reason can know ultimate truth, but only that human reason

can know there is an ultimate truth, that it is.

(6.39) Physical laws are after all only my idea of things. The only real way to know these

things is to become them. Hence scientific laws do not explain, they merely describe.

(6.40) Logic deals with causes whereas Reason deals with distinguishing between truth

and falsehood.

(6.41) To those who object that it is humanly impossible to learn all the facts as life is far

too short for that, hence it is consequently impossible to attain truth. Our reply is if even

if there are millions more facts unknown they will all turn out to be ideas. Every fact,

whether known or unknown, is in the end mental construction. A further reply (although

the West will be unable to see the point) is avastatraya, which does give the totality of all

possible facts. To those religionists who supplement the above objection by drawing the

conclusion that therefore we are forced to rely on a mixture of facts and guesswork, we

reply that you thereby confess you are not seeking truth.

To those scientists who supplement the objection by drawing the conclusion that

we are safe in being guided by the facts we already know, we reply, then you thereby

confess you are seeking only practical not ultimate truth.

(6.42) It is the scientific discipline of the mind that I refer to when saying that philosophy

must be based on science. I do not refer to practical inventions of science or its utilitarian

side.

(6.43) A truth is verifiable in science if it can be tested and in logic if it can be proved.

(6.44) We should start with science to understand the world but we must finish with

philosophy for the full explanation is essentially philosophical.

(6.45) The characteristic of truth must be that all men must agree to it. That is why we

need the mathematical method. All men, even animals recognize that if you add one thing

to another you have two things in consequence.

(6.46) The same truths which modern science gives can be found in our old Upanishads,

Sankara and Gaudapada. But the old presentation does not convince now because it is

based on authority, even though it be correct, whereas Science proves its case.

(6.47) If science pursues its researches and does not stop, if it seeks constantly also to

ascertain truth, it will be led into philosophy because there is nowhere else for it to go.

(6.48) The usual objection that the ancient Indians did not know science and therefore our

Vedanta cannot be correct is refuted thus: Modern science leads in the end to discovery

that world is mind and that causality is nonexistent. Precisely the same discovery was

made by Gaudapada and Sankara. How? They had the spirit of science, the desire for

ascertained facts and being intellectuals of the highest order, saw the truth.

(6.49) What is the distance from here to Calcutta in your dream journey? It is only

mental, in your mind, an imagination. Similarly in the waking state the same distance is

also mental, idea, mathematics, inasmuch as applied mathematics is concerned with

time-measurements, (days and years) and space-measurements (2 ins. and 5 miles) is

bound up with time and space. When the latter are shown to be imaginary, mathematics

collapses with them. Nevertheless, mathematics is the nearest science to philosophical

truth, for scientific theories are based on mathematical calculations and the accuracy of

science is derived from mathematics because it is an activity of pure reason. But reason

works upwards from lower to higher certainties in the practical world, mathematics being

the highest of these stages but still does not reach the absolute philosophic world. Hence

the chief use of mathematical study from the philosophic viewpoint is that it makes the

mind sharp. Pythagoras was perfectly right in demanding mathematical capacity from

applicants for entry to his school.

(6.50) Reason becomes Atman when it is by itself, chained to no other thoughts: when it

to so chained, then it is reason.

(6.51) The Western use of intellect and reason is excellent; only they do not push it far

enough, to the very end.

(6.52) Modern science is the starting point of philosophy. Science, however, deals only

with one side whereas philosophy deals with all--inside and outside, the knower and the

known, for it is the knowledge of the whole of existence; that All is the Universal Self.

(6.53) We learn through the method of trial and error, through the experiences of many

lives. We try many things in life and through mistakes and suffering learn what to avoid

and what to seek. Thus we learn right reasoning through studying faulty thinking.

Similarly you know there is Gnan only after you know its opposite--ignorance sorrow etc.

(6.54) Common people and primitive minds fall into faulty thinking through certain

characteristic fallacies, such as the fallacy of wish - taking what pleases them as true; the

fallacy of fear - taking what you dread as real, such as witches or evil spirits; fallacy of

simplicity - taking what is apparent obvious and superficial as true because it is less

troublesome.

(6.55) Ramakrishna did not learn any practical science but he did have certain knowledge

of truth all the same. He was therefore scientific. Krishna too did not learn practical

utilization of science but he had exactness and certitude of knowledge, of truth and

therefore possessed scientific knowledge. When you have an exact and certain knowledge

of philosophy you can utilize it for the welfare of mankind; this is the practical side.

Science can be applied in two ways, either to make man more miserable or to make him

more happy.

(6.56) Gnana yoga's method is inquiry and discrimination; “this is true, that is unreal, etc.

(6.57) "Never look at facts!"--this is the characteristic equally of the insane as of the

religious. Every awkward inconvenient fact hostile to his belief will be regarded by the

devotee as a test of his faith or his devotions and dismissed. The lunatic also dismisses

such facts when they conflict with his delusions. Therefore the scientific approach based

on solid facts, is the safe and essential way.

(6.58) Science deals with the physical world, philosophy with the physical world and

then goes beyond it into the higher level, consciousness.

(6.59) "Renunciation with knowledge is the means of attaining perfection" Gita. This

means ordinary sanyas does not give truth, there must be exercise of reason along with it.

(6.60) Neither Yogic Samadhi-bliss or worldly pleasure should be allowed to draw the

mind away from evenness; for neither can give Brahman. When the mind is distracted by

either, either internal or external bliss, it should by effort be drawn back to steadiness,

evenness. This state alone yields Brahman.

(6.61) It is an error to say that science is based on facts whereas philosophy is based on

ideas. The latter is based on facts too. In fact it starts with the fact observed by science,

but carries its inquiry deeper. Therefore when the scientist wants to go more deeply into

the meaning of his own facts he becomes a philosopher, automatically, merely by deeper

reflection. Science merges into philosophy ultimately and there is no other way for it.

(6.62) The notion that truth is agreement of opinion with fact, is unacceptable, because

impossible of attainment. How can you show that your opinion, i.e. your idea is the

same? If the fact is a bar of iron 2 ft. long, can you produce an idea also 2 ft. long and lay

it alongside the bar to see how far both agree? No. You cannot.

(6.63) Those who claim to have had occult experiences are like the insane, because their

experiences are similarly incommunicable to others. This breaks the first canon of

science, i.e. truth must be communicable and verifiable. Facts must be communicable and

verifiable to everyone, and not, hidden as "occult experience,” if they are to be true facts.

(6.64) Truth is that which cannot be contradicted by any man at any time, and such is the

truth we want. Is there an end to philosophical thinking? If you take the external world

alone, or the internal world alone, there is no end. But if you combine the two then there

is an end--Truth.

(6.65) What is the definition of truth? That of which there is no doubt, of which there can

be no doubt, and there can be no possibility of doubt, and above all, when you see, by

thought, all things in your self. (“Can be no doubt” refers to oneself, whereas; “no

possibility” refers to doubts raised by other men).

(6.66) Gnana is that knowledge, knowing which everything else becomes known. Truth

can be known by its being impossible of contradiction, and depending entirely on what is

not yourself.

(6.67) We have no such thing as our Vedantic System. We are only seeking truth and

possess no organic system. Only the ignorant talk so for they are attached to theories,

even Vedantic theories. The Gnani has samatvam--the sameness of everything, for he

knows truth is everybody's property: not that of any separate school such as Vedanta.

Wherever the test of truth is upheld by experience and not by dogmatic statements, there

we are. The gnani knows everything to be only the Atman or Mind.

(6.78) Deductive thinking is true for practical purposes but unacceptable for philosophic

inquiry. “All men are mortal, Socrates is a man, Socrates is mortal," is unprovable

philosophically. How do we know that Socrates will die? We only infer, but never know

through impregnable proof that will always be true.

(6.79) Our final position regarding that which cannot be proved is “We do not know. We

cannot call it truth, however.”

(6.70) We do not depend on any personality. We want only the principle of truth. We do

not even say that we want to study or teach Vedanta. How can you know at the beginning

of our investigation that Vedanta might not even prove false. We study only truth. On the

other hand you might say that V.S.I. is a humbug, but before you really know that what

you believe about V.S.I. is true you must first examine all the evidence. We have nothing

to do with faith. We are concerned only with that which is true, not faith.

(6.71) There are practical truths of everyday affairs of the world life. There is also the

half-truth. The only way to know whether you have got the correct idea of truth is to see

if it can be contradicted. Mathematical truths provide the closest to this definition,

because as far as our experience goes one plus one never equals three. Still mathematical

truths are in the realm of practical truths, as well as the idea expressed in the phrase "as

far as our experience goes.” It is not even existent in the realm of highest truth where

there can be no contradiction.

(6.72) Truth means the absence of conflict. The less of the contradictions the greater the

harmony and the good of all.

(6.73) We also start by asking "Truth--what should it be like?" Truth is what all want,

including animals. Thus if you take an egg out of a nest, the bird will perceive the loss,

i.e. it will see that there is something wrong, untrue.

(6.74) We give a definition of Truth--absence of contradiction, which can be accepted by

all, and then we proceed on this basis.

(6.75) We must get at the truth without imagination. All the philosophies of the world are

based on imagination. Hence they contradict each other. A thousand persons imagine in a

thousand different ways, each one believes that what he imagines is true, but where is the

proof? People do not get truth because they are attached to their particular and peculiar

ideas. Attachment is the root of all evil.

(6.76) Truth should appear as readily as a mathematical formula, that two plus two equals

four.

(6.77) Buddhi is not intuition but "that exercise of thinking faculty which distinguishes

between error and truth," as Gita itself defines truth. But Buddhi must be purified. The

aim is to purify it and make use of it. The more it is purified, the closer to truth you

proceed. It is the balance with which things are weighed.

(6.78) Indian philosophy rests on truth uncontradictable, beyond all possibilities of doubt

and dispute, on knowledge of all existence, attaining which everything becomes attained.

It seeks identity of one's self with all.

(6.79) Indian philosophy appeals to neither intuition nor intellect but reason absolutely.

(6.80) When I am told to go and practice Yoga and then only I shall know its truth, I

reply "How do you know that Yoga leads to truth?" This at once involves epistemology

of which every yogi is ignorant and which he has never taken into consideration. Yet it is

the very foundation of knowledge; without knowing epistemology a man who mentions

truth or knowledge simply does not know what he is talking about.

(6.81) I have the greatest regard for Huxley because he used the title "agnostic" meaning

"I do not know. I have not seen."

(6.82) People quote from Koran, Bible, Veda, as proof but nobody asks the question

"How do you know that what Muhammad, Jesus, Rishi says is true?"

(6.83) The lack of evidence for anything is sufficient ground for refusing to accept it. We

must have proof before belief. If, for instance, we cannot be certain about the possibility

of life after death, if we cannot be shown, we just refuse to assert or admit it.

(6.84) Vedanta’s attitude to mystics is "granting that, if we place ourselves in your

position, if we follow up the yoga-practices you prescribe we shall have the same mystic

experiences you have had, how are we to know even then that those experiences are the

truth? We shall still be faced with that question even after the experience. Hence the need

of inquiry, whether before or after into "What is truth?"

(6.85) Those who start with the idea of God have no business to do so. How do you know

there is God? If they arrived at the existence of God after and not before inquiry, that will

be quite a different matter. But in assuming God they merely guess and imagine without

facts.

(6.86) I may have my ego and assert that I am right. You may have your ego and assert

that you are right. That is why we have to be no respecter of personality but only of truth.

(6.87) If anyone quotes an authority as final, apply the "method of disagreement." Thus if

Christ says so, reply that Krishna says the opposite! If a man quotes Sankara in proof,

you may quote Ramanuja in disagreement. This may eventually show the man that no

person can be a final authority. If you want to overthrow an opponent, simply say "You

say so, but C. says something else. You contradict each other." The Gnani on the other

hand has no position of his own. He does not even hold an Advaita position. He ceases to

posit anything. As soon as you posit any one thing, you posit duality. If he says that the

system of Vedanta is so and so, he takes a stand which can be opposed or contradicted

and is no longer non-dual.

(6.88) Truth should not only be known but it should be proved, verified. Advaita does not

prove that there is ONE! It proves that there is no second thing. Spinoza started with One

substance, Hegel with the Absolute; but where is the proof of the existence of this ONE

or the Absolute. Hence they started with assumptions; whereas Vedanta starts with no

assumption whatever but proved every step taken, it does not even start with assumption

that Brahman exists; the discovery of the existence of Brahman comes only at the end of

our inquiry and not at the beginning. This is the great difference between ours and other

philosophies no matter how similar their tenets may seem. Our method is the way of

verification for every tenet; we want proof, not poetry. We do not care for either intuition

or imagination which is disastrous. A man may say "I have seen God, I have realized the

Absolute" but he must prove it." This is our challenge. Similarly those who speak of the

Author of the Universe are telling lies, for whoever could possibly have seen Him

creating the world? They are merely using their imagination because they were

themselves created later.

(6.89) He who starts an exposition by bringing in Gods, is trying to force on you

something which is in his mind, something moreover, which he has simply assumed. We

must stick to reason, not the fallacy of authoritarianism.

(6.90) Our position relative to critics is "You say you know. Very well, we shall listen to

you first, you must establish your position first, before we say anything and we shall

examine its truth."

(6.91) Logic deals with waking-world facts only. Now Western thinkers are beginning to

find this is not enough. Hence the arisal of non-Aristotelian logic. But logic will evolve

into full reasoning only by including all three states in its data.

(6.92) You cannot permanently prevent people from inquiring. Ultimately every human

mind will have to practice Vichara. Even animals and insects have to inquire. Look at the

ant examining and moving among various substances until it finds food. It is inquiring.

(6.93) Judgment should be suspended until all facts are obtained. One should be cautious;

you might get an intuitional flash, but even then you should wait and confirm. Lack of

evidence against a doctrine is no reason for believing it. Philosophic doubt is needed.

(6.94) Every dream and vision must be tested if it be true.

(6.95) The yogi thinks that by getting to Nirvikalpa Samadhi he reaches the highest; the

religious man thinks that by getting God he reaches the highest, but how do they know it

is the highest?

(6.96) Can I look into God’s mind? “What does He really intend by avoiding sufferings?

"Does He wish such sorrows to us?" The above questions show that you are reasoning

not merely taking them for granted which is rationalizing religion, it means investigation,

reason, and inquiry.

(6.97) How do you know God created the world? Where is the proof? If you had seen

God creating, you could admit it, but how could you have seen God before you came into

existence? (i.e. were created).

CHAPTER 7: CHARACTERISTICS OF PHILOSOPHICAL DISCIPLINE

(7.1) Qualifications for philosopher (1) in the first place, the seeker must be truthful

himself. Taittriya Up.Ch.1 points out. He must love truthfulness in thought and action. (2)

He must be alert in mind, observant of Nature, noting her phenomena and not ignoring

them like the yogi recluse. (3) He must have courage. If he is afraid of public opinion or

the world's attitude toward him, the truth is impossible, (4) Gita and Upanishads

constantly repeat the fourth necessity: steadfastness.

(7.2) A complete man must keep both thought and feeling and action properly balanced.

Therefore the genius is defective for he has paid the penalty of neglecting other things.

The philosopher cannot afford to reject any department. He finds a place for all of them,

even religion and art, and thus achieves balance.

(7.3) The realist philosophers and scientific of the West have developed the right kind of

sharp mentality, only they will not go far enough but cling to the external world in

thinking. They will not face the fact that world is an idea. The reason is that they are

attached to world by their desires, such as sex. etc. This handicaps their thinking. Hence

yoga disciplines are prescribed in order to purify the mind and render it free, unattached

and thus unprejudiced in favor of external world.

(7.4) The value of meditation and yoga is to keep off extraneous thoughts. The average

man cannot give attention to proper thought on Vedanta line because he cannot keep his

mind concentrated along this line: yoga builds up the power to do so. Hence it is useful as

preliminary process, We still the mind in order to get thought-control but once this

control is attained, then we must begin to THINK, to use one's mind again in a perfectly

concentrated way and endeavor to understand the Vedantic truth. So you kill thoughts

only to use them again later.

(7.5) A sharpened intellect is necessary to perceive truth. Those who lack mental

acuteness will not be able to grasp the meaning of the relativity of the three states. Such a

dull intellect may, however, be perfectly adequate to handling the affairs of the world and

a man might be clever, astute and a successful business man and yet remain incapable of

grasping truth. The sharpness which is required is the subtlety and ability to move amid

abstract ideas. Similarly the greatest scholar, however learned, may be unable to grasp it,

because it requires real thinking and not mere memorizing.

(7.6) To sit in your room and think “I know” or to sit in your cave and meditate will not

lead to realization, for Truth will not walk in to visit you; you must go and search for her.

(7.7) Unless you know that you have got a disease, you will not go to a doctor for a cure:

similarly unless you are aware of your ignorance and stop saying "I know" or believing

that what you know is true, you will not resort to a guru for knowledge but only for

confirmation of your beliefs!

(7.8) Sraddha means the 1. the love of truth, the determination to get at truth, come what

may. 2. A strong mind, 3. be a hero in the face of God's wrath.

(7.9) Yoga's value is to detach the mind from this imprisonment in the body.

(7.10) Emotion cannot be killed, but it must be brought under the control and check of

reason. Reason must be kept on top, as emotion often leads the truth-seeker astray.

(7.11) 95% of our arguments are rationalizations; disguising emotions under the garb of

reason and deceiving one's own or other minds.

(7.12) The achievement of full sanity depends on the permanent checking of all feelings

emotions and passions by reason. This is the same as Gita's preaching and Shankara's

requirement of dispassion in the would-be disciple. It does not mean that emotion should

be killed or destroyed. Only that it should be subordinated and never get the upper hand.

For Vedanta the mind must be kept calm: opinions, beliefs and prejudices based on

feeling prevent it from attaining truth, which is achieved by reason alone. People's

emotional likes or dislikes, i.e. complexes grip them so much that this is why only one in

a million want Gnan.

(7.13) Vedanta demands perfect calmness of mind if you want to get truth, keeping out

attachments and dislikes, anger and hatred, from the mind.

(7.14) Yoga is an excellent discipline for the mind and character to produce calmness and

thus reduce the strength of passions and emotional complexes, provided it is practiced

within limits. When however, it is overdone, it leads only to lunacy. Similarly a doctor

will give you minute quantities of strychnine which will act as a tonic to you, but if you

take too much then you will be harmed bodily and die. Yoga practice acts in the same

way; a little regulated yoga is beneficial, a lot ruins the mind. If the guru knew where to

tell the student to stop his practice, he would be a true guru, but for this he needs

scientific intellect which most gurus lack.

(7.15) If you do not take away the ego, the ‘me,’ no proper enquiry into philosophical

truth is possible, but only into religion.

(7.16) A little training in mathematics is also necessary because it forms the mind to be

exact, precise and positive and certain.

(7.17) The intense concentration required to grasp the teacher's explanation of Brahman

is so fine and "sharp as the razor's edge," as Upanishads say, that we prescribe Yoga at

the beginning to assist the seeker to gain it. He must be able to keep all other thoughts

away in order to perceive the Non-dual. Yoga fits him for the inquiry into Brahman, but

he must afterwards make the enquiry.

(7.18) Yoga is intended to remove mental conflicts and further to keep out doubts and

passions. It means keeping the mind always calm and alert. Yoga is a psychological

training which is necessary before philosophical enquiry.

(7.19) Unless you keep out your likes and dislikes on the quest, you cannot know truth. "I

like my body, therefore it must be real", "I like Hinduism, therefore it must be true". But

what you like is only an idea. When you say I like yoga it means you have an idea of

yoga and therefore it is imagination, and will pass away.

(7.20) Mind must be free for this higher study. Suppose a man has done you injury, you

must not be constantly thinking about it or feel hostile to him every day. Better be

forgiving and forget it, so that you may be undistracted to philosophize. Similarly if you

are over-ambitious and discontented with your lot, your mind will be disturbed again, so

be contented with what you have.

(7.21) When a student catches some thought some idea or doctrine instantly from the

teacher then he is said to have at that moment a sharp intelligence.

(7.22) Calmness of mind is one of the prerequisites for being able to think

uninterruptedly; needed for Vedantic study.

(7.23) Inquire further. Do not be disheartened, try over and over again. When you see that

authoritarianism does not give you truth, you go further. You must have the

determination to get at it. Experience tells you that every time you attempt, you progress.

(7.24) Truth may be as bitter as poison, but you must like it as nectar. Those who cannot

do this are unfit for Vedanta.

(7.25) The right kind of seeker will accept and search for truth whether it brings

bitterness or sweetness, whatever it tastes like, for its own sake. He must be prepared to

find God as impersonal, and to lose his own individuality for the sake of truth.

(7.26) "Ask and it shall be given"--Without asking you can’t get truth.

(7.27) That which dupes 99% of people is taking satisfaction for truth. Beware of that

which satisfies your feelings.

(7.28) Restless mind, distracted thoughts, changeable disposition and flitting desires are

impediments to the concentrated study of philosophy which have to be treated and cured

by meditation, discipline. When the mind gets steady it is called samadhi. This is the

proper place of latter.

(7.29) Steadiness of mind depends upon what you are interested in. Your mind can be

steady only on what your mind is attached to.

(7.30) Things and problems concerning truth appear simple at first, and hence ordinary

people speak presumptuously and glibly about it. But when we inquire we find how little

we know and that they are extraordinarily complex and we are obliged to go deeper and

deeper into them.

(7.31) The study of Advaita is a process of hard thinking, not of mere learning like

Punditry.

(7.32) Chitta-Shuddhi = purifying the mind; this is the aim of yoga; what it really means

is to purify the mind from all distracting factors. In this way yoga becomes an initiation

into philosophy, to stop the mind from running away after desires, troubles, etc. and thus

enables it to concentrate in pursuing philosophical study to the bitter end.

(7.33) Emotion, art, heart are not despised but regarded as equally valuable with intellect,

inquiry, study. That is the artistic is equal to the scientific. What is higher is the weighing

faculty which sums them up. This faculty is the philosophical.

(7.34) The fundamental principle of a complex is that it is unconscious. Hence if a man

has a realist complex he may study philosophy for fifty years and never grasp that world

is idea.

(7.35) The notion "I know" prevents the minds of all from entering truth. It stops them

from changing. Change is necessary in life, in the practical as well as cultural life. People

must be ready to change if they want to progress on any line. Nature herself shows us this

lesson. They should be open to learn from their contacts with other nations both the

useful national arts and cultural ideas.

(7.36) Advaita wants this pre-condition that you will vow not to deceive yourself, not to

tell lies to yourself.

(7.37) The ego magnifies what it prefers or desires, thus distorting outlook and

incapacitating it for truth.

(7.38) You must sit in judgment on yourself, find out your own faults of character and

weakness of intellect; otherwise there is no possibility to begin study of Vedanta.

(7.39) Psychology is most valuable in dealing with religious or mystic people, for you

will see their God-complex or Samadhi-is-the-way-to-truth complex popping up every

time.

(7.40) You must be ever ready to criticize your own beliefs, to suspect your own

fallacious thinking.

(7.41) The two pre-requisites essential for Vedanta are: a competent guru and a fit

student. Otherwise it is a waste of time or as Jesus said, some seed falls on fertile ground

and the rest on stony. The fertile ground is the prepared student, if he is unfit, then the

guru gives whatever else, such as mysticism, which he can absorb and which will lift him

up to his next step of understanding.

(7.42) Our reflective thinking must be free from subjective interest which produces errors

of judging. Elimination of the personal equation 'I' is essential. I saw Krishna appear, I

felt him etc. The idols of the theatre and cave are all appearances. Philosophy wants to go

beyond appearances.

(7.43) Thinking makes all the difference between people. One who thinks more succeeds

more. Thinking is of the greatest use for the discovery of truth.

(7.44) Sincerity is impossible so long as the 'I' exists.

CHAPTER 8: THE NEED OF SEMANTICS

(8.1) The object indicated by the word and the word itself are one and the same in class

because both are mental, imagined.

(8.2) First find out the meaning of words; you will find that they are simple mental

images. These again are just your constructions and concoctions.

(8.3) We must begin by examining into the meaning of experience. Truth cannot be

known before it is defined, before its meaning is understood. This does not mean

indulging in speculation or forming opinions as to what may be true. It means inference

based on life and experience in order to fix the goal of truth. It means that no important

word should be received into the mind without asking of it what is felt in my mind when I

use this word.

(8.4) The word ‘spiritual’ has done a lot of damage. Analyze it. To have any spiritual

experience or "consciousness" is to think about it. Therefore it is really a thought. There

is no difference between "spiritual" and "mental.”

(8.5) The fact known is the reality, the knowledge of the thing is the truth: this is correct

only in practical affairs, until we reach the ultimate, when there are no two things, and

hence no distinction between truth and reality.

(8.6) Philosophers do not or cannot define truth. They may have many systems or

theories,--therefore any definition which they do give will not be acceptable to other

schools and will be contradicted by them. Therefore we say that first an uncontradictable

definition of truth must be found before you can proceed.

(8.7) Define carefully the MEANING of each important term used, as it arises.

(8.8) What is meant by a "fact". Suppose I see a snake in the dark which turns out to be a

rope. The seeing was a fact, but whether the object seen was really a snake is a question

for enquiry. We usually take mental construction for facts. This is what we find in this

world. We take ropes for snakes because we do not examine them, we are so familiar

with this world that we do not inquire into it. Hence insufficiency of yoga, because it

won’t examine world.

(8.9) We must first define every important term we use--such as intellect, reason, time,

eternity, consciousness - because it may carry one meaning to you and another to another

man. Hence definition must precede explanation.

(8.10) Before discussing or teaching anyone I always ask him to define his terms and thus

state his position first. Otherwise I may be using a word with one meaning given it in my

own mind and the other person thinking something different. Hence when he asks what is

the "cause of evil" for instance, I ask "What do you understand by the word cause?"

(8.11) The difference between truth and reality--which is unknown to most Indian writers

today who confuse both--is: Truth is your idea of reality. The reality itself can only be

known as it is by becoming it. i.e. non-dual.

(8.12) Knowing and being are different things. All those who talk of seeing God,

contacting Reality etc. are only talking their idea of Him: for it is impossible to know a

thing except through an idea of it. How can you know God when He is separate? To

know all about Him the idea must go and must BE in Him. Hence Vedanta says the word

"know" can't be used, only the word "Being” can be used rightly. Hence I gave the

definition of Truth in Europe as the Indian phrase "that agreement of idea with fact."

(8.13) Just as music cannot properly be appreciated unless one's taste and understanding

is previously prepared and educated for it, so philosophic terms cannot be understood

without prior training of the mind to make it fit to grasp them. Such fitness forms the

Adhikari.

(8.14) What do you mean by the word real? What are the tests and characteristics of

"reality?" To reply that external world is real alone is to ignore that this is based on the

feeling of its reality: but you have a similar feeling in dream. Hence it is useless to go by

feeling. You must first find a definition that will hold. But people won't define, they want

to go by feeling alone.

(8.15) Definition of Reality: What we really are or what a thing really is, independent of

man's conception if it. Truth: man's conception of reality: Consciousness: That which

becomes aware of everything else in the world. Ego: Personality or individuality as

distinguished from the rest of the world. Reason: That which resolves contradiction and

unifies knowledge. Intellect: that faculty of the human mind which detects fallacies and

errors of man's reasoning in the waking state. Mind: The general sum of thoughts

imaginations feelings etc.

(8.16) God has got different meanings, whereas truth has the same meaning for all. The

less contradiction, the greater the truth. Truth has no personality, will or attribute. It

cannot be regarded as responsible for the creation of the world, pestilences, earthquakes,

etc.

(8.17) Sankara's position is first of all to define Truth. Then he shows what leads to

attainment of truth. Every man says “I know.” But we ask him "Without defining Truth

first, how can you be certain that what you know is true?” This demands enquiry into

meaning of truth.

(8.18) Meaning is an idea. Therefore it exists in mind. Until you look into a man's mind

how can you prove that what you mean by a word is what the other man means? How do

you know that his meaning is the same as yours? For practical purposes of everyday life

we do not trouble about these things, but for knowing the truth of things we have to

inquire into their meanings. For practical purposes we all know what a table is, but for

enquiry it seems different because it is observed differently with different mental images

resulting.

(8.19) There are many theories of truth but no answer to "What is truth?" is given. For if

truth is defined in any way every definition can be overthrown. All definitions have a

weakness. It is impossible to accept any current definition. For instance, Patrick defines it

as "correspondence theory, i.e. that your idea or judgment corresponds with the fact. But

how do you know that your idea is an exact copy of the fact? You have only an

impression in your mind. How can you be sure that every item of your expression is

exactly like the original? No. It can't be done.

(8.20) A critical examination of concepts is required. As soon as a man utters the word

"God" we should ask what he means and let him make the word clear. Without

understanding the word we are using, of what use or value is our knowledge? When we

inquire we shall find how difficult it is to define exactly words which are commonly and

superficially used in knowledge, such as "space" "law" "cause", "truth" etc.--: Brihad

Upanishad even says it is impossible to define space; whilst Mandukya says we do not

know what a cause really is. Nay, we have to go deeper in philosophy and ascertain the

meaning of meaning.

(8.21) To understand a word is to have an idea, an idea is only a Drsyam: therefore all

scriptures are only ideas and can never give any idea of the Drg. Even Mandukya does

not give any idea of the Drg; it only negates by saying "It is not this, it is not that" etc. It

only shows the contradictions of human thought and leads you to give up all systems and

standpoints.

(8.22) Is the term "Mind" or "Consciousness" or "Awareness'' a word? Yes. Has a word a

meaning? Yes. What is a meaning? Something which you imagine. Then how do you

know whether your imagined meaning is correct? You refer to your own experience to

see whether it corresponds. But this means that you are referring to your thoughts only.

(8.23) How do you know that the One is in the Many? or that "We shall be perfect?" or

that "Every individual is an emanation from the divine?" What is meant by the word

'divine' or how are we to be merged in the divine? These are questions we ought to ask

those who make such dogmatic mystical statements, for they take us to the higher region

of philosophy. Otherwise they merely give satisfaction.

(8.24) Those who want 'stillness' of spirit cannot get it without its complementary

‘activity’ or ‘peace’ without ‘agitation.’ The two must go together, otherwise both terms

have no meaning. If those mystics who use it would only inquire deeply into the word, it

would re-educate their minds. The peace they seek is unattainable. Real peace, real

satisfaction can come only when you rise above these dualities and know Brahman.

(8.25) The term ‘formless’ is derived from ‘form.’ Both are inevitable because both are

ideas. Hence it is not adequate to describe Brahman.

(8.26) You may say a certain concept is valid but what is meant by the term? It occurs in

every book on logic but it requires definition. What is valid to you and may be valid to

me may not be valid to someone else.

(8.27) Action cannot be understood unless one goes to the root of its meaning and then

one sees that it is inseparably coupled with inaction, and that both are merely ideas,

concepts. Therefore those who say Brahman is static, still, are wrong: this is merely their

imagination about it; others who say Brahman is incessantly active are equally wrong.

Brahman is beyond both these ideas.

(8.28) The word soul is dangerous because it brings all sorts of imaginations into people's

heads: it is preferable to drop it and use the word mind.

(8.29) The philosophic statement that we cannot look into the mind of another man is not

to be confused with the practical statement of the same thing. Thought-reading as done in

psychological experiment undoubtedly occurs, but this is on the lower plane.

(8.30) Philosophically we mean that it is impossible to understand perfectly what precise

meaning Plato had in his mind when he used such words as "real", "truth" etc. or what a

man is imagining when he says something.

(8.31) We have to go to the things themselves; not to words. You may use any word you

like provided you define what you mean.

(8.32) To the objection that we can't define truth or reality in advance, we say then take

any theoretical definition that appeals and try to work it out and see what the results are,

always knowing that it is purely tentative. Thus you can check the worth of this

definition.

(8.33) The Greek word nous and the Indian word buddhi both mean the same, i.e.

"reason"'. Yet curiously they have undergone the same historical phases, being

interpreted as ‘intuition’ by many mystics like Plato and as "reason" by the few

philosophers.

(8.34) People often confuse Monism, belief that ultimate principle of universe is one,

with Monotheism, belief in a Supernatural God, dictator.

(8.35) The term Absolute may mean that which includes all things as a totality or it may

mean that which has nothing in it. Hence it is an ambiguous word demanding care in its

use.

(8.36) I agree with you that the use of technical metaphysical language is not essential

and is partly responsible for the metaphysician's losing themselves in a forest of words, as

Sankara says. Vedanta can be explained in simple terms; there is only one word students

really have to learn the meaning of that, is the word truth.

(8.37) Brahman is neither Sat nor Asat, real nor unreal. We cannot postulate either

description of it. For any word that you utter will immediately suggest its correlative.

Suppose you mention light. That will bring with it the idea of darkness. Or if you mention

the existence of the soul, that will relate non-existence of soul. Hence words are of no use

to describe Brahman, even such philosophic words as the Real.

(8.38) What is energy? What is it that causes dissolution? What is behind Atomic

motion? What causes trees to grow? It is Mind. Mind is the active agent, the mover. You

use the word move: the world is in motion. But what is it that makes it move? This is a

semantic analysis of vital importance. What do you do when you try to understand this

word (or any other)? This point is being discussed in modern scientific philosophy. But it

was discussed and solved by Brihad Upanishad. Similarly with the word change. What is

meant when you say a thing has changed? Let us get to the root of the matter. The answer

is that you cannot have a meaning for a word unless you have it in your own experience.

The ideas of change and motion must originally come to you within yourself, otherwise it

is meaningless. Hence we say, philosophers must learn "the meaning of meaning." This is

the Indian term "within your anubhava (experience)." This science will tell you the world

works in such and such a way, but science can only get a meaning for you by looking into

yourself. Hence "That Thou Art'." You see the world in yourself. Everything that you see

in this world, is in yourself.

(8.39) You may know that all books may be thrown in the dust bin, because they are all

ideas, but this does not mean they are useless. They can be used like one thorn picking

out a second one, that is embedded in the flesh. So words, as expressive of ideas,

although useless for knowing Brahman, are useful for removing ignorance and error

which bar the way to such knowledge.

(8.40) The word absolute is nonsensical and Brahman should never be translated by it.

Yet the academic philosophers make this mistake. Ultimately there is only Mind. If you

think of the Absolute then you are thinking of yourself as one and the absolute as another

i.e. of duality. Hence absolute of philosophy is not the non-dual Brahman.

(8.41) To negate anything is unconsciously to affirm its opposite as existent. For

affirmation and negation are an inseparable duality.

(8.42) The fundamental principle of human thinking is that no word can give a meaning

unless its opposite is by its side. Misery is to be marked off from happiness, etc. This

principle that all meanings run in dualities has a most important application in Vedanta,

for when applied to the notion of cause and effect, it destroys the illusion of causality.

(8.43) Those who talk of "the experience of Brahman” talk nonsense. They need

Semantic training. For you cannot have experience without a subject-object relation, i.e.

duality, which is not Brahman.

(8.44) We say to Science: "You have explained the world, but what is meant by

explanation? This must be gone into. It is a mental process. It must be psychologically

analyzed. What is it that happens in you when you have "explained" anything?

(8.45) What is meant by meaning? It is a thought. Hence meaning is only a drsyam. This

in turn implies a knower of it. Hence there are two. Hence it is not Advaita. This is what I

call "the meaning of meaning" which must be got at.

(8.46) If you examine the mind of even a magistrate who delivers judgment on

overwhelming evidence and inquire into what it is doing, you find he is only

imaginatively constructing the crime, i.e. he is imagining the whole thing. He is unable to

know its truth.

(8.47) The word real is often confused with the word concrete, leading to the wrong

conclusion that the abstract is unreal.

(8.48) Every man superimposes his own experience on others and imagines that their

experience is like his: this is the fundamental fallacy of humanity everywhere. Thus you

have never superimposed another man's pain. You can know the meaning of pain only by

looking into your own self-experience. Hence your pain is personal experience but your

definition of the other men's pain is pure imagination. Hence your interpretation of a

man's description of his pain is not in correspondence with it but only your imagination

of it. That is why Vedanta ascribes such importance to the question: What is meant by a

meaning? Such a query goes to the bottom of the matter. For the answer to it is that we

are imagining the whole world, including your own self, it is all nothing but our idea; and

it all has nothing to do with the Seer of it, Drg.

(8.49) The ultimate value of Semantics is to show the futility of all words in quest of

truth; thus causing you to go beyond words into silence where alone Brahman can be got.

(8.50) How do you get a meaning for words? What is meant by understanding a word?

Each time you get only an idea. To use the words truth, reality, Brahman, is merely to

form an idea of them, i.e. a drsyam, an object. Sages use such words only to help others

rise from lower to higher steps, not to explain them. Each dual statement is used to

demolish another, to point out the absurdity of another, as one thorn is used to pull out

another, so the guru has to use those incorrect statements of truth to help student rise to

the final statement, which being non-dual must be unspoken. Hence discussion and

learning about truth are not useless although they cannot yield finality, because they are

all riddled with duality, with objectiveness (drsyam), i.e. contradiction. The best

explanation is silence. So long as talk proceeds the words are helpful but still they are in

duality, but in the highest stage all these words yield only subjective ideas whereas truth

is not an object. To understand an idea means having a duality, i.e. a knower and a

known., the drg and a drsyam. To rise to a higher level, Brahman, there is no question of

understanding for there is no duality there. So long as we speak or write we can never

leave duality; hence the only genuine expression of Truth is perfect silence. He who

utters the word Brahman does not understand it, for in that moment he assigns a meaning

to it, i.e. an idea, imagination.

(8.51) The words "verify" and "validity" are two of the most difficult in philosophy.

Every man may use them but none knows what he is doing. For they imply the whole

problem of "What is truth?" What is valid for one man is discarded by another. Emotion

is verification to A but not to B. The Rationalist association set up experience as the test

of verification but they forget that although their experience excludes God, the

"experience" of religionists includes it.

CHAPTER 9: RELATIVITY AND THE TWO STANDPOINTS

(9.1) Just as we have demolished the notions that time and space are real in themselves,

so in order to arrive at Truth from the highest standpoint, it is necessary to demolish the

notion of causation and to show that this simply does not exist and that all so called

pseudo-effects are already and pre-existently contained in and a part of the pseudo-cause.

However, this represents an extremely difficult and most advanced stage of our enquiry

and must be deferred until the earlier stages have been surmounted.

(9.2) Einstein showed that a man on the moon would have a different time from the man

on the earth. Hence he said that every man has his own individual idea of time; i.e.

relativity. He also showed thus that time and space are inseparable. Time space and

causation are ideas, which again are collapsed ultimately in the Brahman.

(9.3) Practical truth is not completely separated from philosophic truth; it is only a step

leading to it. If you go more deeply into it, the same empirical truth takes you to the

ultimate truth. The divorce is only apparent. You can stop inquiring wherever you like. If

you want to stop at practical truth you may do so, thus creating the divorce yourself.

(9.4) Einstein proves not only that each man sees the table differently, because he is in a

different position, but the same common table as it is, is never known or thought of by

anyone in the same way. Hence Kant was refuted by Fichte showing there was no such

thing as a "thing-in-itself." After Kant showed that time space and cause are our mental

conceptions and thing-in-itself cannot be known; and now that Einstein has strengthened

this position, we see that there is no final position and no final truth. The analogy of all

men feeling pain in fire proves certainty of the pain, but not the truth of it, for we cannot

compare what kind of pain each man feels inside.

(9.5) Yes, you may say that Einstein's relativity is a modern version of the snake/rope

analogy. It is also an approach to Sankara's adhyasa19, but does not go so far because

Einstein does not deal with where all this relativity is coming from, whereas Sankara

shows it comes from the self.

(9.6) Einstein's teaching cannot replace the value snake/rope analogy. It has points of

similarity but there is a unique and important difference. The snake/rope analogy shows

that you may actually see what is not there; this Einstein does not know.

(9.7) Einstein's relativity is looking at different parts of the elephant from different places

and so getting different results--tail, leg, etc. but what Einstein overlooks is that this still

leaves unexplained what it is that is being looked at, that it is an elephant. Einstein leaves

unanswered the question of what the world itself is. This he does not deal with because

he won't venture from science to philosophy and it cannot be done otherwise. Hence his

approach is limited. Thus there is need of an ultimate standpoint which inquires into the

nature of the thing itself which relativity sees only in part or appearance.

(9.8) The common weakness of Indian philosophy and mysticism is to think that

experience is the same for all. This is wrong. Einstein has shown that we see things only

from a particular point of view. No two persons can have the same eyes in the same

precise position, hence they cannot see the identical object.

(9.9) When a man is making maps, the ‘correspondence’ or ‘copy’ theories of truth are

quite enough for him. When a magistrate is hearing evidence the 'coherence' theory is

enough. But for philosophy these are not enough. The former are relative and belong to

vyavaharik20 standpoint. They are justifiable because practical life does not afford the

time to go into fine proof.

(9.10) Color-blindness is scientific fact. Having been taught to use the word red, inside he

is actually perceiving green. Yet both use the same name! How do we know that others

see the world in the same way? Such a question is insoluble. All brains are relative. So

Einstein says I may call this table, you also may call it table but my experience is not

same as yours. This he has proved mathematically and scientifically.

19 Error. See Sankara’s Commentary on the Brahmasutra

20 Consciousness absorbed in worldly concerns

(9.11) It is inevitable that thoughtful people will have to come to the position which

recognizes the two-fold viewpoint—Vyavaharic and Paramarthic--the immediate and the

ultimate. For you cannot get absolute truth in this world. Time does not permit of proving

every detail; hence we have to use belief to a large extent! For instance, we have to

believe in our cook that he has not permitted poison to enter the food. We simply have

not got the time to investigate his cooking each day. Also we have to believe in the doctor

and other experts. For worldly life the practical view cannot be avoided because action is

impossible if we have to wait to get all the facts. Hence the practical viewpoint is

necessary for active life; it is the only possible one, but when you come to philosophy

then it is too defective and we must adopt the ultimate view. Hence beginners who say

"Henceforth I shall never believe anything" talk nonsense. As far as we can, we may use

reason, but where time does not permit we must believe. Hence a two-fold truth is

inescapable.

(9.12) When you say that from a far distance an object is small but from a near distance it

is large, whilst during the intervening standpoints it offers a variety of sizes to the eyes,

you are merely saying that the mind is imagining the object in these various ways.

Einstein's Relativity also offers a variety of possible appearances of the same object to

different possible observers which means that they are really only imagining the object;

their mind gives them the whole thing and each forms a different idea of it. All that they

get is an idea. Nor is it philosophic to talk of the object "as it really is apart from its

appearances.” For who has seen and which position is the ultimate one? Impossible. For

any ‘real object’ or ‘object as it really is’ is also only an idea and hence no more and no

less real than the appearances.

(9.13) It is a teaching of Mandukya that whatever may be asserted, its opposite can or

will be asserted, hence it will be contradicted. Truth must be the Uncontradictable.

CHAPTER 10: PHILOSOPHY OF SENSATION & PERCEPTION

(10.1) Sense knowledge cannot always be depended on and is to be accepted only after

thorough investigations if the real Truth about anything is desired. By "real" one means

the truth in all its fullness. Now the ordinary man accepts his sense of knowledge without

inquiry; without verification, therefore he has no right to regard his knowledge as true.

(10.2) We begin by inquiring into external world. We inquire into the nature of internal

worlds i.e. minds ideas thoughts, etc. We inquire into the meaning of words we use.

Finally we ask what is that which is unchanging and real?

(10.3) The contradictions or antinomies in knowledge arise in epistemology. The

example of the mystery of motion usually given by Zeno the Eleatic of Achilles' crossing

the stream is no doubt difficult of solution but the inquiry into it does not go deep

enough. (Achilles could go only half way each distance but never to the end; thus half the

first yard, half the next inch, half the next hundredth of an inch etc.) This problem of

motion can never be solved if you take space as a reality, but if you take space as an idea

in mind, if you take the theory of idealism as embracing motion and space, the problem

falls to the ground. These problems are not final, therefore, but they have a value in

making us think.

(10.4) When you bathe in the Ganges you may see the sand there. Where did this sand

come from? It came from the attrition of the Himalayas. What does this mean? That the

great mountains also are in constant change are disappearing, are Maya.

(10.5) Perception: What happens when you see an object? Light rays are transmitted from

it to your retina. The object itself does not impinge on your eyes, only the rays. After that

vibrations or impulses travel up the optic nerve to the brain. What happens to the nerve

during this passage of vibrations. Rapid oscillations! The sensation reaches the brain.

What happens next? The sensations are converted into ideas or images. What converts

them? The mind! At this moment alone—not before--do you become aware of the object.

Moreover all you know of it is the idea or image which now registers in the mind.

(10.6) If you see anything, it is bound to pass away. How is it seen? By the mind.

Therefore mind alone produces ideas of world. Realize all things pass away, that just as

dream world passes away, waking world also passes. It is not as Yogis suggest, the

non-seeing of the wall which reveals it as Maya21, but on the contrary the seeing of it. For

perception of objects is a mental act which involves mind and its ideas alone.

(10.7) Discrimination between Self and Not-self is the first step in Vedanta. Begin by

analyzing the physical body: the same applies to all other objects in the sense-world. You

find that the body is composed of elements, five in ancient analysis, more in modern

analysis, whose union composes the body or object. But this union is only temporary as

death is the law governing all compounded things. Therefore that which man dreads

most, death, will inevitably come to him and dissolve the elements of his body. The

lesson of this is to wean his mind away from the sense of reality of physical objects and

thus to destroy his belief that they can yield real happiness.

(10.8) The Hindu theory that the mind actually travels to an object is absurd. Why does

the mind get a different and more correct impression as it approaches nearer to a hill.

Why did not the mind, if it traveled, bring a correct report at the very first. Mandukya

alone of Hindu books has rejected this theory, which is unscientific.

(10.9) When you examine the plant world, you find it rejects oxygen you accept and take

only the carbon which you reject. Thus part of you passes into the plant. You eat plants

and the latter passes into you. Thus one and the same substance circulates in different

bodies or forms. It is impossible to say what is yourself and what is not, when everything

is self. You cannot say that nothing exists, merely because we say all is Maya. That is the

view of Sunyavada22 Buddhists. We say that non-existence cannot be understood without

knowing the meaning of existence. It is impossible to talk of non-existence and use

meaning as well as sound. You can only say a thing does not exist there or here. While

we are actually seeing the world, it would be madness to deny its existence. Maya does

21 Changing, illusion, unreal

22 Void or Emptiness school

not mean that. We see change, i.e. ideas come and go; experience shows that one thing

changes into another, only foolish people say that anything can become nonexistent; so

the whole world must remain existent in some way or other and cannot totally disappear.

(10.10) The insoluble gap which exists for science between the physical sensation and

mental awareness of it disappears for the Vedantin because on inquiry he finds that they

never saw a physical sensation, it was really a mental sensation, an idea in the mind

which you may easily copy into a second similar idea.

(10.11) The world scene is constantly changing. The stars, moon and everything changes.

Maya asks "What is the meaning of this change? People ignorantly attribute mysterious

power to Maya, but it is simply change in its true meaning. Maya is that which appears

and afterwards disappears. People accept the fading of a flower without inquiry: only

when you ask what has become of its vanished color you are asking the meaning of

Maya.

(10.12) Seed which becomes plant, plant which becomes tree, tree which becomes seed

again--all this is Maya, i.e. impermanent, changing.

(10.13) What do you mean by change? It means the coming-in of an idea and the goingout

of another idea. The moment the mind begins to think, change occurs. Thus the

succession of ideas is called change. In deep sleep there is no idea and no change either.

Ideas always indicate change. You never know change unless the mind is thinking.

(10.14) Maya means that which appears to be real but is unreal; also that which

disappears when you know its real nature.

(10.15) In order to understand the problem, we begin by teaching that the imaginary

snake dissolves in the rope. Now at a more advanced stage, we teach that as the snake

was mind where could it have been lost, but again in the mind, which means that it was

not really lost. Hence all that can be said of it (and the world) is that it appears and

disappears. There is no destruction.

(10.16) When the image of an external object is cast upon the retina, there is a

transmission of it from the eye along the optic nerve in the form of a vibration. This is

carried to the physical brain. What happens next? It is taken up into the mind. How? We

can only liken the operation to the sending of a message along telegraph wires. The

message is received in the form of hissing sounds. The latter are interpreted by Morse

code, and converted into alphabetical letters and thus into words: But where is this

interpretation effected? It is done in the mind of the receiving telegraph operator.

Similarly the nerve vibrations are decoded and converted into mental constructs, the

picture according to the message of the vibrations. What it constructs is purely an idea.

But that idea is all it ever sees of the external object.

(10.17) One thing is converted into another everywhere in Nature so that ultimately there

is only one thing.

(10.18) Unreality of the world means that everything is continually changing, is

momentary.

(10.19) “I see the wall" means two things--not only the wall there but the mental picture,

something transpiring in my mind. That is the first step, the ABC. After that we go into

the analysis of the wall i.e. object to find out its real nature, which also turns out to be

mental. This is the proper way to conduct philosophic analysis. There is the object first,

that is undoubted, and there is also the thought of it. Only after grasping this may we

proceed further to inquire what all these are--thoughts, things, words (names) etc.

(10.20) Anything which is produced is bound to go. If you think of the teacher as Atman

he is always there; but if you think otherwise through ignorance, then he will seem to

disappear. When you know the waves as water then it is always there but when you think

of them only as waves then they will seem to vanish. Hence if you view the world of

objects as different from Brahman, then you will see them disappear and appear: but

when you go to the truth, the imagined differences will vanish and the world-unity as

Brahman will remain. If you know that this body is of the same substance as the plant

(via decomposition into manure where is it to be lost or cease to exist), the constant

change seen in the world does not change the essence of the objects, only their

appearance. When you know what the reality is, then you are unable to think of the

appearance as being different. The essence remains, then, even though the forms change.

The world that we see, this body and this mind, are all of one stuff. This explains the

mutual interdependence and interaction which science discovers.

(10.21) Death follows death in continuous and unending procession. Science sees this.

All forms are transient, changing almost immediately. Nothing is permanent. All

disappears. Even your body is ever changing. New oxygen is being inhaled into my body

every minute; carbon is being exhaled. Therefore my body is being built up from fresh

components every minute. Similarly food curries build body.

(10.22) Advaita does not deny the existence of the world. It only asks of what substance

can the world be. The Advaitin sees the world as much as any one else.

(10.23) Nobody has seen non-entity; only the continuous change of one form into

another.

(10.24) What is it that makes a child cry because it loses a toy in dream? It is because of

its sense of reality. This sense of reality of the waking world is called Maya. This is

ignorance, a creation of mind and is got rid of by obtaining knowledge that everything is

only Atman.

(10.25) What is the thing which is always present, then in the body. It is only imaginary.

There is nothing really here. What makes you think that the same body is still there, then?

Hence 13th chapter of Gita says "Inquire into the nature of Prakriti, matter, and you find

there is no solidity, no reality in it, but if you do not inquire then matter is still there."

(10.26) When you understand the nonexistence of the body, as science shows, which is

ever-changing, you know then that the body is but an idea. Even the body you had as a

child has disappeared. What is permanent in it? If you refuse to face philosophy then

death comes finally and teaches the lesson which all life has been trying to teach you, viz.

that body is ephemeral, ever passing and illusory. It is only an idea. Only the ignorant say

I am the same body as yesterday. They do not inquire but merely believe in what they

consider to be truth. But the wise seek the permanent, the unchanging, the Atman which

knows.

(10.27) (a) T.H. Huxley's exposition of idealism (re: sensations and perceptions) is

accurate and Vedantic. He was best of all scientists.

(b) We do not see the world; we see our concept of the world; we do rot perceive objects;

we perceive concepts of them.

(c) The incapacity of the masses to take in this single truth is due to the immature

development of their minds, and to the imperious urgency of physical life. When such

unready people apply themselves to truth they first bewilder themselves and then

misrepresent the truth, both to themselves and to others.

(d) The mind is true perceiving power the physical sense-organs merely provide

conditions of perception.

(10.28) The old antiquated theories which prevail in India that the Atman goes out of the

sense organs to the distant objects is nonsense. This is called "tarka."

(10.29) You see John. What have you done by seeing him? His picture has fallen on your

retina. That picture is say 1/2 inch long. He is six feet tall. Hence you did not see him but

the picture and hence it is the mind which has seen him. It has formed an idea of John.

When I compare my idea of John with John and form a judgment, you have only

compared one idea with another idea. It is impossible to see John in himself. Hence the

impossibility of accepting "correspondence theory" of truth. The same applies to touching

John and any of the other senses. It is the mind which really senses. Does the mind come

directly in contact with John? No! Therefore it merely forms an idea of John. John is only

an idea. To form a judgment of him is merely to compare one idea with another. Two

ideas cannot come at the same moment. Hence one of these will be a memory, not a fact

Now what do you mean by comparing? Can you see the two things side by side?

No--Because when one idea comes the other is gone. There is a difference of time. Hence

how can they be the same? Hence Buddha said you can never step into the same river

twice. The water has flowed and fresh water is here. You step into different water, hence

not the same river.

(10.30) Roughness, smoothness etc. are qualities which cannot exist without a mind to

perceive them, i.e. they cannot exist unperceived; therefore the individual object to which

these qualities belong cannot also exist unperceived. It is the mind that presents

everything to us. Whatever is seen is seen by the mind.

(10.31) When the nerve-vibrations are present, mind knows the thing. When they are not

there, mind is unaware of any object. Hence the scientific account of sensation and

perception is purely inferential although based on sound facts as far as they are known.

We are never conscious of how sense-impressions are manifested into perceptions but we

infer the process. The only certain thing is the mind's own activity.

(10.32) If my mind were elsewhere, thinking of something else, then I would not see even

the wall that confronts me. Hence the mind is the real seeing agent of things. We say in

the elementary stage that mind conjoined with eyes does the seeing, but as we study

deeper we find the eyes are themselves creations of the mind, hence mind alone is the

seer, as Upanishads say.

(10.33) All that we know is the visible world. That it is ever-changing we learn only after

inquiry, until then we wrongly ascribe permanence, reality to it. Yet although the

ascription is wrong, the sense of reality is there because it is within ourselves, in Atman,

and we superimpose it on the world that is visibly seen.

(10.34) The proof that our idea of the thing is known first, lies in the fact that if a nerve in

the hand is paralyzed or cut, I may touch this stick but will feel nothing. Why? Because

the nerve fails to communicate the experience to the mind and so no sensation arises. The

mental sensation is what I first know. All the rest, such as existence of an outside object,

is inference or assumption.

(10.35) If you go on inquiring into physical processes of sensation, your inquiry lands

you into thought, the mental process. Science cannot discover the relation between

physical and mental for the simple reason that the physical is ultimately mental. It has set

us an artificial non-existent problem and vainly strives to solve it. So long as duality grips

the mind, the latter seeks to establish relations. Hence it tries to find out the relation

between mind and body--a hopeless task.

(10.36) Injure the optic nerve and although an object is before you, you will see nothing.

This is proof that we have the sensation first and only afterwards become aware of the

object. When we receive no sensation, we never become aware of the object as in sleep.

Why? Because the object is an inference which we make from the sensation itself.

(10.37) The fact that objects are inferences drawn from sensation is obscured partly

because of the rapidity with which the inference is drawn and partly because people never

stop to inquire and reflect as to what is going on when they see an object, and partly

because they will not think matters out to the logical end owing to their innate belief in

causality predisposing them to look for a separate object as the cause of their impression

of it. When everything is found to be but Mind--whether it be object, seer, senses nerves

impression etc.--then all becomes a unity and there is no room for cause and effect

because there are no two things.

(10.38) It is wrong to say we rely only on our senses alone for information, the mind also

gives us things, such as peace, satisfaction.

(10.39) What do I mean by seeing this wall? It is only when your attention is directed to

the wall that you see it. Science says rays of light form an image on retina. This is proved

by photography. Present an object to a camera. Picture of the object falls upon the

sensitive plate because rays of light proceed from the object to lens or viewfinder. This

was not known to ancient India, so the pundits and old books said that the mind went out

of the body to the object and brought an image back to the body. This is nonsense. The

image's impression is carried by the optic nerve to brain. Cut off this nerve and the man

sees nothing. This proves the nerve is necessary to communication. How? It vibrates and

sets up these vibrations in the brain. Science has to stop at this point. It cannot explain,

nobody knows how this vibration is converted into idea. The mind constructs from these

vibrations, an image. This establishes beyond all doubt that it is the mind that constructs

the image, the picture. Thus idealism is irrefutably proved. How do we see an object as

six feet long? It is the mind that actually--constructs the dimension. Here philosophy

begins and physiology ends. Which is the first thing you get, the information about the

object or the object itself? Science says the mind depends for its information upon its

servants-nerves, eyes, brain. Philosophy says however "If the mind cannot go directly to

see the object, it depends entirely on its servants, on what they tell it. They speak in

vibratory language. This is the telegraph code. The mind never sees the object therefore."

Scientists have experimented by irritating certain nerve ends and this has produced

certain images in the consciousness. This shows that the mind has concocted its own

objects, has worked up the vibration-information received into ideas. What is the original

stimulus for the vibration? The mind asking itself this question can only answer itself by

inferring or assuming an object outside. But never forget that mind has never come into

direct awareness of an object. There is no proof therefore that a separate object exists

outside but mind habitually assumes it to be there from the beginning. It has in no case

seen it directly. What then is the stimulus? This very question involves unconscious

assumption that the outside separate object exists. Those who say we must have

previously seen the object in order to form an idea of it subsequently, we reply: Did they

ever see an object independently of the mind? Is it not the mind that first gave

information of the thing, of its qualities? The object, the rays of light and the whole

sensory organ-nerve-brain process is not known by the mind at the time, it is only

imagined afterwards when it analyses the way in which its knowledge arises. All the

mind really and indubitably knows is the picture, the idea which it forms itself. All the

rest has been imagined by it. All this is itself an idea. The object as cause of the idea is

unprovable but is assumed by the mind at the very start of the process, it itself remaining

unaware that it has started with the assumption. It wrongly takes the separate object for

granted. Whatever else is offered in place of the object as cause, such as God, must also

be something unknown and unknowable, for anything known can only be an idea; mind

knows only its own constructions. This effectually kills materialism, for no matter is thus

findable. Mind alone is. Dream illustrates this. In dream you can have a dissection room,

objects, a body, sense organs, optic nerves, brains and vibrations along the nerves, just as

you have them here--all the five senses in fact. But you know on waking that they are all

mental. So why should it be impossible that the same series of things in our waking state

are mental too? What is it that infers the objects? It is mind. What is an inference? An

idea. What is it that asks for the cause of its sensations? It is mind. Thus everything

resolves itself into the mind's own concoction.

(10.40) We use the term "seeing" so frequently as though it were a simple process: really

it is complicated. What is meant by "seeing" must be examined.

(10.41) Thinking is questioning experience. Something happens--a thing is seen or heard

and we ask "What is that? What do I see? What do I hear or feel?” These somethings

bring a message to the mind for inquiry. Reality is only inferred. Every object presented

to us brings with it a question "What is it?" This is the natural condition of the mind. It

wants to get at the true explanation of a thing. This is the basis of truth.

Om Tat Sat

(Continued...)

(My humble salutations to Brahmasri Sreeman  V Subrahmanya Iyer  for the collection)