Apr 2, 2002, 12.30am IST
PURUSHOTTAM MAHAJAN.
Nothing exists apart from the absolute. yet, the absolute, being transcendent, does not suffer from the limitations of the sense-organs, of attributes, of time. it is imperceivable, eternally pure, unqualified and is bliss. by knowing the absolute everything is known, and fear and delusion remain no more. the ultimate resting place exists in the absolute. it is the knowledge of the absolute that brings about the fulfilment of the nature of man, and the desire for the experience of being is characterised by peace. the world we live in and the world we experience is deeply rooted in what we may call the dialectic or duality. it manifests its nature in terms of rise and fall, birth and death, cause and effect, one and many, here and there, knower and the known, i and you. it is the collectivity of countless dualities that make up the being in constant flux. there is nothing in this world that can be said to be permanent. being subject to its inherent nature, the world is transient and infirm. blessed are they with the gift of knowledge who realise the unity of being in the midst of the world of dualities. the knower of the absolute is one who realises and experiences the same reality in everything, who finds the presence of being in life and death, in i and you, in here and there, in a drop of water and in the waters of an ocean, in a small pebble and a mountain, in one and many. he alone has merged himself in the samata-gnosis of the absolute who experiences the absence of difference. gurudeva mangatramji, a great saint of our times, has explained the basic characteristics of the one who is firmly established in the samata-knowledge of the absolute. according to him, "the characteristics of the one who realised the evenness or equilibrium of being are that he is no more tormented either by pleasures or by sorrows, the one in whom the desire for the fruit of action is totally absent, and remain always and constantly established in the presence of own-being. he is a person who has achieved the state of total dispassion, for his intellect always remains free from the influence of sense-organs, and experiences both inwardly and outwardly the presence of the self alone. dualities no more affect him and he remains firmly established in the sameness of the self". for the ignorant, the multitude of things is real, whereas the knower of the absolute sees and experiences the presence of unity in the apparent difference. the ordinary person of common sense, being subject to space and time, remains bound to innumerable sense-experiences. he is unable to find the presence of unity in diversity; he is unable to discover the presence of being in that which is outside of him. for ordinary men and women, the apparent world of objects is real, and their intellects remain confined to the surface of objective reality. even the man of natural state can gain some intimations of the absolute if he succeeds in stabilising his unstable intellect. only a mind that has gained a certain amount of stability can comprehend that the objects of experience, although the cause of much ill, are not bereft or devoid of divine presence. an object becomes the source of ill at that moment when the intellect not only objectifies the object, but also objectifies the divine presence due to which the object exists. each object, in fact, does not exist in-itself. as such the objects of perception are non-real. it follows, then, that the intellect that objectifies the non-real objects too is non-real or apparent. on the disappearance of the object, the intellect too is deprived of the presence of the object. the divine presence that is immanent in the object of the intellect perishes not with the passing away of the object. without the presence of being even the existence of the non-real object is not possible. even though the objects are unreal, their substratum, that is, brahman, continues to be. that which is real remains, and the unreal alone is negated. the delight that is derived from the unity of being remains constant and continuous through the three periods of time. it is the unchanging real that is the basis and substratum of the objectivity of objects. the presence of being exists in equal measure in the expression of each mood. the presence of the reality exists in same measure in a particle as it exists in a mountain. the self is the heart of each object and its presence is even and same in every object. the self is verily different from the body; the body gets born, decays and dies; the self abides, self-same forever.
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