The Secret of Self-Knowledge

* The Secret of Self-Knowledge *

RAMA: Lord, pray tell me: What is the nature of the self-knowledge in which all these great ones are established?

VASISTHA: Rama, you know this already, yet in order to make it abundantly clear you are asking about it again.

Whatever there is and whatever appears to be the world-jugglery, is but the pure Brahman or the absolute consciousness and nothing else. Consciousness is Brahman, the world is Brahman, all the elements are Brahman, I am Brahman, my enemy is Brahman, my friends and relatives are Brahman, Brahman is the three periods of time for all these are rooted in Brahman. Even as the ocean appears to be expanded on account of its waves, Brahman seems to be expanded on account of the infinite variety of substances. Brahman apprehends Brahman, Brahman experiences or enjoys Brahman, Brahman is made manifest in Brahman by the power of Brahman himself. Brahman is the form of my enemy who displeases me who am Brahman: when such is the case, who does what to another?

The modes of the mind, like attraction and repulsion and likes and dislikes, have been conjured up in imagination. They have been destroyed by the absence of thoughts. How then can they be magnified? When Brahman alone moves in all which is Brahman, and Brahman alone unfolds as Brahman in all, what is joy and what is sorrow? Brahman is satisfied with Brahman, Brahman is established in Brahman. There is neither 'I' or another!

All the objects in this world are Brahman. 'I' am Brahman. Such being the case, both passion and dispassion, craving and aversion are but notions. Body is Brahman, death is Brahman, too: when they come together, as the real rope and the unreal imaginary snake come together, where is the cause of rejoicing when body experiences pleasure? When, on the surface of the calm ocean, waves appear to be agitated, the waves do not cease to be water! Even when Brahman appears to be agitated (in the world-appearance), its essence is unchanged and there is neither 'I'-ness nor 'you'-ness. When the whirlpool dies in the water, nothing is dead! When the death-Brahman overtakes the body-Brahman, nothing is lost.

Water is capable of being calm and of being agitated: even so Brahman can be quiescent and restless. Such is its nature. It is ignorance or delusion that divides the one into 'This is sentient jiva'; and 'This is sentient matter'; the wise ones do not hold such erroneous views. Hence, to the ignorant the world is full of sorrow; to the wise the same world is full of bliss, even as to the blind man the world is dark and to the one who as good eyesight the world is full of light.

When the one Brahman alone pervades all, there is neither death nor a living person. The ripples play on the surface of the ocean; they are neither born nor do they die! Even so do the elements in this creation. 'This is' and 'This is not' – such deluded notions arise in the self. These notions are not really caused nor do they have a motivation, even as a crystal reflects different colored object without a motivation.

The self remains itself even when the energies of the world throw up endless diversities on the surface of the ocean of consciousness. There are no independent entities in this world known as 'body', etc. What is seen as the body and what are seen as notions, the objects of perception, the perishable and the imperishable, the thoughts and feelings are their meaning – all these are Brahman in Brahman, the infinite consciousness. There is duality only in the eyes of the deluded and ignorant. The mind, the intellect, the ego-sense, the cosmic root-elements, the senses and all such diverse phenomena are Brahman only; pleasure and pain are illusions (they are words without substance). Even as a single sound produced amongst hills echoes and re-echoes into diversity, the one cosmic consciousness experiences multiplicity within itself, with the notions 'This is I' and 'This is mine' etc. The one cosmic consciousness sees diversity within itself even as a dreamer of diverse objects within himself.

When gold is not recognized as such, it gets mixed up with the earth; when Brahman is not thus recognized the impurity of ignorance arises. The knower of Brahman declares that such a great one is himself the Lord and Brahman; in the case of the ignorant the non-recognition of the truth is known as ignorance. When gold is recognized as such it 'becomes' gold instantly; when Brahman is recognized as such it 'becomes' Brahman instantly.

Being omnipotent, Brahman becomes whatever it considers itself to be without any motivation for doing so. The knowers of Brahman declare that Brahman is the Lord, the great being which is devoid of action, the doer and the instrument, devoid of causal motivation of transformation or change.

When this truth is not realized, it arises as ignorance in the ignorant, but when it is realized, the ignorance is dispelled. When a relative is not recognized as such, he is known as a stranger; when the relative is recognized, the notion of stranger is instantly dispelled.

When one knows that duality is illusory appearance, there is realization of Brahman, the absolute. When one knows 'This is not I', the unreality of the ego-sense is realized. From this arises true dispassion. 'I am verily Brahman' – when this truth is realized the awareness of the truth arises in one, and all things are then merged in that awareness. When such notions as 'I' and 'you' are dispelled, the realization of the truth arises and one realizes that all this, whatever there is, is indeed Brahman.”