Swami Krishnananda Realisation_of_the

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guided it often passes along the very edge of a huge fall into
self-deceit and delusion. Only a carefully guarded intellect
can hold the torch of correct discrimination to help in
proceeding rightly along the path to the higher
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consciousness. Faith seems to transcend the unaided reason.
Faith can directly hold on to the truth declared in the Srutis,
while the theoretical reason cannot do so without passing
through the lower phenomena, a scientific explanation of
which is always demanded by the intellect. It wants to
understand even delusion and phantasm. The formalistic
intellect is a naughty child which will not listen to the words
of the elders. It always wishes to be self-dependent. But this
autonomous attitude is not always successful, especially
when dealing with matters concerned with supersensuous
and trans-empirical regions. Reason which goes against the
accepted tradition of the intuitional revelations of the Srutis
has to be rejected, however just such a reason may appear to
be. Reason is meant to strengthen the faith which we have in
the Vedic and Upanishadic declarations. If philosophical
enquiry arrives at a conclusion different from these, it may
well be considered to have been led astray by false shadows.
Even in the so-called rationality except, of course, that rare
higher pure reason which is independent of causality and the
categories with which man in the world is ordinarily
acquainted, there is, as a matter of fact, hidden behind an
element of faith in and devotion and surrender to one s own
convictions and persuasions which are brought about by the
relations causing experiences in an individual. It is not the
pure independent reason, but instinctive experience,
controlling even the lower logical reason which is
inseparable from the causal chain and the categories, that
forms the ground of the life of an individual. Rationality
proceeds from experiences which themselves cannot be
accounted for rationally. Sensuous perception forms the
basis of the relative reason and the logic which argues in
terms of the cause-and-effect-relation. The validity of this
perception itself cannot be established by reason. Truly, our
sense-experiences befool us every moment and we take
pride in running after the mirage. Our yesterday s reasoned-
out facts and beliefs are contradicted by today s, and today s
by tomorrow s. Where, then, is the certainty that what we
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intellectually ascertain and instinctively believe in is not a
mistake of the confused mind? The intellectual sifting of
empirical categories with great intensity of sincerity and
realistic fervour is itself clear proof of how the intellect and
the instinct deceive us by making us love and take deep
interest in what is to be completely contradicted and negated
in a higher and truer eternal experience. Faith in the Ideal as
ascertained by intuitive cognition, the Srutis, seems to be the
only solace to the individual who cannot directly see the
higher light. Upon him shall descend the Grace of the
Supreme Being:
One who is free from the personal will beholds Him
and becomes freed from sorrow through the grace of
the Creator (he beholds) the majesty of the Self.
Katha Up., II. 20.
The innate nature of all discretive beings is to love an
external being. An individual cannot live without loving
something or some condition which he is not himself. Love
for external things is an involuntary internal urge to become
unified with everything by filling the gap in one s being, and,
thus, reach Truth-Experience. But this is a vain attempt, for
the One Truth is not to be experienced through objective
contact of any kind. Man is punished with an objective
tendency. The Creator inflicted the senses with outward
activity (Katha Up., IV. 1) and this cosmic drive is felt in all
individuals, in spite of themselves. The mind alone is the true
sense of all perceptions, and its pleasure, therefore, lies in
objective willing.
Our folly lies in that we allow the mind to run in all
directions. The dissipated rays of the mind take interest in
countless objects of the universe, both seen and heard. The
essential power of the mind manifests itself only when it is
centred in infinity as its object. It is the concentrated ray of
the sun passing through a lens that burns things focussed
through it, not so much the rays that are scattered in all
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directions. The mind should be concentrated on the One
Substance, not localised in space, but filling all existence. This
One Substance is the Supreme Being, God, the object of
devout meditation. Love for the objects of samsara has a
selfish origin and so is a fetter to bind the self to birth, life
and death in transmigratory existence. The love for God is a
veritable sacrifice of the self to the universal, and is,
therefore, redemptive of phenomenal consciousness. The
love for the Universal Being is the zenith of love. The ego
cannot assert itself, for God is everywhere. The mind cannot [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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