THE VIVEKACHUDAMANI

The Crest Jewel of Discrimination, or Vivekachudamani, is a famous work by India’s Adi Shankara (variously 6th century to 8th century) that expounds Advaita Vedanta philosophy.  It describes viveka,  the human faculty of discrimination, which it calls the “crown jewel” among the essentials for moksha (liberation).

By discrimination, Shankara means the ability to differentiate between what is real and what is not real.  Something is real that neither changes nor ceases to exist, i.e. is eternal.  Something is not real, non-eternal, if it is subject to modification.  Brahman is real.  The world of form is not real.

When Shankara says that the world of form is not real, he does not mean that it is nonexistent.  In the state of ignorance (our everyday consciousness) the world is experienced, and it exists as it appears.  In the state of illumination it is not experienced, and it ceases to exist.

The supreme goal of life is to know Brahman, what is real.

UNITY OF THE ONE CONSCIOUSNESS

When we look around us, what do we see?  Continuous change.  The plant comes out of the seed, grows into the tree, lives its life, then goes back to the seed, completing its cycle.  The animal is born, lives a certain length of time, and then dies, which concludes its cycle.

Mountains slowly but surely crumble away, rivers gradually dry up, and rains come out of the sea only to go back to the sea.  Everywhere these cycles occur: birth, growth, development, and decay, each phase following the other with mathematical precision.

Inside of it all, behind all this mass of what we call life, of millions of forms and shapes, of millions upon millions of varieties, from the lowest atom to the highest spiritualized individual, we find an unmistakable unity.

It is the unity of the One Consciousness, Brahman, a painting of many images yet only one painting.  

THAT THOU ART

Tat Tvam Asi is a mahavakya (“great saying”) found in the Chandogya Upanishad of the Sama Veda.  It translates as That Thou Art, or as philosopher Alan Watts used to put it, You’re It.  It means that you are one with Brahman, the Godhead, the Universal Being.  You and Brahman are one thing.

As such, every soul that exists is your soul; and every body that exists is your body.  If you hurt anyone, you also hurt yourself.  If you love someone, you love yourself at the same time.

If you hate a person, the pain of that hatred is felt not only by the one it is directed toward but by you as well.  If love comes from you, it will always come back to you.  

PECULIARITIES OF VEDANTA

The Vedanta philosophy is peculiar, compared to other religions.  To begin with, it is completely impersonal in that it does not owe its origin to any person or prophet; it does not build itself around one person as a center.

Yet it does not have anything to say against philosophies that do build themselves around certain persons.  For instance, historically other philosophies and systems that arose in India have been based on particular persons, such as the Buddha and Buddhism and other sects of Hinduism.  Each of those have a leader, just as, for example, the Christians and Muslims have.

Another peculiarity is that Vedanta claims that the human soul, what it calls the Atman, is divine, and that all of existence emanates from the pure consciousness that is the divine.  Vedanta has no quarrel with those who do not yet understand the divinity of the soul, Atman, and its relation to Brahman, the Godhead.

Vedanta holds that every human being is trying, consciously or unconsciously, to unfold that divinity.  Each of us is like a spring coiled up in a small box, and that spring is trying to unfold itself.  All human activity over the centuries has been a consequence of this attempt to unfold.

AID TO COMPASSION

Compassion is tied to the fundamental teaching of Buddhism that all sentient beings suffer.  To be alive is to suffer.

In his book The Compassionate Life, His Holiness the Dalai Lama explained compassion this way:

“True compassion is not just an emotional response but a firm commitment founded on reason.  Because of this firm foundation, a truly compassionate attitude toward others does not change even if they (the others) behave negatively. 

“Genuine compassion is based not on our own projections and expectation, but rather on the needs of the other:  irrespective of whether another person is a close friend or an enemy, as long as that person wishes for peace and happiness and wishes to overcome suffering, then on that basis we develop genuine concern for their problem.  This is genuine compassion.”

------------- 

Realistically, however, it may be difficult to feel compassion for other human beings, especially if, as the Dalai Lama put it, they behave negatively, if they are miserable, harmful, destructive people.  Even if they are peaceful, kind, helpful people we still may not like them for some reason; we cannot, do not feel compassion toward them.

What is required is a change of attitude to where we do not see other people as persons, as identities.  An identity is a conditioned illusion, not who an individual actually is. 

Remove identity from the equation and what is left is who the individual really is, strictly an organism. They are no different than a cat, a tree, or a snail this way.  We more readily feel compassion toward something if we see them as organisms alone. 

An even easier aid to compassion is the view in Vedanta that everything is Brahman, God.  We have compassion for others because we are all the same thing.

WHEN NOTHING ELSE WILL DO

The primary symptom of spirituality, that a person is, so to speak, coming down with spirituality, is his inability suddenly to feel comfortable in the world.  He squirms and fidgets, and is like a dog running in circles trying to find a spot that he can lie down in without having to get up again. 

Something is trying to get his attention.  He does not see yet that it is spirituality. He just knows that he is not the way he was, that he is out of whack somehow. 

It is not uncommon for a person to be in this state his entire life, and even for many lifetimes.  Spirituality manifests itself slowly. 

Others may notice the person struggling before he does.  He is irritable, and increasingly antisocial; he keeps to himself, as though he were a monk, which in fact is what he is.

All the spiritual books he has read, and the parade of internet lectures by spiritual teachers he has watched, now no longer interest him.  The reason is because they are not IT, or are no longer IT, as he once thought they were.  Nothing else will do now, which is when spirituality, God, the real IT, awakens in him.

PRICE OF ATTACHMENT

This apparent world is a creation of the mind, Swami Brahmananda said.  The mind has conjured it up; it is its author.

There is a story in the famous devotional Vedic scripture the Bhagavata Purana that tells of a king who loved his pet deer so much that after the deer’s death he himself was reborn as a deer.

As you think, so you create, is the moral of the story.  Thus, one should not become so attached to an object in the world, and indeed to the world itself, lest he become that object or that world the next time around.

GATES OF GOD

In his folly, man will deny the very existence of God, a denial he bases upon his intellect.  Little does he realize how unstable, how unreliable his intellect actually is. 

For instance, despite accepting as true today what he will reject as false tomorrow, he still thinks that what appears to him as true today is the final truth. 

Intelligence is just another name for ignorance, to put it that way.  This is because the area that intelligence covers is limited; a person’s intellect can only provide him so much.  Therefore, if a person wants to attain all there is to know of God, and understand all His mysteries, he must approach Him entirely differently. 

Firstly, God cannot be an object of knowledge, per se.  God cannot be studied, observed, analyzed, as though He were a piece of furniture.  Simply, God is.  Approaching Him as such is the only means of realizing Him.
The good news is that for him who has gained God, nothing is hidden.  The gates of God are then open to him, to where he belongs to God, and God belongs to him.

CHANGE: A USELESS SPECULATION

We live our lives in a perpetual state of uncertainty, as everything, including ourselves, is forever changing.  Who we are at this heartbeat is not who we are at our next heartbeat, for example. 

Impermanence causes us considerable anxiety.  We do not know how to plan.  We cannot relate to what we have experienced in the past, anymore than we can imagine what we will experience in the future. 

But now how could the changeless God create a world that never stops changing, that is forever becoming something else?  One thing we do know is that God’s “Big Bang” created time, and with time comes flux, movement, transience. 

There is no solution to time so all we can do is embrace it, celebrate it, make it an object of devotion.  Nothing is beyond devotion, bhakti yoga, Vedanta teaches.

Time will kill all of us, in time.  At the very least we simply will run out of it.  We have an expiration date.  God does not want us, the world, the universe, to exist forever, it is obvious now.  He wants us to peter out so He can get on to something else.

MIST OF MAYA

Maya is what the world of form appears to be as opposed to what it actually is.  It is the illusory aspect of Brahman.

Vedanta uses the example of a snake and a rope.  We are walking along when up ahead we spot what appears to be a snake, except that when we get there we find that it is only a rope.

Swami Brahmananda (Maharaj) said that being chained to this maya, to this false perception, we do not realize how great our suffering is.  For instance, our bodies decay day by day, as do our minds, yet we remain asleep in maya, thinking everything is fine.

In maya, we forget the sacred mission for which we were born, which is to know God.  By not knowing God, by remaining ignorant of our identity with Him, we forever spin on the wheel of birth, death, and rebirth. 

Ironically, we have an advantage over all other forms of life in that it is by human birth alone that God can be realized.  It is through our knowing God that we wake up from maya, and our suffering ends.

ACCEPTANCE VS. TOLERANCE

All roads lead to Rome if your destination is Rome.  All religious sects and denominations lead to God if your destination is God.

Swami Vivekananda was making the point that we should “accept” and not just “tolerate” other religious points of view.

The goal is the important thing, he said.  If God is your goal and you are contemplating Him with that intention, it will lead you to Him.  All religions, if properly understood, have that same one goal, to realize God.

It is best to accept other religions this way.  Merely “tolerating” them means that you alone have the truth, that you only endure other religions.

UNEXPECTED WAYS

Swami Brahmananda (Maharaj) said, truly it is beyond the power of the mind to understand the unexpected ways by which God leads man to himself.

Sometimes the path is smooth, sometimes it is thorny, and sometimes it is like an impassable mountain, but still he leads man safely to himself.

GOD BECKONS

An analogy is, you are walking along when suddenly you feel a breeze.  You know it is from the ocean.  It is a feeling, a sensation that comes to you well before you actually see the ocean.  You like it.  You are naturally drawn to it.  It may take you countless lifetimes to finally reach that ocean, but you know it is there.

GOD’S INCARNATIONS

Jesus said, “No man cometh to the Father, but by me.”  While appearing to rule out any other divine incarnations, there are contrary views.  For instance, in the Bhagavad Gita, Sri Krishna said “Worship me! Follow me! I am the Way!”

When Jesus and Sri Krishna say “Me” or “Mine,” or “I,” they are not speaking as human beings but as Brahman, God.  Both Christ and Sri Krishna are expressing the same truth, in this way.

The same God who came as Sri Krishna came again as Christ and as other divine incarnations, only He chose a different dress.  As Sri Krishna stated in the Gita, “In every age I (God) come back to deliver the holy and to establish righteousness."

In Vedanta, divine incarnations come in the form of avatars.  An avatar is one who is able to transmit divine knowledge by his mere touch, look, or wish.  Among those widely accepted as avatars are Rama, Krishna, Buddha, Christ, and recently, Ramakrishna.

But then any saint or spiritual teacher is an avatar to some degree, being at least in part, if not fully, an embodiment of God.  It is worth noting that Christian theologians familiar with the avatar doctrine do not consider Christ an avatar.