LAW OF CYCLES

The law of cycles is called pralaya in Vedanta.  Pralaya is properly translated as “projection” not “creation.”  The universe is projected forward by Brahman until it reaches a point where it can go no further, whereupon it subsides.

After a period of rest, the universe is again projected forward, and the same combinations, the same evolutions, the same manifestations appear and remain engaged for a certain time, only to break into pieces once more.

It then becomes active again, going as far as it can go, at which point it stops and rests, only to reemerge.  And so it goes, starting and stopping, backward and forward, with a wave-like motion throughout eternity.

Time, space, and causation are all within pralaya.  Saying that there was a beginning and is an end to it is false.  While the words “beginning” and “end” are used in Vedanta it is in reference to the beginning and the end of one particular cycle.   

WHEN A DOOR MYSTERIOUSLY OPENS

The writer cannot explain his passion for the subject.  A door has mysteriously opened in him somehow and the contents just pour out, voluminously rush out.

It is as if he were “channeling” someone or some people from a different time and place.

This channeling is coming from a previous time and place in his own past possibly, echoes from one or more of his distant lives.

Then, these past lives may not be all that past.  Who he used to be is with him always, never leaves him, IS him, conceivably.
  
He is a deep well, this way.  When he calls down, his voice bounces against his walls for centuries.

TRANSCENDING THE SENSES

Vivekananda taught that every being in the universe can transcend the senses.  Even the little worm will one day achieve it, and reach Brahman. 

No life will be a failure, he said; there is no such thing as failure in the universe.  There will come a time when even the lowest soul has nowhere to go but upward. 

A hundred times we will stumble, a thousand times we will be our own worst enemy, but in the end the outcome is the same, transcendence.

We all come from one common center.  The highest as well as the lowest will return to the Father of all lives, Brahman.

LANGUAGE CAN FAIL US

Advaita Vedanta is non-dualistic meaning that God is not something other than us. Tat tvam asi, That Art Thou, means that we are God and God is us.  Yet this Tat tvam asi concept is difficult to grasp.  The problem is language. 

A sentence is comprised of a subject and an object.  The subject and object are not the same thing, cannot be the same thing. 

Tat tvam asi, however, is not about what is grammatically logical.  It is a non-dualistic statement, understood on the same level as knowing  that water is cold when you put your hand in it, to use a Zen analogy.

Language is useful as a means of pointing to something.  We cannot communicate without it.  But it can fail us, as in this instance.

SPIRITUAL INSTINCT

An instinct is defined as an inherent inclination.  Is spirituality an inherent inclination?  Are we born attracted to God, to Brahman?  Vedanta says yes. 

We may not be immediately aware of it, but it is there.  It is an undertow that will get our attention eventually.  It is inevitable, even if it takes more than one lifetime to occur.  On a foggy day it can take time for the sun to burn through, would be an analogy. 

Vedanta teaches that our true identity is the Atman which is identical with Brahman, its source.  The Atman is drawn to Brahman like the needle of a compass is drawn to a magnet.

The Atman’s instinct, and therefore our own instinct, our own spiritual instinct, is to unite with Brahman.

GETTING FREE

Vivekananda used the example of a saint and a thief.  The saint is burdened with the knowledge of his condition of bondage, feeling he is a prisoner in this world of form, and he wants to get free of it; so he worships God.

The thief is burdened with the idea that he does not possess certain things, and he tries to get rid of that want, to obtain freedom from that want, and so he steals.

The impulse in both instances is the same.  Indeed, freedom from burdens is the one goal of all of nature, sentient and insentient, Vivekananda said. Consciously or unconsciously, everything is striving for it.

The quality of the freedom that the saint seeks, however, is different from that which the thief seeks.  The freedom sought by the saint leads him to God, while that on which the robber has his heart set leads him only to more burdens. 

ONE GOAL, MANY PATHS

Vedanta teaches that there are four paths of Yoga which lead to liberation, moksha.  Generally, the paths are work (Karma Yoga), devotion (Bhakti Yoga), formal meditation (Raja Yoga), and knowledge (Jnana Yoga). 

But the paths are not mutually exclusive, which is to say they blend into each other. No one, this is to say, possesses only the inclination to work, or is a devoted worshiper only, or only meditates, or cultivates nothing but knowledge.  They are more apt to do  a combination of the paths, depending on their stage in life.

In the end, all four paths converge and become one, in that they share the same goal, which is liberation, or what Swami Vivekananda called freedom.  Everything around us is struggling toward freedom, he said, from the atom to the tallest mountain, from the insentient, lifeless particle of matter to the highest existence on earth, the soul of a human being.

TWO VARIETIES OF PERSONS

Swami Brahmananda, one of the original disciples of Sri Ramakrishna, used to say that there is a peculiar breeze called the Malaya breeze.  When this breeze blows, it touches all trees.  By its touch some trees, having a certain substance, are transformed into highly-prized sandalwood trees, while the others, lacking this substance, remain the same.

So also there are two varieties of persons.  As soon as those of the one variety come into the presence of holy men and hear their teachings, they are awakened. They at once devote themselves to the practice of spiritual disciplines.  Such persons are sure to reach moksha, liberation.

There then is the other variety of persons.  Even though exposed to high spiritual ideals, they do not respond.  They think that they will live forever and that the world cannot get along without them.  They think it is sheer foolishness to give up the pleasures of the world for the sake of the unknown.  Thus they remain sunken in darkness.

TWO CHOICES

We have two choices.  We can either choose that which leads us to Brahman, or we can choose that which leads us away from him. 

What leads us to him is discrimination and renunciation, and what drives us from him is lust, anger, greed, egotism, attachment and envy.  Discrimination is choosing spiritually productive behaviors, and renunciation is identifying the spiritually destructive ones and rejecting them. 

We have the power to seek or to run from Brahman, and on our choice will depend the success or failure of our lives.  The purpose of our lives is to realize Brahman.  If our lives are successful we will praise Brahman.  If they are a failure and we are full of suffering we will resent Brahman.

But why blame Brahman for our misery?  We are attracted to the pleasures of the moment, never stopping to discriminate, and the pain that results is our own doing.  Put your hand into a fire and it will get burned.  Is that the fault of the fire?

BRAHMAN REVEALED

Brahman is pure consciousness.  It is likened to a screen on which a movie, in this instance the relative world, is playing out.  The screen itself has no qualities, no attributes; it is just blank.  The relative world like a movie, is an illusion, something only appearing to be there.

It is said that the goal of our lives is to know Brahman, except that, paradoxically, Brahman cannot be known.  As pure consciousness, there is nothing there to know.  Yet it can be experienced, realized.

The Atman is the personal aspect of Brahman, how we experience Brahman, Brahman immanent.  The Atman is our witnessing consciousness so called, the background consciousness that watches us, but does not judge us.

We all experience the Atman.  When something takes place in our lives where we find ourselves looking at it from a distance, from somewhere outside ourselves, this is the Atman.

The Atman, to be clear, is not our conditioned consciousness, not our everyday, thinking-mind consciousness.  The Atman is aware of our thinking mind but is not it.  We mistakenly believe that our thinking mind is our true identity when in fact it is the Atman who we truly are.

OTHERWISE JUST NOISE

Study of the scriptures is fruitless as long as Brahman has not been experienced, Shankara said.  He went on to say, surprisingly, that even after Brahman has been experienced, it is still useless to read the scriptures.

A network of words like the scriptures is like a dense forest that causes the mind to wander hither and thither.  Those who themselves have discovered this should struggle all the harder to know Brahman.

When a person has been “bitten by the snake of ignorance” he can only be cured by realizing Brahman.  Ignorance is the false perception that the world of form is real.  Anything that changes is not real.  Anything that does not change, such as Brahman, IS real.

A sickness is not cured by saying the word “medicine,” Shankara continued.  The medicine must be taken.  Liberation is not gained by, as the scriptures teach, saying the word “Brahman.” 

Until one allows this apparent universe, this smoke and mirrors, to dissolve from his consciousness, no word from the scriptures can help him.  It is just noise.

ILLUMINED SOUL

Vedanta speaks of an illumined soul.  An illumined soul is one who has realized Brahman, who has united with Brahman.  Illumination is characterized by the extinction or absorption of the individual and ephemeral ego into Brahman.

With illumination one is released from the cycle of birth, suffering, death, and rebirth, and all other forms of worldly bondage.

Illumination is that supreme transcendental consciousness referred to as brahma-nirvana in the Bhagavad Gita, turiya in the Upanishads, nirvana in Buddhism, nirbija samadi in Yoga, and nirvikalpa samadi in Vedanta.

BEYOND SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION

Transcendental consciousness, or union with Brahman, cannot be investigated scientifically. This is because such inquiry depends upon sense-perception, and Brahman cannot be grasped by the senses.  Nor, for that matter, can Brahman ever be made an object, an item to be looked at, as if to say, yes, there it is.  Brahman is not one thing but everything.

This does not mean, however, that we are doomed to doubt the existence of Brahman, that we must blindly trust the experiences of mystics, until such time as we have united with Brahman ourselves. Meditation and the spiritual life will always yield results. We are not simply deceiving or hypnotizing ourselves by such practices. 

No spiritual gain, however small, is ever lost or wasted.