“May Thy overflooding non-evil-producing Mercy, Thou Ocean of Mercy Sri Chaitanya, be aroused towards me, by dint of its qualities that easily blow off all the dust-particles of sorrow, which are completely transparent, in which is manifest the all-encompassing supreme bliss, on whose appearance all wranglings over the Scriptures are concluded, which promote the madness of the heart by showering the tasty quality of mellowness, whose function of promoting the perennial flow of devotion ever ensures the balance of temperament and which mark the limit of the most exquisite deliciousness.”
We are unable to underhand what is beneficial or harmful by our own unaided judgement. This is so because we have a very distorted impression of the knowledge of our duty by the Reality, due to the want of all knowledge of the Entity Himself and because of our uncertainty as regards what we really desire. These imperfections make it quite helpless in choosing the right course of our activities. At such a crisis we have no other duty but to follow the adviser who sets by his own ideal conduct the example to be followed, for getting rid of all our wants and dangers.
What relish can there be in this decaying body, made up of the five decomposable elements and full of putrescence and impurity? Shall we not mind for a moment that this perishable and ever-changing body is liable to wrath, ambition, illusion, fear, grief, envy, hatred; separation from those we hold most dear, and association with those we hate? What relish can there be for material enjoyments when we are exposed to hunger, thirst, disease, decrepitude, emaciation, growth, decline, and death? The universe is tending to decay,—grass, trees, animals spring up and die. Mighty men are gone leaving their joys and glories. Beings still greater than these have passed away; vast oceans have dried—mountains have been thrown down, the pole star displaced, the cords that bind the planets rent asunder; the whole earth deluged with flood—in such a world what relish can there be for fleeting enjoyments? Living in such a world are we not like frogs jumping in a dried-up well?
To get rid of the deception of this false and treacherous seeming friend, we should be sincerely suppliant before the Supreme Lord and water our couch with tears; He will receive our prayers, have mercy on us and out of His naturally loving-kindness, appear before us as the preceptor, with all the proficiency in the scriptures and fully free from the hankerings of the senses, to rid us from the clutch of the wicked mind,1 which has flame all around and death within, to cut asunder all its knots and hitches and to dispel all our darkness of the heart as an elephant runs away from the darkest recesses of the jungle at the approach of the lion and the veil of darkness is withdrawn from the surface of the earth at the advent of Aurora. Then the mind will brood over its guilty woes like a scorpion girt by dire.
This world is full of good and evil. In our quest of the desideratum we, therefore, seek to find the best, to discard the worst, to follow the really desirable course, to eschew the undesirable path, to pray for our well-being, to give up what is harmful, etc. The evidence of the existence of such mentality is observable at times even in lower animals who are possessed of judgment of a crude type. As beggars for gifts from their giver we pray for the good, the best, the higher state, or well-being. We cannot regard as miserly or wanting in unstinted liberality and magnanimity the giver of mercy that does not produce our eternal harm. Realizing him to be endowed with the nature of the veritable ‘Ocean of Mercy’ we abstain from praying to him for any gift that is productive of undesirable consequences. We know that by our success in obtaining the gift of our prayer from any pseudo-preceptor we are inevitably liable to be overtaken by dangers due to the ignorance of the giver of such gift. It is this conviction that leads us to pray for the primary gift of the cognizant Autocratic Entity, the Form of the Truth, instead of His secondary alms overlaid with delusion.
At present our position is enriched by the process of obtaining supplies of three kinds of alms. We stand in need of enrichment of our mental faculty, for supplying our want of knowledge and experience. But we are also in a position to understand the necessity of procuring bodily and vocal alms.
In our present state of existence the aggregate of the begging endeavors of the five cognitive sense-organs procures the supply of our mental alms. The gross and subtle forms of both bodily and vocal alms require to be approved by the mental supply. Our supply of mental alms in exercise of the office of such controller takes into its consideration the respective claims of good and pleasant. For this end it becomes the one thing needful to pray for the non-evil-producing Mercy from the ‘Ocean of Mercy.’ The heart of man, subject to the triple misery is weighed down with sorrow. This sorrow is like the accumulated heap of dust. The Grace of that ‘Ocean of Mercy’ Whose non-evil-producing kindness dissipates with ease the accumulated refuse-heap of the triple misery, like the wind blowing away the dust-heap, should be the only object of our prayers. After the dust-heap is blown away the sky of the heart becomes perfectly clear. Thereafter the breeze, carrying on its wings the choicest odors, accomplishes the primary purpose of our activities. Although we can but pray for the abrogation of the absence of joy, the self-delight of the soul promotes the state of positive supreme Bliss.
Even when our uncultured stock is augmented by the agency of knowledge born of the senses, mutually antagonistic modes of culture tend to increase our troubles. We are compelled to consider what propositions of our opponents are to be accepted and which are to be rejected. But the very attempt to solve this. difficulty adds to our distraction. May the ‘Ocean of Mercy’ bless us by His dispensation of the non-evil-producing Mercy which promotes loving relationship among the contending principles of the differing modes of teaching of the diverse schools of our teachers.
All so-called knowledge of this world is knowledge born of the fleshy senses. The knowledge that is received at the University or from physical Nature, may promote greater synthesis, analysis and development of the experience of this mundane world. It is not proposed to discard the knowledge that is imparted by the Universities (literally the academies of this world). But it is proposed to ascertain the relatio of Godhead with the same. To discard such knowledge is the barren form of renunciation (falgu vairagya). We learn this from the teaching of Sriman Mahaprabhu. ‘The discarding of entities that are related to Hari by liberationist, under the misapprehension that they are mundane, is called barren abnegation.’
The different branches of mundane knowledge are being applied in an improper way by mankind who have their faces turned away from Krishna. It is as if ornaments for the ear are being worn on the feet. It is necessary to admit the real utility of every entity. Extreme attachment to things of this world and extreme aloofness from all worldly concerns are equally removed from the function of the servant of Godhead. The servant of Godhead should cultivate affinities with all entities on Krishna’s sole account. We are apt to suppose that name and form are bound to embarrass in every case. Such an inference is derived from mundane experience. From where have name and form come to this w6rld? Where is their source? It is because there happen to be really name and form in that transcendental realm that the perverted reflections of those entities are cast in this world. ‘From Whom all these entities have their birth, by Whom they live, to Whom they go back and in Whom they enter, seek for That. That is Brahman.’
The Chit-Jagat or the transcendental world has got a full manifestive representation; whereas Mayik Jagat is a perverted reflection of that transcendental manifestation. We are endowed with senses which get an impression of the phenomenal world, the perfect original ideal of which lie in the Chit-Jagat. Every entity in Chit-Jagat is intelligent, cogent and harmonious; whereas matters here are not sentient to take any initiative. Chit-Jagat is known as Vaikuntha; whereas Mayik Jagat as Brahmanda. In Chit-Jagat there is only One Supreme Authority and the others are His true dependent or subservient; whereas in Mayik Jagat we find millions of masters or enjoyers with millions of enjoyed subservients. Chit is eternal and indestructible, whereas matters or products of Maya are of transformable and limited nature which proves their inadequacies and deformities. In Chit Jagat there is no ignorance whatsoever of free souls whereas in Mayik Jagat, mayik impressions of fallen fettered souls are always obscured with intervening materials.
The reflected part of Chit-Jagat i. e., this universe, is minimized according to the level where it is reflected. Original and perversion are opposed to each other. Water is the reflected plane and the original is perverted when it shows similarity ignoring the original position. Maya has a distinctive reference from Satchidananda. Maya has two different phases viz. (1) her efficient phase properly known as Maya. (2) her materialistic phase known as Pradhana. Mayadheesha (God) has no perversion and He has no reflection like mayaadheenas (jiva). The unperverted perfect reflection is His Prakasha-Bheda (different Aspect) ; whereas the perverted reflections have got similar activities with the differentiations of perversion.
Krishna has got innumerable Shaktis of which Tatastha claims the Intermediate position between Chit and Achit Shaktis. The pure soul is not created within time, but is ever-existing, unadulterated knowledge and is endowed with eternal bliss. Creation is restricted on the plane of Guna Maya. The Gunas or qualities disclose the obscured specification of tbe Eternity and this creation, sustenance and destruction within Time and Space.
Tatastha has both the power of associating with temporal as well as eternal planes. Souls who have got their stations at Tatastha have got free will. Each of the individual souls by exercising his free will can abuse or properly use his independence. He has got two different fields in two different directions. He may choose one of these for his stage. When he is in an enjoying mood and considers ‘himself identical with the predominating Object or the Absolute he is said to be fallen and when he shows an aptitude for serving the Transcendental Predominating Object, he is freed from the clutches of limitation and is eternally associated in serving the Predominating Object. The souls in the Tatastha position are not one, but many in number. They are not to associate themselves with unalloyed Chit-Shakti or unalloyed Achit or Maya Shakti. In Tatastha position, souls do not show any activity but they are found to be in an indolent state
There is no element of hostile contentiousness in the Unitary Knowledge. It gives us constant attachment to Godhead and brings about the manifestation of the Real Truth. By this means it does not merely ensure the peace of our troubled heart but floods it with the supreme bliss. We are apt to adopt as wholesome and perfect certain principles in lieu of real existence, cognition and bliss, due to the prevalence of the element of mutual hostile rivalry among the triple qualities of raja (mundane active principle), sattva (mundane manifestive principle) and tama (mundane nihilistic principle). The principles thus adopted give rise to the desire for what is not proper in the act of combating the operation of the other principles born of the senses. This results in the state of greater restlessness of the heart by our activities being given different directions by our unbridled wishes. Sometimes inertia, making its appearance as the opposing principle of sensuous activity, offers itself under the deceptive garb of the peace that is sought. It is impatience that is detected in such temporary oscillating mood. It is the unbridled passion of the ineligible for the usurpation of a superior status. The line of thought that seeks to consolidate one’s foot-hold in such position or to utilize it in any other way, degenerates into the endeavor for effecting the merging into one of the specifications of knowledge, knowable and knower. It is under the lead of such impression that we welcome the line of undifferential thought in order by its means to get rid of the pressure of the sensuous urge, for good. As soon as we are liable to welcome failure in the shape of the proposal to eliminate all specification as between the subjective nature of the entity and its relation of
affinity to or alienation from other entities, being tempted by the ambition of the attainment of an imaginary superior status, the judgment. that seeks to serve the real Truth is engulfed in the strong current of the aptitude for the worship of one’s own false ego. At times the irrepressible, violent, sensuous desire builds magnificent edifices in the mental realms of fancy and runs at headlong speed after the will-o-wisps. Some times infatuated by the tempting odors of the ‘sky-flowers’ in the shape of Hathayoga and Raja-yoga, etc., that pertain to the adulterated condition, we learn to neglect devotion to Godhead which ‘is the eternal aptitude of the soul.
In order to be enabled to get rid of these three kinds of misjudgment it is necessary to walk in the path of the perfect good by seeking a real footing in the eternal aptitude of the soul. The very moment that our intelligence is rendered inert by considerations of desirability we place ourselves more or less in the hands of our false self by getting dissociated from the eternal aptitudes of the soul, i. e. from the real knowledge of the self, as the result of improperly mixing up the eternal aptitude of the soul with non-eternal considerations. It is true that we necessarily discard the fruits of our labors when we happen to be relieved of the aptitude of enjoyment of the fruits of our activities. But the same abnegation of the fruits of our works in its turn hurls us once more to the bottom from the high summit. Left without support we welcome self-conceit by cherishing the desire for mastery. This deprives us of the Mercy of the Real Truth and causes the mentality that fancies the mundane entities of this perishable world as our saviors.
When we discover that these entities are powerless to fulfil our eternal desires we are at once attracted by the chance of adopting some other courses. As soon as the different eclipsing factors, viz. thirst for evil, good works and empiric knowledge and permutations and combinations of these, breed in us despair by the operation of the faculty that distinguishes between the eternal and the temporal, we make the attempt in right earnest for obtaining the help of the supporting entity (Ashraya). As soon as our desire for the attainment of the desideratum is able to find the satisfactory solution of our innate sense of rational and non-rational eternal and non-eternal, bliss and non-bliss, it reaches the unitary position by joining hands with the desire for well-being. This is the state of unadulterated devotion (bhakti), or serving aptitude. When this aptitude of the soul, free from all evil desire and uneclipsed by empiric knowledge, utilitarian work, etc. engages itself in the submissive service of the Substantive Entity Who is the Prime Attractor, replete with the eternal full-knowledge and continuous bliss, the triple mundane quality of this world, characterized by the relationship of mutual repulsion, is rendered incapable of lording it over us. It is only then that the eternal serving aptitude of our souls, or our worship, is properly offered so as to be fit for the
acceptance of the Worshipped. We are then in a position to be disinterested spectators of the
performances of differing mentalities. We no longer feel attracted towards the worship of Brahma, the tutelary deity of the realm ‘of mundane initiative, by those who are employed in the utilitarian activities of this work-a-day world for earning the profits of their labors. Neither do we experience any identity of interest with the worship of Rudradeva, the object of adoration of these desirous of relief from the sensuous urge, calculated to bring about the cessation of the state of misery by inertia generated by the eternal indifferential materialistic mood that manifest itself after the demolition of the twin gross and subtle material constructions by the abolition of all passing desires effected by such worship. The careful consideration of the extent of success in the attainment of the desideratum by those modes of worship, which now becomes possible, makes us change the course of our expedition from these directions and also dissipates the conditional aptitude on which ‘they rely for their continuance, which makes its appearance along with the proposal of uprooting the triple eternal function embodying the principles of existence, cognition and bliss, based upon the groundless assumption that an entity devoid of power is the substantive Reality.
We are agents who require help from outside to sustain our existence. The help that is coming to us at present is inadequate. Inadequacy is the normal condition of the present atmosphere. By examination by our rationalistic principle we require more help than our friends offer. We have five senses to pick up the knowledge of the present world. As seekers of the Truth we require that we should be endowed with more knowledge. Our thirst is not quenched by the ordinary knowledge deducible from sense-perception available from the empiric professors. This impulse leads us to inquire as to how we can have more knowledge than can be had here.
We are also found to believe that there is agency who is not furnishing the requisite knowledge because we are proving ineligible for admission to the plane of adequate knowledge. This is the source of the theistic conception regarding necessity for the existence of the Absolute Knowledge as distinct from the knowledge of apparent truths. Hence also the conception of the necessity of the coming of the special agent of the Absolute Knowledge as the supply of the agents of empiric knowledge who alone are ordinarily available here.
We should seek for the fountainhead of all knowledge. If we do not do so we find ourselves poorly supplied. Our capacity for retention of knowledge also leaves us when we choose to be conversant with local temporary, apparent truths. The symbolical deceptive knowledge is presented when we neglect to seek the connecting thread of all knowledge. Time comes when our physical equipment parts from all its seeming possessions.
The theistic conception refers to a Fountain Head where Knowledge is Full, Ever-existing, and which can impart incessant Bliss. We are pleasure-seekers through the senses. The empiric view, does not offer the facility to supply us with incessant Bliss.
There must be a theistic view. We have to scrutinize the position of absolute Knowledge, Existence and Bliss required by us. We must seek for the place where the absolute Knowledge, Existence and Bliss is to be had.
In mathematics, we get glimpse of the fourth dimension. We are practically restricted to the third dimension by our senses except for a Very hazy idea of direction only. Unless the Fountainhead could be traced we cannot cease from seeking or from being debarred and led astray from Knowledge that supplies an enduring basis for true existence. We are thus compelled by the very direction of all our activities to seek after things which should be called Absolute. Or, to sum up, as we pass our days in the non-Absolute region we should have the impulse to have access to the transcendental region where these dimensions are an inclusion and nothing of an exclusion.
If we are not to have Full-knowledge, unending Life, uninterrupted Bliss, this life would be pessimistic existence. We shall then submit to be born, grow and pass away without tackling the inadequacies of the phenomena. We should trace the Fountain-Head, the Real Cause from Whom all these have emanated, not being content with the Agnosticism that prevails more or less at present. We should seek for more knowledge than we get from our senses. We hope that some clue of the transcendental world should be received by us through a particular process unknown to us with sensuous habits who are busy with phenomena only, concocting many ideas about the future life. Some subscribe to metempsychosis, some to this only life, for completing all preparations for peace at the long end. These varying opinions do not satisfy for the reason that they are secular. The tentative solutions offered by speculative philosophy are tainted by this radical defect. They give particular views that do not satisfy, being based upon mundane condition investigated through the senses.
The Absolute Knowledge, Existence, Bliss can give all that we are in need of. We are not in a position to advance one step beyond these three dimensions.’ We are restricted to the partial view. We cannot get the whole impression of a globular sphere at a glance,—some turning for transformation of the angle getting the full view. We get the view of only a quarter of the all-round. We see 180 degrees at a time. If we require to see at our backs we have to turn our head to that direction. Then half the sphere is exposed.
At a glance we see only a quarter of, the sphere of existence. So we are lacking in simultaneous grasp of the whole idea. We should not, therefore turn Agnostics etc. When. we fail to have the full view fully at one time we should know that our determination of self is but an infinitesimal part of the Fountain Head from Whom many things have emanated. We should on the contrary, trace Him from where deviation is not possible. Challenging part is to have no lien to deviate from the Fountain Head.
Any deviation is only part and parcel of phenomena, not the whole thing. The immanent and transcendent are ignored. We’ engage in one thing with the whole attention, but the exposition of the thing gives a partial idea. If the attributions are eliminated the original thing is sought in which many things are incorporated. Incorporation itself gives very little of the whole integer. The Absolute Truth reserves the right of not being exposed to our senses. Our senses fail to get at the whole thing at a time.
Our brain cannot accommodate fullness, Ever-existence beginning or ending of time. So the position of the Absolute should be traced in the person of the Absolute. The Absolute was in the beginning, is posting every present phenomenon. That will disturb the process of transformation and will destroy the phenomenal position. All knowledge will be distinctive and will destroy and put a stop to these things.
But that thing should be traced out. We should acquire the conception of the thing through the senses at present. Sound gives impressions of objects at a distance, like abstracted ideas from the concrete. Abstract ideas like charity etc., in a subtle form tend to captivate the brain in favor of perception and conception of things through the senses. Sound conveying impressions of phenomena requires corroboration from the four other senses and the mind as well.
We reject sounds whose validity is required to be testified by the other senses. The transcendental sound has got a distinctive character. The sound from the fourth dimension received by the ear has got a special potency to clear out all restricted ideas and to include everything of phenomena. Present sound is meant to be restricted to the third dimension, to be transcended by the fourth and higher dimensions. The transcendental sound clears out all impediments that block the path of the sound.
The idea of immanence cannot be secured unless we break down the molecules. Unless we break them we cannot go to the other side, transcend time and space. That sound will give a clear signal, a free path, by which we can make some progress towards the Absolute. That sound should be received through instruction. It should not be confounded. We should undo what we have received hitherto, there will be no loss. The distinctive feature of that sound is that it should incorporate all reciprocal objects along with the sound. That should not be neglected for the distinctive reference of coming from there as it will include all and should be coming with all sorts of potencies to clear out all sorts of unaesthetic and wrong impressions received from our aptitude to enjoy the world which should not hamper our progress towards the Full and Eternal.
We are only showing our natural aptitude and should not be denied. We should be lending our ears to receive the transcendental sound. We should stop all our senses for the time being and receive the things and not merely their attributions. The transcendental sounds are given to us by the Fountain-Head Who can take the initiative. He is not ‘It’. He is to be targeted as the Male-Moiety of the things of the subservient phenomena. The transcendental sound should not lack any part of the Integer.
The transcendental sound is equipped with All-potency. As the potency of sound is restricted we find diverse existences in different things and are not in a position to receive things in full. Partial conceptions also make us forget. We should shake off all other ideas and thoughts for the time being. When we receive the transcendental sound from the transcendental region the messenger will not bother to impart any worldly ideas as the living sound is full, including all words and ideas of this world. We expect the Absolute-language flowing into the ear which will include all languages. If we behave otherwise that sound cannot communicate itself to us.
The transcendental sound has got innumerable potencies. It has power of delegating power to us, to receive all of it. When it comes from an unknown region it should first inject such power to our feeble receiving instrument as would enable us to welcome it. We must not show a challenging or rejecting attitude as we are liable to do towards advice gratis.
We should know that the transcendental sound has the necessary potencies that require to be vested in us, all sorts of puddings and consumables to enable us to neglect the other senses. Our eyes, nose, etc., will be regulated by that sound. This is not hypnotism or mesmerism that give anthropomorphic ideas. These are altogether beyond the human scope. They should charm and transform the human. They should not depend for any help from the senses or empiricists, restricted to their poor rationalistic expedition only. Such help cannot be effecting, can only hamper, when transcendental sounds will be flowing into our ears from air agent who will inspect whether we require mundane supplies.
The transcendental sound will carry all the requisites necessary for receiving the sound. We should simply patiently wait through the whole of our life. The transcendental may come through a human and all other agents, if we are ardent, if we require his help, if we unconditionally surrender everything acquired by the empiric method, if we dismantle the constructions accrued during the empiric period. If we do not dismantle them there will be no eligibility for receiving the transcendental sound.
The transcendental sound will be coming out of the Initiative Faculty of the Unknown. He is precluding us from the sound. Whatever submits to our senses are Nature’s product. When we engage our senses we fail to make progress because we have, not dismantled all culture, even all aesthetic culture of this world. If we are desirous of catching the transcendental sound we shall be prepared for the time-being to suspend all sensuous activities and wait for the transcendental sound to include all.
If we ignore the Cause of Causes we miss the opportunity to receive the transcendental sound. As present people are engaging in materialistic activities we wish some sort of elementary culture to be introduced to make them progress in the line of the full-existence. Spiritualists in every part of the world are busy in threshing the subject by deferring wrongly to the mundane reference. True spiritualists speak out all to persons who are incredulous. This incredulity will. be slowly removed by the transcendental sound. If the speaker utters anything mundane it will not lead to the transcendental position.
If we are fortunate to receive the sound that is beyond the human scope we should listen to it. God-head sends down His messengers in symbolized figures to give us if we are at all really sanguine of ideas of the Absolute. It is only then that we would be enabled to make any progress. This fortune is now denied to all who have love for transformable things.
Persons desirous of having the view of the whole at a glance should have their access through the transcendental sound only, and not through the senses. The distinctive feature of that sound is that itcarries all sorts of information and potencies that would give us facilities to welcome the sound. Those who neglect to attend to that sound would be unmindful of the Fountain Head. They would be engaging in the plight of intellectual activities in this material space that cannot accommodate Spirit. They would be apt to carry gross things there to enrich that region. But the lanterns are not necessary for seeing the Sun.
The lanterns are useful for seeing in the dark. It will only encumber and obstruct if we carry the knowledge and acquisition of this world for progress in that region. We may be very simple in our habits, may very poor in our linguistic equipment, but when the transcendental sound reaches our ears that will clear up all dirts of our ears accumulated by previous receiving of the mundane sound. This will be secured in the company of persons who are sanguine to restrict their whole activity to the transcendental process. If we pay some fee to the scoffing atheists, to the professors of empiric wisdom, to the builders of the temporal structures, etc. these partial donations in exchange will not give us the whole thing. We should not think of bartering at all. The transcendental sound does not require any earthly postage for its communication.
We must not neglect the transcendental sound freely transmitted by the agents of the Absolute. We find ourselves interested in many things that are not known to us. The doctors do not know the remedies of many diseases. We require no monetary value in exchange for transmitting our message. We live a simple life and require little help from others in the way of scientific facilities. As we have got our ears we can receive the transcendental sound and vocalize the same to any intelligent person who may hear us.
This will not be accessible to persons who have very little culture, who are engrossed in sensuous engagements. But we expect the intelligent section to make some preparatory progress towards a region of which we are essentially in need. In these days of materialism we are simply puzzled by these high-thinking views. We are trying to do much to enrich the human intellect. But we are startled where we are told to look beyond. This is silly. We want to rouse up the true mentality of the, civilized world for requiring help. The secular help cannot appease our hunger. The transcendental help can. We intelligent people should receive the transcendental sound. We are now vitally concerned in’ this as every one is engaged in exploring ways and means for getting rid of our present unbearable inadequacies. We should spare a portion of our time to receive those sounds.
When once this conviction has been truly formed Sri Krishna Himself helps us in finding the really good preceptor in two ways. In the first place He instructs us as regards to the character and functions of a good preceptor through the revealed Shastras. In the second place He Himself sends to us the good preceptor at the right moment when we are at all likely to benefit by His instructions. Krishna has revealed from eternity the tidings of the spiritual Realm in the form of transcendental sounds that have been handed down in the records of the spiritual scriptures. The spiritual scriptures help all those who are prepared to exercise this reason for the purpose of finding not the relative but the Absolute Truth to find out the proper instructor in accordance with their directions. The only good preceptor is he who can make us really understand the spiritual scriptures and they enable us realize the necessity and the nature of submission to the processes laid down in them. It is by unreserved submission to such a preceptor that we can be helped to re-enter into the Realm that is our real home but which unfortunately is a veritable terra incognito to almost all of us at present. It is also impossible of access, to one whose body and mind alike, is the result of the disease of abuse of our faculty of free reason and the consequent accumulation of a killing load of worldly experiences, which we have learned to regard as the very stuff of our existence.
Here on this mundane plane we are attending to speculations regarding animate and inanimate entities. We designate inanimate entities as non-sentient or material. The thought that in this world we are eligible for lording it over an entity that is void of animation, having a strong hold on us, produces an innate perverse speculative tendency to the effect that the Transcendental Reality is also capable of being reduced to the same category, thus engulfing us in the depths of sure annihilation with the fell virulence of the tubercular disease. The line of thought of those who conclude the world to be unreal by depending on realistic speculation derived from the gross external environment, has in view only the consideration of the outcome of our present limited perceptual experiences.
We are debarred from the view of the Substantive Entity. We are spectators of the transformation of the potency of the Substantive Entity. We are receiving the opposite impression, due to the functioning of time. One particular thought suffers transformation by the operation of other speculative currents. Whatever is sought to be circumscribed within the limits of conception, tends to lose its entity. The process of incarceration is within the four-walls of limited speculation has engendered numerous diverse mentalities in man. The following episode having reference to the perverted mentality, that has manifested itself by reason of the continued prevalence of the complementary desires for enjoyment and abnegation of material entities, is to be found in Srimad Bhagavatam. Sri Vyasadeva found in his pure mind, completely concentrated by the process of devotion, the Plenary Person and also Maya (the deluding Potency), the latter in a position, of condemned dependence on Him, by whom Maya completely infatuated the individual soul, although transcendental imagines himself to be constituted of the triple mundane qualities and undergoes the unwholesome consequence of mundane activities in the state of such delusion. He saw that complete subsidence of all these evils is brought about by the realized spiritual service of the Transcendent. The great sage, thereupon, penned Shrimad Bhagavatam in which he recorded his realizations of pure theism which had been unknown to man before, and by listening to
which with submissive attention the hearer is sure to experience the awakening of the aptitude of tile service of the Supreme Person resulting in the cessation of all sorrow, infatuation and fear.
We are victimized by sorrow, delusion and fear. Godhead is not an entity to be enjoyed. So long as this fact is not perceived there is no realization of the nature of transcendental service. Every form of the so-called service of thus mundane world is contemptib1e. If we engage in the service of the entities of this material world we shall be spat upon by the abnegators of worldly enjoyment.
By serving the particular mundane entities, we incur the disapprobation of others. This misfortune has befallen us by reason of being adept in the knowledge of little entities in default of the knowledge of the Supreme Reality. But Godhead is supremely Merciful. For our sake He is pleased to cause the descent of the tidings of the realms of fourth to infinite dimensions even to this poor world of three dimensions.
The Lord of the spiritual is also Lord of the inanimate. One of His potencies displays the characeristic of eternally uneclipsed cognition. Another potency offers the face of eclipsed cognition. It is this latter which prevents us from attaining the proper, i.e. undivided, view of the Entity Himself.
The Divine Entity is Transcendent. He is located above the scope of knowledge derived through the
physical senses. That Entity alone is styled ‘Divine’ Who is not limited within the scope of the senses of man. That which is liable to fall a victim to the clutches of human senses is the idol, no matter whether it has the abstract or the concrete form. Such entity is a mere concoction. If we get rid of a certain measure of foolishness the whole of our ignorance is not immediately dispelled. It is a proper procedure to seek to eliminate the unwholesomeness of matter. But this is not the whole affair. It is certainly improper to maintain that the transcendental is material. But neither need we suppose that the Absolute is the consequence of the subsidence of mundane relativity. What we require is substantive declaration and not mere negative speculation. The words of Sriman Mahaprabhu, of Srimad Bhagavatam, offer this Absolute Positivism and not the conditional positivism of Auguste Comte.
The mundane world is the function of a particular potency of Godhead. That potency is located in His external body. When our: brains are stupefied by the working of the potency belonging to the external body of the Divinity we are apt to think that we might be benefited by the postulation of a theory of Divine Descent, by the exercise of our animal impulse through the processes of anthropomorphism or zoomorphism. If we choose to imagine any inanimate entity or any man to be Godhead we would be put to difficulty. It is necessary to engage ourselves in the quest of the Transcendental Entity. He is by no means any lump of flesh which is constituted of matter.
The intellectual pursuit of apparent local truth is mistaken by empiric scholars as the spiritual culture of real truth. Religion is concerned with eternal life. It is thoroughly practical although transcendental. But intellectualism cannot touch even the outermost fringe of the transcendental plane of positive religious practice. It is futile to speculate about the perfect life from the plane of elected imperfection and ignorance. This is true knowledge.
The reality and higher excellence of the spiritual plane are proclaimed by all revealed religions. The
comparative student of religion has to carefully investigate the nature and validity underlying their particular claims before, forthwith denying the very existence of the spiritual pane for no better reason that he can have no actual experience of same, till he begins earnestly to culture his spiritual life. The transcendentalists declare that the experience of religious truths is attainable also by conditioned souls by following the revealed methods of spiritual pupilage. The transcendental truths, however, admit of negative exposition for the refutation of the a-priori objections of the rationalistic schools.
It is possible to teach the revealed religions in a really scientific manner by the service of descended transcendence as explained by Mahaprabhu Sri Krishna-Chaitanya. Sri Chaitanya declares that there is a perfectly rational method of spiritual education for calling into play the dormant faculties of every soul, that it is only by such awakened activity of the faculties of the soul that the Absolute Truth is approachable for His service, and that results of this method are fully ascertainable by careful observation and experiment. It is a common belief prevalent among the uninformed circles that the Vedantins are all mono-theists, but the critics can demarcate the line of distinction between monotheistic Vedantins and henotheistic Vedantins. Some are apt to confound that the henotheistic thought of Impersonality of Godhead has created the view of personal Godhead. They are surely mistaken. Monotheism strictly dismisses the idea of henotheistic view of different mundane figures of the Impersonality, the subjective existence of which is no other thing than symbolization of the Infinite Impersonality within the cavity of human senses by material components. The henotheist has misguided the true conception of monotheism which has to establish the Unity and Personality of Godhead together, not in the mundane but in transcendental sphere whereas, the Impersonalists differ from the former by assuming the idea of abstraction from concrete matter. This particular turn of mind of the latter misunderstands the true figure of Godhead beyond phenomena and wants to accommodate the figure of the Absolute Truth into something inconceivable and indistinct. The distinctive monism has shown clearly that the indistinctive nature of concocting the subjective existence of the Personal Godhead is rash and foolish.
The impersonal idea of monism being a part and ‘parcel of the mundane idea of unending Space and Time has no locus standi when numerical difference is not welcome and by his meddling with numerical difference, he has forfeited the chair of his unalloyed monism. The supreme fountain-head has got the potency of manifesting His Nature in temporal and perpetual existences. The indistinctive view of monism has explained the phenomena in non-realistic Idealism.
The self-conscious principle is held by Indian Transcendental philosophy as forming the substance of the soul proper and as capable of existing independently of any connection with matter in its subtle or mental and gross physical forms. In the state of freedom of the jiva soul from material connection the knower, the knowledge and the object of knowledge belong to one and the same spiritual plane.
Material civilization in its external forms is the ‘outside’ of material thought which is its ‘inside’. They belong to the same category and are located in the same plane each being a species of the genus matter. Matter is inanimate. It is categorically different, not from mind which is substantially material but, from the conscious principle which from an altogether different plane chooses to contract a temporary unwholesome and unnatural connection with matter in its double form of ‘thought’ and ‘object of thought.’ The conscious principle itself is different from the substance of thought. The mentalists suppose that the substance of thought is identical with the principle of consciousness. But as a matter of fact the conscious principle or the soul transcends both the ‘thought’ and ‘object of thought.’ The thought itself does not think. The Maya-fettered soul as observed thinks in terms of matter. This is the inconceivable combination. The soul proper has nothing to do with matter as it belongs to an altogether different andsuperior plane. The mind is the organ by means of which this unnatural connection is rendered possible. But the present mind is not the soul or at any rate it is not the soul in its speculative state. The mind represents the soul imprisoned in a double material case. The growth and seemingly self-initiated activity of living organisms are but pervertedly materialized reflections of those spiritual activities that are natural to the soul in its freed state, such perversion of the natural function of the soul is the unspiritual concomitant of the material civilization of this world. Activities on the material plane cannot be congenial to the soul. Material energy is not a healthy transformation but a gross perversion ~ the spiritual energy. Material energy cannot act without the initial impulse which it can have only from conscious energy. It acts in a strictly subordinate position. The real energy is self-conscious energy and is related to the material energy by way of transcendence.
Transcendentalists are to be capable of taking the initiative. There undoubtedly exists such a principle in us and it is the same principle which also supposes itself to be the lord and originator of those activities which promise to supply its needs by the multiplication and elaboration of facilities for meddling with physical nature on the part of the soul although such meddling happens to be radically foreign to the nature of the soul and, therefore, not likely to satisfy its real needs.
