[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
one's attention away from the primary duties which one is expected to fulfil at this time.
The moral law which includes the canons of truthfulness, love and continence should
become the guiding factors in the expression of one's thought, word and deed.
Contentment, joy and devotion to the ideal of one's life bring about the health of the
mind as well as of the body. One's ideal of life should be that which never perishes in
time and is never contradicted by anything else. To know what this ideal is one requires
the aid of an able teacher.
When one undergoes the process of education, no other factor in life should interrupt or
interfere with this process. The process of education should be such that it includes in a
balanced way all the sides and layers of the human nature, physical, intellectual, moral
and spiritual. Physical health, intellectual understanding, moral integrity and spiritual
wisdom are what lead to the ultimate perfection. The different intellectual sciences
which are taught in the universities of today are a feeble apology for the integral
education that is necessary for the attainment of perfection. No education which
neglects certain important aspects of human life can be complete and worth its name. A
well-adjusted and balanced study of the essential human nature should constitute real
education. After one is well-educated, one must direct one's consciousness and
intelligence to the analysis of experience and knowledge of truth. Understanding, willing
and feeling are the three faculties in man which have to be taken as the means to the
practice of the method of approach to the truth. Some make use of all these faculties in a
certain proportion in their march to perfection. Others take to an exclusive method
Resurgent Culture by Swami Krishnananda
Resurgent Culture by Swami Krishnananda 23
22
which transforms the other methods into itself, or keep them away as subservient
elements.
The method of feeling is faith. Faith in God is the standard way, for some, of reaching
perfection. Love of God and service of God through His manifestation as the universe is
the principal path. Faith does not question and reason, but accepts the testimony of the
teachers and the scriptures in believing that the omnipresent God is the one Reality of
the universe. This acceptance of the cosmic presence of a spiritual Being as the supreme
Lord of the universe implies an attitude of reverence and love on the part of the devotee
towards such a Being. The human emotions are not destroyed here but are turned
towards God and thus sublimated. God is loved as a father, a mother, a son, a friend, a
husband or a master. The world becomes a pointer to God, and worldly love an
indication of the presence of God-love. The world is the body of God. Nothing is to be
ultimately rejected. Everything is to be loved as a step to God-realisation.
The path of the will is the austere method of determination and decision in regard to the
way and the goal. The will bases itself either on faith or on understanding. Will based on
faith is different from will based on understanding, and the two wills constitute two
different paths to perfection. The will that is based on faith concentrates itself on the
Supreme Being which is accepted as an act of faith. As God is everywhere and the mind
of man is characteristic of a behaviour which is contrary to the fullness of God, the mind
should be checked and its modifications completely transformed in a higher Being.
Contrary modifications are opposed with their contradictories or replaced by others of a
more beneficial nature, or the modifications of the mind are fixed on God and given a
transcendental touch of the philosopher's stone of the infinitude of experience. Matter is
separated from Spirit through contemplation on the essential distinction between the
two and on the independence and absoluteness of the Spirit. The power of the will is
such that it either completely excludes from consciousness all forms pretending to exist
outside the Infinite or absorbs them into the consciousness of the Infinite. Thus the will
is a way to perfection.
The path of the understanding is the rational method of investigation of experience.
Here the understanding and the will become one and the will becomes another name for
the movement of the force of the understanding. The experience of one's finitude
implies the existence of the Infinite. The nature of the Infinite is opposed to that of the
individual. God is accepted not merely because the scriptures have made mention of
Him or because the teachers believe in Him, but because one's own experience and
understanding become self-contradictory in their expressions when the Intelligent
Infinite is not accepted, and also because the infinite consciousness comes to be the
logical deduction of the inmost experience of the finite individual. The longing for the
infinite and the perfect is ingrained in the deepest recesses of everyone. The sense of the
presence of the Infinite becomes the indicator of and the guide to the achievement of
perfection.
Contemplation on the idea of the Infinite is the way. The objects of the universe are the
phases of Consciousness. The Existence of the individual is on the same level of reality
as that of the other individuals. The subject and the object are related to each other as
complements, and one is not superior or inferior to the other in the degree of the
manifestation of Reality. Contemplation should therefore take the form of an assertion
Resurgent Culture by Swami Krishnananda
Resurgent Culture by Swami Krishnananda 24
23
of the conscious Reality of the universe as a whole. Here the universe ceases to be a
material presentation but discloses its true nature of consciousness. The knower and the
known sink into a Reality larger than what they reveal at present. The individual
becomes the specimen of what is systematically going on in the cosmos, and the one
purpose of contemplation and meditation is to attune the individual's processes to the
cosmic process.
This attainment does not consist in any action of the body, but in an attitude of the
mind. It is the intense affirmation in consciousness of the supreme validity of the
indivisibility of the truth of the universe. This conscious affirmation of absoluteness
should be continued until its actual realisation. The practice should be continuous and
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]