Sri Ramakrishna Math : The Vedanta Kesari, Disciplines of Vedanta

Shankara's followers are very idealistic people. They would, if necessary, leave the house and practise; go to the woods and practise. They are mighty people. They speak of four magnificent preliminary disciplines. The first is nityanityavastuviveka--discriminate between the real and the unreal. Man is expected to constantly discriminate. We are caught up in the unreal things of the world. So, you must begin with discrimination between the real and the unreal.

Why should you practise? Because, God alone is enduring, and everything else is impermanent, transitory. The world is not shunyam, but transitory. Buddha taught transitoriness of the world and added shunyam, 'null and void', which Vedanta does not accept. You cannot have anything that is 'null and void', pure nothingness.

The fact is that reality itself must be studied in Vedanta. But you can't define that reality, because you can't define God. God is the only reality. The monists were bold philosophers. Sometimes perhaps they would be shivering in the cold Himalayas, but they would never give up the boldness of their thinking, their pursuit of Truth. Nowadays, there are bold people who pursue science. In earlier times bold people called rishis pursued what is called spiritual science. They said, there is only one ultimate reality, which looks like something that is not true.

The lowest grade of reality is called pratibhasika satya--apparent truth--for instance a mirage. The sun's rays fall slantingly on the road, and you see a mirage. This is very common in deserts. It's only hot sand in the sun, and from a distance it appears like water--a lake, a huge lake and animals are deceived by that mirage. Man also is deceived, but he knows that it is not an oasis and comes back. He feels very thirsty and thinks that he can drink from the apparent lake, and perhaps take some rest there. But, after walking for fifteen minutes, he sees that it is no nearer. It seems to be receding. So he realizes that it is a mirage. But animals, herds of cattle, for instance, would die in their attempt to reach it. They don't know that it is only a mirage.

Another instance of such reality is dream. You wake up and the apparent reality disappears. Such apparent reality appears as an unsubstantial airy thing--a very subtle universe, which entirely disappears. You do not even know that you are sleeping. See the fun of it! Only in the morning will you know that you were sleeping.

The Universe that we see is not much different. You cannot say it is absolutely real, for else where could it go when you were sleeping. You say, it was there. How would you know, unless somebody else told you that the lamp post was still there, when you were sleeping? Vedantins call this relative, empirical reality--vyavaharika satya.

Then there is Absolute Reality. Absolute reality, they say, is that which never changes. How do you know that it does not change? Our consciousness which records it does not change. I say that the real world disappears in dream. It didn't appear at all in any form. So I say it is relatively real. The Vedantic philosophers took the mind of man as waking and non-waking in all the twenty-four hours of the day. They did not confine their absolute state only to the waking hours. Waking consciousness disappears in dream. Another kind of consciousness sets in. The ego in the waking state is not the ego in the dream state; and the ego disappears in deep sleep, and reappears in the morning. They say, we should study all these states, because the mind is like a prism, through which you see the universe.

The child sees the universe as very interesting. It does not know that nature can produce volcanoes, and destroy the city in which it is staying. It is a little child, it is attracted by the colours of life. A grown up man or an adult or a philosopher has a different vision, because his mind has evolved. So the mind changes, the Indian thinkers observed. We should study the mind itself.

When these Vedantic rishis studied the mind, they arrived at consciousness--waking consciousness and dream or sleep consciousness--from mind to consciousness. They said that this consciousness is relative only with respect to the state. In truth, this consciousness does not change. This stems from the idea that we always persist, that we cannot forget ourselves. Of course, we say we forget ourselves, but really we don't forget ourselves--we come back to ourselves. But there is a state in which you totally forget yourselves, transcend the ego, and you land up in the realm of infinity, the Absolute. That Absolute is pure consciousness. At the back of these three states of consciousness, there is a pure consciousness which links these three states together, enabling you to establish the identity of your personality in all the twenty-four hours of the day and night, and throughout life.

The Hindus said that is the only reality which does not change. It is this 'I' that does not change. When you study this universe, it is changing all the time. It is the distinction between these two that is called the discrimination between the real and the unreal. That is what Shankara said. To a devotee God is sufficient, but the Vedantin seeks something more called the Nirguna Brahman.

This analysis is important. Think what is real and what is unreal, and when you study it this way, you find that the Absolute Reality is that consciousness which does not get negated or stultified. We can never think that we will become extinct. Even people who don't believe in God do not believe that they will vanish.

The fact is that the dying man, or the old man is afraid. They just do not know where they will go. That's why they stick to some discipline that will take them to heaven. A pious soul believes that every man goes somewhere after death and he is afraid of going alone. Every man asks his relations to accompany him. Finally, he asks for the fruits of his good deeds, that is, he wants his karma to stand him in good stead so that he may go to heaven. But in Vedanta, you don't attach yourselves even to that. Heaven is transitory in Shankara's philosophy.

That is one of the paths--monistic Vedanta. Realise that there is only one reality, the absolute reality. Everything else changes. What is this absolute reality? It is your own Self. There is change everywhere else: the sun rising and setting; the moon waxing and waning; and the flowers, the meadows, the waters, the rivers, all rising and dying and again rising and dying. Similarly a mountain slowly crumbles into dust here and you get another mountain somewhere else.

Now let us take a look at the internal world. Mind is constantly changing, and a changing thing cannot understand another changing thing well. There is something permanent in man, his own consciousness, which registers change in things. The unchanging consciousness or the pure consciousness called the Atman, helps him to register with the help of the mind. Think of this Atman as the permanent and think of the ever changing universe on the other side. This is the discrimination between the real and the unreal.

Then comes the practice of ethical virtues and moral qualities. Shama or control of mind, dama or control of senses, titiksha or endurance and so on. Suppose somebody calls you a fool, you should not feel disturbed. This can be done with a little endurance. The mind should bear hardships. Don't argue. That is another trouble. You start arguing and then go on arguing your whole life, wasting two hours everyday in trying to prove that your stand was correct, and the other man was wrong! Then comes uparati--giving up the ceremonials. The householders practise several rituals. But a monist won't do that. The next is samadhana--collectedness of mind. The mind is usually very heavy, you know. That should go, and patience, endurance and collectedness of mind should remain.

This brings us to shraddha--an indispensable quality hailed by the scriptures. One should have this shraddha or faith in God as also the guru, the teacher, who shows us the path of illumination and helps us find the ultimate and absolute reality.

Another preliminary discipline according to Shankara, is karma. Shankara says that work is meant for the purification of mind--chitta shuddhi. Shuddhi is purity--purification of the mind-stuff; and when the mind-stuff is purified, it can be concentrated. Then work falls off by itself and you can stop work. This was the old ideology of monks. Those monks would never do anything for the poor.

So, Swami Vivekananda modified this and said that you cannot always meditate on God. Meditate as long as you can. The rest of the time can be spent in doing good to people who want education or food so that you may thus become fit to give higher spiritual gifts. One cannot easily make a spiritual gift although it is the greatest gift, no doubt. It is great to give alms to a man, but how can a man give that if he does not have anything to eat? So also an illiterate man cannot educate the uneducated. Similarly spiritually advanced people alone can make a spiritual gift--open the eyes of another man. This is mysticism.

Sankara says that the practice of Karma Yoga, in a spirit of selflessness, is essential as a preliminary to higher meditation. But the Gita says, 'Go on working, because the energy is manifested in you.' That is another viewpoint. Go on working selflessly without thinking of yourself, like the Buddha. And then in the long run your will gets attuned to the divine will and the divine will flows through you. Forget yourself completely. It is a marvellous stage, no doubt. Of course, both are essential: one should work and one should meditate, be interested in God.

Karma Yoga, to be practised, should be combined with the spiritual element of meditation. Karma Yoga does not mean going on working mechanically. The two bullocks drawing a bullock cart are forced to carry as much weight as is put on the cart. This goes on, until at last, one bullock just lies down, unwilling to carry it further; and the other bullock cannot do anything; because one bullock is already down. Then the man beats it, but its skin is thick, so it doesn't care for the beating. The more he tries, the more unwilling he becomes. See, this is life. Though he suffers, man goes on working.

The other man clings to God, whatever difficulties might come. Even if you call him an idiot, he clings to God, that's all; he doesn't care. This man is a real Karma Yogi; he goes on working. A man like Mahatma Gandhi would say when asked to go to a place just for visiting purposes, 'What shall I do by going there? My problem won't be solved, so I better stay here.' He didn't care at all. The whole being of that type of man is absorbed, devoted, concentrated. That is real Karma Yoga.

Realization doesn't come without a price. Very few mystics are fortunate to have that kind of reward. One has to hang on; hang on and don't come down. It is something like aspirants clinging to a wire, which is attached to a post on one side and on the other end to the shaft of this portion of one's life. It is not a short wire, it is a very long wire. And the aspirant just clings to that. He goes on slowly to reach the other end. You see, it is easy to come to the shore of the ocean, but in it there are alligators, whales, sharks--all kinds of sea-creatures. Even if a man tries, he may be lost in the ocean. But he doesn't come back to the world. World-consciousness being there, he does not allow it to penetrate his heart; he just goes on clinging, and at last the dawn comes. This is the night, which the mystic speaks of as the dark night. But that darkness disappears in time and the crimson hue of the heavens heralds the morning sun.