Sandeha Nivarini - Post 53

Chapter XVII. The Power of Ignorance

Devotee: Swami, this delusion of the objective world (samsara) over-powers us, thick and strong, like the darkness of clouds in the rainy season. 

What is this mighty force that drags us along? This is what has been bothering me. I feel that people like me should understand these things clearly in the very beginning. Will you kindly enlighten me?

Swami: Well, my boy. What am I to say? You are suffering from fright, imagining a tree stump seen in the park to be a person. That is, you are mistaking the non-dual (a-dwaitha), the full (purna), which is Brahman as a separate incomplete soul (jiva) and suffering from that error. That delusion is the cause of all your sufferings.

Devotee: How, then, did this delusion come about?

Swami: You slept, or you dreamed. You slept the sleep of ignorance (a-jnana) and delusion (moha). Therefore, you dreamed this objective world. Awake, and you will have no more dreams. When the dream is gone, the delusion also goes.

Devotee: Swami, what is this ignorance? What are its characteristics? How does it operate?

Swami: That, which is attached to the body and feels as “I” is the individual soul (jiva). The soul is outward-faced; it believes all this mutable creation (jagath) and objective world; it is immersed in both. When the soul ignores and forgets its non-dual embodiment (a-dwaitha-swarupa), we call it ignorance (a-jnana). Is that clear?

Devotee: But Swami, the spiritual texts, all of them, say that this objective world is caused by illusion (maya). You are now saying it is due to ignorance. What is the distinction between the two?

Swami: Ignorance (a-jnana) is known variously as illusion (maya), primordial matter (pradhana), nature (prakriti), unmanifest, ignorance (a-vidya), delusion (thamas), etc. Hence, understand this well: the objective world is the consequence of ignorance.

Devotee: How can ignorance produce this objective world; I want to know from you, Guru-God (Guru-deva).

Swami: Know that ignorance has two powers: the veiling power (avarana-sakthi) and the projecting power (vikshepa-sakthi). It veils Reality and projects upon it the unreal. The veiling power acts in two different ways: veiling with untruth and veiling with appearance.

When a spiritually wise person (jnani) and ignorant people (a-jnanis) meet, even though the wise one teaches that the Atma is One and non-dual, the ignorant ones deny it, because they can’t grasp the reality so easily. Even when they hear the truth, they don’t have the faith and steadfastness to imbibe it, so they dismiss it with a shrug of indifference. This is the veiling with untruth.

Now about veiling with appearance. Even when someone believes by study of the scriptures (sastras) and by the grace of providence that there is non-dual Atma, one can be carried away by cursory and superficial arguments and dismiss it as non-existent. Though one has the consciousness (chit) that is aware of the very thing that one denies, the delusion (moha) makes one declare that it is non-existent. This is the sinister role of veiling with appearance.

Continued......

Bhagwan Mahavira

Sandeha Nivarini - Post 52

Devotee: Swami, some people say that if we do not get some visions and sounds and lights during meditation, we can take it that our meditation has not progressed! Do You say that they are wrong?

Swami: It is the image of their own idea. Perhaps they do meditation in order to get such sights and sounds! Therefore, they experience them. They are things by which each one of them is deluded; they don’t analyse the truth underlying the visions! Really speaking, they should not seek these impermanent delusions.

Devotee: Then what are we to seek, Swami?

Swami: Seek and desire the Principle of everything: that which, if known, everything is known; that which, if seen, all is seen and understood. Don’t seek drops in your attempt to know the flood. When you have attained the Ocean (the basis of all the drops), you won’t have the delusion of the drop.

Ponder this. If you seek direct experience of the Lord Atma, (Atma-sakshatkara), you have to install in your meditation the form of the Lord (the universal Atma) that you like most, and not the picture of your guru. It is not proper. The Lord is of a status higher than the guru, right? Of course, have His words as the foundation and try to attain the origin of all things; that will give the fruition of all efforts.

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Dear All,

That completes the penultimate chapter in Sandeha Nivarini.

We will move on to the next and final chapter from tomorrow onwards.

Love.