Dear All,
Swami goes on further to explain the most intense and difficult subject of Permanent and Impermanent in the most easier manner possible.
Devotee: But, Swami! I heard you say imperishable-perishable and
permanent-impermanent.
Swami: Yes, my boy! You were speaking now of pictures; do they have names and forms?
Swami: Yes, my boy! You were speaking now of pictures; do they have names and forms?
Devotee: Haven’t they? It’s only because they have names and
forms that the story is understood. Only then do we recollect Ramayana and Bharatha. There is no formless name and nameless
form.
Devotee: I have grasped that it is identified with name and form.
But Swami, I would like to hear you describe how it originated.
Swami: Do
not fall into the tangle now. If we engage ourselves in describing that, it
would be like getting into a mango garden without eating the fruit we have plucked
—calculating the number of trees in the garden, the number of twigs on each
branch, the number of fruits on each twig, and what the total price of all the
mangoes would be if the price of one mango were so much.
Instead of senselessly
wasting precious time in the collection of this information, we should, like
the person who eats the fruit, find out what is of primary importance, understand
that thing first, and attain contentment and joy. Leave that alone.
What did you say is the nature of this world (prapancha)?
This world has
another name —do you know it?
Devotee: I said that the
world is identified with name and form. I have heard that it is known by another
name,
creation (jagath).
Swami: This
name-form world, this creation (jagath), is like magician’s art: it is real only as
long as you see it. So too, the world is real only as long as you experience
with your senses (indriyas). That is to say, anything not experienced
in the wakeful stage is taken as non-existent. Under such circumstances, we say
sat for
existence and a-sat
for non-existence. Now what do you say of this world? Is it
existence or non-existence?
Continued......
Author's note:
We will try and arrive at essence of Swami's answers after we complete this series of Question and answer on the real and unreal/ Permanent and Impermanent/ Akshara and Kshara , in the next couple of posts.
Love.
