Vivekachudamani - Post 26

  Verse 20    

ब्रह्म सत्यं जगन्मिथ्येत्येवंरूपो विनिश्चयः ।
सोऽयं नित्यानित्यवस्तुविवेकः समुदाहृतः ॥ २0 ॥

 

brahma satyaṃ jaganmithyetyevaṃrūpo viniścayaḥ |
so'yaṃ nityānityavastuvivekaḥ samudāhṛtaḥ || 20 ||

 

(A firm conviction of the intellect that Brahman alone is Real and the phenomenal world is unreal is known as discrimination between the Real and the unreal.) 

 

Here is a complete and exhaustive definition of the faculty of discrimination. In its application to a student of Vedanta, discrimination is the capacity to know the Real from the unreal from a mixture of things, for Truth or Reality is that which is changeless and ever-present. 

Three types of Pramana

1) Pratyakṣa pramana – This tells me that everything around me is perishing.

We all thought, without certain people, the world will not run; and we find that they all disappeared, and that the world is. And one day the whole earth may go away. Therefore Pratyakṣa pramāṇa teaches me.

2) Anumana Pramana. 

All the worldly and even svarga lokaḥ pleasures are finite. How? By knowing that whatever is karma phalam that is anityam. 

Just as we can infer fire with the help of smoke, we can infer the ephemerality of heaven by using what? Heavenly pleasure is is also karma phalam.

How do we know our own death? Whether prataksya or anumana. Our death, how do we know? It is not pratyakṣa because happily we are alive. Our death is only an inference; because we have seen all the other people; jatasya hi dhruvo mr̥tyuhu; whoever is born will die.

3) Sastra Pramana - Sastram comes and tells: Oh! Human beings, everything around is perishable. Thus, pratyakṣa, anumana, sastra pramaanehi, jagat anityam iti sunischaya.

Then naturally there is a curiosity; Is there something eternal? What is the truth of the universe? What is the permanent essence of the world?

 

Sastram comes and tells that there is something eternal; there is something eternal. 

Viveka is the intellectual ability to discriminate between real and unreal or what is described as Nitya and Anitya.

This viveka is a slow process. We live our life… we begin with many desires and ambitions. We fulfill each of them. Yet we find an emptiness inside – that emptiness inside is the feeling of being wanting which leads us to imagine that by doing something else we will become fulfilled.

Slowly we begin to understand that no matter what I do, no matter how many ambitions I fulfill, the emptiness inside does not seem to go.

Then what is the solution? This is where all the paper-back knowledge comes in handy… you read a book, or you go for a satsang. There you hear that the treasure you have been looking for all your life is within you… is you.

It is not out there in the changing world – the changing world cannot give you what you are looking for … you are looking for permanence – permanent happiness and permanent security…… that is God. God is permanent happiness and God is permanent security.

So Nitya vastu is God who is your true SELF. Now there is a longing to get one's true SELF. So far one was happy with the crumbs of happiness given out by life.

Now, one understands it is anitya - temporary…. and the interest in gaining anitya happiness and security etc simply drops.

Discrimination or Viveka is the 100 percent conviction that the Self alone is real and that objects are apparently real.

Discrimination is the sense of right judgement and understanding to differentiate between the permanent and the impermanent.

When we enquire into life and try to understand it in its pure essence, we come to experience that Life which is present everywhere at all times. This universal factor, the substratum is what is meant by the word 'Brahman' in Vedanta. 

 

To come to a logical understanding and arrive at a complete intellectual appreciation of the fact that this permanent substratum alone is ever existent, changeless, formless, and therefore, immortal, is to understand that Brahman alone is Real and the world of plurality that we now cognize is unreal and imperfect, although it be Its magnificent and wondrous manifestation, changeable, impermanent and joyless.

 

Love.