Without achieving the disappearance of the entire pluralistic world and without realizing the real nature of the Self how can one achieve full Liberation by a mere repetition of the word, 'Brahman'? Surely, it will end only in a wasteful effort of speech. (63)
The conditions preceding the full state of Liberation are explained here. In the white heat of intense meditation, when the mental rays of the individual have been made single pointed and turned completely inwards to recognise the Self within, the world of perceptions gets eliminated in the experience; just as the world of the dream naturally rolls away from the waker's comprehension.
We perceive the pluralistic world from the levels of the body, the plains of the mind and the peaks of the intellect. With the body, we recognize the waking state world of names and forms; with the mind we perceive the world of feelings and emotions and with the intellect
we recognize and experience our world of ideas which has no declared boundary.
Let us get deeper into the initial line of today’s verse- “Without achieving the disappearance of the entire pluralistic world”
The appearance and disappearance of pluralistic world is analyzed with reference to “dream state” in almost all Advaita treatise.
A verse from panchadasi says, “This world of duality is like a magical creation, with its cause incomprehensible. What matters it to the wise man who does not forget this, if the past actions produce their results in him?”
As a daily practice one ought to recall to the mind the dream one has experienced and analyze the dream. Questioning the reality of the objects experienced there in dream one arrives at their unreal nature.
This questioning involves considering how the dream objects and events appeared ‘so real’ but only vanished, ended, when the waking occurred. They were ‘as real’ as the waking objects and events; their reality was never questioned, doubted, then. Yet, upon waking, they all ended.
Now, let us connect the two lines of the verse –“ Without achieving the disappearance of the entire pluralistic world and without realizing the real nature of the Self how can one achieve full Liberation……”
Let us see what Sri Ramana has to say on these lines exactly, which is a revelation itself from the Maharishi
Bhagavan said, “It is said that Brahman is real, and world an illusion; again it is said that the whole universe is an image of Brahman. The question arises: how are these two statements to be reconciled?
In the sadhana stage, you have got to say that the world is an illusion. There is no other way, because when a man forgets that he is the Brahman, who is real, permanent and omnipresent, and deludes himself into thinking that he is a body in the universe which is filled with bodies that are transitory, and labors under that delusion, you have got to remind him that the world is unreal and a delusion.
Why?
Because his vision which has forgotten its own Self, is dwelling in the external material universe and will not turn inward to introspection unless you impress on him that all this external, material universe is unreal.
So long as a man does not see his own Self which is the origin of all, but looks only at the external world as real and permanent, you have to tell him that all this external universe is an illusion.
However, When once he realizes his own Self, and also that there is nothing other than his own Self, he will come to look upon the whole universe as Brahman. There is no universe without his Self.”
Regarding the wastefulness of merely repeating “Brahman” in speech/ talks, we have already dealt with the same in the previous 2 verses and hence, we wont get into detail of the same.
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