Self Knowledge II

The four qualifications of the Aspirant

Vedanta teachers maintain that genuine seekers after knowledge must practice proper discipline.

True knowledge is always accompanied by direct personal experience.

To know the Self is to realize that the Self in man is Pure Consciousness.

To know Brahman is to become Brahman.

Therefore intellectual understanding of the teachings must be followed by the by actual transformation of life.

We must also realize that much of our reasoning supports our own biases or desires. That is most people understand a thing the way they want to understand it. They prove only what they want to prove.

Therefore, the attainment of Truth demands complete non-attachment to everything including our own thoughts and ego.

Discipline is vital as described in the following.

Discrimination between the Real and the Unreal

The conviction, that only God is real and all other things are unreal and illusory

Renunciation – of sense pleasures, since they are the result of finite actions.

The six treasures which form the ethical foundation of spiritual life

Calmness - the dwelling of the mind on God after it has detached itself from sense objects.

Self Control - restraint from inappropriate actions

Self-settledness) - to prevent the mind from drifting from its intended focus

Forbearance- the endurance of all afflictions

Complete concentration – of the mind.

Faith - that the teachings will bring one to God.

Longing for Liberation – this inner longing of the student to free himself , through the knowledge of the true Self from the bondage of body, mind and ego.

Shankara stresses, that this longing is totally different from restlessness, which is an inferior state of the mind.

A restless mind shows lack of self control and also a lack of firm belief in the existence of Truth.

Restlessness creates confusion.

Shankara states, that bhakti or devotion is necessary to attain liberation.  “Bhakti is the unswerving passion for the realization of Truth”.

The meaning of Self – Control

Self control is vital, without it, progress in Self Knowledge is slow.

By means of self control one empties the mind of the worldly contents, its transient desires and passions and then through contemplation, fills up the void with the spirit of truth.

Meditation without self control is difficult.

Self control should be distinguished from meaningless austerities. It is very different from self torture which the Gita condemns.

Self control means the strengthening of will power and the intellect or discriminative faculty which controls the sense organs.

Karma and Re-Birth

When we look at the inequality between people at birth we can only conclude that if there must a moral foundation that supports the universe, in which virtue in the long run is supported and iniquity punished.

But, what must be understood is that karma cannot be applied to Soul, or Atman, which is in its true nature, beyond birth and death, unaffected by space and time and the law of causation.

It has reference only to the embodied soul or Jiva when identified with the ego, and seeks to explain the relative world.

We know that karma means action and the fruit producing impressions that remain with the doer even after the action is completed.       

No action is complete without producing its effect on body and mind.

At the time of death the action of a man remains in seed form, and the seed sprouts when he takes a new body either on earth or any other plain of existence.

The teachings tell us that every man is born in the world fashioned by him which is primarily based on unfulfilled desires and his actions in a previous state of existence.

The teachings stress that good and tendencies, and man’s happiness and suffering, are the inevitable consequences, of the actions of his previous life, and the actions performed in this life determine those of the next.

When we examine this issue, we can regard the pain of this life as self inflicted and we might just as well accept it with calmness and resignation.

It should also be an incentive for doing what is right.

The theory of rebirth is the necessary counterpart of the law of karma and the immortality of the soul.

The soul being eternal cannot be annihilated with the death of the body.

If we did not have this eternal soul, we would be forever tied to the wheel of karma.