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.
