The vedas acknowledge divine karma as the origin of all creation, preservation, and destruction. However, since God does not have desires, unlike humans, he is not constrained by them. In the first chapter of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad (1.6.1), we discover that karma is one of the three main causes of diversity, alongside name and form. The variety in names is a result of speech, and the variety in forms is a result of the eye, while the mind and body are the sources for the variety in actions. For every action, the body serves as the source, the controller, or the lord. Within the body, the mind, speech, breath, organs of action, and organs of perception are regarded as the primary deities who receive sustenance from the body and carry out their respective functions. Nevertheless, we cannot solely depend on them to combat the impurities and the malevolent forces that can infiltrate our body, as they are susceptible to evil and demonic influences, thoughts, desires, temptations,...
The Upanishads basically identify two types of knowledge: the lower knowledge of the rituals, sacrifices, obligatory duties, occupational knowledge, and the higher knowledge of the Atman and the Supreme Self. The former is often equated with ignorance Avidya and the latter with true knowledge Vidya.
Inferior knowledge or ignorance arises from our mind. Their interaction with the phenomenal world is responsible for our experience of duality and non-duality. From this perspective, even the knowledge we gain from the study of the scriptures, unless it is augmented by spiritual experience, is considered inferior.
Many spiritual teachers believe that mere book knowledge does not help much in our liberation. Some even say that it becomes an obstacle and comparatively an empty mind is better suited for spiritual sadhana than an intellectual mind full of theories and concepts.
This knowledge is considered inferior, because it does not liberate us from the cycle of births and deaths. Instead, it leads to more attachment, karma, egoism, worldliness and more involvement with things and nature.
It arises in a state in which the mind and the senses are fully resting. Spiritual knowledge is transcendental knowledge which arises in a person who is self-aware without the involvement of his mind.
The Upanishads state clearly that both types of knowledge are important. From the lower knowledge comes the discipline and the ability to practice the higher and realize the highest. They also believe that knowledge of Brahman is the highest knowledge, because it is permanent, unchanging and indivisible, by knowing which there is no further knowing.
It is important to know that Brahman is not an object of knowledge, something that we need to know or gain or possess or remember but the goal of our spiritual effort to achieve liberation. In worldly life, we seek knowledge for some worldly gain.
We think knowledge in material terms, because we cannot conceptualize knowledge that arises spontaneously without the intervention of the mind, the senses and the ego.
To aspire for divine knowledge through our minds and senses would be equal to creating another distraction or activity in our lives, another delusion in which our egos indulge and lead us to the wrong path.
In spiritual world, we have to seek knowledge transcend it and enter into a state of awareness in which the distinction between the knower and the known are completely absent. It is as state in which knowing alone exists without the duality of these two.
The paradox of spiritual experience is that, from a mental perspective, in a state of duality, the knowledge of Brahman is indescribable, and in a state of unity it is unknowable.
When we are in a state of samadhi, we have no means of knowing what is happening, and when we come out of it we have no means of remembering what happened, because our minds and senses were not involved in that experience. It is like the deep sleep state, beyond dreams and all mental formations, about which we have no idea.
So the absolute Brahman does not know, other than by himself, that he knows or that he exists. It is a state of being, in contrast to the state of doing, in which he simply is without a second and without any instruments such as a body or senses. It is a purely subjective state in which there is no process, no otherness, no knowing, no doing and no remembering. Such is the paradox of the state of Brahman.
To know it is not to know it and not to be it in the present.
Twitter:@merrill_ab
Very good.
ReplyDeleteAmazing clarity. Every blog post is a fresh perspective that only deepens understanding of our roots & supreme.
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