English
It has been rightly observed that the student who is desirous to arrive at truth must prepare his mind for the reception of it by dismissing all previously formed crude notions, and strengthen himself by a resolve for the unprejudiced admission of any con- clusion reached by logical argument. This intellectual liberty to adopt whatever is demonstrated is one which all sciences stand in need of. The higher the science, the greater the need. It is well said that ‘the truths of science are stranger than fictions.’ To the ordinary untutored comprehension, the moon is greater than the stars, and almost equal to the sun. But quite the reverse is the fact to the astronomer. Sir John Herschel says: — “Almost all its (astronomy’s) conclusions stand in open and striking contradiction with those of super- ficial and vulgar observation, and with what appears to every one, until he has understood and weighed the proofs to the contrary, the most positive evidence of his senses. Thus, the earth on which he stands, and which has served for ages as the unshaken founda- tion of the firmest structure is divested by the astronomer of its attribute of fixity, and conceived by him as turning swiftly on its centre, and at the same time moving onwards through space with great ra- pidity. The sun and the moon, which appear to un- 165 taught eyes round bodies of no very considerable size, become enlarged in his imagination into vast globes, — the one approaching in magnitude to the earth itself, the other immensely surpassing it. “The stars properly so called, which to ordinary apprehension present only lucid sparks or brilliant atoms, are to him suns of various and transcendent glory — effulgent centres of life and light to myriads of unseen worlds His native sphere ( the earth ) he finds in comparision a mere point ; so lost — even in the minute system to which it belongs— as to be invisible and unsuspected from some of the principal and remoter members^.” Every word of the above quotation should be borne in mind by the student of the Vedanta. To the common reader it will seem strange to class the earth with the heavenly bodies, and to assume any community of nature among things ap- parently so different. The earth is dark, the heaven- ly bodies are brilliant. But to the astronomer who has studied the science that treats of motions, mag- nitudes, and everything coimected with the heaven- ly bodies, the earth is one of the heavenly bodies and is regarded as a principal object of consideration, from its proximity and relation to us, who draw from it the supply of all our wants. It is the station from which we see all the rest. Now, to the VedSiiitin, like his earth to the astro- nomer, his own Self is heavenly. The Vedanta unfolds the fundamental identity of the universe with Brahman, an identity to be realized 1. A Treatise on Astronomy by Sir John Herschel p, 2. 166 the true knowledge without which there is not any chance of man’s obtaining final release. ‘There is no other way to release but knowledge’, says the S'vetds'vatara Upanisliad. When the individual soul emerges from its ignorance, regains its lost knowledge, and returns into its true being, the Self, he becomes conscioi\s of its loftier origin, of its pristine exaltation over the world of sense. That all qualities and weaknesses of Jim, the indi- vidual soul, are owing to its adjuncts, is demon- strated by the Vedanta. The temporal Self, if di- vested by true knowledge of its temporal character, returns to the divine nature, and is identical with the highest Self. J ust as coal is the treasured sun- beams or fire-beams, so man is the treasured Brahma- beams capable of glowing and brightening now, even as before their prisoned light was packed up. The fire and knowledge respectively kindles them, smoke arises at first, as the fire and knowledge gain strength, the nature of the coal is being transformed into the nature of fire, and the nature of man is being trans- formed into the nature of Brahman. Then there remains tranquil brightness. The master-element subdues all into itself. Nothing of the blackness is left but brightness, and nothing of the man is left but the highest Self. To understand this most important and highest truth, and then to be restored to one’s true nature, the preliminary acquirements which it is desirable for the student to possess are, pure and independent mind, intellectual development by education, moral discipline, readiness for the reception of truth, and 167 taste for 'poetry, religion, and philosophy.'^ The more of these acquirements he brings to the study, the easier will be his progress, and the more satis- factory his knowledge. The Divine in the Human and the Divine in the Universe are Identical with the Divine Itself. Sruti the revealed Scripture, most gra- ciously comes to the help of such a student, and shows him the way out of Nescience and into the 1. As said at the out-set, the Vedanta covers Poetry, Religion and Philosophy. The Vedanta enjoys such liberty of thought as is not allowed to the extremest latitudinarian of the present day. And yet it gains authority in harmony with the rights of intelligence and the light of free thought. So sublime is it. The character of Nature is said to be self-externaliza- tion, sunderedness, out-of-itself-ness, and at last its self-develop- ment into spirit. Nature is unconscious in the beginning, but it rises in ascendent gradation and ends in the disimprisonment of spirit from itself, in the form of man ( ). The Vedanta, like Poetry, makes the dumb Nature lay open its secrets before, and speaks to, it. It ascends to bring light from the eternal region, and interprets the Divine knowledge, and power, and pleasure, and makes immortal all that is best and most beautiful in the universe. The idea is present for perception here and Poetry perceives it. The Vedanta, like Religion, ( the voice o£ which is poetry) exalts inwardly the Nature and Man to the Absolute as the all-comprehending, all-reconciling substance of existence, and enables Man to know himself as in unity with God. It is well known that all religions seek unity of the Divine and the human. The idea is present for conception here, and Religion conceives it. The abstraction from the form of religious conception is Phi- losophy. The Vedanta, like Philosophy, makes the abstraction. It is the complete development of thought. It is the result of the genius itself of humanity. It is the light of all lights. 168 right knowledge. The true Self ( is hidden in man, as light in matches, unseen by us, but ready to appear, when properly rubbed by one who knows how to kindle them. The Vedanta furnishes all necessary knowledge on the subject. A When the oneness of Atman is properly under- stood, there remains nothing to be known. In the ChMndogya Upanishad ( VI ) the learned and en- lightened father teaches his beloved son the highest lesson that, *Sat, the entity (sTf^rRTmT^), pure Being, pure consciousness, ( ) extremely subtle, ( ) the one without a second alone exists and is all in all. ‘That ((Sat) is subtle essence, the root of the universe, in that Sat all that exists, all this universe its Self. That Sat is ( the True, the absolute Reality, that Sat is ( eTTRT ) the Self. ( ). “Tat tvam asi*’ i. e. ‘That thou art’.^ It should be remembered that in this sentence the literal meaning is not to be taken. To understand it rightly, the conflicting portions should be abandon- ed and non-conflicting retained. It indicates the identity of the non-conflicting portion, ( ) Existence-Intelligence-Bliss. The relation of predi- cate and subject between ‘ that ' ( Entity, Intelli- gence, the highest Self, distinguished by invisibility ) and ‘ thou ’ ( individual inward Self distinguished by 1, In his Six Systems of Iridmn Philosophy Dr. Max Muller says: — “This fearless synthesis, embodied in the simple words ‘Tat tvam asi\ seems to me the boldest and truest synthesis in the whole history of philosophy,” ( p. 161 ) 169 visibility ) is a relation constituted by tbe exclusion of the difference which there is between them. By the omission of the contradictory charactei'istics of the Lord and the individual Self, such as ( ) omniscience, sinlessness, &c., and ( ) parvi- science, sinfulness, &c., respectively, the substrate, the Self, alone remains. The unity and identity of the universal Lord and the particular Jtva becomes appropriately and conclusively established. In the BrahmorSutras the same MaMvAhya, great saying, is thus expounded: — ‘Thou art That* teaches that what is denoted by the term ‘Thou’ is identical with what is denot- ed by ‘That*. Now the latter the entity which is free from all qualities is denoted by the term ‘That*. What is denoted by the term ‘thou’ is ( snqiTTttrT ) the inward Self, which is the agent in seeing and hearing, and is apprehend- ed ( ) as the inward Self of all the outward involucra beginning with the gross body, and finally ascertained as of the nature of (%RPr) intelligence... Only ( ) deep-witted persons, in whose mind the sense of the words is not obstructed by (win^) ignorance, &c., are able to intuite the sense of the sentence ‘Thou art That.* The intuition of the Self ( ) consists in the knowledge, ‘My Self is pure intelligence, free from all pain*. F or him who possesses that know- ledge there remains nothing else to do ( ), i, e., his task is done. The non-dual Lord ( the Self) is free from all evil qualities.. but it is admitted that before 15 true knowledge springs up, the seul is implicated in the transmigratory state ( ).^ Or in other words, ‘Thou,’ i. e.