by Sri Bmal Mohanty
VOL No. 30
July / August . 2003

ATTEMPTS TO DESCRIBE BRAMHAN - Part 4

"Based on the lectures by Sri Bimal Mohanty"

Earlier we have often spoken about jnanalabha and siddhilabha. Siddhi comes only after realisation.

What is the character of these textual contents of the srutis at the consciousness level? It is the revelation of that supreme truth and bliss – the satchidananda or the Bramhan itself.

When the truth is revealed, it is the end, the cessation of all attempts to know truth. The seeker of truth then rests in truth, merges in truth, loses himself in truth. That is the real ecstasy of knowing.

The entire concept of Mundaka Upanishad, on this topic of para and apara vidya is to lead and reveal The Bramhan. Because that happens to be the knowledge of all knowledges, the only knowledge and everything else being ignorance. Th question asked by Saunaka to Angiras, kasmin nu bhagavo vijnate sarvamidam vijnatam bhavati iti? -what is that when known, all these become known? - is the beginning of the quest to arrive at paravidya. ( Note here the use of the word vijnate denoting vijnana and not jnana or vidya).

In slokas after slokas, Angiras expounds the ultimate source which has to be known. Not studied as vidya, not exercised merely intellectually as jnana, but made totally conscious of, the state of vijnana. That knowledge is Bramhan and Bramhan only.

And at the end, he makes the final observation of the state of paravidya. Bramhaveda Bramheiva bhavati.. You know Bramhan only when you lose yourself in Bramhan also.

So what the Srutis, what we labeled as apara vidya have done? They have merely provided the foundation or the starting point. Study of Sruti is essential, but it is foolishness to consider that to be the goal. And that holds for all scriptures, all spiritual writings, all utterances from the seers and saints.

Often the cynics and sneering faultfinders in the Sanatan philosophy have greatly criticised it by saying that ‘what is this nonsense hair splitting of inferior and superior knowledge that creates unnecessary confusion’?. They say’ if it is knowledge, it should be knowledge from any way you look at it’.

They miss out the very basic points that are at the core of the vedantic way of thinking. Firstly the vedantic philosophy has analysed that the human intellect is never a kind of single layer intellect. Man exists in many many layers of intellectual awareness and many many layers of supramental consciousness. To the vedantins, knowledge per se is of very little use unless it has been realised at the superior levels of consciousness. Only then it helps in the psychic evolution of man in transforming him into a higher being. The total transformation and total assimilation takes place at the highest consciousness level- at purna caitanya.