Tripura Rahasya ✅ Chapter XV

85. A lamp illumines all around but

does not illumine itself or another light.

It shines of itself without other sources of light.

Things shine in sunlight without the

necessity for any other kind of illumination.

Because lights do not require to be illumined, do we say that they are

not known or that they do not exist?

Therefore,

as it is with lights,

thus are things made aware by the conscious self.

What doubt can you have regarding abstract consciousness, namely the Self?

Lights and things being insentient, cannot be self-aware.

Still, their existence or manifestation is under no doubt.

That means they are self-luminous.

Can you not similarly investigate with an inward mind in order to find out if the all-comprehending Self is conscious or not

conscious?

That Consciousness is absolute and transcends the three states (wakefulness, dream and deep sleep) and comprises all the universe making it manifest.

Nothing

can be apprehended without its light.

Will anything be apparent to you,

if there be no consciousness?

Even to say that nothing is apparent to

you (as in sleep) requires the light of consciousness.

Is not your awareness of your unawareness (in sleep) due to consciousness?

If you infer its eternal light, then closely investigate whether the light is of itself or not. Everybody fails in this investigation however learned and proficient he may

be, because his mind is not bent inward but restlessly moves outward.

As long as thoughts crop up, so long

has the turning inward of the mind not been

accomplished.

As long as the mind is not inward, so long the Self cannot be realised.

Turning inward means absence of desire. How can the mind be fixed within if

desires are not given up?

Therefore become dispassionate and inhere as the Self.

Such inherence is spontaneous

(no effort is needed to inhere as the Self).

It is realised after thoughts are

eliminated and investigation ceases.

Recapitulate your state after you break off from it, and then you will know

all and the significance of its being knowable and unknowable at the same time.

Thus realising the unknowable, one abides in immortality for ever and ever.

ASHTAVAKRA GITA

Such a person is rare in the world who does not hanker after the enjoyment of things enjoyed by him, or after things not enjoyed.

Men who seek enjoyment and men who seek emancipation are both found in this world. Rare is the noble-minded one who desires neither enjoyment nor emancipation

Jack Kornfiled, No Time Like the present, Finding freedom, love and joy right where you are.

Vastness Is Our Home ‘We are being carried on a luminous star, sharing in the dance of life with 8 billion beings like us. Vastness is our home. When we recognize the spaciousness that is our universe, around us and within us, the door of freedom opens. Worries and conflicts fall into perspective, emotions are held with ease, and we act amid troubles of the world with peace and dignity.’

Countless Paths: Which One to Choose? by Rajender Krishan

Guru Nanak gives a peerless cure to this malady of confusion. He says it is worthless to wander in the crowd of countless paths. His solution: Ju Tudh Bhave Sai Bhali Kaar Tu Sada Salamat Nirankar What pleases Thee, is goodness abound Eternal and Immutable, only Thou are around Guru Nanak says, “Thy will be done”. Whatever pleases you, O Lord, is best for me. I cannot choose for myself. I have no yardstick with which to determine as to what is right or what is wrong for me. The only way I know is that I surrender myself at thy feet with absolute conviction that in “Thy Will” whatever comes to pass is good for me and whatever does not come to pass is not good for me. In your will is my salvation. You are my protector; you are eternal, the formless, and the almighty.

Ralph Waldo Emerson Unknown Author

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1817-1862) American Philosopher, Unitarian, social critic, transcendentalist and writer was fascinated by the concept of Brahman:

“All science is transcendental or else passes away. Botany is now acquiring the right theory - the avatars of Brahman will presently be the text-books of natural history.” The basic oneness of the universe which was a part of the mystical experience of the Indian sages is one of the most important revelations of modern physics. Eminent scientists like John Wheeler point out that in modern science the distinction between observer and observed breaks down completely and instead of the “observer” we have to “put in its place the new word "participator”. In some strange sense the universe is a participatory universe.“

The Upanishads had taught the same lesson of the subject and the object fusing into a unified un-differentiated whole: "Where there is duality, as it were, there one sees another; there one smells another; there one taste another…But where everything has become just one’s own self, then whereby and whom would one see? then whereby and whom would one smell? then whereby and whom would one taste ?”

The intuition of Indian mystics led them to understand the multidimensional reality and of space-time continuum which is the basis of the modern theory of relativity. Vedanta taught the technique of self-development. The ultimate destiny of man is to discover within himself the true Self as the changless behind the changing, the eternal behind the ephemeral, and the infinite behind the finite. Greater wisdom was never compressed into three words than by the Chandogya Upanishad which proclaimed the true Self of man as part of the Infinite Spirit - tat twam asi: “That Thou Art”.

BY ABHILASH RAJENDRAN

The Vedantic idea is directly opposite to the idea of chemical evolution. Srila Prabhupada presented it in a very profound and simple way as, ‘Life comes from Life.’ According to Taittiriya Upanishad, ‘asadva idamagra asit’ or Brahman or Consciousness existed before the manifestation of the material world.Thus Vyasadeva, the compiler of all Vedic literature exhorts that the prime duty of the human form of life is to inquire into the original basis of existence, which is Brahman or consciousness, “athato brahma jijnasa”.