The Realisation of the Absolute: 3. Swami Krishnananda.

 

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Monday 06, January 2025, 10:25.
The Realisation of the Absolute: 3.
Chapter 1: Introduction-3.
Degrees in Empirical Reality
Swami Krishnananda.

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Degrees in Empirical Reality:

The capability for such an expansion differs by degrees in different beings, according to the extent of the Reality manifested through them. Beings are higher or lower according to the degree of Intelligence that lights up their nature. Entities in the universe are differentiated through their modes of mentation, which are controlled by the intensity of the Truth presented by them. Nature appears to be Spirit distorted in multitudinous ways and expressed in different degrees of revelation. Individuals marked off within themselves, limited by space and time, bear a variegating relation among one another, in proportion to the depth of the Consciousness realised by them. The deeper the Consciousness realised by an individual, the nearer it is to the Eternal. The separative force is the power of individualisation and of the rootedness of the ego-sense. The greater the force with which this separative sense is suppressed to nothingness or expanded to Infinity, the more extensive and deeper is the light and the joy realised and experienced. From this it would be clear that, excepting that great fiery method of attaining Immediate Self-Experience, the process of Self-realisation must be a progressive one, and that none can fly into a higher state of consciousness without fulfilling the conditions of the lower, the lesser and the grosser states. The more limited states of manifestation have to be complied with their demands before one could reach the highest Metaphysical Being. Stricter discrimination may repudiate the view of a progressive process in Reality, but there is process in all relative conditions, and it is valid as long as duality persists. Anyhow, all is well with him whose heart is turned towards acting in accordance with the deathless law of Infinite Life. No disease, physical or mental, can ever assault him.

Way to Blessedness:

This important factor is forgotten by the modern man, howevermuch educated he may be. He has refused to walk freely with the workings of the Spiritual Nature and has attempted his best to centre himself in the state of individualised existence. The misery of the present-day world may be attributed to this constrictive tendency in the human being, which is ever trying to block the way of the expansion of the spiritual consciousness. The case of the half-baked material science and psychology may be specially mentioned here as being one of the forces obstructive to the happy process of Truth-realisation. The ills caused by wrong methods of education, the social and political strifes, the individual evils and the world-degeneration are all effected by the one terrible fact that humanity has turned against the law of the Spiritual Reality. So long as this self-destructive tendency of the human mind is not controlled, and man is not shown the correct way of procedure, the unhappy world has to be contented with its fate. The remedy lies in our being sincere in taking recourse to the direct method of such Realisation here and now. Humanity has to be cent-per-cent spiritual. Those who think that they are doing injustice to the world through their act of Self-realisation have naturally to be regarded as having not gone above the credulity of childhood. For, they have forgotten that the Self which is the Absolute includes the whole universe, and far transcends it. It is the obtaining of everything, and not the losing of anything. The welfare of society rests in its spirituality. Society is a formation of bodies effected through the unconscious spiritual bond existing among beings belonging to the same genus or species. The social bond is stronger among those who think alike and who practise the same conduct. This bond is the strongest among those who are in the same level of the depth of consciousness. All this is a feeble reflection of the essential nature of the indivisibility of Existence which is One. Human beings have to know and act according to this spiritual law, and its acceptance should not be merely for the purpose of academical research but has to be the foundation of the daily life of everyone in general. Unity in the world necessitates a heart-to-heart feeling of oneness among its inhabitants. This is the need of the hour. This is the task of the political and the religious heads. This is what is going to pave the way of blessedness to the whole universe.

The Upanishads are our guide-lights in this supreme pursuit. Let us understand and follow them with sincerity, faith, calmness, surety and persistence.

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Next

Chapter 2: The Nature of the World

The Dissertation on Experience

Continued

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