The Stages of the Integrated Life According to the Brahma Sutra: Swami Krishnananda.

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Thursday 27, February 2025, 11:30.
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Brahma Sutra
 The Stages of the Integrated Life According to the Brahma Sutra: 
Swami Krishnananda.

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We must know that things are not moving according to our prejudices, according to our religion, our custom, our cult and the cultural background into which we were born. All these have no connection with the truths of life. Usually, we do not want to know the truth as it is. We are men or women, we are from India or America, we are religious or not religious, socialists or Marxists, philosophers, businessmen, or merchants. 

These things have no meaning if we look at things from the point of view of the whole world. We should transfer our mind to the total world, as if the world alone is thinking. We should not think like a person belonging to any place, but should think like the whole world thinking. The world has no men and women; it may not even know that we are existing as persons. The world has no difference of any kind within itself; the world is a big organism, like our body. It has no caste, no religion, no philosophy; it is just what it is. Can you live a life like that? Just be what it is. 

I am saying all this because one aphorism in the Brahma Sutras is very intriguing, which no commentator has explained properly. This sutra is based on the following concluding passage in the Chandogya Upanishad: 'One who has studied the Vedas from the teacher according to rule, in the time left over from doing service to the teacher, he, who after having come back, settles down in a home, continues the study in more detail, who concentrates all his senses in the Self, who practises non-hatred to all creatures, he who behaves thus throughout his life, reaches the world of the Creator.'

'Kritsna-bhavat-tu grihinopasamharah' (III.4.48), is the sutra used to explain the life of a householder. The meaning of the sutra is that the life of a householder is integral. Unfortunately, all the commentators on the Brahma Sutras are Sannyasins. No Sannyasin will accept that a householder is leading an integral life. They will say Sannyasa is higher. Here also there is some prejudice seen. We should never bring ideas of higher and lower in the scheme of things as they are. Sannyasins abhor the word 'householder', so how will they write a commentary on this sutra? They are handicapped in saying anything here. They cannot say that the life of a householder is wholesome; the general idea is that the life of a householder is one of attachment to family, property, and relations. Then what does this sutra mean? How is a householder integral? Neither can the Sannyasins accept that the householder is integral, nor can they say that the Brahma Sutra is saying something wrong, because everyone has high respect for the Brahma Sutra. It would be like Christians saying that the Bible is wrong, the New Testament is wrong, Christ's teachings are wrong. One cannot say that, since these are holy words. You may disagree with them, but you cannot say they are wrong. So, what the commentators do is that they glide over this sutra. They write only two lines according to the Upanishads: The householder's life is considered as integral. They won't say anything more, and pass on. I read many commentaries to understand what this secret is. No commentary went into the depth of this sutra. 

We have cultural prejudice, linguistic prejudice, ethnic prejudice, anthropological prejudice, man-woman prejudice, and we cannot get over these easily. In this condition we can never reach God; it is not possible. God is neither a man nor a woman. He is neither a Brahmin nor a Ksatriya; He is not an Englishman or a Frenchman or an Indian. In what capacity are we going to God? “Oh, I am Christian, my God, I have come.” “I am a Brahmin, my God, I am coming to attain salvation.” God is just I-AM-WHAT-I-AM. 

In what capacity will anyone go to God? Any idea we have about ourselves is basically wrong; and it is not possible to free ourselves from this habit as long as we have a pre-oriented individuality born into a particular family, culture and morality. Morality also differs; it is not a universally unanimous thing working everywhere in the same way. 

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Continued

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