CHAPTER IV
THE GREAT REVELATIONS AND THE NEW PHILOSOPHY.
First addition: Necessity of a Personal God.
Till then there is the 'I' in me and before me my Mother, Almighty, (the Personal God) revealing Herself to Her children through various Forms3 of Glory and through the Divine Incarnations, Sri Krishna, Chaitanya Deva, etc., and manifesting Herself under the twenty-four categories—as living creatures1 and the whole cosmos2. Yes, it is owing to Her power that no created being can get rid of this self which says 'I' 'I' in all created beings and which makes him of the earth earthly.
1 Âtman.
2 Brahmajnâna.
3 Rûpa.
In the second place, it is She my Divine Mother, who teaches Bhakti (love, devotion, prayer and self-surrender) to the devotee and thus changes his ego of this world into the ego of knowledge3, making it thin like a line—a length without breadth. Lastly, look at Her omnipotence!
If it pleases Her, She may take away the last trace of this ego4 from any created being and bless him with the knowledge5 of God, the Absolute and Unconditioned. This result comes about by the differentiated ego being merged or lost, by Her Grace, in the Undifferentiated Ego,—the Absolute—the Atman or the Brahman.
You cannot shake off the self. Even those6 who have realized the Absolute in the ecstasy of Samadhi will yet come down by my Mother's will, to a lower plane and have just sufficient self7 left to hold communion with the Personal God. Is it not difficult to raise the voice incessantly to ni, the highest note of the gamut?*
So long as you are a person with an individuality of your own, God will, if it so pleases Him, manifest Himself to you as a Person.
1 Jîva.
2 Jagat.
3 Ego of Vidyâ.
4 Ahankâra.
5 Brahmajnâna.
6 Âtmarâm.
7 Aham.
* Corresponding to the si of the European musical scale.
Nor can you conceive of, think or perceive God otherwise than as a Person, so long as you are a Person. Such is the constitution of your self.
The Advaitist and ordinary men.
The goal of the Advaitist is the merging of the conditioned ego in the Unconditioned Brahman.
This is not meant by my Divine Mother for everybody. For, with the majority of mankind the ego is a thing which cannot be shaken off in this life, or any other life in the near future.
Thus they (ordinary men) must, so long as they cannot attain to Samadhi, meditate upon, and commune with, the Personal God. For sages and the Scriptures1 and Revelation all agree in assuring us that the Unconditioned does manifest itself to man, both within him and without him, as a conditioned being;—the Impersonal as a Personal God. These Personal Manifestations are by no means less real, but infinitely more real than the body or the mind, or the external world. 'Hence,' says the Knowing One, 'the necessity of a Personal God.'
The Second: Identity of the Mother (the Personal God) with the Soul and Cosmos.
It has pleased my Divine Mother to have become, in the course of creation (or evolution), not only my individualized self, but also the external world.
To him alone who comes down from Samadhi to the plane of sense-consciousness is left a thin self (like a line—length without breadth) just sufficient individuality to retain the Spiritual Vision.1 This enables him to see the soul and the world, as well as himself, as my Holy Mother manifesting Herself in these different multifarious forms.2
1 Shâstras.
This Vision of Glory of my Holy Mother manifesting Herself in the course of evolution as the twenty-four categories including the external world as well as the internal, is a vision not given to everyone to see and enjoy. The perception of this vision is granted unto him alone who has realised the Formless Impersonal God, Absolute and Unconditioned in Selfless-Samadhi, and the Personal God with Forms in Conscious-Samadhi.
Third: The Omnipotent Mother and Karma: Can God Personal give Knowledge of the Absolute?
Yes, even the Knowing One who loses his self in Samadhi and becomes one with the Absolute and thus realises It, is forced by the Unseen Power to come down to the lower plane of sense-consciousness.
Who is this Unseen Power? This question brings us to my Omnipotent Mother (the Divine Person), who alone has it wholly within Her own power both to keep the self and to efface it in Samadhi.
The philosopher says it is Karma—works previously done either here or in previous incarnations—which causes the saint in Samadhi to come down to a lower plane.
1 Divya Chaksu.
2 Rûpa.
Of course, so long as there is the self or ego there are both the actor1 and the action2. There are both Cause and the Effect. Not only that. There are as facts, also, the millions of living creatures, and the cosmos with the twenty-four categories, time past, time present, time future, previous births, future births and all other differentiations.
But if there are these differentiations to be taken as stubborn facts, there is also the Almighty Differentiator, my Divine Mother, the Personal God3.
The position is made stronger by Revelation. For, my Divine Mother says, 'It is I who have caused this differentiation. Good works and bad works all obey Me. There is, true enough, the Law of Karma, but I am the Lawgiver. It lies with Me to make and unmake laws. I order all Karma, good or bad. Therefore, come unto Me through love4, devotion, prayer, self-surrender; or through philosophy5 if you like; or with good works6 leading Godward; and I will lead you across this world, the ocean of all work. I will give you knowledge of the Absolute,7 also if you like. If there is still work after Samadhi, if there is still the ego and the body, be it known that such Karma, that ego, and that body, I myself order to be retained for purposes of My own.'
All this she has revealed to Her children, Her servants.
1 Kartâ.
2 Karma.
3 Saguna Brahman of the Vedânta.
4 Bhakti.
5 Jnâna.
6 Karma.
7 Brahmajnâna.
Can the lover of God (Bhakta) get Knowledge of the Absolute?
So if Knowledge of the Absolute is the end in view, one may attain to it ultimately if one would earnestly pray for it to the Almighty Mother and throw oneself entirely upon Her mercy.
The devotee1 if thus anxious for such knowledge comes to my Mother (to any of Her Divine Manifestations) with ego of Bhakti, to find in the end the whole of his ego swept away in Samadhi, by my Mother's will.
It is the Personal God (the Saguna Brahman), my Divine Mother, who has caused this differentiation into subject and object. It is She who can and does efface the ego in Samadhi and give a knowledge of the Absolute.
That it is She who does so, we learn from Revelation.
The philosopher who does not rely upon Revelation so much as upon Reason, says that the Personal God cannot give Liberation2 to the soul, or, in other words the Knowledge of the Absolute.
It is from a lower plane (that of relativity or the phenomenal world), the plane of I and you, that the philosopher says: 'It is I that can give a knowledge of the Absolute3 to myself'. But in this same plane we must from the necessity of our nature, admit God Personal, my Omnipotent Mother.
It does seem strange that while it is supposed to be quite within the power of the individual with his limited faculties to give the knowledge of the Absolute to himself, my Omnipotent Mother has not that power! that although you can bring to yourself your own liberation, my Omnipotent Mother has not the power of giving you that Liberation!
1 Bhakta.
2 Mukti.
3 Brahmajnâna.
These philosophers forget that the same Being is both Personal and Impersonal. They do not see that the Supreme Being manifests Itself as a Person of Infinite Power so long as we are persons,—Infinite Power including the power of giving Brahma-Jnâna.
But Reason, alone and single-handed, is such an uncertain guide!
Moreover, the power of Reason or Discrimination upon which the philosopher relies also comes from God Personal.
Thus another thing is added to the position of the purely Advaitist philosopher, namely, that it is the Personal God who can and does give Brahma-Jnâna.
The Fourth: Man's "Absolute" must imply the "Relative."
It is Absolute Knowledge so long as there is complete self-effacement and Brahman is realised in Samadhi and you are silent, postulating neither existence nor non-existence regarding it.
No sooner do you talk of Advaitam than you postulate a Dvaitam. For if there is one, there are also Two.
Talking of Monism, you take for granted Dualism.
Talking of the Absolute, you take for granted the Relative. For, your 'Absolute' until realised in Samadhi is at best the correlative of the Relative, if not indeed a mere word put in certain letters of the alphabet!
Talking of the Unchangeable,1 you take for granted the changeful2 or this play-world.
Talking of the Impersonal,3 you take for granted the Personal.4
Just as talking of Light you postulate the existence of Darkness, its correlative.
Just as where there is Happiness there must also be Misery, its correlative.
Whose changeful play-world it is, of the same Being it is the Unchangeable. He Whose Unchangeful it is, of the same Being it is the changeful.
It is through this changeful phenomenal world that you must feel your way up to the Unchangeful, the Unconditioned. It is again from the latter that you must feel your way back to the former (now no longer unreal, but a manifestation to the senses of the Unchangeful).
When you talk of the Absolute you cannot possibly put it as it is. You must throw* over it a foreign element—that of your own personality.
After all we must fall back upon Revelation. It is the Divine Person (My Mother) who says 'I am God the Personal,5 I am the Absolute6 realised in Samadhi.'
1 Nitya.
2 Lila.
3 Avyakta.
4 Vyakta.
5 Saguna.
6 Nirguna.
* Adhyâsa, superimposition, of the philosopher.
Reconciliation between Mayavada, the view of the Adwaita philosopher of the school of Sankara and Parinâmavada, the doctrine of Cosmical Evolution, held by the Sânkhya school of Kapila: between Adwaitism and Visishtadwaitism.
Yes, you cannot think or speak of the butter without postulating the esse of the buttermilk.
From the buttermilk comes the butter: so of the butter is the buttermilk. If the buttermilk is known by its relation to the butter, the butter is equally known by its relation to the buttermilk.
In the plane of Personality—the plane of sense and even of higher consciousness—you must admit both 'Butter' and 'Buttermilk.'
So long as you are a person, the ego being kept on by the Divine Mother, your Absolute must imply a 'Relative,' your Unchangeable must imply a changeable play-world, your Substance must imply qualities, your 'Impersonal' must imply a Personal Being, your 'One' must imply 'Many'.
When the Divine Mother wipes out your ego (personality) in Samadhi, Brahman is realised and it is all silence and Whatever is, is There. For verily the salt-doll stepping down to measure the depth of the sea tells no tale, when One with the Infinite Deep!
Were it ever possible to lay down the position by an analogy, you might say that the original milk was Brahman realised in Samadhi, the butter was the Impersonal-Personal God revealing Himself, and the buttermilk the Universe made up of the twenty-four categories.
The Fifth: The path of Love as well as of Philosophy lead to Absolute Knowledge.
The efficacy of Prayer and Faith.
My Divine Mother (the Personal Phase of Brahman) has declared "I am the Brahman of the Vedanta (Impersonal-Personal God). It is within My power to give Absolute Knowledge. This I do when I cause the effacement of the lower self1 and the realisation of the Higher Self in Samadhi."
Thus, in the first place, you may come unto Brahman by my Mother's will through the path of philosophy.2 But it is given only to a few, especially in this Kaliyuga, to come through this road, so very difficult* it is to shake off the conviction, 'I am the body,' which clings to us.
Again, you may come through Prayer for light and for Love. Self-surrender to Him and Love of God are the various elements of Bhakti. First come to my Divine Mother, the Personal God, through these.
Take my word for it that if your prayer come from the bottom of your heart, my mother shall respond to it, if you will only Wait. For, this She has revealed to Her Children.
Pray to Her again, if you want to realise Her Impersonal Self. Should She deign to grant your prayer—for She is Omnipotent—you would be in a position to realise in Samadhi Her Impersonal Self also. This is precisely the same thing as Absolute Knowledge. (Brahma Jnâna).
1 Aham or the ego.
2 Jnânayoga.
* Klesodhikatarastesham Abyaktâsaktachetasâm Abyaktahi gatirduhkham dehabadbhirabâpyate:—Bhagavat-gita.
The Bhakta's Wish.
Only, I must add that the devotee as a rule will be quite content to realise the Divine Person alone—My Divine Mother, or any of Her Infinite Forms of Glory including the Divine Incarnations—Sri Krishna, Chaitanya Deva, etc., etc., the 'Visible Revelations of God.' As a rule, the Bhakta does not long for the realisation of the Impersonal. He is anxious that the whole of his ego should not be effaced in Samadhi. He would fain have sufficient individuality left to him to enjoy the Vision Divine as a Person. He would fain taste the sugar in place of being one with the sugar itself.
To such my Mother appears as a Person (the Personal God), for She is loving to Her worshippers, Her children.
Sixth Addition: Realisation: signs of God-Vision.
He who has thoroughly realised the Deity must insist upon Realisation as the only great fact in spiritual matters.
It won't do to say from the very beginning, 'I see God—Impersonal-Personal, manifest in and through all things. Why, everything, that I see—man, woman, beast, bird, tree, flower, is God! Oh, I am full of joy and bliss! I am past all happiness and misery! Soham (I am He), Soham (I am He), and so forth.'
What, as a rule, is absolutely necessary is the Preliminary Discipline1. Without it, one cannot have bhakti (love of God). Without this discipline, it is indeed a far cry from Absolute Knowledge.
For the precious treasures are safe in the room under lock and key. You have not yet unlocked those treasures. Surely it does not lie in your mouth to say 'I have opened the lock and have got into the room. Behold, I have laid my hands on those longed-for treasures, those shining gems, diamonds, jewels! Behold, I have possessed them all!'
The Blessed One who has indeed beheld the Vision Divine, becomes like a child, simple, open (Sarala) turning his eye upon the fresh world as it is, stripped of its artificial names and formulas. Often he is intoxicated with the wine of Divine love at the sight of the Revelation before him. He is one with the Living Fountain of Holiness. With him, therefore as a rule, there has ceased to be any distinction between suchi (purity) and asuchi (impurity).
Lastly, sense-consciousness leaves him from time to time and in Samadhi he looks like a Jada (an insentient, motionless, inanimate thing).