Pujya Swamiji emphasises again and again that for liberation one should have a clear recognition of the self being Brahman (purna, whole). This recognition constitutes self-knowledge and for self-knowledge you require a means of knowledge – a pramana. And Vedanta is the pramana for self-knowledge.
This is very important to understand because in the
spiritual world there is a lot of confusion about what is liberation and what
is the means for liberation.
The self cannot be other than whole – why? Because it is
what you want to be. In every moment of life, one is seeking to see oneself as
whole, as complete, as totally satisfied. This wanting to total satisfaction is
natural to us. And because it is natural, it must be our nature. It’s like the
natural state of water is to be at room temperature. If your heat it, it wants
to come back to room temperature, because that is its natural state. The very
seeking for satisfaction shows us that satisfaction is indeed our very self.
The Catch 22 is that
we don’t know that the self is tripta – totally fulfilled. Meaning there is
ignorance of the self being whole, complete. The self is taken to be a samsaari
– and this is not true.
Pujya Swamiji points out that you can use reasoning to
negate what is not true. The self is not the body-mind-sense complex – because the
body-mind-sense complex is an object of knowledge for the self – whereas the
self is the self-evident, ever-present consciousness. This much one might
arrive at by logic.
But that the self is jagat kaaranam brahman whose svarupaa is limitless consciousness that is
indestructible, changless and ever-present (satyam, jnanam, anantam)– this part
only the means of knowledge – the pramana has to tell.
The self is self-evident. ‘I am’. I know that I exist. I do
not require a means of knowledge to prove my existence. My existence is
self-established. That I am a conscious being is also self—established.
But there is a confusion that this conscious being is subject
to the limitations of time, space and object. That confusion is resolved by the
words of Vedanta. These words have the capacity to reveal, by first negating
the error of what one takes oneself to be and then revealing the truth.
Satyam means asti – ‘is - existence’. For us ‘is’
is understood in terms of time. For us ‘is’ is subject to becoming ‘was’!! That
‘is’ is not subject to time, is the truth of the self. Thus we have to negate in
our understanding whatever is subject to time and what remains is the witness
consciousness – for this there is a methodology.
Limitations are superimposed on the ‘I’ due to ignorance.
Retaining the meaning of ‘is’, because I am … I am existent … so retaining the
meaning of ‘is’, the limitations superimposed on ‘I’ are negated. The self
being self-evident becomes the very meaning of ‘is’ (satyam), the very meaning
of consciousness (jnanam) and the very meaning of limitlessness (anantam). I am
the meaning of satyam, jnanam, anantam Brahman.
Satisfaction (ananda) is not an object. The meaning of
ananda is the person; satisfaction is the person. That is the truth of you.
Thus Pujya Swamiji, handling words, negating what is to be
negated, allows you to be the meaning of the meaning of the Sruti vakya –
satyam, jnanam, anantam. You are purnam.
Every word is the negation of a conclusion.
Om Tat Sat