Gita Rahasya -Tilak 236

Gita Rahasya -Tilak

CHAPTER IX THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE ABSOLUTE SELF The province of Adhyatma ( the philosophy of the Absolute Self ) does not end after deciding that in order that the Atman should acquire the Knowledge, which it acquires, of the various Name-d and Form-ed objects in the external world, there must be, in the external world, at the root of these various objects, some ' something ' in the shape of a fundamental and permanent substance, which is the foundation or counterpart of such Knowledge, and that "otherwise it is impossible to acquire that Knowledge. Vedantins call this Permanent Substance, which is at the root of the external world, 'Brahman' ; and, it is necessary to determine the form of this Brahman, if it is possible to do so. As this Eternal Substance, which is at the root of all Name-d and Form-ed things is imperceptible, its form can clearly not be perceptible, or sthula (gross), like the form of objects embodied in Name and Form. But if you omit objects which are perceptible and gross, yet, there are numerous other objects which are imperceptible, such 'as, the Mind, Memory, Desire, Life, Knowledge etc. ; and it is not impossible that the Parabrahman is of the form of any one of them. Some say that the Parabrahman is of the same form as Prana (Vital Force). The German philosopher Schaupenhaur has come to the decision that the Parabrahman is the embodi- ment of Desire. As Desire is a faculty of the Mind, the Brahman may, according to this opinion, be said to be made up- of -Mind . But, from what has been stated so far, one may say that : ' prajnanam brahma ' , or " vijnanam brahma", i. e., "Brahman is the knowledge acquired by us of the diversity in the gross material world". Haegel's , doctrine is of that kind. But in the Upanisads, the form of the Brahman has been made to include sat, that is, the common quality of Existence possessed by all things in the world (or their ' sattasamanyatva ') as also ananda ( Joy ), along with Knowledge in the form of Consciousness (i. e.. cidrupi jnana) and the Brahman is said to be ' ' saccidananda in form. Another form of the Brahman is the OM-kara. The explanation of this form is as follows :-All the eternal Vedas first came out of the OM-kara; and in as much as Brahmadeva created the entile universe from the eternal words in the Vedas, after the. Vedas had come into existence , it is clear that there was nothing in the beginning except the OM-kara, and, therefore, the OM-kara is the true form of the Brahman. But, if you consider the matter from the purely Metaphysical. pofnt; of view, all these forms of the Parabrahman possess more or less the character of Name and Form ; because, all these " forms are perceptible to human organs, and all that men come to know in this way, falls into the category of Names and Forms. Then, how is one going to determine the true form of that eternal, all-pervasive, homogeneous, permanent, and immortal Element , which is the foundation of these Names and Forms ?