Gita Rahasya -Tilak 244

Gita Rahasya -Tilak

CHAPTER IX THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE ABSOLUTE SELF This beatific condition of the mind has been described in the Upanisads as above . But that saint Tukarama about whom was said "jayaci vade nitya vedanta vani, ( i. e., " one whose voice always uttered Vedanta") has described his self-experience in the following words by taking the sweet illustration of jaggery instead of this other saltish illustration :— As jaggery is sweet I so has God come to be verywhere I Now whom shall I worship i God is inside as also outside II . This is what is meant by saying, that though the Parabrahman is imperceptible to the organs and unrealisable by the mind, yet it is 'svanubhawgamya', that is, it can be realised by every man by his self -experience. The unknow- ability of the Parabrahman which is spoken of, belongs to the stage in which there is a Knower and a To-Be-Known; it does not belong to the phase of the Realisation of Non-dualism. So long as one has the feeling that he is something different from the world, it is not possible for a man, whatever he may do, to fully realise the identity of the Brahman and the Atman. But, although a river cannot swallow the sea, yet, it can fall into the sea and become merged into it ; so also, may a man dive into the Parabrahman and realise it; and then he reaches the Brahm-ised (brahmamaya) state of "sarva- bhutastham atmanam sarvabhutani catmani" , i. e. "all created beings are within himself, and he is within all created things."' In order to explain that the full Realisation of the Brahman depends on one's own self- experience, the form of the Parabrahman has been skilfully and paradoxically described as follows : "avijnatam vijanatam vijnatam avijanatam" , " those who say that they have Realised the Parabrahman have not really Realised It; they alone have Realised It, who do not Realise that they have Realised It"; because, when a person says that he has Realised the Parabrahman, there is clearly in his mind the dual feeling that he ( the Jnata ) is something different from the Brahman ( the Jneya ) which he has known, and, there- fore, his non-dual Realisation of the identity of the Atman .and the Brahman is, at this stage, to that extent, unripe or incomplete. Therefore, one who says this, admits by his own mouth that he has not really Realised the Brahman. On the other hand, when the dual feeling of T and 'Brahman' has disappeared, and the identity of the Brahman and the Atman has been fully Realised, the words "I have understood That " (that is, necessarily, something which is different from me) cannot be used.