C L Kaloo
According to Swami Vivekananda’s Advaita philosophy, there is only one thing real in the universe, which is called Brahman; everything else is unreal, manifested and manufactured out of Brahman by the power of “Maya.” “To reach back to that Brahman is our goal” advocated Swami Ji in his deliverances in America during September, 1893. “If we can get rid of this “Maya” or ignorance, then we become what we really are.” According to this philosophy, each man consists of three parts- the body, the internal organ or the mind, and behind that what is called the Atman- the Self. The body is the external coating and the mind is the internal coating of the Atman who is the real perceiver, the real enjoyer, the being in the body who is working the body by means of the internal organ or the mind. The Atman is the only existence in the human body which is immaterial. Because it is immaterial, it cannot be a compound and because it is not a compound, it does not obey the law of cause and effect and so it is immortal. That which is immortal can have no beginning because everything with a beginning must have an end.
According to Advaita Vedanta, the Self, the Atman, in everyone is omnipresent. But the self acts through the mind and the body, and where they are, its action is visible. Whatever work we perform, each thought we think, produce an impression, called in Sanskrit “Samaskara”, upon the mind and the sum total of these impressions becomes the tremendous force which is called “character.” The character of a man is what he has created for himself; it is the result of the mental and physical actions that he has done in his life. The sum total of these “Samaskars” is the vital force which gives a man the next direction after death. A man dies, the body falls away and goes back to the elements: but the “Samaskars” remain, adhering to the mind which being made of fine material, does not dissolve because the finer the material, the more persistent it is. But the mind also dissolves in the long run, and that is what we are struggling for. An example in this context is- that of the whirl wind. Different currents of air coming from different directions meet, and at the meeting point become united and go on rotating and as they rotate, they form a body of dust, drawing in bits of paper, straw etc at one place, only to drop them and go on to another, and so go on rotating, raising and forming bodies out of the materials which are before them. Even so the forces, called “Prana” in Sanskrit, come together and form the body and the mind out of matter, and move on until the body falls down. So this process of forming bodies and falling down goes on. Force cannot travel without matter so when the body falls down, the mind-stuff remains. “Prana” in the form of “Samaskara” acting on it, and then it goes on to another point, raises up another whirl from fresh materials and begins another motion; and so it travels from place to place until the force is all spent; and then it falls down, ended. So, when the mind will end and is broken into pieces entirely, without leaving any “Samaskars”, we shall be entirely free and until that time, we are in bondage.
The Atma never comes nor goes is never born nor dies; said the Lord in the Bhagavad Gita. The Atma in bondage is called “Jiva.” The human soul has sojourned in lower and higher forms, migrating from one to another, according to the Samaskars or impressions, but it is only in the higher form as man that it attains to freedom. The man form is higher than even the angle form, and of all forms, it is the highest. Thus, man is the highest being in creation say the crowning creation because, he attains, ultimately to freedom. But so long as there is desire, it is a sign of imperfection.
However, in conclusion, to quote Swami Vivekananda,” a child comes into this world crawling and without teeth, and the old man get out without teeth and crawling. The extremes are alike, but the one has no experience of the life before him, where the other has gone through it all. When the vibrations of ether are very low, we do not see light, it is darkness; when very high the result is also darkness. The extremes generally appear to be the same, though one is as distant from the other as the poles. The wall has no desires, so neither has the perfect man. But the wall is not sentient enough to desire; while for the perfect man, there is nothing to desire. There are idiots who have no desire in this world because their brain is imperfect. At the same time, the highest state is when we have no desires, but the two are opposite poles of the same existence. One is nearer the animal, and other is near to God.”
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