Moment to Speak

An enquirer is an earnest seeker of Self-knowledge, who asks fervent questions to the speaker, or preceptor, to clear his doubts clouded by Avidya , or ignorance. Both the seeker and the preceptor are persons of perceptive virtues unparalleled in humility, transparency, honesty, tranquillity, dispassion, discipline, endurance and equanimity. The only difference between the two is that the teacher, or speaker, is a person who has realised Self and seen Truth, and the other is a seeker of Self-knowledge, and of Truth. The seeker seeks to dismantle the veil of ignorance and the illusionary edifice of Maya , or illusion, by asking questions not out of mere curiosity, pride, or intellectual vanity but to remove the Avidya , or ignorance, for Atma-jñāna (Self-knowledge) or Ātma-darśana (Self-realisation). Those whose minds are turned from this world, emphasises Swami Sivananda, and who have become indifferent towards the objects of this world and who are thirsting for liberation are real s...

Ours is one among the perceptibly innumerable parallel ones, asserts Yoga-Vasistha (3.7.1-45), coexisting with myriad others as a projection of the interplay of Maya , or illusion, and Mahat , or the Cosmic Mind. Maya is non-existent, and so also is the mind, and anything that comes out from that interplay is of illusionary ones of finitude. All the same manifestly illusionary processes and symbols can manifest only that. All these finitudes coexist with similar others of infinite-dimensional multiverses with subsumption under 'Rta', or the cosmic order of Existence One only. It is the fundamental principle of natural, moral, and cosmic harmony. It asserts that every element of manifest and unmanifest existence operates in an interdependent, unified system. And Brahman , or Cosmic Self, is the Ultimate Reality, the singular, unchangeable, eternal and infinite One only that encompasses all multiplicity and diversity across space, time and causation. The concepts of parallel rea...

The cosmological descriptions include mind as emerging in the creative process or as a crucial subtle layer and the chain of cause-and-effect from Brahman to the manifest world. The Upanishadic texts often portray creation as a hierarchical emanation from Pure Consciousness, or Brahman , with mind (Manas) arising as an intermediary principle of causation involving Kama , or desire; Ikshana , or sight, seeing, or a look; Aasakti , or attachment; and Maya , or illusionary appearance. However, the same texts emphasise tapas (austerity, will, or concentration) and Dhyana , or meditation, all of which resolve back into the non-dual source. In the exploration of memory and existence, Yoga-Vasistha (3.3.1–3.3.40) establishes that all memories and experiences are mental projections rather than tangible records. Yoga-Vasistha (3.3.1–3.3.40) poses and responds to the fundamental question, "All beings are bound by their Karmas , and desires, gross as well as subtle, but the firstborn Brahm...

A person with an unsteady and uncontrolled mind becomes easily vulnerable to a matrix of psychophysical frameworks. That matrix envelops them in a transient sphere of illusory entrapment, distancing them from their original true Self, which is the eternal, inseparable, and undifferentiated essence of Brahman , or Cosmic Self: " Aham Brahmāsmi ", or "I am Brahman " (Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, 1.4.10); " Pragyanam Brahma ", or "Consciousness is Brahman " or " Brahman is the Ultimate Reality" (Aitareya Upanishad, 3.3); " Tat Tvam Asi ", or "Thou art That" (Chandogya Upanishad, 6.8.7); and " Ayam Atma Brahma ", or "This Self is Brahman" (Mandukya Upanishad, 1.2). Srimad Bhagavad Gita (2.14-16) expresses this illusionary entrapment, as the contact between the senses and the sense objects gives rise to fleeting perceptions of happiness and distress. These are non-permanent and come and go, like the wint...