TRUTH AND UNTRUTH GOING AS TRUTH

TRUTH AND UNTRUTH GOING AS TRUTH

The universe is an appearance and its God is an appearance, too. Hence, God and the universe are both unreal, being bred in ignorance. Brahman alone is and is alone real. But to affirm Brahman is to negate it even as to negate Shakti is to affirm it. But in nirvikalpa samadhi the universe vanishes and the ever-existent Absolute Reality is revealed in its solidarity of being. One then witnesses oneself as the Supreme Self. Dualistic weakness springing out of the sense of body breeds this notion of the omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent God but it is the product of weakness and nothing more. All these attributes in essence mean nothing as even their supposed holder cannot hold on to His phenomenal existence before the renunciate's discrimination which dissolves His identity into nothingness through analytical reduction. Existence which has been named Brahman -- although it is nameless, formless, attributeless -- alone ever abides in Self-brooding, Self-witnessing. Those who have experienced that state know what is being here stated. Others will merely wonder and through lack of incisiveness of understanding fail to apprehend the meaning. For them the universe and its God or Godlessness is valid as they remain entrapped within the meshes of ignorance. But this Absolute Reality has to be witnessed before liberation is for it alone is the ultimate Truth. Immediate experience, called Aparokshaanubhuuti in Sanskrit, is the key.

Written by Sugata Bose