The Realisation of the Absolute

A Treatise on the Vedanta Philosophy and Its Methodology
by Swami Krishnananda

The Idea of progress.—It is true that Brahman is not partial or limited in any way. But it does not mean that it contains within itself divisions or clefts which alone constitute the world. When there is division there is no Brahman, and when there is no division there is no world. All, except the reality of duality and plurality, that the logical or the scientific mind declares, is true, but its passion for individual, social, national and humanistic considerations and its utilitarian motives make it cling on to a universe of divided beings who are known as objects. Progress, downfall, change and the various degrees of experience are true only in relative life and not in the Absolute. Reality is not a process. Birth, life in a world and death, no doubt, appear as processes of change upward or downward, but these are merely changes in the relative conditions of the individualities of the world, and do not refer to anything beyond the appearance of dualistic experience. Change, whether as progress or downfall, and the presence of an external world, are both corollaries of jivabhavana or the notion of one’s being an individual knower, and therefore these cannot exist in the super-individual Absolute-Being.

Yet, the Vedanta does not say that any experience in the universe is unreal in itself, but that it is relative and subject to transcendence, and so unreal in a higher experience. Anything that is liable to be transcended at some time or the other is not ultimately real. Every objective experience is a degree of positive truth, but subject to transcendence, and unreal only to a higher condition. The entire existence is revealed to the individual in different degrees, but no experience can be an utter falsehood, as there is an element of consciousness in all experiences. But, all truths, except the last, are shadows, relatively real, and absolutely unreal. The world is unreal because no experience in it is unsublated. And its practical efficiency or relative worth cannot, however, hold water in the state of Self-Knowledge.

The ultimately illusory nature of the multiple world,… etc.—The dualistic or objective and material nature of the world is an illusion, a naught, in the light of Brahman. But the existence of the world is real, it is the same as Brahman.

The conception of the progressive evolution of the world,… etc.—To make the Absolute a process or a system of conditions or states would be to destroy its Absoluteness and reduce it to a temporal becoming, which can convey no meaning without a changeless being underlying it. Progress, downfall and change are necessary empirical concepts based on the practical experience of the individual; these have a relative purpose and meaning as far as the individual goes; but they cannot be consistent with the Absolute which is ever itself and is never any change or what changes.

Svarupa-lakshana and tatastha-lakshana. The svarupa-lakshana of a thing is the definition given of it in terms of the characteristics or svabhavas which constitute it as long as it exists, and which are not different from its svarupa or essential nature. The qualities which give the svarupa-lakshana of a thing are identical with the essential existence of a thing itself. Svabhava and svarupa mean the same thing, and are not two things related to each other through some kind of contact. A house, for example, may be defined through its essential characteristics which last as long as the house itself endures. Such a definition would be its svarupa-lakshana. In the case of Brahman, its svarupa-lakshana should comprise only those characteristics which are eternal, as Brahman itself is, and not those which appear for the time being in relation to the jiva. Existence or sat is eternal. There can be no destruction of Existence. And there can be no Existence without Consciousness of Existence. Hence Consciousness or chit, too, is eternal. Since Existence is unfettered, being undivided, secondless and infinite in every respect, it is also supreme Freedom or Bliss. Therefore, Bliss or ananda is eternal like Existence or Consciousness. Existence-Consciousness-Bliss or satchidananda is not tripartite but the One Eternal Reality. This is the svarupa-lakshana or the definition of the Essential Nature of Brahman. Though, in reality, sat-chit-ananda are one, they are differently manifested through the tamasika, the rajasika and the sattvika-vrittis of the manas, where the tamasika-vritti manifests Existence alone, the rajasika-vritti Existence- Consciousness alone, and the sattvika-vritti the whole Existence-Consciousness-Bliss. Sat-chit-ananda are not parts or properties of Brahman but Brahman’s very essence or being itself.

The tatastha-lakshana of a thing is the definition given of it in terms of certain characteristics which are accidental to it and do not exist at all times. These characteristics are extraneous to the thing defined and thus do not constitute its essential nature. They are different from its svarupa or svabhava, i.e. different from the thing defined. There is an external relation between these characteristics and the thing they define. A house, for example, may be defined as a building on whose roof a crow is perching. It cannot, however, mean that a crow is always perching on the roof of every house. This is only a temporary definition of the house in relation to an object external to it, where the relation with that object is merely accidental to it. This definition will not obtain for all time. It is, rather, an imperfect definition of a house. Such, however, would be the tatastha-lakshana of a house. In the case of Brahman, its tatastha-lakshana is the definition given of it in terms of the apparent and accidental universe of individualistic experience. Creatorship, preservership and destroyership of the universe, omnipresence, omniscience and omnipotence, are all characteristics of Brahman in relation to something external to it. This definition will hold good only so long as the universe is experienced. This is a dependent and artificial definition which has no real relation to what is sought to be defined. The causality of Brahman is not a fact as such, but an empirical notion of the jivas.

Taittiriya Upanishad, II. 6.—Sri Sankaracharya gives the meaning of the later portion of this mantra as follows: “It, the Absolute Reality, became the formed and the formless, the defined and the undefined, the support and the non-support, the intelligent and the non-intelligent, practical (relative) reality and what is not practical (relative) reality, whatever that is here; that they call ‘the Real’.”

Free-will and Necessity.—The relation between jiva and Ishvara raises the further question of the part played by Free-will and Necessity in evolution. How does right knowledge arise in the jiva? It will be clear that the cause of the rise of knowledge is ultimately not a real but an unreal thing. Since ignorance or bondage of consciousness is an appearance, its destruction also should be an appearance in the same way. The fact is that Consciousness is ever free. If it appears to be bound or confined, this must be false. And a false confinement is removed by a false cause of freedom, and no absolutely real thing is necessary for this purpose. Dream-experiences are unreal (from the standpoint of waking), and the cause of the awakening from dream, also, may be some unreal thing like the painful experience of being chased by a tiger, a fall from a tree or a mountain, a drowning in waters, being assaulted by some persons, or some happy experiences like feasting or merriment of any kind, etc. Similarly the destruction of ignorance is caused not by an absolute principle but by a relative appearance like the exhaustion of prarabdha, the efficacy of purushartha, or the Will of Ishvara acting as Necessity. All these, including the Will of Ishvara, are only appearances and not Reality, and they have only an empirical value, i.e., they have an existence which is necessitated by the appearance of individualistic consciousness. Ishvara has to be accepted as a fact as long as all knowledge is expressed in terms of individuality and world-consciousness. But when the individual self is transcended, Ishvara and the world are both transcended. Ishvara has a regulative use in explaining the events of the empirical universe. He is Brahman, the Absolute, conceived of as related to the experiences of the individual. Thus, if bondage is true, and if the event of Self-realisation is a fact, it follows that the cause of bondage and of the event of liberation also must be true. In the acceptance of the reality of bondage, the reality of the world of experience is implied. Now, bondage is equal to absence of infinitude in consciousness or limitation of consciousness. This plight cannot be caused by the jiva, for the jiva itself is the effect of ignorance. It cannot be caused by the world, for by the world we mean either a collection of individuals or mere inert matter. It cannot, again, be caused by Brahman, for it is secondless. An Ishvara who combines in himself the consciousness of Brahman and of the universe becomes necessary, if bondage is to be explained. If he is the cause of bondage, He alone can be the cause of liberation, also. But the scriptures are definite that Ishvara can never be the cause of evil or suffering in the world. Ishvara does not cause bondage, for He is the very embodiment of perfection. Hence it is wrong logic which establishes Ishvara as the cause of the bondage of the jiva. No doubt, bondage is cosmic in the sense that it is experienced by all the jivas in the cosmos, but we cannot impute to Ishvara agency in the origination of bondage. The fact is that the cause of bondage is not any one factor alone—there is a reciprocal action of the subject and the object in bringing about the experience of bondage. This is why it is said that bondage is relative.

Anyhow, in the consciousness of the bondage of the jiva the notion of the existence of a cosmic Ishvara is comprehended. Ishvara’s existence is postulated, not to attribute to Him the cause of bondage, but to find a meaning in and an explanation for the experience of the world of bondage. But this explanation is relative; bondage, its cause and everything related to it is relative; Ishvara and the universe also turn to be relative. All these have an empirical reality, and a transcendental unreality. It is the consciousness of the reality of an ultimately false bondage that requires the admission of the consciousness of its ultimately unreal correlatives, viz., the world and Ishvara.

Now, regarding Free-will and Necessity, it has to be said that since the normal jiva has a consciousness of the imperfection of its knowledge and happiness, it has also the consciousness of the effort directed to ridding itself of this imperfection. This is intelligible because consciousness is present in the jiva. But, what is it that causes the rise of right discrimination and power of reasoning in the jiva? It cannot be said that it is effort that causes this, for effort is impossible without such a discriminative knowledge. It cannot, again, be said that all jivas have this knowledge, for it is not seen in all. Animals have not got such a discrimination. Who brings them up to a higher level of consciousness? Can we say that originally all jivas were endowed with discrimination and all the animals, plants and inanimate things are only fallen jivas? This cannot be, for one who has discrimination cannot fall. Then, how did non-discriminating jivas and stones, etc. come into existence? These difficulties can be solved only when an all-powerful and all-knowing Ishvara or Absolute-Necessity or the Law of the Absolute is accepted as existing in relation to the universe.

So, then, has Ishvara—or the Absolute-Necessity or the Law of the Absolute, as we would prefer to call Him, in order to be free from an anthropomorphic conception of Reality—full power over the jiva, or has the jiva, too, a little freedom of its own? There is no use in trying to explain the difficulty caused by the idea of a distinction of Ishvara and the jiva through the standard of the oneness of the two. That would be a wrong procedure, altogether. There cannot be a real solution to a false difficulty. Of it even the solution has to be unreal ultimately, and it is perfectly logical to regard it as such. As is the effect, so has the cause also to be. Thus, then, those jivas who have no discriminative power or reason have no independence or freedom of their own, and have no responsibility of any kind. It is the Absolute-Necessity alone that works in their case. Up to the stage of the reasoning human being, there is no moral responsibility and no freedom to act independent of Necessity or constraint of instinct over which the jiva has no control. The divine element in the subhuman beings is covered over. The case with the reasoning human being is, however, different. The jiva, at the stage of man, begins to grow in the image of Truth, the divine spark begins to twinkle in it here, and so it shares a certain amount of freedom and responsibility. Since, however, the divinity is not completely manifest here, this freedom is not full but limited. The dreaming subject has freedom to act in the dream-world, and there is also a dream-world-reason or dream-world-discrimination. Here it must be remembered that the reason in dream is a faint memory of the waking reason, and the waking reason is a limited reflection of the Ishvara-Consciousness. There is experience of progress, downfall and pleasure and pain in dream. But these experiences of the dreaming individual are not known by the waking individual then—and as a matter of fact there is no waking individual at that time, separate from the dreaming one—it is engaged in dreaming. And yet the law of the waking individual governs the dreaming one. But this analogy has to be used with reserve in the case of Ishvara, for He is neither exhausted nor involved in the world-dream of the jivas. That, as long as the jiva is having world-perception and does not know Ishvara it cannot receive direct response from Him (i.e., Brahman in relation to the jiva), is, however, a fact. Hence Ishvara cannot be held responsible for the particular experiences of the jiva in its condition of the dream of world-perception, though Ishvara’s universal law governs, in general, every jiva.

Thus, there is, in man alone, a reciprocal action of Free-will and Necessity, and both take a part of their own in the waking up of the dreaming or the bound individual. This position has to be accepted as long as our explanation is bound to be merely empirical. Here, the waking up from dreaming has to be taken not merely in the sense of waking to the Absolute Self, but also waking to every higher degree of empirical state or experience.