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Beyond the truth of spirituality
Acharya Mahaprajna
Last Updated IST

It is outside the house too. My house gives me refuge, protects me from the sun, gives me shelter against heat and cold, and so I call it mine and protect it. But I have no right to think that there is no space in another man’s house.

A religious person is he who is curious to know truth, who investigates truth, and who follows truth. For a man to be regarded religious without his being curious to know truth is like expecting a lamp to emit light even though it has no flame. To say that a man is religious even though he has no inclination to investigate truth is to say that one has found the right place without finding the right way. To say that a man is religious even though he does not follow truth is to say that the thirst has been quenched without drinking any water.

Let us see and think. When we see, we are unable to think, and when we think, we are unable to see. When our mind is without thoughts, we are in a position to see and when we see, our mind automatically becomes free from thoughts. Thought-restraint has a natural formulaseeing.

Seeing needs no language. Thinking needs language. Absence and presence of language are two different states. Deep investigation automatically helps engage in concentration. Whether we look after or near, whether we look into the body or at external objects, everything relates to the present. We can see neither the past nor the future.

Today the whole world is afficted with problems. It looks as though a play was being staged. In it the seer has submerged and the scene has emerged on the surface. This is the state of deep sleep. The day man wakes up the problem will solve itself. The existence of the scene is eternal. It shall never vanish. No effort need be made to make it vanish. All we need to do is to define the relation between the seer and the scene. It will be an unnatural relationship if the seer fogets his existence is experiencing the scene. It is this that is the root cause of the problem. The harmonious relationship between the two comprises the blending of the seer’s experience of his own self with that of the scene.

When the seer and the scene are disunited, whatever man sees he does not do and whatever he does he does not see. This is a deceitful state. In it seeing and doing are divorced from each other. When the seer and the scene are united, man does only what he sees and seer only what he does. This is a morally upright state. In it seeing and doing are not divorced from each other.

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(Published 02 September 2009, 22:16 IST)