Sublime

THE SIXTH PARAMITA IS BEYOND SUBJECT AND OBJECT

‘Who am I to meditate on an object?’ Such a one must be told to find the Self. That is the finality. That is vichara.

This is repeatedly taught in the Brihad Aranyaka Upanishad (e.g., in 4.2.4): “About this self, one can only say, ‘Not this, not this.’ It is ungraspable, for it cannot be grasped.” This maxim, based on the Sanskrit neti neti, is a “rule of substitution,” negating any words that might follow. Brahman is therefore “not this” and “not that,” eliminati

In the Vedanta philosophy, nothing exists except God. There seem to be other things than God, but only because he is dreaming them up and making them his disguises to play hide-and-seek with himself. The universe of seemingly separate things is therefore real only for a while, not eternally real, for it comes and goes as the Self hides and seeks it

we must beware, because an excellent, profound, living tradition of yoga can still be worn by an idiot as a decoration for his or her ego, while a sincere, open-minded, inquisitive student of a fractured lineage can breathe new life and insight into that tradition for everyone’s benefit.

And there is one more way. You may not have seen anything personally and may not have anything from which to infer, but a reliable authority, or person who has really understood something, tells you.