What really matters!

From a spiritual standpoint the millions of people living in this world can be categorised into three distinct groups — those ignorant of the truth (ajnani), those wanting and striving to know the truth (jijnasu), and those who know the truth (jnani). Each of the three has distinctly individual ways of viewing the world. To the ignorant the world is perceived and so it is taken as real, the seeker pauses to think if it is so, and the man of knowledge realises its illusory nature by knowing his own true nature. The completely ignorant have no doubts, but a seeker is plagued by uncertainties and inquiries. This is seen in all walks of life.

Vedantic texts are not addressed to a realised master since he already knows the truth. This knowledge is not meant for an ignorant man either, as he remains totally engrossed in sense enjoyment. The necessity of this knowledge does not fit in his scheme of life — getting a job, spouse, car, etc. His life continues with its petty joys and sorrows, jubilations and depressions.

However, an intelligent man living in the world realises that there is more to life than acquiring things and enjoying them, forming relations and breaking them. This cannot be the ultimate aim of human life. But since he does not know the self, he is pulled apart by opposing forces both within and around him. The mind propels him towards pleasure but his intellect rejects. On some occasions he is not happy with people and they with him or his thinking patterns. Such a seeker having gained some measure of detachment is advised to approach a guru for self-knowledge.

True and lasting detachment results only from discrimination. Generally the world “discrimination” has a negative implication but here it means “being able to differentiate the real from the unreal and the capacity to hold onto the real and give up the unreal”. Detachment (vairagya) is not the absence of attachment (raga) and its opposite. The antonym for attachment is hatred or revulsion (dvesa) and hatred is not detachment. Through a process of intense internal examination, man realises that joy and sorrow are not found in anything external. As a result he does not get attached nor does he hate anything or any being. The absence of the pairs of opposites in the mind, through such analysis is true detachment.

From experience we know that the mind does not want to undergo the discipline of discrimination nor does it have the capacity of consistent logical thinking. Having taken ourselves for what we are not, we suffer endlessly in life; conditioned and bound by our own misconceptions. Through discrimination we come to know our own true nature, end sorrow for all times and gain absolute unconditioned bliss.

Swami Tejomayananda is head of Chinmaya Mission Worldwide