19. Sharpening the Sword of Jnana

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There are several questions in us that do not have satisfying answers. “What is life? What am I doing here? What happens after death? And most importantly who am I?”. Almost everyone asks these questions at least once in their life time. In fact, several times. But we do not get any answers. So, we push them aside and move on. But they never die, they are only postponed. They come again and again, every time we think for a few minutes, the arguments lead to nowhere, we then push the questions aside and carry on with life. What is the solution to this problem of unanswered questions?

The problem is not with the questions, the problem is in the way we are expecting the answers. When we ask such questions, we are expecting answers to come in a way that we want – like in the Q&A section given after each chapter in our school textbooks. Well, that itself is biased. We have absolutely no idea about the answers, then how can we ourselves decide the way answers should come? In the court of law, sometimes we can see shrewd lawyers trapping the accused by asking tricky questions:

Lawyer - “Did you tell the victim ‘I will kill you’ last week?”.

Accused -  “Yes, but we were having drinks and joking…”

The lawyer stops him and says “Answer to the question only. Did you say that to the victim?”.

Accused - “Yes”.

Lawyer – “Please note this point my Lord”

And the judge promptly notes down “The accused said to the victim ‘I will kill you’”!

Stupid, isn’t it? Same thing with philosophy. We say we do not know the truth and at the same time, we want the truth to come out in a specific way that we define. Then how can we guarantee that the entire truth will come out? It may be half baked like the statement of the poor accused above. And then we, like the supreme judge, will sentence the accused to death. We sentence spirituality to death “Spirituality is all bogus. Because it doesn’t give any answers”. How much of prejudice! We are not open to see if there are other ways of getting answers. We are not open to unknown possibilities. We want all answers to come as we define – as written answers on paper.

Answer will come, but not in the way that we are expecting. In spirituality, the derivation methodology can be shared on paper, but not the answer. That is why the terminology used is ‘Realization’, not ‘Understanding’. Why should we be adamant that answers should be put on paper? What is important? The answer, or writing it on paper? Why should we bother if it can be written/explained or not? Our primary concern is getting the answer to ourselves. Telling it to others is secondary. Let us think about that later, there will be plenty of time. First let us ourselves find the answer. To begin with, let us forget about others. Let us stop thinking that we will be the saviors of the suffering mankind by providing some answers. That kind of thoughts is itself a roadblock.

The derivation methodology is Jnana Yoga. Again, as usual, before going into the Dos I want to list some disruptions – Don’ts - in this path. There is a strong tendency in all of us to get into unending and fruitless discussions in the name of spirituality. “What happens to Atma after I die?”, “What is meant by Prana? Does Prana go with the Atma?”, “How Punya and Papa gets stored and where?”. This is a sample set of childish questions that a group of people sit and discuss in the name of spirituality. When you get a chance (I pray that you won’t) to witness such arguments, you just make a note of the beginning of the discussion and then the end of the discussion. You will notice that there will not even be a speck of improvement in anybody’s ideas. All will be braying like donkeys the same thing again and again. All will be talking as if ‘Atma’ is their neighbor and they meet it everyday. They have already decided that they know Atma, Prana etc. Then how can we expect any result out of such discussions? All proud scientific minds of 21^st century!

Vivekananda promptly suggests us all to keep out of all such purposeless talks. Jnana Yoga is not arguing with others. It is arguments with our own self, by taking necessary help from the scriptures, but more importantly from our own experiences. There is another disrupting tendency - to get lost in scriptures and their technical terms. We have to remember one thing always – scriptures (especially Upanishads and the Gita) are the records of experiences. So, the experiences are to be experienced, not to be made a subject of theoretical learning. Sticking to the Samskrita’s technical jargon, mugging up verses to showoff is all childish. Shankaracharya makes fun of this type of empty scholarliness at several places in his works.

Mind cannot leave any item hanging without being categorized systematically. Each thought, each idea has to be categorized, just as how data is categorized into tables in databases. We say we have understood the idea when mind has put the idea into a labeled box. For e.g. I say I understand what is red, because it has been categorized under the heading ‘color’. But the fact is that we neither know what is Red nor do we know what is color. They are just categories and data. No one knows what is the source of color and why there is color. You may say color is because of light, wavelength blah blah. Well, even I have studied all that and that is exactly my question – why is there color in light? And what is meant by color? What is meant by mass? Why mass has gravity pulling towards the center? No answers. We say we have understood, only because we have labeled them and kept it in systematized boxes. Absolute meaning is not known for anything.

When a new idea is formed, immediately mind will try to fit it into already available categories in it. When it fails to do so, it creates a new category and simply keeps it there. The new category may even be something like ‘Miscellaneous’ or ‘Unknown’. But the mind is happy when it puts the new idea into a labeled box. And we begin to believe that the idea is understood. And that is why people talk as if Atma is their neighbor, and Prana their friend. They have read the words in some books, they have categorized and labeled them in their minds, and hence believe that they know it. Ignorance is bliss!

A Jnana Yogi cannot afford to do this blunder. Shake the mind from its slumber. Push the dummy logic out of its comfort zone. Because it has answered nothing in the name of science. It has only hid the truth from us by giving dummy answers. Just look at the dictionary – “Mass is quantity of matter” and “Matter is that which possesses rest mass”. A child may sometimes notice this blunder and question this. But we just say “Mass is mass. What is there to ask?”. Because we don’t even think that it is unknown. Actually the child is a true Jnana Yogi. But soon the child gets used to the adults’ answers, labels it under some category of the mind, and when it grows up it continues the great legacy of it’s elders!

Think, think and think continuously. Shake the mind and fail the dummy logic. You can take ANY thing you want and try to go to it’s roots. Today, science has done one favor. It has provided all the necessary information for us to surely know that we do not know the roots. What mass could be? What electrical charge could be? What space and time could be? Take anything. Question yourself and wonder at it ceaselessly. If it is easy for you, you may directly begin to analyze ‘What Am I?’. Swami Vivekananda may help with his Jnana Yoga lectures. Not that you will get an answer in the traditional way. But because when you wonder with intense curiosity, when you rid yourself of all the dummy answers, eventually the mind goes blank momentarily. And you will feel some strange happiness. On such occasions, you spontaneously meditate! Just look at two samples below:

We say the universe is a result of a big bang. Because scientists noticed that all heavenly bodies are constantly moving away from each other – an expansion. So, at one point in time, the entire universe must have been collapsed at one point – a state of singularity. No space, no time. (Try to imagine and feel the kick). And then, from a point of singularity there was a blast – space and time came into picture. And they say space is continuously expanding like a balloon. Today, we say that the universe is vast, unimaginable etc. Now, just look at the following simple argument. If space itself was created during big bang, if it is space itself that is constantly expanding, then what is outside the big bang balloon? Is there an outside for it? If there is no outside for it, then, relative to what is it big? Big, small is always relative. If there is nothing outside, then what are we comparing it against to say that it is big?

Suppose you are dreaming. How big is the dream? Is there a boundary for the dream space? What is outside the dream space? Before the dream began and after the dream ends, don’t you exist as pure singularity of deep sleep?

This way, when we argue and fail logic, we are actually transcending logic. The sharp arrows of discrimination start piercing the thick skins of slumber and the blazing core slowly becomes visible. Momentarily my mind hangs, and I become aware of true ‘I Am’. All planets vanish for a moment and as a result the self-luminous sun becomes aware of himself. Else he is always busy looking at tiny and infinitesimal planets revolving around him – thoughts.

The above is only a preliminary step. When you repeat this several times, the sun becomes aware of himself, although momentarily, again and again. As a result, without our attention, the categorized but dummy answer ‘I am this body’ starts trembling from its roots. The relationship of this answer with it’s source question ‘Who Am I?’ weakens. And when that happens, the question ‘Who Am I?’ is left hanging in your mind without an answer (no labeled box to hold it, as explained before). So one day, the question ‘Who Am I?’ fires up from within you, and then the powerful current of Self-Enquiry will drag you into it. Then you will no more have to think of space, time etc. ‘Who Am I?’ alone will itself start giving you the blankness and bliss.

Very important note – if you already have the question ‘Who Am I?’ coming up in you, this article is unnecessary for you!