The Nityanitya Vastu Viveka
It is indeed a very pertinent question as to why some people can understand the message of these scriptures very easily, while others just do not seem to get the proper wave length. Not knowing the real reasons the tendency to attribute the cause of inability to some superficial factors like varna, ashram, age, sex, nationality, religion, times - like this or that yugas, modern or ancient, or to people of east or west etc. becomes inevitable. So it is extremely important to know the right qualifications. If at all someone is facing some difficulties then the best way is to see what is it out of these four-fold qualities which the person concerned seems to be lacking in. If at all we continue to give this knowledge to a person without making this point clear, then two things are possible; if the person doesn’t have great sraddha on scriptures then the person will brand the text or the entire philosophy as intractable, difficult or even impractical, or if the person has too great a sraddha on scriptures or its author, then he will start taking him or herself as incompetent etc. To avoid both these negative consequences it is extremely important that one should know as to who exactly is ready to go into all this. The Four-fold qualities of the student of Vedanta as revealed in the Vedantic scriptures themself are: Viveka, Vairagya, Six qualities, & the Yearning for liberation.
Out of these the first one is the discrimination or the Nityanitya Vastu Viveka. The quality of in-depth discrimination (viveka) is the hallmark of human mind. It is his greatest asset. It is because of this ability alone that man has progressed to mind-boggling heights in various fields. Whether it is the field of science, business, defense, relationships or any thing whatsoever, the understanding of right or wrong pertaining to that field is what makes him a scholar of his field. By education also this ability to see through the truth & untruth of each field is strived to be manifested. Thus not only the power of discrimination is present in one & all, but is also unanimously understood as the greatest asset of human beings. Discrimination is the ability of the intellect to see through a situation, so as to ‘see’ rice & chaff separately without even physically doing so. A good investor can ‘see’ the profit or loss in a given situation, even when a layman can’t comprehend a thing. This is his power of discrimination in the field of his investments. So also with the experts in all other fields. Thus in discrimination there is no need or question of physical separation of two entities or inter-mingled probabilities, one has to just see through the situation or object, and separate the two in our intellect itself.
When ever in course of ones life, a realisation dawns, that the genesis of all my problems is non-apprehension of the exact truth of life, that the real search starts. Not knowing that which really matters the mind subsequently apprehends that which is untruth as the truth. This further compounds & complicates the problem, and the result is eternal, never ending seeking, along with inevitable heart breaks and discontentment. This is called samsara. With this realisation starts the process of conscious endeavor to know that which is permanent and what is not. If a man really wants to know then he will know, because all he wants is understanding of that which is the truth of all that which is. He is not looking any where beyond, but right here in the present, outside as well as inside. The process of identifying that which is eternal or permanent is basically a very easy job, because that which is the untruth keeps changing constantly and thus keeps declaring its ephemerality. This has just to be kept aside by affirming that ‘this is not what I am looking for’. When thus the mind which has been crowded by so many mis-apprehensions is cleaned, then to identify and know that which is eternal is not a difficult job. The straight forward job of knowing the truth as truth does become extremely difficult for one who is yet to realize the untruth as the untruth. Our attention is already on untruth, and one should start from here alone. See the untruth deeply enough so as to appreciate this fact in its entirety that ‘this is something ephemeral’. Don’t be in a hurry to know the truth, first let the cloud of various mis-apprehensions whither. Then & then alone the ‘discrimination’ of that which is eternal and that which is not dawns.
In the process of this appreciation, what is subsequently realized is that ‘all that which is perceived is transitory’, and that light, awareness or consciousness, because of which this realizations are possible alone appears steady. A person endowed with this understanding is said to possess the first pre-requisite of a student of vedanta. It should be noted here that this viveka is not the end but the beginning of the study of vedanta. A person who already has this much understanding is best poised to go deep into the secrets of mind & self. The conviction that ‘all that which is perceived is transitory’ and ‘that which illumines all this’ appears relatively permanent, is by itself a great leap forward, but is not the entire truth. Thus inspite of this knowledge the person keeps suffering though relatively less. Such people have become ‘introvert’ in the real sense of the term. Their fascinations for extraneous things gets reduced drastically, they seem to have more time & energy at their disposal. There is quititude in their minds and thus the intellect becomes all the more sharp & subtle. They can now become sensitive to subtler & finer things of life, and overall stand apart from the rest. This viveka is by itself a great blessing, but there is still miles to go before he can sleep or rather awake. The thrust of the knowledge of vedanta is to thereafter reveal that which is the very substratum of the knower, known and the process of knowing. That substratum is not really an object of our knowledge in the ordinary sense of the term, for the simple reason that to know the substratum of the knower, we have to transcend this knower. We are no more a knower. With the negation of the knowership that which remains is that which is revealed as the truth. While in a fragmented state we may have turned inwards because of some understanding about that which is transitory, but are far from truth. This fragmentation has to drop for the unfragmented to get revealed, and mind you, our ability to discriminate doesn’t call for physical separation of permanent and impermanent. Inspite of the apparent fragmentation, the person can ‘see’ that which is ‘not fragmented’. Study of Vedanta makes this power of discrimination all the more sharp & clear. As far as the requisite of the student is concerned, it refers only to his realisation that all that is dryshya, seen is impermanent, and that which is drg or the seer is permanent. Rest of the knowledge is the Guru prasad brought about by the study of vedanta.