The All-inhering Presence

The world strikes as stupendous, imposing and magnificent. Our earth itself, with its expansive waters, insurmountable mountains, and long, winding, perennial rivers, is quite extensive. The elements, minerals and salts earth contains are numerous, with their divergent properties. The variety found in flowers, herbs and plants, birds and animals, is exquisite and alluring. Air enveloping the earth is equally unique. The whole existence has incredible abstruse powers – gross and subtle. Effortlessly the space comprehends all these. Within this arresting expanse of space also hover countless luminaries like sun, moon, and stars. Nowhere is there a boundary.

Nonetheless, all the seeming qualities and properties of the whole creation are an offshoot of mere ignorance (avidyaa) conjured up and unleashed by the Consciousness itself. Understand that all the splendorous things, from the highest down to the lowest, have their prevalence only within the field of ignorance. Every existence, mobile or immobile, is perishable.

The knowledge that all these are unreal and hollow, alone has the potential to lead the mind to the imperishable Self. It is intriguing that the highest gain for the human lies right within his body, but still, rarely is anyone interested in gaining it. This is the grand witchcraft ignorance plays upon our mind. The seeker has to be aware of it.

Understand that the entire worldly display is an outcome of ignorance or delusion, and turn the gaze inward. Once you begin to appreciate that ignorance displays everything, the mind will be prompted to rise against it. No one likes to be stamped as ignorant or deluded. There is but one all-inhering Presence, the Supreme Intelligence or Consciousness, which is devoid of all modifications or activities like thoughts and thinking. From that spontaneously arise the power and process of intelligence, like the mist formed over the lake.

It is like clouds arising from the sea, which, assuming divergent densities, colours and shapes, hover around. But, they all have water alone as their content. Similarly, sattva, rajas and tamas – the three gunas – are the names given to the cloud-like formations arising from Consciousness. Consciousness alone is their content.

In the case of water, the vapour rises physically into the sky. But this aspect of the analogy cannot be true of the Supreme Intelligence. There is no place where Brahman is not present. Hence, thoughts and imaginations do not rise into another place, as the clouds of vapour to the sky. That is how the whole process becomes illusory. It takes place by virtue of the inscrutable power of the Supreme Intelligence. This fundamental difference has to be kept in mind.

- Swami Bhoomananda Tirtha

[This is an extract from the April 2009 issue of the Monthly Journal from the Ashram - "Vicharasetu - The Path of Introspection", from the series "Science of Inner Redemption" based on Nirvaana Prakarana of Yogavaasishtha Ramayana]

© Narayanashrama Tapovanam, 2011

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