|
Beyond Vedanta THE first step in the spiritual life is the Vedantic experience that
the world is an illusion, an absolute illusion. Rather it is the Buddhist
experience of nihil, nothingness, extinction that is the first step, the
very basic realisation of all spiritual life. It is not the summit – the nee
plus ultra, beyond
which there is nothing – but it is the very foundation, the absolute minimum of spirituality – sine qua non, without which it is not. The one experience with which you start your spiritual journey is the total
negation of whatever exists, reducing existence to zero: world-existence being equated
with Ignorance. Life is a falsehood, one has to
reject it outright. The next step in Vedanta would be, when you have eliminated
everything, reduced all to zero, to contemplate, to find what remains, the
irreducible reality – the unity, the One, Sat, Brahman. First, then, the total and absolute
dissolution of this creation of ignorance, the Creation which is ignorance, and
attaining a status of nothingness, absolute annihilation, then in that blank
void emerges the Residue, the One True Reality – a silent, infinite eternal
immobility, a pure Existence. In the beginning the Non-Existence (Asat), then there arises the Pure Existence (Sat). That pure
Existence is gradually found to possess or be Delight also. As Being is not the being in creation even so the Consciousness
is not the normal or mental consciousness, and Delight too is not the joy of life;
they are all of quite another quality and category. In other words Purusha is given the exclusive
reality, while Prakriti is negated, being identified with unconsciousness and ignorance,
is relegated to a status of relative reality. Prakriti is considered as maya,
the illusory consciousness, the ignorance.
Page – 181 Purusha is the Brahman, the Conscious Being, the
One Absolute Pure Reality. The Tantra comes next in the scale. Tantra
does not consider Prakriti as absolutely separate from Purusha and opposite in
character. Prakriti is not unconsciousness (Achit); it is instinct with
consciousness. Indeed Prakriti as conceived by Sankhya or Mayavada is only a
lower formulation, an inferior aspect of the higher Prakriti which is one with
the higher Purusha, Purushottama. Tantra worships the higher Prakriti as Parashakti,
the Divine Mother who holds in herself the supreme Purusha. The world is
created and exists not by the power of Maya but by the formative power of the
Mother, which was the original meaning of the word 'maya', the Divine Maya. The
Divine Mother creates the world and maintains the world in the Delight of her
Conscious Existence. She is the Supreme Consciousness (Chinmayee), she is the Power of Delight (Hladini Shakti). The whole bifurcation between Tantra and
Vedanta hinges upon one point. The Vedanta overlooked one term of the Truth and
missed thereby a whole world of experience and reality. The central term of
Vedanta is taken as Consciousness, Consciousness pure and simple. It omitted
the fact that Consciousness is also Energy. That Chit is Tapas is the central
principle in Tantra. The exclusive stress on Chit, Pure Consciousness, led to
the realisation of the Pure Purusha as mere Witness, Observer, a passive consciousness. Subsequently it was also added that
the Purusha is not merely a Witness, (saksi), but the Upholder
(bharta), even Enjoyer (bhokta) of the world and
creation; finally it was added also that the Purusha may be a creator also (karta),
but all this is somewhat outside the pale of orthodox Vedanta, Mayavada.
Tantra equated Consciousness with Energy; for it Conscious Energy or
Consciousness-Energy is the indivisible Mother-Reality. The Vedanta ends in Ananda,
it is a static unitary Ananda. The Tantra posits a dynamic Ananda, a dual Ananda
between Ishwara and Ishwari, Shiva and Shakti. The Vaishnava takes a further
step and transmutes Ananda into Love, a terrestrial humanised love. An earlier form of this humanised love was
given in Buddha's Compassion. The transcendent Delight (Ananda)
Page – 182 was made terrestrial and human in Buddha. But Buddha's compassion was a
universal feeling and had no personal frame as it were. Vaishnavism gave it a
personal frame and a human form. Radha and The relation between the Supreme (over and
above the creation) and the individual in the creation representing the
creation is sometimes described in human terms to give it a concrete and
graphic form. This relationship characteristically indicates the fundamental
nature of the Reality it deals with. Thus in the Vedantic tradition the Supreme
is worshipped as the Father (pita no asi). It
is also a relation of Master and disciple, the leader and the led. Ii brings
out into prominence the Purusha aspect of the Reality. In the Tantra the
relation is as between Mother and child. The supreme Reality is the Divine
Mother holding the universe in her arms. The individual worships and adores
the Supreme Prakriti as a human child does. The Vaishnava makes the relation as
between the lover and the beloved, and the love depicted is intensely vital and
even physical, as intense and poignant as the ordinary ignorant human passion.
It is to show that the Love Divine can beat the human love on its own ground,
that is to say, it can be or it is as passionately sweet and as intensely
intimate as any human love. It is why Bhakta Prahlad said to his beloved Vishnu
"O Lord, what ordinary men feel and enjoy in and through their physical
senses, may I have the same enjoyment in and through
Thee." Still the Vaishnava love in its concrete
reality is a manifestation in a subtle world, the world of an inner physical
consciousness. Therefore one more step has to be taken when
the Divine Love will incarnate in its integral and absolute reality upon this
physical earth in a concretely material frame.
Page – 183
|
