vyavasāyātmikā buddhir ekeha kurunandana
Happiness and sadness, pleasure and pain, heat and cold, agitation and tranquility all belong to the svabhāva maṇḍala. They are changing conditions of the body-mind. Consciousness, on the other hand, is the illuminator of all these conditions. Every experience, pleasant or unpleasant, is revealed in its presence, while consciousness itself remains unaffected by the particular content that it illumines.
This is straightforward as a teaching. 😀
Yet, depending upon the adhikāritvam of the śrotā, a difficulty arises:
“I understand what Vedānta is saying. But I still feel that I am this body-mind. I still experience its pain as my pain.”
We often describe this by saying, “I understand it intellectually, but how to make it practical?!.”
Without being explicit (perhaps for politeness or due to loyalty to tradition), we are implying "I do not really believe it, even though I understand it".
But this very statement reveals that the understanding has not yet ripened into niścaya.
If I say, “Everyone tells me that he is a good person, and I understand their reasons, but somehow I am not convinced,” then, as far as I am concerned, I have not concluded that he is good.
So understanding and conviction cannot ultimately remain two separate phenomena. When understanding is complete, conviction is inherent in it. When conviction is absent, some obstacle to clear understanding remains.
Vedānta locates much of this difficulty in the preparedness of the antaḥkaraṇa.
Without sufficient citta-śuddhi, ekāgratā and such....the mind may grasp the words and even appreciate their logic, while remaining existentially organized around its old identifications.
Karma yoga, upāsanā, mantra japa and such disciplines appropriate to one’s āśrama prepare precisely this mind.
Yet there is an important practical situation. A person may not have completed this preparation. Through pūrva puṇya, however, that person has already arrived in the sannidhi of the Guru and Śāstra. He or She listens to Vedānta. Her/His intellect appreciates it, heart is drawn to it and yet the teaching has not acquired sufficient weight to displace the pre-existing habitual identification with the body-mind.
Such a śrotā often asks:
“Can you give me something practical?”
This should not be dismissed as though he were saying that Vedānta itself is impractical. He is really asking for an intermediate support: “Until my adhikāritvam matures sufficiently for this vision to become natural and unshakable, give me something I can hold on to and live by.”
That request deserves to be taken seriously.
The problem is ultimately a divided mind. One part has understood the teaching; another continues to operate from deeply established identification, attachment, fear and habit. Bhagavān points toward the opposite condition:
vyavasāyātmikā buddhir ekeha kurunandana. (Gita)
The buddhi must acquire integration, clarity and one-pointedness. What I know, what I value, what I trust, and how I live must gradually cease pulling in different directions.
Upāsanā and the other preparatory disciplines bring about this integration. But while that maturation is taking place, Vedānta can also give the sādhaka practical contemplative handles.
These do not replace Ātma jñāna, nor do they dilute the teaching. They help the śrotā remain connected to the vision of the Śāstra while the mind becomes capable of fully owning it.
Eventually there should be no dichotomy between “I understand” and “I believe.” There is simply niścaya.
The mind is no longer divided against what it has understood.
yajñānāṁ japa-yajño ’smi
One of the simplest and yet most profound yajñas available to everyone is japa. Bhagavān Himself says, yajñānāṁ japa-yajño ’smi, “Among yajñas, I am japa-yajña.” Mantra-japa is not a replacement for śravaṇa, manana and nididhyāsana, which remain the means for the ascertainment and assimilation of Vedāntic knowledge. But japa, when undertaken with its deeper Advaitic vision, can become a powerful avakāśa in which that knowledge ripens.
At the time of dīkṣā, the sādhaka is taught the essential abheda-bhāva: the mantra, mantra chaitanya, devatā, Guru and one’s own svarūpa as śuddha chaitanyam are ultimately non-different.
With this understanding, the mantra is no longer regarded merely as a sound appearing in awareness, nor as a jaḍa-vastu mechanically repeated. The very awareness that illumines the mantra is appearing as the mantra. The mantra is thus approached as cit śakti, as cit sphūrti, non-different from oneself.
Japa performed with this bhāva has a twofold power. As upāsanā, it purifies and steadies the mind, removing the obstacles that prevent knowledge from becoming firm. At the same time, the Advaitic vision received through śravaṇa and clarified through manana remains the undercurrent of the japa. Thus japa becomes a contemplative space for nididhyāsana, gradually dissolving viparita bhāva (the adamant subtle vāsanās, accrued across lives) and allowing tattva niścaya to become firm.
For the uttama-adhikārī, Mahāvākya-śravaṇa itself may immediately produce firm knowledge. For others, mantra-japa and devatā-upāsanā can provide the preparation and contemplative support through which the same teaching becomes fully assimilated.
Japa removes what stands in the way, while continually returning the mind to the knowledge already revealed by the Śāstra: the devatā whom I invoke, the mantra by which I invoke, and the consciousness by which both are known are, in truth, not different.
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