Hari
OM
Application - that is what 'Workings-days' are about!
The Narada Bhakti Sutra is our guide for a while… the
nature of Love (with the capital 'ell') and a full exploration of it. As
always, you are encouraged to seek out the full text from Chinmaya Publications
(links in side-bar); but for those who prefer e-readers, this version is recommended. Whilst awareness and interest can be
raised by these posts on AV-blog, they cannot substitute for a thorough reading
and contemplation...and practice!
Chapter
Eight; Section 1 - Obstacles and Remedies; Avoid Arguments. The first suutra of
this section made clear that we ought to be discerning and 'pick our fights'
wisely; that is to say, don't seek to enter debate where there is no likely
outcome that satisfies both parties. The next suutra says further;
bahuLyavkazTvadinytTvaCc.75.
Baahulyaav-akaashat-vaada-niyatat-vaacha
||75||
(vain
arguments are to be given up) because there can
be endless, diverse views and all mere arguments become ultimately inconclusive
only.
An
affirmation of the aforesaid futility of debate where all sides are certain of
their views and not prepared to give ground to commonality.
A
sincere devotee should not argue simply because there is some validity to be
found in all views and all parties will have their logical examples and
'proofs'. If you put five people into a darkened hall containing an elephant
and ask them to describe what they find, each will be at a different part of
the creature and can only describe their part of the whole - one the trunk,
another the tail, yet another the leg, fourth the ear and fifth the underparts.
Each of them would actually be correct - for as far as they could reach. Unless
one had the ability to find their way around and over the entire beast, none
would hold the complete description of that whole.
In
the same way, the physicist of today says that the world of matter is all the
play of the positive and the negative electric charges. The biologist claims it
is nothing but evolution. All the scientists have their area of speciality and
some of it to a wide degree - but not one of them has the whole and complete
answer to 'life, the universe and everything', no matter how much they may try
to convince us otherwise. Each aspect is definitely a truth, but none of them
are The Truth.
Trying
to understand the Brahman by argument is impossible. Argument is at the
intellectual level alone. Only on transcending the intellect is The Truth, the
Supreme Reality, comprehended as the Higher Consciousness.
To
transcend the intellect, the maddening circumference of our whole personality
must be controlled, disciplined, transmuted and transcended. We must resist the
temptations of the flesh, fight down the fallacies of the mid, and soar above
the persuasions of the intellect. Fighting them all down, we move towards the
Centre of Consciousness, where alone the experience of Divinity is possible.
Reality is not confirmed by argument, since reason, a product of the intellect,
is not conclusive in realms beyond physical phenomena.
Spiritual
experience is beyond the intellect - it is that by which all else is known,
that which is behind all thought, which is the Consciousness behind all
experiences. "I am not in them, they are in Me"…"Though I am
with you in every thought, you know Me not for you are preoccupied with your physical passions"… This great Reality, Krishna, the
Aatman, the Infinite, the Self, is being indicated here - and the devotee is
warned; arguments cannot prove It, rational thinking cannot reach It.
How
then to cultivate this Love Supreme?