{"id":1534,"date":"2013-07-13T01:35:31","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:35:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=1534"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:35:31","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:35:31","slug":"46-the-means-of-realisation-vol-18-kena-and-other-upanishads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/03-cwsa\/18-kena-and-other-upanishads\/46-the-means-of-realisation-vol-18-kena-and-other-upanishads","title":{"rendered":"-46_The Means of Realisation.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n

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The Means of Realisation <\/font><\/b>
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Vedanta is merely an intellectual assent, without Yoga. The verbal revelation of the true relations between the One and the Many, the intellectual acceptance of the revelation and the dogmatic acknowledgement of the relations do not lead us beyond metaphysics, and there is no human pursuit more barren and
\nfrivolous than metaphysics practised merely as an intellectual pastime, a play with words & thoughts, when there is no intention of fulfilling thought in life or of moulding our inner state and outer activity by the knowledge which we have intellectually
\naccepted. It is only by Yoga that the fulfilment and moulding of our life and being in the type of the true relations between God
\nand the soul can become possible. Therefore every Upanishad has in it an element of Yoga as well as an element of Sankhya,
\nthe scientific psychology on which Yoga is founded. Vedanta, the perception of the relations between God in Himself and
\nGod in the world, Sankhya, the scientific, philosophical and psychological analysis of those relations and Yoga, called also
\nby the Rishis Yajna, their practical application in social life, religious worship and individual discipline & self-perfection, is
\nand has always been the whole substance of the Hindu religion. Whatever we know of God, that we ought in every way to be
\nand live, is almost the only common dogma of all Hindu sects and schools of every description.
\n\t\t\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n

If then we know this of God and ourselves that we and He are one, So ‘ham asmi, but divided by a movement of
\nself-awareness which differentiates our forward active movement of waking life from the great life behind that knows and embraces
\nall, then to recover that oneness in our waking state becomes the supreme aim and meaning of every individual existence.
\nNothing connected only with the movement of division can be of any moment to us, neither our bodily life and health, nor our
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\tPage – 421<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

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family welfare, nor our communal wellbeing compared with this immense self-fulfilment; they can only be of importance as means
\nor movements in the self-fulfilment. If, farther, we know that by recovering our secret oneness with God we shall also be at one
\nwith the world and that hatred, grief, fear, limitation, sickness, mortality, the creations of the divided movement, will no longer
\nbe able to exercise their yoke upon us, then the abandonment of all else, if necessary, for the one thing needful, becomes not only
\nthe supreme aim and meaning of human life, but our only true interest. Even if, as is quite probable, we cannot in one birth attain
\nto the fullness of this grand result yet it is clear that even a little progress towards it must mean an immense change in our life &
\ninner experience and be well worth the sacrifice and the labour. As the Gita says with force, “A little of this rule of life saves man
\nout of his great fear.” If farther a man knows that all mankind is intended to attain this consummation, he being one life with that
\ndivine movement called humanity, it must also be part of his self-fulfilment to pour whatever fullness of being, knowledge, power
\nor bliss he may attain, out on his fellow beings. It is his interest also, for humanity being one piece, it is difficult for the individual
\nto attain fullness of life here when the race creates for him an atmosphere of darkness, unrest and base preoccupation with the
\ncares of a half-intellectualised animal existence. So strong has this atmosphere become in the Iron Age, that it is the rule for the
\nindividual who seeks his own salvation to sever himself from life and society and content himself with only the inner realisation.
\nModern Hinduism has become, therefore, in all but its strongest spirits, absorbed in the idea of an individual salvation. But our
\nVedic forefathers were of a different stuff. They had always their eye on the individual in the race. Nothing is more remarkable
\nin the Veda than the absolute indifference & even confusion with which the singular and plural are used by the Singer, as if
\n“I” & “we” were identical in meaning, and the persistence with which the Rishi regards himself as a representative soul, as it were, of the vish\u00e1<\/font>m devayat\u00ed<\/font>n\u00e1<\/font>m<\/i>, the peoples in their seeking after the Godhead. We find the same transition in the Isha from
\nthe singular “pashyami” of the successful representative soul <\/span> <\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\tPage – 422<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

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\t\t\t<\/font>
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\nrealising his oneness with God to the plural asman when he turns to pray for the equal purification and felicity of his fellows.
\nOur ideal, therefore, is fixed,\u2014to become one with God and lead individually the divine life, but also to help others to the
\ndivine realisation and prepare, by any means, humanity for the kingdom of God on earth,\u2014satyadharma, satyayuga.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n \tOur means is Yoga. Yoga is not, as the popular mind too often conceives, shutting oneself in a room or isolating oneself in a monastery or cave and going through certain fixed mental and bodily practices. These are merely particular and specialised types of Yogic practice. The mental and bodily practices of Rajayoga and Hathayoga are exercises of great force
\nand utility, but they are not indispensable. Even solitude is not indispensable, and absolute solitude limits our means and scope
\nof self-fulfilment. Yoga is the application, by whatever means, of Vedanta to life so as to put oneself in some kind of touch with the
\nhigh, one, universal and transcendent Existence in us & without us in our progress towards a final unity. All religious worship,
\nsincerely done, all emotional, intellectual and spiritual realisation of that which is higher than ourselves, all steadily practised
\nincrease of essential power, purity, love or knowledge, all sacrifice and self-transcending amounts to some form of Yoga. But
\nYoga can be done with knowledge or without knowledge, with a higher immediate object or with a lower immediate object, for a
\npartial higher result or for the fullest divine perfection and bliss. Yoga without knowledge can never have the force of Yoga with
\nknowledge, Yoga with the lower object the force of Yoga with the higher object, Yoga for a partial result the force of Yoga for
\nthe full & perfect result. But even in its lowest, most ignorant or narrowest forms, it is still a step towards God.
\n\t\t\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n \t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 423<\/font><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Means of Realisation   Vedanta is merely an intellectual assent, without Yoga. The verbal revelation of the true relations between the One and the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-18-kena-and-other-upanishads","wpcat-35-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1534"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1534\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}