Sadhana Panchakam, Instruction 20

Translation and Commentary by Jayaram V

3.4 Align with the tenets of the Vedas in thinking and reasoning

This is a continuation of the previous instructions, and a part of the practice of mananam. The idea is that you have to improve your thinking and reasoning skills without deviating from the essential doctrine of the Vedas. It means that you may discard everything but cannot discard or deny Brahman or Atman as the highest, purest, absolute, eternal and indestructible reality, and liberation as your highest and ultimate purpose (paramartha).

When you apply logic or use discriminative intelligence, you have to adhere to the logical framework of the Vedas, in which Brahman is at the center and circumference of everything as the one and only ultimate reality, without a second, and everything else as a projection or manifestation or superimposition upon him. You have to extend the same framework to yourself, acknowledging your mind and body as superimpositions upon your pure self, and all the tattvas and gunas as the playground of maya where things can become dicey and chaotic.

Your knowledge and understanding must be built around these fundamentals. You may renounce everything, but you cannot give up these fundamental truths since they serve as the raft upon which you travel to the other shore of samsara and become liberated. Since you cannot ascertain Brahman or Atman by yourself or with your mind and senses, until you achieve oneness, you have to rely upon the Vedas as your source and support to stabilize your mind in the contemplation of the self, without doubt and distraction. At this stage in your spiritual evolution, you shall have faith not only in God but also in the Vedas which are supposed to be his manifestations and revelations.

In philosophical and contemplative inquiry also, you have to follow the same principle. To validate or verify any truth, you have to look for confirmation or validation in the Vedas first and only then draw any conclusion. Your conclusions must be in complete alignment with the Vedas, not in parts. For example, there are some schools which acknowledge the existence of Atman (individual self) only but not the Brahman. As a student of the Vedas or as the follower of the Advaita Vedanta, you cannot accept such partial assertions. For you, the individuality of the self shall be a mere illusion, and its universality and nonduality the absolute truth. Just as the space inside a bottle is not different from the space outside, the self in a body is not different from the self which pervades the whole existence. Whether you use inductive or deductive methods, your logic must follow the basic thought process which is enshrined in the Vedas.

Similarly, the Vedas affirm the body as the abode of the Self, a world in itself, which is comparable to the world outside in which gods reside in the organs and regulate its functions, just as they participate in creation to ensure its order and regularity, while the self remains inside as a passive witness and enjoyer. The Vedas also affirm that the body is the field of maya in which the self is caught and bound to the cycle of births and deaths. Unless the mind and body are purified and sanctified, the self cannot escape from the mortal world or from the field of maya. These are the fundamental beliefs of the Vedanta, and as a student of it, you have to accept them with faith and without skepticism. Otherwise, your knowledge and skepticism become obstacles rather than your aids in liberation.

In religion and spirituality, you are expected to follow a certain discipline to cultivate right knowledge because you cannot solely depend upon your mind and senses to formulate your thoughts or draw your conclusions. Here, you are dealing with abstract and invisible concepts and ideas which are ungraspable by the mind. They are not self-evident and require a different approach because they can neither be objectified nor materialized for you or others to examine them or satisfy your curiosity.

Therefore, you do not have many options to exercise your freedom of thought in spiritual practice. You have to believe in someone or something, and build upon that your whole approach, practice and worldview. The Vedas served as the source of approved or confirmed knowledge for at least four to five thousand years to countless spiritual aspirants, masters, seers and sages. If they were not reliable, the world would have discarded them and forgotten them long ago.

The fact that they are still in use and still followed by is proof enough to accept them as an authority on the subject of liberation. We have reason to believe that they possess enough truths, light and wisdom to lead us in the right direction. They have been approved and certified by pure souls and pious beings who were selfless, truthful and lived exemplary lives. As renunciants who devoted themselves to the service of God, they had no reason to pursue a selfish agenda or engage in deception and falsehood.

The methods to arrive at the truth of Brahman, using the knowledge in the Vedas, are suggested in the Vedas themselves. For example, Chandogya Upanishad quotes the “neti-neti” method in which you keep saying “not-this-not-this” to discard all that which is not the true self, so that in the end when you exhaust all possibilities you end up with final reality which is Brahman himself. In the same scripture Brahman is compared to the light in the sun and the moon, fire in the sacrificial altar, salt in the water and the space in the seed. You may use similar analogies to understand the essential nature of the self.

The Taittiriya Upanishad suggest the fivefold approach in which you negate all the five sheaths in the body to reach the innermost self. Shankaracharya used the superimposition method (adhyaropa-apavada) to distinguish reality from delusion and identify the objective self (the beingness) from the pure self. You may use a similar approach to discard all that you find in your consciousness which prevents you from finding peace and tranquility or keeps your ego in a state of agitation. You may also use the superimposition analogy to identify all those aspects in you which you mistakenly perceive as a part of your identity or attribute to yourself

The Mandukya Upanishad describes the four states of consciousness (wakeful, dreaming, sleep and transcendence) to distinguish the last one from the previous three. Upanishads such as the Katha Upanishad provide the reasoning to distinguish the dependent realties of Nature from the independent pure reality. In them, you will also find many references to the relationship between cause and effect, and how effects arise independently from their causes or due to their modification or suppression. All these methods and approaches are useful to students to practice logical inquiry and improve their reasoning skills.

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