Pariprasna

Srimat Swami Tapasyananda Ji (1904 – 1991) was one of the Vice-Presidents of the Ramakrishna Order. His deeply convincing answers to devotees’ questions raised in spiritual retreats and in personal letters have been published in book form as Spiritual Quest: Questions & Answers. Pariprasna is a selection from this book.

Jnana Yoga

QUESTION: It is said that we have to transcend the body, the mind and the intellect to realize Brahman, the Absolute Being of the Upanishad. It is also said in Chapter 4 of Kathopanishad that by mind alone the Absolute Brahman is to be realized. How are we to reconcile these views?

MAHARAJ: There is no necessary contradiction between the two ideas. When it is said ‘That from which words together with mind fall back without reaching It’ it means only that a complete comprehension of It by the human mind is impossible. This is so in two or three ways. If the mind is impure and attached to the enjoyment of the objects of senses, it will not have the taste or the capacity to apply itself to the Infinite Brahman. Such a mind is capable of only understanding worldly objects. Next, even if the mind is a refined and trained one, no mental presentation of the Infinite Being can be an exhaustive presentation of It. It can only be a segment of It. In another sense also is this true. A mind that comprehends It fully ceases to be a mind. It is absorbed in It and no report about It becomes possible.

Sri Ramakrishna gives the example of a salt doll going to measure the depth of the ocean. When the doll proceeds some steps into the ocean it gets dissolved in the ocean. From his own experience Sri Ramakrishna said that he could report his experiences when the mind was centred in the Chakras upto that corresponding to the throat. But when it went to the level of the brow or of the brain, the mind was merged in the experience and a report became impossible. This seems to be the meaning of the first quotation cited in this question.

But then the mind is the only instrument of knowledge that man has got. The mind, as it is constituted in the sense-bound man, may be quite ineffective in the spiritual field and may not grasp the Supreme Being. But it becomes a regenerated power when it is refined through dispassion, concentration, discrimination and devotion. Such a mind becomes capable of giving the aspirant a clearer understanding of the Infinite Being. Without refining the mind in this way and awakeing its latent power of understanding, there is no way for man to progress.

That the Infinite Being is beyond the grasp of the mind and that, therefore, we shall not concern ourselves in any manner with It but live satisfied with the life of the senses, is the attitude of an agnostic and not of a man who seriously accepts the existence of the Infinite Being. The Upanishadic passage quoted first is not meant to encourage such an attitude. The mind being the only power in man to understand things, it is only through the full exercise of its powers by practice of reflection, discrimination, concentration, dispassion and devotion that what was once the animalmind becomes the pure mind. In the pure mind an understanding of the Supreme Spirit dawns.

In devotional language, the grace of God operates and the aspirant gets a direct understanding of His Being. So the meaning of the second quotation in the question is that it is only with the mind that man performs spiritual Sadhanas which take him to a state of perfection in which the grace of God reveals the supreme knowledge to him. It is not agnostic negligence, but earnest spiritual striving, that is advocated.