The Thought and the Hope

Sir Arthur Eddington writes, “The world seems to be more a thought than a ma­chine.” The word “seems” is, in fact, a daring understatement. God said, “Let there be light” and “there was light” declared the Old Testament over 25 centuries ago. Until the ‘Word’ be­came ‘flesh’, until the thought emerged, the Upanishad declared over 27 centuries ago, “there was no time or space, past or future, in or out, thrill or throb’, no word, no flesh. “There was no one to understand me,” Swami remi­nisces! There was no consciousness that could be aware of even Being. The pervasive ‘I am’ had not arisen at all, “Asaa vaa, idam agra aaseet“, announ­ces the Taitiriya Upanishad. “Un­awareness alone was, at first.” Imagi­nation is powerless to peer into that serene silence, for imagination needs im­ages for manipulation and images are produced only by objects.

“To understand Me?” “No one to understand Me?” That was the primal idea, the inaugural sensation, the first faint ripple on the vast horizonless Is­ness! “Me!!! No one else! Ekoham. I am al‑one. I shall become many, so that I can understand myself, so that un­derstanding might lead to love.” “I se­parated myself, so that I can love myself,” declares Swami, for when the I (Aham) feeling sprouted, He was the only One and there was no second. So the wish, the Maya, the sense of want that is represented by the second half of the statement, Ekoham, namely, bahushyaam (I’ll become many) could be realized only by repeating himself under many names and in many forms. A ‘thousand’ means – one repeated a 1000 times. This meant: “thath aetmaanam swayam eve akrtha” (He himself became all this). When Swami says, ‘I am God; you are also God’, He is reminding us that each of us is a repetition of “Himself”. He asks us to assert Soham, Shivoham (I am He, I am God).

As soon as the Thought to become many, arose, “Time started ticking. Space started stretching. Effects ema­nated from causes.” Swami says, “Immediately mountains rose up. Immediately rivers started running. Earth below; sky overhead! Oceans, seas, moon, desert sands sprang from nowhere to prove my existence.”

Since He is aware of Himself as the personalized Impersonal, “I am all that is, all that can be known, all that seeks fulfillment”, He announces, as the hu­man embodiment of the integer that lends validity and value to the zeros parading after it. What exactly are the ze­ros in, say, 100,000,000? They represent so many ones, not nothings. And He is the One.

He can delve under the tantalizing tan­gle of the bahu (many). He has designed and revels in ecstasy as one with the ONE. Swami assures us, “I and You are not we; I and You are I only.” There is no attempt at appropriation. It is the affir­mation of the One in the many, the wave in the sea. When it loses its form, it loses its I‑ness and is the One it always was.

The Divine advent

When the wave loses awareness of the sea, that is to say, when man devalues, dismisses or distorts ‘My knowledge’ gifted to him as a life‑belt, God assumes human form, undergoes the human career, and establishes Himself as guide, guar­dian, and goal. The aged monk, Swami Abhedananda, wrote to me from the ashram of Bhagavan Ramana Maharishi, (after intimate interviews he had with Swami at Venkatagiri, Arunachalam, and Prasanthi Nilayam): “Swami is the Brah­mam (the Cosmic Consciousness) Itself come in human form. It would be gross understatement if He is designated as an Avatar engaged in an adventure under­taken to fulfil some particular project.”

In a Message to students, Swami announced: “See in Me yourselves; for I see Myself in you.” Even as He stepped out of teenage [years], Swami announced to the world through a letter to His elder bro­ther, “I am resolved to confer on all man­kind the supreme ecstasy of self‑aware­ness. I am determined to hold the way­ward and the vagrant who stray into wrong and lead them along the righteous path. I shall remove the pain of the lonely and the penury of the weak and fill the void in the heart of the unfortunate with what they lack. I shall shield with My blessings those who adore Me with loving thoughts, soft speech, and selfless service.” “Came all forms of beasts; birds flying. All kinds of beings. Mankind speaking, learning. And all powers were bestowed upon them, under my orders.” He mentioned in the same message (written by Him in English) His most precious gift to you and me. “The first place was given to man, and My knowledge was placed in his mind.” So, this is the reason why man has an inborn urge to journey back to his source. He has in him the agony of the exile, the suffocation of the cage, the scar of the manacle, the wounds of crucifixion, and the hope of Resurrection.

~N. Kasturi
Source: Sanathana Sarathi, Nov. 1986