Ascent to Reality

AN EXPERIMENT IN SPIRITUAL ENQUIRY FOR THE YOUTH: C. Shanmuganaygam; Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Kualapati Munshi Marg, Mumbai. Rs. 90.

THE UPANISHADS tell us a large number of stories of young men who entered on the spiritual quest, by dedicating their lives to an Acharya or a Guru and receiving from the Acharya a magnificent gift, illumination in the form of Atma Gnanam or Brahmanubhava. We have in the Kathopanisad, young Nachiketas who provoked his father, Vajusravas, at the latter's Viswajit yagna, into sending him to Yama. It was sraddha of Nachiketas, which prompted him to question the efficacy of gifting derelict cows to the Ritwiks of the Yagna as part of the Sarva Vadasam gift prescribed in the Yagna prayaga. So Nachiketas was already qualified for the spiritual quest when he met Yama. His refusal of worldly gifts and joys offered by Yama was quite characteristic and indeed, inevitable. Yama, presumably, was conducting a spiritual fitness test for Nachiketas, an entrance examination that he passed with distinction. Nachiketas was troubled by the question of what happens after death. Yama, after satisfying himself about the Adhikara of Nachiketas, discoursed to him on the spiritual issues he had raised.

Swetakatu is another young man whose studies under one Acharya had left him imperfectly instructed. His father imparts him the ultimate gnana... thou art that... The Upadesa Mahavakya, which affirms the indivisible impartible identity of the Jiva with the Parabrahmam. Man and God are one, impartibly and indivisibly one.

The author of the book under review, who retired from practice as an advocate of the Sri Lanka Supreme Court in order to devote himself to spiritual matters and particularly to stirring the spiritual curiosity and aspirations of the young, contributed articles based on his experiences and meetings with various sages and spiritual masters of India and Sri Lanka, to the "Ceylon Daily News''. Himself an ardent seeker, the questions he raised with these masters and the answers he received from them form the substance of this book, designed to stimulate and stir our young men to seek and obtain the gnana, which would make life for them meaningful and worth living. Among the great sages he met were Sri Ramana, Sri Chandrasekerendra Saraswati, Jiddu Krishnamurthy, Nisarga Datta Maharaj of Mumbai, Sri Ramdas of Kanchanagar and various others. He has read a vast deal of the teachings of these sages and savants.

The "Questions and answers" section reveals that there are quite a few Nachiketas and Swetakatus among our young men. The ascent to Reality is an arduous one. Jiddu Krishnamurthy's "choiceless awareness" and "effortless awareness" would seem to be asking for too much especially if Truth is a pathless land. The author as an inexorable eternal law regards the operation of Karma, of cause and effect and reaping after sowing has been done, though one may modify it by arduous spiritual effort.

The book is somewhat ill organised but contains most valuable matter. One wonders why the author did not go to the great scriptures of ancient India or of the great world around us. They would have given him the teachings he seeks so earnestly. The author's experiment, though rather imperfectly organised shows that there is plenty of scope for this kind of work and that it will yield most valuable results.

S.R.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Features
Previous : Update on law of contempt
Next     : Music compositions