Latest revision as of 15:58, 9 November 2016

[edit] The Infinite Ultimate

The Times of India, May 03 2016 

Badarayana's statement, “athato brahma jigyasa“ is one of the most potential statements ever made. It means, “Now begins the inquiry into the ultimate.“ It is the first statement in his Brahmasutra: Maxims About The Ultimate, one of the greatest mystic books in the world. This is the first sentence of that strange book, but one of the most significant books that has ever been written.

I call it strange because Badarayana is not much known in the world, although in India he is the only mystic on whose maxims thousands of commentaries have been written. Each of his statements is so pregnant with meaning that you can go on commenting on it in a thousand and one ways. Still it seems something inexhaustible has remained behind. This is the only book that has commentaries, then commentaries on commentaries, then again commentaries on those commentaries.

Badarayana's statement has to be understood very lovingly and very deeply . The word athato can mean`now', it can mean `here now', it can mean `from now', it can mean `from this point onwards'. Because of these different meanings growing in different hearts, the whole meaning of the sentence will change. Just the first word will change the whole meaning.

For example, to a man or a woman whose heart is the heart of a devotee, the heart of a lover, athato will mean, “Enough of love; now begins the inquiry into the ultimate. Enough of this world and its pleasures, now begins the inquiry into the ultimate.“ To the logician, the same word will mean: “Enough of logic, enough of rationality , enough of philosophy; now begins the real inquiry into the existential“ ­ not into words, not into philosophical investigations, but into an existential experience.

To a poet it may mean: “Enough of poetry , enough of all that life I have lived up to now; the time has come to enter on the path in search of light, in search of the truth. I have sung songs of joy , I have sung songs of beauty .“ But a time comes when you are tired even of your own creativity ­ how long? Just as you become tired of the woman you loved so much, of the man you loved so much, you become tired of your creative dimension for which you would have sacrificed your life. A moment comes when it seems that you g have been playing like a child, collecting seashells on the sea beach, or making castles of sand. Beautiful utopias, but it is enough! You have not gained anything of the eternal, of the timeless, of the immortal.How long are you going to wait? Now is the moment to change the direction of all your genius and intelligence. Then athato will mean something different, different from what it can mean to a businessman, to what it can mean to a king. He has been on a power trip, he has conquered as much as he wanted, he is tired.

And like the meaning of athato will be the meaning of brahma jigyasa. To the theist, Brahma (Brahmn, Consciousness) will mean `God'; to the atheist, it will mean `the ultimate reality' ­ not a personal god, but an impersonal reality .And jigyasa,`inquiry', will also take different forms. To someone it may become meditation, to another it may become yoga, to yet someone else it may become prayer. It will depend on your potentiality and according to your potential the seed will take form.