Practical Vedanta

Practical VedantaAbsolute.The finite, manifested man forgets his source and thinks himself to be entirelyseparate. We, as personalised, differentiated beings, forget our reality, and theteaching of monism is not that we shall give up these differentiations, but we mustlearn to understand what they are. We are in reality that Infinite Being, and ourpersonalities represent so many channels through which this Infinite Reality ismanifesting Itself; and the whole mass of changes which we call evolution isbrought about by the soul trying to manifest more and more of its infinite energy.We cannot stop anywhere on this side of the Infinite; our power, and blessedness,and wisdom, cannot but grow into the Infinite. Infinite power and existence andblessedness are ours, and we have not to acquire them; they are our own, and wehave only to manifest them.This is the central idea of monism, and one that is so hard to understand. From mychildhood everyone around me taught weakness; I have been told ever since I wasborn that I was a weak thing. It is very difficult for me now to realise my ownstrength, but by analysis and reasoning I gain knowledge of my own strength, Irealise it. All the knowledge that we have in this world, where did it come from? Itwas within us. What knowledge is outside? None. Knowledge was not in matter; itwas in man all the time. Nobody ever created knowledge; man brings it fromwithin. It is lying there. The whole of that big banyan tree which covers acres ofground, was in the little seed which was, perhaps, no bigger than one eighth of amustard seed; all that mass of energy was there confined. The gigantic intellect,we know, lies coiled up in the protoplasmic cell, and why should not the infiniteenergy? We know that it is so. It may seem like a paradox, but is true. Each one ofus has come out of one protoplasmic cell, and all the powers we possess werecoiled up there. You cannot say they came from food; for if you heap up foodmountains high, what power comes out of it? The energy was there, potentially nodoubt, but still there. So is infinite power in the soul of man, whether he knows itor not. Its manifestation is only a question of being conscious of it. Slowly thisinfinite giant is, as it were, waking up, becoming conscious of his power, andarousing himself; and with his growing consciousness, more and more of hisbonds are breaking, chains are bursting asunder, and the day is sure to come when,with the full consciousness of his infinite power and wisdom, the giant will rise tohis feet and stand erect. Let us all help to hasten that glorious consummation.Practical VedantaPart IVfile:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/Chitra%20Selva...oksBySwami/PracticalVedanta/PracticalVedantaPDF.html (29 of 113)2/26/2007 12:24:33 AM