The Heartbeat of the Absolute
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
The Heartbeat of the Absolute Talks given from 4/4/71 to 10/4/71 Original in Hindi 20 Chapters Year published: 1980 The Heartbeat of the Absolute Chapter #1 Chapter title: All Is A Miracle 4 April 1971 am in Mt. Abu, Rajasthan, India OM. THAT IS WHOLE, AND THIS ALSO IS WHOLE. FOR ONLY THE WHOLE IS BORN OUT OF THE WHOLE; AND WHEN THE WHOLE IS TAKEN FROM THE WHOLE, BEHOLD, THE REMAINDER IS WHOLE. OM. PEACE, PEACE, PEACE. The Ishavasya Upanishad begins and ends with this sutra, and in it is declared all that can ever be said. It is quite unique. For those who fully understand it, no more is needed; the rest of the Upanishad is for those who do not. Thus the peace prayer, which usually brings the Upanishad to its close, is here invoked at the end of the very first sutra. And for those who have come to the peaks of understanding, this is the end of the Ishavasya; but for those who are still climbing, it is only the beginning. Part of its uniqueness lies in the clarity with which it distinguishes between the Eastern and the Western methods of thinking and reasoning. Two schools of reasoning have flourished in the world -- one in Greece, the other in India. The Greek system of logic gave birth to the whole of Western science, while from the Indian system emerged religion. The first and most fundamental of the differences between the two lies in the Western -- Greek -- method of progressing towards a conclusion. Whenever we seek the truth of a matter, an initial inquiry will lead via research to an eventual conclusion; first, thought and inquiry, then conclusion. The Indian way is exactly the opposite. India affirms that what we are going to investigate is always there. It does not take shape as a result of our inquiry, but is already present even before our investigation begins. The truth which will become manifest was there before we were in existence. It was there before we discovered it just as much as it is there once we have done so. Truth is not formed or constructed through our research; what research does is to bring it within the realm of our experience. Truth is ever-present. That is why the Indian way of reasoning declares the conclusion in the beginning, and afterwards discusses method and procedure; first conclusion, then method. The Western way puts method first, then investigation, and finally conclusion. One important point should be kept in mind: the Western method is very appropriate for those who look for truth by thinking about it. This method of reasoning is like trying to find something on a dark night with the help of a small lamp. The night is pitch black, and the light sheds its light dimly over three or four feet of ground. Only a small patch is visible, most remains unseen; and conclusions arrived at about that which is seen will be tentative. After a while, as one proceeds with the lamp, a little more becomes visible, and it is needed to revise or change the conclusion. As one progresses further and further, new things continuously become visible and so the conclusion is altered again and again. Following as it does the Greek school of logic, Western science can never reach a final conclusion. All its conclusions are therefore tentative, temporary, and based on the knowledge acquired up to the present time. If something new is discovered tomorrow, there will be a change in the conclusion. That is why no truth arrived at by the West is absolute. It is not total. All its truths and conclusions are imperfect. But truth can never be imperfect or incomplete, and whatever is imperfect will be untruth. The conclusion we are required to alter tomorrow is in reality not the truth even today! It simply appears to be the truth. That alone can be truth which we never need to change. So the conclusions which are declared as truths by the West are really untruths based on the knowledge acquired so far and needing alteration according to the knowledge obtained tomorrow. The Indian system of reasoning is not like investigating truth with the help of a lamp. It is like investigating the dark night in the dazzling brilliance of a lightning flash, when everything becomes visible simultaneously. Not that something -- a part -- is seen now, sometime later another part, later again something more, and so on; no, the Indian way is not like that. In the Indian system of investigation, the revelation of truth takes place all at once; everything is discovered at one and the same time. All the roads extend to the horizon, and all -- whatsoever -- is seen simultaneously in the flash of lightning. There is no scope for any change in the future because the whole has been seen. The Western method called logic investigates truth by the process of thinking. The Indian way, which we call experience or wisdom, discloses all things at one time like the lightning flash, with the result that truth comes out as it is, in its totality, leaving no room for change or alteration. As a result there is no potential for change in what Buddha or Mahavira or Krishna has said. But Western thinkers -- inclined to doubt and worry -- question whether what Mahavira said twenty-five hundred years ago can still be true today. It is reasonable for them to raise such doubts; over such a period of time we should expect twenty-five thousand changes if we have been looking for truth with a torch! New facts will appear every day, and we will be compelled to alter or transform the old ones. But the truths declared by Mahavira, Krishna or Buddha are revelations. They are not truths found by lamplight; they have been seen and known and revealed in the dazzling lightning flash of a still mind -- a mind devoid of thoughts. The truth which Mahavira knew was not discovered by him step by step; otherwise he could not have known the total truth. He knew it in its totality in a single moment. What I want to tell you is that everything revealed in its totality through the wisdom of the East is included in this short sutra. It is there in its totality. This is why we in India declare that the conclusion is first and the inquiry follows. The announcement of the truth is made in the beginning, then we discuss how the truth can be known, how it has been known, and how that can be explained. This sutra is an announcement -- a proclamation. The rest of the book is not essential for those who can comprehend the full meaning from the announcement. Nothing new will be stated in the entire Upanishad: the truth will be retold again and again in various ways. The remainder of the book is for those who are blind to the dazzling flash of lightning, and stubbornly insist on searching for truth with the help of a lamp. By the light of this lamp, the truth can be picked out line by line in the Ishavasya sutra; but first the subject is presented in its entirety in this great sutra. That is why I told you this sutra is so unique: it says everything. Now let us try to understand it. It declares that the whole is born out of the whole, and yet that which remains behind is always whole; in the end the whole is absorbed into the whole, and even then the whole increases not at all, it remains as it was before. This is a very great antimathematical statement. P. D. Ouspensky has written a book called Tertium Organum. He was a renowned mathematician of Russia, who in later years, as a disciple of a remarkable western master, Gurdjieff, became a mystic himself. He was a mathematical genius, his intelligence penetrating the heights and depths of his subject. The first statement he makes in this wonderful book is that there are only three great canons of thought in the world. The first, entitled Organum, is by Aristotle, father of the Western science of logic. Organum means the principle of knowledge. The second book is by Francis Bacon and is called Novum Organum -- the new principle of knowledge. And the third one is his own book, which is called Tertium Organum -- the third principle of knowledge. He follows this statement with a short sentence that has puzzled many people: "Before the first existed, the third was." That is, the third principle was already in the world before the first principle was discovered. The first book was written by Aristotle two thousand years ago, the second by Bacon three hundred years ago, and the third one was written some forty years ago. But Ouspensky says the third existed in the world before the first was written, even though he wrote this third book only forty years ago. When anyone asked him the meaning of this crazy, illogical statement, he replied, "Whatever I have written is not written by me. It was already in existence; I have simply proclaimed it." The earth was under the influence of gravity before Newton was born. The earth attracted a stone before his birth in the same way that it has done ever since. Newton did not invent the principle of gravitation, he only revealed it. He opened what was hidden, he made known what was unknown. But gravity was already there before Newton; otherwise Newton himself would not have been there.