Para Brahman cannot be demonstrated. But it is possible to infer the existence from certain empirical factors. The existence of Brahman is known from the fact of its being the SELF of everyone. For everyone is conscious of the existence of his self and never thinks “I am not.” If the existence of his self were not known, everyone would think: “I am not.” This self, of whose existence all are conscious, is Brahman. There is an inherent feeling in everybody: “I exist—Aham Asmi.”
You dream sometimes that you are dead and that your relatives are weeping. Even in that supposed death state, you see and hear them weeping. This clearly indicates that, even after the apparent death, life really persists. You exist even after the physical sheath is thrown out. That existence is Atman or Brahman or the Supreme Self.
Close your eyes and imagine for a moment that you are dead. You can never do so. You can never think that you will not exist after death. You will imagine that your dead body is lying flat and that you are witnessing the dead body. This definitely proves that you are always the witnessing subject or Sakshi.
When you are in the dark, when you are behind a veil, if anybody enquires: ‘Who is there?’, you will unhesitatingly answer: ‘It is I’. If he again asks you: ‘Who is there?’ you will say: ‘I am So and So.’ This ‘I am So and So’ is a mental Kalpnana or false superimposition on account of ignorance. At first you have expressed spontaneously your inherent feeling of existence, the big infinite ‘I’. Nothing can resist this innate feeling of ‘Aham Asmi.’
By whose command are the earth and the sky, the sun and the moon, upheld in their places?
By whose command do the seas not overstep their limits? By whose command does the sun rise punctually in the morning and set in the evening? By whose command do the seasons, solstices and the years not transgress? By whose command do Karmas and their performers and their fruits not likewise go beyond their appointed time? It is by the command of Brahman—the Inner Ruler, Controller and Governor.
What is common in trees, ants, birds, stones and man? Existence. A tree exists. A bird exists. A stone exists. A man exists. Existence is Brahman.
Some are rich, some are poor. Some are healthy, some are born blind. Some die at eighty, some die at ten. What is the cause for this variation? This clearly proves the theory of Karma that there is one Omniscient Lord, who is the dispenser of fruits of actions of human beings, who fixes the span of life in accordance with the nature of their actions, who knows the exact relation between Karmas and their fruits. Karma is Jada or insentient. It certainly cannot dispense the fruits of the actions.
In sleep there are no senses, no objects, no mind and yet you experience the highest bliss.
Wherefrom have you derived the bliss? The mind rests in Brahman during sleep and it is from Brahman that this Bliss is derived.
Cogito, ergo sum—"I think, therefore, I am." This is Descartes’s fundamental basis of philosophy. Sri Sankara says: “This Atman cannot be illusive, for, he who would deny it, witnesses its reality even in denying it.”
You dream sometimes that you are dead and that your relatives are weeping. Even in that supposed death state, you see and hear them weeping. This clearly indicates that, even after the apparent death, life really persists. You exist even after the physical sheath is thrown out. That existence is Atman or Brahman or the Supreme Self.
Close your eyes and imagine for a moment that you are dead. You can never do so. You can never think that you will not exist after death. You will imagine that your dead body is lying flat and that you are witnessing the dead body. This definitely proves that you are always the witnessing subject or Sakshi.
When you are in the dark, when you are behind a veil, if anybody enquires: ‘Who is there?’, you will unhesitatingly answer: ‘It is I’. If he again asks you: ‘Who is there?’ you will say: ‘I am So and So.’ This ‘I am So and So’ is a mental Kalpnana or false superimposition on account of ignorance. At first you have expressed spontaneously your inherent feeling of existence, the big infinite ‘I’. Nothing can resist this innate feeling of ‘Aham Asmi.’
By whose command are the earth and the sky, the sun and the moon, upheld in their places?
By whose command do the seas not overstep their limits? By whose command does the sun rise punctually in the morning and set in the evening? By whose command do the seasons, solstices and the years not transgress? By whose command do Karmas and their performers and their fruits not likewise go beyond their appointed time? It is by the command of Brahman—the Inner Ruler, Controller and Governor.
What is common in trees, ants, birds, stones and man? Existence. A tree exists. A bird exists. A stone exists. A man exists. Existence is Brahman.
Some are rich, some are poor. Some are healthy, some are born blind. Some die at eighty, some die at ten. What is the cause for this variation? This clearly proves the theory of Karma that there is one Omniscient Lord, who is the dispenser of fruits of actions of human beings, who fixes the span of life in accordance with the nature of their actions, who knows the exact relation between Karmas and their fruits. Karma is Jada or insentient. It certainly cannot dispense the fruits of the actions.
In sleep there are no senses, no objects, no mind and yet you experience the highest bliss.
Wherefrom have you derived the bliss? The mind rests in Brahman during sleep and it is from Brahman that this Bliss is derived.
Cogito, ergo sum—"I think, therefore, I am." This is Descartes’s fundamental basis of philosophy. Sri Sankara says: “This Atman cannot be illusive, for, he who would deny it, witnesses its reality even in denying it.”
