Journey or Progress 2

It is quite obvious that all major religions has the same idea about the pure and impure consciousness, although the terminologies and the languages may be different, conditioned by different cultures, beliefs and values. Adam and Eves’ and fall from grace, the original sin is pure consciousness becoming impure. Temptation by devil is probably a mere common man’s definition of apparent universe tempting an individual with all sensory attractions, thereby knocking him off from the journey towards a spiritually evolved state. As pointed out by Swami Vivekananda this is the mirror image of the Vedantic Truth. In Vedanta there is no fall from grace, but the one has to realize that he is pure consciousness itself and then the veil falls. Jesus Christ said, “He who hath seen the son hath seen the father – I and my father are one”. It implies that both he was pure consciousness himself and he had realized that supreme state of Advaita. The state of Buddha or enlightenment is arguably the same state of pure consciousness. Therefore Buddha never admitted any personal God or duality as he denied his followers the state of impure consciousness. Sri Ramakrishna when questioned by holy mother as to how he looked upon her, answered almost in the same vein, “the mother who is in that temple (mother Kali), the mother who is in Nahavat (his own mother who gave birth to him) and you, all are one.” Here again we see that all three are pure consciousness and that is only seen by somebody who is pure consciousness himself. Interestingly in 1902, in response to the letter of one of the disciples of Swami Vivekananda, who had expressed doubt about Swamiji’s comment that there should not be any worship of the Master, Sri Ramakrishna, in Advaita Ashram of Mayavati as that defeats the ideal of Advaita, the Holy Mother strongly supported Swamiji. Her response was that Advaita was the highest state of spiritual realization and that the Master (Sri Ramakrishna) stood for the same as he was perpetually in the state of pure consciousness, identifying himself with the entire universe. Therefore Ramakrishna order is fundamentally an Advaitic organization and thus the ideals of Swamiji should be beyond all doubts.

Therefore journey towards Advaita is basically impure consciousness moving towards the state of purity. Only instead of saying that it’s the original state, Vedanta declares that it is the Only state. The apparent impurity is a result of our ignorance and when that ignorance is dispelled we’ll find ourselves in that state again. But till that time the ignorance is removed, the sages say that it is better to treat the pure consciousness as a separate entity and worship it as God, as a dualist or a qualified dualist would do, than rejecting it altogether just because it is not discernible to the ordinary senses. A personal God, be it with form or formless is as true as the pure consciousness. Rejecting one over the other is subscribing to dogmas. As Sri Ramakrishna said, "stick to your own ideal but do not reject the other. Believe that everything is possible,  an enquirer after truth should keep an open mind."