Talk On Vivek Chudamani

Author(s): Chinmayanand Swami
Publisher: Chinmay Publications Trust

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of stony biceps are not needed in designing a bridge or in planning a power project for the nation; while not much intelligence or calculation is needed in making a successful lathi charge.
What we mean is that qualifications are declared according to the functions required of the applicant. A seeker in Vedanta is expected to do daring intellectual flights to the Unknown, through a process of deep study, vigorous reflections and tireless meditations. For such a work, when it is said that he must be, according to the Sastra, a "man-man"”, it must necessarily mean a special quality of his head and heart.
Woman is a symbol of softness, attachment, sentiments and anxieties-she is esesntially a mother. As such wherever these qualities predominate there we have a "woman". In this sense, there are many "women" among the bearded-folk; and if firmness of determination, detachment, intellectual hardiness and steadiness of composure are the signs of a better evolution, these masculine tendencies of the head and heart are seen amply in many of our mothers. Therefore, the stanza under discussion is not a sanction to refuse one the chance to study the scriptures and seek through Vedanta one's self-development, simply because one happens to have a feminine form.
Vipratā -This again is another term upon which the orthodoxy had built up an absurd interpretation that Vedantic Self-realisation is available only for those who are by sheer accident of birth worthy or unworthy sons-of-aBrahmin. Here again a misunderstanding has been glorified into the status of wisdom and the amount of devastation it has brought to Hinduism looks as though almost irreparable now. As before we must consider this qualification also as indicating a special texture of the head and the heart.
'Santosh' (contentment), Samādhān' (spirit of selfsurrender) and 'Santi' (peace arising from right knowledge) are the special qualities (sattwic temperaments) of a wellevolved man. Any generation when observed closely reveals