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an easier Path? Vedanta is cheap!"-thus one may be tempted to exclaim.
This stanza is a clear example which amply illustrates the truth that literal word-meanings do not convey the right philosophical implications in Vedantic literature. If, by listening, one could liberate himself, the entry into the spiritual kingdom, Mokṣa, would have been so cheap that we could have easily made it universal. The scripture cannot be false; and mere listening cannot be a path for a total spiritual redemption. Therefore, we must understand that the word 'listening' is used here in a sense much more ample and accommodative than its dictionary meaning.
From what you have been told so far, you know how essential it is for a student to get himself completely and fully tuned up to the Master. The student has, already through a process of self-discipline, made his inner Kingdom clean and peaceful, wherein he stands in all devotion and meekness, receptivity and alertness. When such an individual listens to the inspired words of the Master, full of subtle suggestions, the seeker, from within himself, starts living the unsaid chapters that are made to ring through the said words.
As the tongue of the temple-bell strikes the bellcup, there is, indeed, a harsh metallic sound; but as we listen to it, it warbles out into a lingering melody before it slowly dies out into the very silence in which it was born. Similarly, the words of the Scriptures have a harsh sound and a lingering music. The harsh sounds are caught in a web of language and preserved in the text books, while the warbling notes are to be produced at each reading in the secret caves of the seeker's heart.
This preparation is indicated by the practices of reflection and meditation, concentration and devotion, self-control and celibacy, moral purity and ethical goodness advised for the Sadhakas.
A student thus prepared, when comes to hear a discourse from a Master, not only hears the words but spiri
