Talk On Vivek Chudamani

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

Page 14

Scriptures properly, he gains in his discrimination between the spirit and matter, the real and the unreal; soon he comes to realise that the Self in him is the essential Self in all; and ere long he gets established in his experience of God-hood.
Sankara, in enumerating these stages of self-development, gives us in a nut-shell the unwritten chapters in Darwin's half-declared Theory of Evolution. Here we have all the various stages through which man consciously, through right-living and self-progress, climbs to the lap of the Lord, there to merge with Him and become the Siva. This is called Mukti or full and final liberation of a mortal from all his limitations.
The last line is not a cry of a pessimistic despair; it is the Call of Hope, urging man to wake up and act, to grow and achieve the highest gain. No reader of this stanza should consider himself as standing low down in this upward procession. One who feels charmed by the Call of Vedanta, who can appreciate its arguments, who feels a sympathetic understanding of the ideal indicated, is indeed in one of his last births and he is a product of an entire evolutionary past. If he could make use of his present chance with diligent and careful self-application, success is guaranteed to him by Vedanta. In short, the opening stanza is a Call to man to throw his lethargy, his dejections, his sentiments and self-pitying attitude, and to wake up to face life and through understanding grow fast to reach the Goal here and now.
दुर्लभं त्रयमेवैतद्देवानुग्रहहेतुकम् ।
मनुष्यत्वं मुमुक्षुत्वं महापुरुषसंश्रयः.॥३॥ durlabham trayamevaitad devānugrahahetukam manusyatyam mumuksutvam mahāpuruşasamśrayah 3.
दुर्लभम् - rare ( to obtain ), त्रयम् - three, एव - verily, एतत् - this , देवानुग्रह हेतुकम् - caused by the grace of the Lord, मनुष्यत्वम् - man-hood, मुमुक्षुत्वम् - a burning desire for liberation, महापुरुषसंश्रयः - refuge of a great man of wisdom.