Talk On Vivek Chudamani

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

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ब्रह्म - The Brahman, सत्यम् - real, जगत् the phenmenal world, मिथ्या - unreal, इति - thus, एवं रूपः this conclusion, विनिश्चयः - a firm conviction; : - that, अयम्- this, नित्य अनित्य वस्तु विवेक : - as discrimination between the neal and the unreal, : - is considered. A firm conviction of the intellect that "Brahman is real and the phenomenal world unreal" is known as discrimination between the real and the unreal.
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Here we have a complete and exhaustive definition of the faculty of discrimination. As meant here in its application to a student of Vedanta, discrimination is a capacity to know, out of a mixture of things, the real from the unreal. Philosophically, a thing is called the Truth or Reality when it is changeless and ever-present.
Just as scientists are enquiring about the fundamental in life through the analysis of things of the outer world, so too, the scientists of the inner world-the Rishis-tried to understand the fundamental life in us. When we say the fundamental, it means in its application that it is the one Truth factor which is changeless and ever-present in all, at all times. When we thus enquire into and try to understand life in its pure essence, we come to experience that Life which is ever-present everywhere, that universal Factor called the Ground is what is meant by the word 'Brahman' in Vedanta.
To come to a logical understanding and to arrive at a complete intellectual appreciation of the fact that this Permanent alone is the ever-existent, the changeless, the formless, and, therefore, the Immortal, is to understand at once that the fundamental factor, Brahman is the Real and the world of plurality, that we cognise now, is unreal, meaning imperfect a magnificient and wondrous manifestation into changeable commodity, impermanent and joyless. To build up life in this correct perspective and to order our existence on the basis of this value is called Viveka in Vedanta.
तद्वैराग्यं जिहासा या दर्शनश्रवणादिभिः । देहादिब्रह्मपर्यन्तेह्यनित्ये भोगवस्तुनि ॥ २१ ॥