Talk On Vivek Chudamani

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

Page 94

87
Faith Devotion and the practice of Meditation-these are mentioned in the songs of the Sruti as the chief factors that help a seeker to attain his liberation. Whoever persues these can come to gain his liberation from the bondage of the body which is a projection mysteriously accomplished by his spiritual ignorance.
In the previous stanzas, the 'technique of Vicār' was exhaustively analysed and emphatically insisted upon. The. power to do Vicār, it was shown, is the very fuel which helps the spiritual vehicle to run ahead. What constitute Vicār was also explained. Here, in the stanza, we have got an enumeration of the factors which we must follow strictly and sincerely so that our capacity to perform Vicar may be intensified and the Vicār itself rendered most efficient.
Faith and Bhakti encourage and increase one's meditative poise, and these three together constitute the entire technique of self development, as visualized by the Rishis of old. It is interesting to note how each proceding one strengthens and nourishes each succeeding factor enumerated here. Faith increases Bhakti, and in a man of Faith and Bhakta, meditation is automatic and assured. Herein v must clearly understand Faith in the same sense as it has been described earlier* in this text-book. So also we must not confuse the term Bhakti with its cheap, decadent meaning which, we in our ignorance, have come to give to it. It is to be rightly understoodt as our identification with the great concept or ideal.
When thus we are truly helped by faith and devotion we are able to meditate properly, and through meditation we come to realize our true nature. Having experienced our divine glory we shall no more misconceive ourselves to be the limited creatures as we now understand us to be, because of our identification with the matter envelopments in us.
• "Through a personal judgment to arrive at an independent reasoning,
and accept as true what the scriptures declare and Guru instructs is called
Sradha" --refer Sloka 25. + Ibid-Slokas 31 and 32: "The seeking for one's own real nature as the
Eternal Atman is true devotion".