Talk On Vivek Chudamani

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

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The very conversational style relieves the monotony of the philosophy and brings into its arid fields the touch of the human heart and the thrills of a warm pulsating life. An ignorant student reaches a Seer who is the fountain of Knowledge, and through a process of discussion, tries to attune himself with his teacher, and thus walks out of his own dark ignorance into the brilliant fields of the master's sunlit court-yards.
It is evident that a silent student sitting .mum like a stone-carving in front of the greatest teacher, for the longest period of time, cannot gain any development out of such a stony contact! The student has to rub his ideas and thoughts against the experienced heart and head of the teacher, and thus gain for himself a polish and a fragrance, at once Divine and Perfect.' Discussion is the pulse of a Satsang.
The Rudrākşamāla on the bosom of Sankara remained nearest to the heart of the great philosopher all his life, and kept company with him for a greater period perhaps, than his disciples, Throdaka and Sureswara ever could. But both these disciples have been immortalized, and so long as we remember Acharya Sankara, we shall, with equal devotion and reverence, remember these two men not merely as disciples of the Acharya but as God-men themselves. The poor Rudraksa Māla!
The stones in the inner walls of the Sanctum Sanctorum in the greatest temple known, that stay always facing the Lord, remain ever as silicon even after thousands of vea while hundreds of devotees who come to stand for a few moments in front of the altar and react with the divine atmosphere get themselves lifted from their sense of finitude and go away enveloped in the joys of a greater existence lived out of a fuller evolution experienced.
It is unavoidable that mentally and intellectually, we must come to wrestle with the mind and intellect of the master so that we may develop within a rounded health and an inward beauty of symmetry and vitality. Vivekachudāmani, written throughout in a conversational style, is thus, a great message to the world of seekers.