Book Title: World of Philosophy
Author(s): Christopher Key Chapple, Intaj Malek, Dilip Charan, Sunanda Shastri, Prashant Dave
Publisher: Shanti Prakashan
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doer-ship (kartrtva), knower-ship (jnatrtva), enjoyer-ship (bhoktrtva), and plurality (bheda) responsible for bondage and transmigration, are implicit in these subconscious impressions. Therefore, these impure impressions which give rise to the feeling of finitude and the personality of an individual must be obliterated and the mind annihilated, if bondage is to be terminated and liberation attained.
According to Advaita, the impure impressions of the life of the lower self can be eliminated from the mind by the implantation of the pure impressions of the life of the higher self, e.g. discrimination (viveka), dispassion (vairagya), meditation (dhyana), desireless action (niskama-karma), fortitude (titiksa), equanimity (uparti), control over the senses (sama), restraint over their activity (dama), etc. The virtues of the life of the higher self are encompassed by the fourfold preliminary discipline - sadhana-catustaya, and the threefold final discipline of sravana, manana, and nididhyasana. In this way, the inferior and binding emotions of the lower life are substituted with, and sublimated by, the cultivation of their opposites - the superior and liberating emotions of the higher life. Thus, substitution and sublimation of ideas, through the entertainment of their opposites adopted in psychology, to rid the mind of its unwholesome tendencies, are implicit in the ethical preliminary and the final disciplines of Advaita. The preliminary and the final disciplines are the stipulated intellectual and spiritual exercises which psychologically prepare a seeker for intuiting the subtle Self.
In a seer (sadhaka) striving for liberation, desire for liberation or knowledge of the Self (jijnasa) becomes the habitual centre of energy with the virtues of the life of the higher self as its allies. Just as the lotus and the pond in which it grows cater to mutual well-being, so also desire for the knowledge of Reality and the virtues of the higher life strengthen each other.8 According to Sankara, virtues and edifying thoughts flourish in a mind where dispassion and desire for liberation (mumuksutva) are intense (tivra), and erelong fructify in realization of the Self.9 When the impressions of the life of the higher self are implanted in the mind, the impressions of the life of the lower self which conduce to wickedness and vice fade away from the field of consciousness, and desire for the Self gets strengthened and occupies the individual's undivided attention. According to Ramarayakavi, "the desire to know Brahman, which arises when one fulfils the fourfold means to eligibility is intense, it ceases to exist only when Brahman, the object of desire, is realized. So the intense desire, to know Brahman (brahma-jijnasa), which is the motivatory force, impels the eligible candidate not only to undertake the inquiry into the Vedanta but also to pursue it till the goal is reached."10
In the mind of a bound individual, the complex of plurality and the edifice of personality are founded on ignorance sustained by he bricks of the loka, sastra, and deha-vasanas responsible for the attitude of agency, knower
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