Why do we have to learn all these lofty philosophical principles?. Why cant i just live in this world without all these idealistic principles?. Sometimes we do wonder about this. There are two aspects which highlight the importance of this.
1) Our samskara gets purified by having good thoughts and knowledge. Later on when we think these impressions have an influence on the thoughts that arise in our mind. We all know that a thought comes in our mind due to our past actions. Actions create impressions in your mind and they are buried deep within you. These are subtle and never can be seen. A coffee that you took , an ice cream cone that you took or a movie that you watched are create impressions that gets buried in your mind. The net set of all such impressions are called Samskara. These samsakars later on become tendencies or vasanas or urges. Remember we are not doing this consciously . It is happening all the time. It is these vasanas that surface as thoughts or vrittis in your mind. That is why if you do some action willfully and with a ego centric way it is sure to create an impression in your mind. However an action performed in a detached way for the sake of others would produce a good impression. You might have wondered why i am getting a thought now. It is your accumulated karma or samchita karma that has created the samskaras and now surfacing as vrittis. So reading and thinking about good philosophy gives you good samskara which later on influences your mind in a positive way.
2) Second thing about philosophy is that it makes you see the essence of what is going on, so that you are not affected much by it. Consider this . Suppose you are acting in a movie. In that movie you would be killed by a robber. What is that gives you courage to act in the movie. You know the underlying truth. You know that underneath the acting of the scene you are not affected by killing and once the scene is enacted you can come back unscathed. This is the power of understanding paramarthic reality or absolute reality. Understanding this helps you to transact in the world in a easy and relaxed way. You have to transact in the world with the right knowledge about your essential truth. If you dont do this , you would be affected by all the scenes. Note that just because you know that it is an act and not a real thing doesnt prevent you from participating in the movie.
So just like that just because you know the truth about your true self helps you to act out your life smiling at everything. You dont run away from life saying that it is all meaningless.
However it is very important to see how this knowledge applies to our life. If we dont apply it, it becomes just an intellectual exercise. Always think when you read a concept, how this needs to be translated into my own subjective experience.
Vedanta tells us about various orders of reality. One is the vyavaharik reality . This is also called the empirical reality. We see a multitude of names and forms in the empirical world of transactions. We can see lot of ornaments like bangle, ring necklace etc. Are they all various independent entities?For practical purposes yes.A ring is a form that we wear on our finger and it cannot be worn in the neck. So as far as the transactional world is concerned it is different from the necklace. However underneath we know that it is only gold with a particular name and form. It doesn't have more value than its weight in gold. This comes to our mind when the pawn broker , just weighs the ring and tells you that it is such and such weight. You may have an emotional value for the ring. But for the banker it is just gold that he sees. Being dispassionate therefore comes from a true recognition of its absolute reality. The mind would always try to glorify empirical world of names and forms. It would create emotions thoughts memories and lot of paraphernalia around things. The idea is to remember the absolute or paramarthic reality behind the multi varied empirical or vyavaharik reality.
When we look at an object and perceive its presence, we often forget it is only an image of the object that is formed in the mind. Look yourself in the mirror. Do you see yourself?. No. you only see an image of yourself. Just like that when we view an object we only receive a mental image based on sensory perception. It is not substantive. It is only reflexive. What vedanta says is that substantively all are brahman. Only the mental image seems to be something different.
1) Our samskara gets purified by having good thoughts and knowledge. Later on when we think these impressions have an influence on the thoughts that arise in our mind. We all know that a thought comes in our mind due to our past actions. Actions create impressions in your mind and they are buried deep within you. These are subtle and never can be seen. A coffee that you took , an ice cream cone that you took or a movie that you watched are create impressions that gets buried in your mind. The net set of all such impressions are called Samskara. These samsakars later on become tendencies or vasanas or urges. Remember we are not doing this consciously . It is happening all the time. It is these vasanas that surface as thoughts or vrittis in your mind. That is why if you do some action willfully and with a ego centric way it is sure to create an impression in your mind. However an action performed in a detached way for the sake of others would produce a good impression. You might have wondered why i am getting a thought now. It is your accumulated karma or samchita karma that has created the samskaras and now surfacing as vrittis. So reading and thinking about good philosophy gives you good samskara which later on influences your mind in a positive way.
2) Second thing about philosophy is that it makes you see the essence of what is going on, so that you are not affected much by it. Consider this . Suppose you are acting in a movie. In that movie you would be killed by a robber. What is that gives you courage to act in the movie. You know the underlying truth. You know that underneath the acting of the scene you are not affected by killing and once the scene is enacted you can come back unscathed. This is the power of understanding paramarthic reality or absolute reality. Understanding this helps you to transact in the world in a easy and relaxed way. You have to transact in the world with the right knowledge about your essential truth. If you dont do this , you would be affected by all the scenes. Note that just because you know that it is an act and not a real thing doesnt prevent you from participating in the movie.
So just like that just because you know the truth about your true self helps you to act out your life smiling at everything. You dont run away from life saying that it is all meaningless.
However it is very important to see how this knowledge applies to our life. If we dont apply it, it becomes just an intellectual exercise. Always think when you read a concept, how this needs to be translated into my own subjective experience.
Vedanta tells us about various orders of reality. One is the vyavaharik reality . This is also called the empirical reality. We see a multitude of names and forms in the empirical world of transactions. We can see lot of ornaments like bangle, ring necklace etc. Are they all various independent entities?For practical purposes yes.A ring is a form that we wear on our finger and it cannot be worn in the neck. So as far as the transactional world is concerned it is different from the necklace. However underneath we know that it is only gold with a particular name and form. It doesn't have more value than its weight in gold. This comes to our mind when the pawn broker , just weighs the ring and tells you that it is such and such weight. You may have an emotional value for the ring. But for the banker it is just gold that he sees. Being dispassionate therefore comes from a true recognition of its absolute reality. The mind would always try to glorify empirical world of names and forms. It would create emotions thoughts memories and lot of paraphernalia around things. The idea is to remember the absolute or paramarthic reality behind the multi varied empirical or vyavaharik reality.
When we look at an object and perceive its presence, we often forget it is only an image of the object that is formed in the mind. Look yourself in the mirror. Do you see yourself?. No. you only see an image of yourself. Just like that when we view an object we only receive a mental image based on sensory perception. It is not substantive. It is only reflexive. What vedanta says is that substantively all are brahman. Only the mental image seems to be something different.
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