Today’s Class on Aparokshanubhuti

So, here I am again, a student of Advaita Vedanta, a student of self-realisation and liberation. To talk about it, and I’ll be honest, I listen to all the lectures with rapt attention, however, whenever I take a step into my usual life, I tend to get back to my normal self that operates from the place of the body and the mind. 

Now, to prevent me from that and to immerse myself into deep knowledge, I am striving to intensify my practices, have a firm belief in the teachers - Swamiji and Adi Sankara, and also myself. A rigorous practise that I’ve been following is to remind and repeat to myself that I am not this body and mind and that the purpose of this life is to understand the true potential of the real self…

As I had mentioned in my previous blog, there are some qualifications required for this path of knowledge, which are Viveka, Vairagya, Shama, Dama, Uprati, Titiksha, Shraddha, Samadhana, and Mumukshuttam. I had discussed their role and meaning quite vividly in the last blog. 

Swamiji stated that these qualifications appear in themselves automatically when one is efficient in one, and all these appear to be causal and that they present themselves one after the other, meaning they are interconnected. 

In today’s class, we learnt about the essence and importance of knowledge, which is quite important to dismiss ‘Avidya’ or ignorance, about our real selves. Out of all the classes, one thing I’ve realised is that when you’d actually feel the concepts deeply, you can feel and also see yourself transcending towards a different plane - a higher plane. I can speak for myself that after every class, I feel my senses numb, and it takes quite some time for me to come back to my senses…

Today was no different, and this was just a few minutes before I started writing this blog, and the same numbness was back. Someone from the audience had asked about the importance of Shraddha or faith, as not everyone would have the same, and it entirely varies from person to person. Swamiji mentioned that when an individual takes lessons on UPSC and any other competitive exam, he doesn’t doubt that his teacher is unaware of the topics that he’s teaching. 

Similarly, we must have an intrinsic faith in our teacher here and have the firm belief that he is going to guide us through. Having said that, Swamiji says that Vedanta isn’t necessarily just centered around blindly following what the teacher says, and acting accordingly, but also realising the reality with the self, perhaps with every breath. 

As I listen to this, I feel like a thunder current passes through me, as if there is a hand guiding me towards reality...

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