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<p align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:center; line-height:150%;margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0"><b
style='mso-bidi-font-weight:normal'><span style='mso-bidi-font-size:14.0pt;'>
<font size="4">Beyond Vedanta</font><o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<div class=Section1>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><i><span style='mso-bidi-font-size:
14.0pt'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></i></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span style='mso-bidi-font-size:
10.0pt'>THE first step in the spiritual life is the Vedantic experience that
the world is an illusion, an absolute illusion. Rather it is the Buddhist
experience of <i>nihil, </i>nothingness, extinction that is the first step, the
very basic realisation of all spiritual life. It is not the summit – the <i>nee
plus ultra</i></span><i><span style='mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt;font-family:
"Arial Narrow"'>, </span></i><span style='mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt'>beyond
which there is nothing – but it is the very foundation, the absolute minimum </span><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt'>of spirituality – sine </span><i><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt'>qua non,</span><span style='mso-bidi-font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:"Arial Narrow"'> </span></i><span style='mso-bidi-font-size:
11.0pt'>without which it is not. The one </span><span style='mso-bidi-font-size:
10.0pt'>experience with which you start your spiritual journey is the total
negation of whatever exists, reducing existence to zero: world-existence being equated
with Ignorance. Life is a <span class=GramE>false­hood,</span> one has to
reject it outright. The next step in Vedanta would be, when you have eliminated
everything, reduced all to zero, to contemplate, to find what remains, the
irreducible reality – the unity, the One, Sat, Brahman.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.0pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt'>First, then, the total and absolute
dissolution of this creation of ignorance, the Creation which is ignorance, and
attaining a status of nothingness, absolute annihilation, then in that blank
void emerges the Residue, the One True Reality – a silent, infinite eternal
immobility, a pure Existence. In the beginning the Non-Existence (<span
class=GramE>Asat</span>), then there arises the Pure Existence (Sat). That pure
Existence is gradually found to possess or be Delight also. As <span
class=GramE>Being</span> is not the being in creation even so the Consciousness
is not the normal or mental consciousness, and Delight too is not the joy of life;
they are all of quite another quality and category.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:11.0pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt'>In other words Purusha is given the exclusive
reality, while Prakriti is negated, being identified with unconsciousness and ignorance,
is relegated to a status of relative reality. Prakriti is considered as <i>maya,
</i>the illusory consciousness, the ignorance.</span><span style='mso-bidi-font-size:
10.0pt'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center;line-height:150%;
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<span
style='font-size:10.0pt;'>Page – 181<o:p></o:p></span></p>

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<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span style='mso-bidi-font-size:
10.0pt'>Purusha is the Brahman, the Conscious Being, <span class=GramE>the</span>
One Absolute Pure Reality.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:11.75pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt'>The Tantra comes next in the scale. Tantra
does not consider Prakriti as absolutely separate from Purusha and opposite in
character. Prakriti is not unconsciousness (Achit); it is instinct with
consciousness. Indeed Prakriti as conceived by Sankhya or Mayavada is only a
lower formulation, an inferior aspect of the higher Prakriti which is one with
the higher Purusha, Purushottama. Tantra worships the higher Prakriti as Para­shakti,
the Divine Mother who holds in herself the supreme Purusha. The world is
created and exists not by the power of Maya but by the formative power of the
Mother, which was the original meaning of the word 'maya', the Divine Maya. The
Divine Mother creates the world and maintains the world in the Delight of her
Conscious Existence. She is the Supreme Consciousness (Chinmayee)<span
class=GramE>,</span> she is the Power of Delight (Hladini Shakti).<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:11.75pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt'>The whole bifurcation between Tantra and
Vedanta hinges upon one point. The Vedanta overlooked one term of the Truth and
missed thereby a whole world of experience and reality. The central term of
Vedanta is taken as Consciousness, Consciousness pure and simple. It omitted
the fact that Con­sciousness is also Energy. That Chit is Tapas is the central
principle in Tantra. The exclusive stress on Chit, Pure Consciousness, led to
the realisation of the Pure Purusha as mere Witness, Observer, <span
class=GramE>a</span> passive consciousness. Subsequently it was also added that
the Purusha is not merely a Witness, <i>(saksi), </i>but the Upholder
<i>(bharta), </i>even Enjoyer <i>(bhokta) </i>of the world and
creation; finally it was added also that the Purusha may be a creator also <i>(karta),
</i>but all this is somewhat outside the pale of orthodox Vedanta, Mayavada.
Tantra equated Consciousness with Energy; for it Conscious Energy or
Consciousness-Energy is the indivisible Mother-Reality.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:11.0pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt'>The Vedanta ends in <span class=GramE>Ananda,</span>
it is a static unitary Ananda. The Tantra posits a dynamic Ananda, a <i>dual </i>Ananda
between Ishwara and Ishwari, Shiva and Shakti. The Vaishnava takes a further
step and transmutes Ananda into Love, a terrestrial humanised love.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:10.55pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt'>An earlier form of this humanised love was
given in Buddha's Compassion. The transcendent Delight (Ananda)</span><span style='mso-bidi-font-size:
10.0pt'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

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<span
style='font-size:10.0pt;'>Page – 182<o:p></o:p></span></p>

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<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span class=GramE><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt'>was</span><span style='mso-bidi-font-size:
10.0pt'> made terrestrial and human in Buddha. But Buddha's compassion was a
universal feeling and had no personal frame as it were. Vaishnavism gave it a
personal frame and a human form. Radha and </span><st1:place><span
 style='mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt'>Krishna</span></st1:place><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt'> are not figures of an allegory but concrete
realities. Vrindavan is not merely the land of heart's desire, a garden of
paradise but real habitation in a real and concrete consciousness and life. The
human frame assumed by Radha and </span><st1:place><span style='mso-bidi-font-size:
 10.0pt'>Krishna</span></st1:place><span style='mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt'> is
not merely an assumption, an illusion but an eternal reality in an eternal
domain. The gradation of the spiritual domains is thus sometimes given as (1)
Brahmaloka of the Vedantin, (2) Shivaloka of the Tantrik and finally (3) Goloka
of the Vaishnava.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:11.0pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt'>The relation between the Supreme (over and
above the creation) and the individual in the creation representing the
creation is sometimes described in human terms to give it a concrete and
graphic form. This relationship characteristically indicates the fundamental
nature of the Reality it deals with. Thus in the Vedantic tradition the Supreme
is worshipped as the Father <i>(pita no <span class=GramE>asi</span>). </i>It
is also a relation of Master and disciple, the leader and the led. <i>Ii </i>brings
out into prominence the Purusha aspect of the Reality. In the Tantra the
relation is as between Mother and child. The supreme Reality is the Divine
Mother holding the universe in her arms. The indi­vidual worships and adores
the Supreme Prakriti as a human child does. The Vaishnava makes the relation as
between the lover and the beloved, and the love depicted is intensely vital and
even physical, as intense and poignant as the ordinary ignorant human passion.
It is to show that the Love Divine can beat the human love on its own ground,
that is to say, it can be or it is as passionately sweet and as intensely
intimate as any human love. It is why Bhakta Prahlad said to his beloved Vishnu
&quot;O Lord, what ordinary men feel and enjoy in and through their physical
senses, may I <span class=GramE>have</span> the same enjoyment in and through
Thee.&quot;<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:11.75pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt'>Still the Vaishnava love in its concrete
reality is a mani­festation in a subtle world, the world of an inner physical
consciousness.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:11.5pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt'>Therefore one more step has to be taken when
the Divine Love will incarnate in its integral and absolute reality upon this
physical earth in a concretely material frame.</span><span style='mso-bidi-font-size:
10.0pt'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

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<span
style='font-size:10.0pt;'>Page – 183<o:p></o:p></span></p>

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