Preface
--
SAD-VIDYA
सद्-विद्या
--
In my very first visit to श्री रमणाश्रम / Sri Ramanashram in 1984,
I came across this title, and at once noticed how great and important role this short treatise has to play in the life of a seeker.
During the next years I was much fascinated and absorbed in trying to understand the teachings of
Sri Ramana
through His other works like :
Talks, Upadesha-sara, Sad-darshanam, Sri Ramana Gita, Words of Grace,
Crumbs from His Table:
by Ramanananda Swarnagiri (K. S.Narayanaswami Aiyer):
Reminiscences of a devotee who visited
Sri Bhagavan several times during the years 1934 to 1936, and
who noted down instructive conversations and illustrative stories
told by Sri Bhagavanand many more.
--
I don't know Tamil as much so as to read and understand His original works.
But at the same time, I had access to Sanskrit and satisfactory knowledge of English also, which helped me greatly in understanding these books.
The above referred book is though named:
SAD-VIDYA /सद्-विद्या
is the same text Ulladu-Narpadu
(Forty verses on Reality)
that was again translated into Sanskrit by Sri Ramana Himself and given the title :
सद्दर्शनं / Sad-Darshanam.
This little text
SAD-VIDYA / सद्-विद्या
was later on translated into Sanskrit by K.Lakshman Sarma.
K.Lakshman Sarma. translated and wrote the whole text of SAD-VIDYA / सद्-विद्या into Sanskrit, giving it the title :
REVELATION.
Yesterday I was glancing through this and felt the book was presented in the fashion of and on the lines of
अद्वैत बोध दीपिका / advaita-bodh-dipika.
another famous text on Vedanta.
--
Presenting here;
The Preface of
SAD-VIDYA / सद्-विद्या
written by Grant Duff
--
We of the western world have mostly come to regard the mind, mental activity, as the highest possible experience of Reality. True, a few mystics here and there have uttered vague hints as to modes of existence surpassing the functioning of the mind, but even a Boehme, a Swedenborg, speadily loses himself in a symbolism which leaves the reader nonplussed. Western mystics fly away from us into the empyrean : but the Eastern stands by us to the end, expanding in minute detail the supremely difficult theme of how to acquire liberation from the shackles of flesh. The East has wisdom and is willing to teach if we will hearken.
One of the chief reasons why the whole quest is so difficult from the Western viewpoint is just this : The mind must be used both to illuminate the path and to destroy itself, once this purpose is effected.
To say with the Maharshi in the treatise that "knowledge of diverse objects is ignorance" is to go in the opposite direction to all the teachings we have had from childhood. It is an immense statement and asks elaborate proof if it is to convince. But the mind, here as elsewhere, is our only instrument available for achieving this proof and the first point to realize is that the mind is quite ready and willing to do so, if we will allow it. The mind is like a mirror, ready to reflect whatever is put before it with perfect indifference as to its truth or falsity.
In the twentieth verse of this treatise many readers will be reminded of an utterance of Jesus in the New Testament, though Jesus is neither so explicit nor so scientific as the Maharshi, perhaps because he was addressing an audience that would not have comprehended the basic truth that God is no other than the Self*. Therefore Jesus uses his own name instead of the Self and so satisfies those simple minds with an external object for their worship. But as the Maharshi says here : "The empirical ego falls a prey to the Infinite."
Verse twenty-three contains a profoundly significant statement: "It is not the body which proclaims itself as 'I'." Every baby knows that it is not I when it first comes aware and talks of "baby wants this, baby wants that." Then its elders, far less wise than baby, come and tell baby that baby's body is baby's self, and, hearing nothing but this on all sides, baby becomes more and more convinced of this falsehood, until having attained what are called years of discretion" the baby now a grown man is ready to trounce and denounce anyone who is so bold as to affirm that the body is not the Self, from the belly-band inwards!
Why is this ? Because, as explained in verse twenty-four and following verses, there arises what the Indians call the jiva and we, for want of a single word, the individual soul. It has no reality but is potent as an illusion ensnaring all who have not been enlightened this illusion is apt to persist in some of its many forms varying in mode with each person.
The Maharshi tells us in verse twenty-eight and following verses what to do in order to divest ourselves of the illusion of the individual soul. The reader should especially note, in verse thirty-two, the advice given to aspirants to cease thinking "That I am" (सोऽहं) without at once realising the Self and inhering therein.
The doctrine of Karma is accepted in this treatise for those who remain bound in the trammels of the body, a bondage which endures so long as a man considers himself bound.
Finally, in verse forty, the whole fabric of form and formlessness is hurled to the ground and utterly destroyed with the statement that such thoughts are due to the empirical ego or 'individual soul'. Once we have divested ourselves of this false notion, that is the end of our troubles: Salvation has been found. "Therefore, realize yourself."
Such is the Message of the Maharshi and such is Reality, and such are we all, as soon as we know. But the word 'knowledge' is deceptive as used among us in the West and often denotes mere lip-service without any realization, or at best imperfect realization. Once the path is found it must be followed to the end-which is also the middle and the beginning.
Grant Duff,
26th October, 1935.
SRI RAMANASHRAMAM,
TIRUVANNAMALAI.
-----
प्रज्ञानस्य प्रवेत्तारो वाच्यमर्थं मनो विदुः।
अर्थं तु लक्ष्यं हृदयं हृदययान्नापरः परः।।
[The deeply learned ones know the mind as the directly expressed meaning of the supreme knowledge. The Heart is the meaning aimed at. The Supreme is none other than the heart.]
*verse 18, chapter 5, Sri Ramana Gita.
--
SAD-VIDYA
सद्-विद्या
--
In my very first visit to श्री रमणाश्रम / Sri Ramanashram in 1984,
I came across this title, and at once noticed how great and important role this short treatise has to play in the life of a seeker.
During the next years I was much fascinated and absorbed in trying to understand the teachings of
Sri Ramana
through His other works like :
Talks, Upadesha-sara, Sad-darshanam, Sri Ramana Gita, Words of Grace,
Crumbs from His Table:
by Ramanananda Swarnagiri (K. S.Narayanaswami Aiyer):
Reminiscences of a devotee who visited
Sri Bhagavan several times during the years 1934 to 1936, and
who noted down instructive conversations and illustrative stories
told by Sri Bhagavanand many more.
--
I don't know Tamil as much so as to read and understand His original works.
But at the same time, I had access to Sanskrit and satisfactory knowledge of English also, which helped me greatly in understanding these books.
The above referred book is though named:
SAD-VIDYA /सद्-विद्या
is the same text Ulladu-Narpadu
(Forty verses on Reality)
that was again translated into Sanskrit by Sri Ramana Himself and given the title :
सद्दर्शनं / Sad-Darshanam.
This little text
SAD-VIDYA / सद्-विद्या
was later on translated into Sanskrit by K.Lakshman Sarma.
K.Lakshman Sarma. translated and wrote the whole text of SAD-VIDYA / सद्-विद्या into Sanskrit, giving it the title :
REVELATION.
Yesterday I was glancing through this and felt the book was presented in the fashion of and on the lines of
अद्वैत बोध दीपिका / advaita-bodh-dipika.
another famous text on Vedanta.
--
Presenting here;
The Preface of
SAD-VIDYA / सद्-विद्या
written by Grant Duff
--
We of the western world have mostly come to regard the mind, mental activity, as the highest possible experience of Reality. True, a few mystics here and there have uttered vague hints as to modes of existence surpassing the functioning of the mind, but even a Boehme, a Swedenborg, speadily loses himself in a symbolism which leaves the reader nonplussed. Western mystics fly away from us into the empyrean : but the Eastern stands by us to the end, expanding in minute detail the supremely difficult theme of how to acquire liberation from the shackles of flesh. The East has wisdom and is willing to teach if we will hearken.
One of the chief reasons why the whole quest is so difficult from the Western viewpoint is just this : The mind must be used both to illuminate the path and to destroy itself, once this purpose is effected.
To say with the Maharshi in the treatise that "knowledge of diverse objects is ignorance" is to go in the opposite direction to all the teachings we have had from childhood. It is an immense statement and asks elaborate proof if it is to convince. But the mind, here as elsewhere, is our only instrument available for achieving this proof and the first point to realize is that the mind is quite ready and willing to do so, if we will allow it. The mind is like a mirror, ready to reflect whatever is put before it with perfect indifference as to its truth or falsity.
In the twentieth verse of this treatise many readers will be reminded of an utterance of Jesus in the New Testament, though Jesus is neither so explicit nor so scientific as the Maharshi, perhaps because he was addressing an audience that would not have comprehended the basic truth that God is no other than the Self*. Therefore Jesus uses his own name instead of the Self and so satisfies those simple minds with an external object for their worship. But as the Maharshi says here : "The empirical ego falls a prey to the Infinite."
Verse twenty-three contains a profoundly significant statement: "It is not the body which proclaims itself as 'I'." Every baby knows that it is not I when it first comes aware and talks of "baby wants this, baby wants that." Then its elders, far less wise than baby, come and tell baby that baby's body is baby's self, and, hearing nothing but this on all sides, baby becomes more and more convinced of this falsehood, until having attained what are called years of discretion" the baby now a grown man is ready to trounce and denounce anyone who is so bold as to affirm that the body is not the Self, from the belly-band inwards!
Why is this ? Because, as explained in verse twenty-four and following verses, there arises what the Indians call the jiva and we, for want of a single word, the individual soul. It has no reality but is potent as an illusion ensnaring all who have not been enlightened this illusion is apt to persist in some of its many forms varying in mode with each person.
The Maharshi tells us in verse twenty-eight and following verses what to do in order to divest ourselves of the illusion of the individual soul. The reader should especially note, in verse thirty-two, the advice given to aspirants to cease thinking "That I am" (सोऽहं) without at once realising the Self and inhering therein.
The doctrine of Karma is accepted in this treatise for those who remain bound in the trammels of the body, a bondage which endures so long as a man considers himself bound.
Finally, in verse forty, the whole fabric of form and formlessness is hurled to the ground and utterly destroyed with the statement that such thoughts are due to the empirical ego or 'individual soul'. Once we have divested ourselves of this false notion, that is the end of our troubles: Salvation has been found. "Therefore, realize yourself."
Such is the Message of the Maharshi and such is Reality, and such are we all, as soon as we know. But the word 'knowledge' is deceptive as used among us in the West and often denotes mere lip-service without any realization, or at best imperfect realization. Once the path is found it must be followed to the end-which is also the middle and the beginning.
Grant Duff,
26th October, 1935.
SRI RAMANASHRAMAM,
TIRUVANNAMALAI.
-----
प्रज्ञानस्य प्रवेत्तारो वाच्यमर्थं मनो विदुः।
अर्थं तु लक्ष्यं हृदयं हृदययान्नापरः परः।।
[The deeply learned ones know the mind as the directly expressed meaning of the supreme knowledge. The Heart is the meaning aimed at. The Supreme is none other than the heart.]
*verse 18, chapter 5, Sri Ramana Gita.
