HOW WE SHOULD APPROACH GREAT TRUTHS

[Ms Tercy Lonan]

73. HOW WE SHOULD APPROACH GREAT TRUTHS
It is good to try to see God in deep meditation. It is good to see Him in a temple, church,
mosque, synagogue. It is good to try to understand Him in the scriptures. But all these are mainly
meant to be a help to generate in you Reality-awareness, the true, clear vision of the truth that you

behold Him in all things everywhere, every day. If these spiritual practices serve that purpose, they
have a place in your scheme of things. If they do not serve that purpose, they are a sheer burden.
Actually, if you think you have done all that is required by meditation in the morning,
studying some scriptures and going to the temple, if these practices have lulled you into a false
sense of piety, religiosity and spirituality—you think yourself as being a right person doing the right
thing—then this is a serious situation. You have to shake yourself out of it, because this is not
dynamic and progressive spirituality. You meditate, read scriptures, listen to discourses, precisely
to understand what it is that you call God.
There was a period and it has not yet gone from me when I never liked to say the word
Brahman. What right do we have to say Brahman? Brahman is That greater than which there is
nothing. Brahman is awesome, the imponderable, before which you are struck dumb; the mind
stops, words fail. When someone chants “Sivoham, sivoham, satchidanandoham (I am That),” I
don’t repeat it. I keep silent. Is sivoham a refrain to be sung? You have to take your bath, purify
yourself, do pranam, pray, purify your heart and feelings. Then, in the secrecy of your own room
you may utter that word.
The more often you repeat such sacred words, then gradually, progressively the less they
mean anything to you. And when great truths lose their meaning to you, then you have to pause,
stop short and ponder whether the practice should be continued. Because when things become
commonplace and lose their meaning and significance, their power no longer has the ability to
transform you. You take it for granted and continue on your usual course.
If you say sivoham, it is nice and comfortable. But what is important is that you try to
gradually go on uplifting your consciousness higher and higher day by day; because it is to raise
your consciousness to that great, sublime height that the truth sivoham has been proclaimed. But
unless it has been Vedantically taught by a fully realised guru and you have been taught how to read
the scriptures, how exactly to interpret and to grasp the subtler than the subtlest inner implication of
such great truths, then the mere articulation of these truths should be studiously avoided. They are
to be pondered in the deep secrecy of your own inner heart.
They say that in order to understand these truths your intellect should be as sharp and
penetrating as the tip of a blade of kusha grass. You have to create that type of deeply penetrating
sattvic intellect through a great deal of devout service, setting aside all pride and vanity, humbly
prostrating at the feet of a guru who has the fitness to teach the truth, questioning him and becoming
fit to grasp these great realities.
Therefore, as we study let us all simultaneously engage ourselves in a purifying and refining
process through prayer and meditation, through paying honour to those who are learned, so that we
become more and more subtle and pure, more and more capable of grasping the inner implications
of these great truths.
And the most blessed of truths, the most important central truth of the experiences of our
great sages is God’s all-unifying presence as a common factor present in all His creation, in all His
creatures, in everything. And it is this that should be made the basis of your life and conduct and

your day-to-day behaviour with others. Then this type of activity itself will become a spiritual
sadhana supporting, augmenting, enhancing and enriching your inner spiritual life.
There should be a perfect concord, a perfect harmony between our spiritual sadhana and our
outer life of being, our moving about in this world and dealing with this world. There should be a
constant effort on the part of the sadhaka to keep up this consciousness of atmaupamya (likeness of
the Self). Then the sadhana becomes not only unified, holistic and integrated, it becomes complete.
Such a sadhana has the great power and potential to gradually take you into a state of
constant God-awareness. And this God-awareness must become to you spontaneous, your second
nature. To this end let us all strive!