Vedanta Verses 276 - 77

Point for mananam (reflection)

We believe that the objects of world are for our enjoyment Bhogyam, it is a bhogya padartha and I am the enjoyer the bhokta. Attaching value to the objects I seek my fulfilment there. This enjoyer -enjoyed duality is based on the view that I can gain something from this world. This is called shobhana-adyhyasa. The more value I attach to the objects the more I desire to enjoy. I regard objects as source of my fulfillment and I seek fulfillment though the objects of the world. I do not realize that every pleasure pushes me to self forgetfulness.

The scriptures tell us that the source of our fulfillment is the self, the more we move in this direction the attraction for the objects wear off.


But the objects of the world are jneyam to be known and figured out. The objects are there to be understood rather than enjoyed. The subject, the Self, also is there to be understood, its eternal nature has to be known. We are not karta, or a bhokta but jneyam, something that requires an immediate attention. The emphasis of Vedanta is on jneyatvam ie., on understanding rather than performance or seeing ourselves as a bhokta.

The more we advance in the direction of this enterprise of jneyatvam of the self, quicker will be the cessation or hankering for attractions to the objects. The more we look at the subject as jneya, the object is also ‘known’ and grasped as an error. Thus entire existence is available for knowing.

It is not by our willpower we can get rid of the attraction for objects, but it is by switching our attention from creation to the source of creation that we can hope to get rid of attractions. Subject, the self is the source of all creation. All creation theories are postulated to take us to the subject, the self, like all snake perceptions, however erroneous lead us to the rope perception. Just as the difference between the snake and the rope is absolute, the difference between the subject and the object too is absolute, that is why bhasyakara (shankara) compares them to like light and darkness. Thus with self enquiry the interest one had for objects wears off.

Remaining in the self , making self the only topic, one resolves the mind. All thoughts are traced back to the subject, the consciousness, like all waves are traced back to the water of the ocean.