|
|
|
|
|
|
|
repeated readings do in fact lead gradually to a clearer understanding; the achieved knowledge is ''all at once," and is not burdened permanently with the arduous slowness of the process of acquiring it. The knowledge of Brahman is gradual not because Brahman is a temporal reality, but because knowledge's venue is textual. Like other acts of reading, the reading of the upanisads generates a knowledge which reaches beyond the texts; but the reading of the upanisads too does not result in an immediate and simple apprehension, because they too are mastered only gradually. Whatever one's theology of Brahman may be, knowledge of Brahman is achieved through the appropriation of upanisadic meaningand that takes time. It requires a bright and patient reader, who is persistent in reading and also able to learn from it, gradually making the transition from the necessary words which speak of Brahman to a pure and simple knowledge of Brahman. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
2. Two Analogies: Music and Yoga |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
I conclude this opening consideration of the location of the reader between the simplicity of knowledge and the temporality and complexity of coming to knowledge with two helpful analogies introduced by the Advaitins. The first, introduced by Vacaspati,
17 is drawn from music: the refinement required to realize the truth of Brahman in the Text is like the refinement of one's ability to hear musical notes: |
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
Just as through the sense of hearing, aided by the impressions brought about by the repetition of the knowledge gained from the science of music, one experiences directly the different musical notes, sadja, etc., in their different cadences, even so the human person, prepared by the impressions brought about by the repetition of the meaning of the Vedanta texts, through the internal organ experiences its own nature as Brahman. (UMS I.1.1)18 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Amalananda comments that just as the gradual mastery of the art of listening to music enables one to hear differently and so to appreciate what one previously missed in music one may have heard frequently, the subtle and unchanging truth of the |
|
|
|
|
|