The Absolute And The Relative

Swami Krishnananda The Absolute And The Relative

SRI SWAMI KRISHNANANDA

The comedy of the soul’s eternally communing itself in the Glory of the Kingdom of God, Brahmaloka, is well known to have turned into an apparently tragic circumstance of the soul dissociating itself from that Universal Glory by means of an inscrutable tendency to self-affirmation alienating the soul from its organic integratedness with the Universal Life. This situation has been traditionally declared as an epic fall of the soul headlong in a topsy-turvy way into the vast sea of the turmoil of it being necessary at that time to visualize the universal existence as an external world of perception and to consider every other soul as a socially disconnected entity.

This fall from eternity to temporality is characterized by three torturous features, namely,

The immediate cutting off of the soul from the Universal Sustaining Force;

The consequent fear gripping the soul with hunger, thirst, and a constant apprehension of all-round insecurity;

A permanent involvement of the soul in a perpetually unreliable and suspicious relationship with the outer society of similar souls. It looks as if death yawns with its open jaws, dread in tooth and claw.

In this threefold blow dealt to the soul simultaneously from three different directions, which is virtually from every direction, the soul loses itself practically in entirety. Added to this, there is perhaps, a fourth factor of the external world looking a mightier vastness than the localized individual and it becoming incumbent on every individual to depend in abject servitude on every bit of thing of which the external world consists.

This sorrow of life is attempted to be avoided or at least mitigated by the erroneous effort of the soul to patch up the finitude of its individuality by accumulating and adding accretions from the outer world in terms of material property, social power and aesthetic enjoyment through pleasurable sensations generated by the contact of sense-organs with their corresponding objects in the world. The entire effort ends in utter failure to accomplish anything at all worth the while by this means of an upside-down arrangement to place oneself in a condition of security, power and happiness. This totally mistaken meandering of the soul in a world of such agonizing tribulations has naturally to end in its defeat by the realities of life landing the soul in a helpless cyclic movement, as if it is mounted on a circulating wheel, through an almost endless series of repeated births and deaths. This is a veritable drama of the soul’s movement from sorrow to sorrow in a more and more intensifying manner.

Mankind, today, with all its appurtenances of knowledge and experience gained through historical movement in several thousands of years on this earth, can be said to have learned no lesson at all as to where its true blessedness lies or what are the mistakes that it is daily committing in its life at every moment of time. Humanity’s blunders in its entirely empirical-oriented sense-ground perception of the values of life are as it has been briefly outlined above. If the human individual persists in this kind of thinking and acting inwardly as well as outwardly, such a life of the human individual cannot but be designated as a cauldron of hell-fire, which unfortunately, to the bound individual, appears to be a highly satisfactory state of affairs, because of its dictum, as the poet well said in this context, that ‘It is better to reign in hell than serve in heaven’.

The hope of mankind is not going to be in the continuance of this state of affairs even though it may go on through millions of years of human history. The only way of true freedom and final beatitude is to bring about a transvaluation of values and for the soul to stand erect in right perspective instead of viewing things as though a mirror of reflection or with head below and legs up. The whole situation has to be reconstructed in one’s own consciousness, firstly by not imagining that human society is really external to oneself, that the world is truly outside the process of perception, or that eternity is removed from temporality by spatial distance. This is so because the perception of an external multitude of society consisting of human and other living beings arises on account of the said topsy-turvy perception caused by one’s alienation from the totality of the Absolute. The establishment of oneself in a state of consciousness which stabilizes one’s being in a non-externalized Universal Pure Subjectivity of Selfhood is the final panacea for the sorrow of mortal existence. This is the great meditation in which every soul has to engage itself throughout its career in life. This is the final duty inseparable from man’s aspiration, nay, the only in duty in life.

Swami Krishnananda The Absolute And The Relative

The spiritual teachings presented in Swami Krishnananda The Absolute And The Relative offer a profound understanding of the relationship between the eternal Absolute Reality and the temporary world of human experience. According to these teachings, the soul originally exists in perfect unity with the Supreme Consciousness but gradually becomes identified with individuality, ego, attachment, fear, and material existence. At Devotional India, the wisdom of Swami Krishnananda The Absolute And The Relative is valued for its deep philosophical insight into meditation, self-realization, consciousness, and liberation from suffering.

One of the central ideas explained in Swami Krishnananda The Absolute And The Relative is that human suffering begins when the soul sees itself as separate from the universal reality. This separation creates insecurity, desire, loneliness, selfishness, attachment, and dependence on temporary worldly pleasures. The teachings explain that people continuously seek happiness through wealth, social status, possessions, relationships, and sensory enjoyment, yet lasting peace remains unattained because the true source of fulfillment lies within the Self and not in external objects.

The philosophy of Swami Krishnananda The Absolute And The Relative also emphasizes that the world perceived through the senses is limited by ignorance and externalized consciousness. Because of this misunderstanding, human beings become trapped in conflict, competition, fear, anxiety, and repeated cycles of sorrow. The teachings explain that material success alone cannot solve the deeper problems of existence unless one understands the eternal nature of consciousness and the unity of all life.

Another important teaching found in Swami Krishnananda The Absolute And The Relative is the need for transformation of consciousness through meditation, self-inquiry, Yoga, Vedanta, contemplation, and spiritual discipline. The text encourages seekers to move beyond ego, illusion, and attachment while realizing that the Absolute Reality exists within all beings. Through sincere spiritual practice, one gradually attains awareness of universal consciousness and inner peace.

The wisdom of Swami Krishnananda The Absolute And The Relative also teaches that eternity is not distant from worldly life but hidden behind limited perception. The Absolute and the relative are not truly separate; rather, ignorance creates the appearance of division. Through spiritual awakening and realization of the Self, seekers can transcend fear, suffering, and limitation while experiencing unity with Brahman.

At Devotional India, the timeless message of Swami Krishnananda The Absolute And The Relative continues to inspire seekers interested in Advaita Vedanta, meditation, higher consciousness, self-realization, spiritual philosophy, inner peace, liberation, and realization of eternal truth beyond worldly illusion.

-The Key to Discovery