Dr. Vijai S Shankar MD.PhD.
Published on www.academy-advaita.com
The Netherlands
25th June 2017
Path
“To the truth”
Everyone desires, wishes and wants to know the path to the truth of life or the path to achieve enlightenment. Some believe that there is just only one special path to the truth of life and only one special path to achieve enlightenment.
Others believe that there are many paths to the truth of life and many paths to achieve enlightenment. Similarly, there are some who believe that there are only few paths to the truth of life and only few paths to achieve enlightenment.
This indicates that, in life, apart from the variety of things that exist in life, there is a variety even in the way to know the truth or the way to achieve enlightenment.
The variety in life indicates the intelligence of life and not the intellect of man because, if the variety were due to the intellect of man, he would just make one path either to know the truth of life or the path to enlightenment.
Now, in daily life, there are many other things to achieve besides knowing the truth of life or the path to enlightenment. There are many paths to achieve these many other things in life, because of the variety that exists in achieving other things in daily life.
Again, it is the intelligence of life that makes man achieve the other things in life and the other things in daily life are not achieved by the intellect of man, though man believes that he achieves. He also believes that there is one specific way, few ways or many ways of achieving the other daily things in life, beside enlightenment.
If man were able to make the path to achieve many other things in daily life, he would just make one path and neither few nor many paths. Therefore, the moments when other things in daily life are achieved, the intelligence of life achieves these things on man’s behalf, while man’s intellect makes him believe that he has achieved.
This is obvious because man does not make the moment in life. The moment in life happens faster than man can make the moment. This is because the intelligence of life makes the moment in life and the moment in life is not made by the intellect of man.
This implies that whatever exists within the moment is made by the intelligence of life and not by the intellect of man. The moment includes the achievements of the intelligence of life, which the intellect within man claims it for man on his behalf.
Life that happens to us is the only path that will happen to us. The path is neither right nor wrong. The belief that we each make our path is not true and also we cannot follow another path. This is because the path that unfolds to us by the intelligence of life and not by the intellect of man cannot be other than what it is in the moment.
When understanding happens to us that our own path in daily life, the path to the truth in life, including the path to enlightenment, happens to us from the moment we are born by the intelligence of life and neither by our intellect nor by us, we become patient and begin to trust life.
Author: Dr. Vijai S. Shankar
© Copyright V. S. Shankar 2017
Editor’s Note:
Man is equipped to find his own way in life and is free to adopt whatever beliefs he may to maintain his chosen way. Self-reliance and determination attend him – and so he lives the life that is granted to him. By and by he meets a wise man. By and by through the light of his guidance understanding matures. Such is the intelligence of life.
Julian Capper, U.K
German Translator’s Note:
To ask about the way or path is a normal question in daily life. It applies also to everything man wants to accomplish in his life, such as family, children, house, car or whatever. So there is always a path and the mind concludes that there are right paths and wrong paths, long paths and shortcuts. That life is only one path for everybody is the understanding shared in the wise article “Path“ by Dr. Shankar, and it makes the apparently complicated very simple: Just trust life and flow with your life’s path the way it is meant to unfold.
Marcus Stegmaier, Germany.