Dr. Vijai S Shankar MD.PhD.
Published on www.academy-advaita.com
The Netherlands
14 March 2018
The Unknown
“Intelligence in life”
Life is full of paradoxes. Human beings live these paradoxes without understanding them. Man and woman take the paradoxes for granted and are convinced that they can control life.
Paradoxes are contradictions when they are understood superficially. When the paradoxes are understood deeply, wisdom is revealed. Life is full of paradoxes and one of them is: The only constant is change, and this appears contradictory.
But, with deep understanding that every atom of every speck of everything that exists is in constant movement, because atoms move constantly, they change their position. Therefore, the wisdom of the paradox reveals that the only constant is change.
Yet another paradox is: The known comes from the unknown. This appears contradictory on the surface but, if you look deeper, the wisdom is revealed of the paradox.
The wisdom of the paradox is that the unknown is known through the known, even though the known comes from the unknown. So what could be the understanding of this wisdom?
Everything that is known, which comes from the unknown, is made up of atoms. Now atoms are light. Since the known comes from the unknown, it signifies that the unknown is light and the unknown is known because of the known.
Since everything that is known is intellectual, it signifies that the intelligence in life is unknowable that gives rise to the known. As the known is knowable, it signifies that the unknown or the intelligence in life gives rise to the known. The intelligence in life, which gives rise to the known, is known as light because of the known.
One of the concepts of spirituality is not only to attain, but also to know the unknowable through spiritual practices. Now every spiritual practice is the known. Therefore, what humans will come to attain and know through spiritual practices would come from the unknown and not from the unknowable.
This signifies that the intelligence in life, which is the unknown, is unknowable and unattainable as well by humans. Furthermore, as man and woman come to know only from the unknown, it implies that man or woman will come to realise even the intelligence in life or the unknown, if they are meant to realise.
The enlightened have rightly proclaimed that man is not the doer and life will go the way it is meant to go by the intelligence in life, which is the unknown.
Author: Dr. Vijai S. Shankar
© Copyright V. S. Shankar 2018
Editor’s Note:
Spiritual practice, as it may be known, is a mark of human endeavour in communities throughout the world. It is offered by the intelligence of life as a focus that may provide reassurance and stability. It has also become an opportunity for the ego to derive fame and fortune. So be it. The goal for these practices may be referred to as self-realisation, bringing with it the promise of liberation from the human condition. So be it. The deep understanding of the wise, however, reveals in this article that realisation is not the product of any human endeavour.
Julian Capper, UK.
German Translator’s Note:
Man wants to know what happens in the future. So that he can plan, can look forward to something beautiful or feel safe. For example, if you wait after a job interview on the call of the company in which you have applied. One would like to have the acceptance or refusal quickly in order to know his future, to be happy and to be able to plan better. But life has given the known about the future only as an illusion. That is, the future will always remain unknown to man, because what is known about the future is never real, even is you think that you know it with certainty. The future is the illusionary known in the now of the mind. In the timeless Here and thoughtless Now is the unknown, eternally unpredictable life as it is. Anyone who understands this waits patiently for the arrival of knowledge about the future, which happens precisely and never unpunctually. This wise man and woman is free from the known in the mind, whatever it is, and lives the unknown as it is.
Marcus Stegmaier, Germany.