Here is a series of blogs we will be publishing from the book, ‘The Power of Prayer’. Prayer is a very personal thing for most of us. We all pray at different altars and with different techniques. There is no right or wrong. But if we understand the various aspects of prayer and its effects, our relationship with God might become stronger. In this blog we look at how the power of invocation leads us to knowing our real Self.
When ignorance is destroyed by the Self-knowledge, the Self stands revealed in its own glory as One-without-a-second, all-pervading and all-full. This act of Self revelation is undertaken and performed by the Lord, the Self, whoever abides in the heart of his devotees. This kindly act of revealing the Self is undertaken in the spirit of compassion – in fact towards Itself. When I am tired of walking during my pilgrimage, I may sit on the roadside stone to rest, out of compassion for myself.
This compassion cannot be directly invoked unless the seeker pays the price of it. It’s daytime when I open the windows of my room, the sunlight “out of compassion” illuminates the room for me. We know that the sunlight has neither the freedom to withdraw this compassion as long as the windows are open, nor has it ability to show its compassion before the windows are opened. In short, the sunlight is “invoked” the moment the obstruction is removed.
Just as darkness is instantaneously removed by the light – however old the darkness might be and however thick its density – so also in one who gains knowledge of the Self, beginningless ignorance (avidya) is at once lifted, and within a lightning flash it ends. When the ignorance is ended there is the immediate appreciation of Truth, the Supreme Brahman.
To those whose ignorance has been destroyed by the knowledge of the Self, knowledge like the sun reveals the Supreme (Bhagvad Geeta V:16)
When a dreamer wakes up he ends his dream personality and discovers himself to be the waker. The waker is never considered as an object obtained by the dreamer on his waking. The dreamer himself transcends the dream world and enters the realm of the waking, wherein he knows himself to be the waker. In the same way, when the deluded ego walks out of ignorance and enters the realm of pure Consciousness, it becomes the Consciousness, which is the Self (Atman). This relationship between the ego and the Atman and the technique of rediscovery of the Atman by the ego are beautifully described by the example given in the verse. Generally students fail to understand how the Self can be experienced when the experiencer, the ego, and the instruments of experiencing have all ended.
Forseeing the possibility, Lord Krishna tries to explain here how, when the ego has ended, knowledge becomes self-evident by the example given in the second line of the verse, “like the sun”. To see the sun we need no other light; to experience the Self we need no other experience. The Self is Awareness. It is the Consciousness. To become consciousness we need to separate consciousness; to know knowledge we need to know knowledge other than knowledge; knowledge is the very faculty of knowing. Similarly, when the ego rediscovers the Self, it becomes the Self.