Discrimination
| The power of discrimination, (viveka, as they call it in Sanskrit), is for one purpose: to be able to discriminate between the changing and the unchanging, to discriminate between the relative and the Absolute. The Absolute is our real essence, it is changeless. All change is but a manifestation of the changeless. When you combine in your life the values of both changelessness and change, then you live a full life. You do not live a full life now. But those of you who have started on the path of self-integration, employing conscious effort in daily living, will reach that point where all of life is joy. Then even if you feel pain, you will see that you are involved in a universe which is composed of pairs of opposites. Pleasure, pain; heat, cold; sun, snow: we will always have these pairs. But once we realize the value of pain and pleasure, then neither of them will affect us. |
True discrimination comes only when one can really be silent within oneself.
It is your free will, your choice, to decide what to accept and what to reject.
Acquire knowledge by all means, but sift it; throw away that which is not necessary. Take the
essence.
The more sensitive you become in the perception of good things, the more will you be able to
perceive the bad things.
There is no use trying to analyze the mind to find discrimination. Analysis is not the same as
discrimination, because all forms of analysis are biased and patterned.
Knowledge is a word that has been so misunderstood! Knowledge is an accumulation of various
facts which can be found in any good encyclopedia. We want to go beyond knowledge and into
the realm of wisdom—that is something different from knowledge.
The purpose that the intellect must really serve is not to make various deductions, but to make
a very simple discrimination between what is right and what is wrong. If you have awakened the
superconscious part of yourself, you will find that all the decisions you make will automatically
be right.
The human being must experience what life is all about, and what Divinity is all about.
Philosophy and discrimination cannot touch this experience: It is like explaining color to a
person who is born blind. You cannot explain it.
You can try to explain what the beauty and fragrance of a flower are like, but a person has to
see and smell the flower to know. You can analyze in a laboratory all the chemical components
of sugar, but what do we know of sugar if we do not taste its sweetness? Sugar is there for its
sweetness, not for laboratory examination.
Discrimination plays its part in our life, but discrimination, too, must be discarded at the stage
where love and devotion grow.
It is not necessary to take everything I say uncritically. By all means be critical!—but be critical
with an open mind.
You have been brought up in a certain way of life, and some teachings might seem foreign. If
something sounds foreign, then become critical about it. But criticism must never be destructive
or deriding: that “something” must be accepted with an open mind, and evaluated with
constructive criticism as it applies to your individual self.
This applies not only to the talks I give you, but to all the books you read. You might not
necessarily agree with the author. Often when I read certain passages, for example, I say to
myself, “This is not quite it,” or “This is not so.” But I do respect the understanding that the
author has gained; any author will always find someone who disagrees with his thoughts.
That is why Christ, so beautifully, said, “There are many sheep, but not all are of my flock.”
There was a small village by a river; and on the other side of that river was a city. Every day
people had to travel by ferry boats across the river to go to work.
MORE ABOUT DISCRIMINATION BY GURURAJ ANANDA YOGI
It is your free will, your choice, to decide what to accept and what to reject.
Acquire knowledge by all means, but sift it; throw away that which is not necessary. Take the
essence.
The more sensitive you become in the perception of good things, the more will you be able to
perceive the bad things.
There is no use trying to analyze the mind to find discrimination. Analysis is not the same as
discrimination, because all forms of analysis are biased and patterned.
Knowledge is a word that has been so misunderstood! Knowledge is an accumulation of various
facts which can be found in any good encyclopedia. We want to go beyond knowledge and into
the realm of wisdom—that is something different from knowledge.
The purpose that the intellect must really serve is not to make various deductions, but to make
a very simple discrimination between what is right and what is wrong. If you have awakened the
superconscious part of yourself, you will find that all the decisions you make will automatically
be right.
The human being must experience what life is all about, and what Divinity is all about.
Philosophy and discrimination cannot touch this experience: It is like explaining color to a
person who is born blind. You cannot explain it.
You can try to explain what the beauty and fragrance of a flower are like, but a person has to
see and smell the flower to know. You can analyze in a laboratory all the chemical components
of sugar, but what do we know of sugar if we do not taste its sweetness? Sugar is there for its
sweetness, not for laboratory examination.
Discrimination plays its part in our life, but discrimination, too, must be discarded at the stage
where love and devotion grow.
It is not necessary to take everything I say uncritically. By all means be critical!—but be critical
with an open mind.
You have been brought up in a certain way of life, and some teachings might seem foreign. If
something sounds foreign, then become critical about it. But criticism must never be destructive
or deriding: that “something” must be accepted with an open mind, and evaluated with
constructive criticism as it applies to your individual self.
This applies not only to the talks I give you, but to all the books you read. You might not
necessarily agree with the author. Often when I read certain passages, for example, I say to
myself, “This is not quite it,” or “This is not so.” But I do respect the understanding that the
author has gained; any author will always find someone who disagrees with his thoughts.
That is why Christ, so beautifully, said, “There are many sheep, but not all are of my flock.”
There was a small village by a river; and on the other side of that river was a city. Every day
people had to travel by ferry boats across the river to go to work.
MORE ABOUT DISCRIMINATION BY GURURAJ ANANDA YOGI
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