Swami Prajnanapada
R. SRINIVASAN
Talks with Swami Prajnanapada
Compiled by R. Srinivasan
ELEMENT BOOKS © R. Srinivasan 1977
If one were to discard all that has been assiduously built up over the years, one may feel that there is nothing left, and that he is all at sea.
He may be bewildered by the emptiness all round.
But one is not to give up in dismay.
He must boldly start afresh and build up his personality, brick by brick, on the strength of solid and irrefutable evidence.
He must have faith in himself, that he can know the truth first hand and then start with a drive and determination.
He must calmly assess what is.
What is it that he knows as distinguished from his beliefs?
What are his direct experiences?
He must sift them from the hotch-potch of an unidentified mass of opinions and beliefs taken from the outside.
Retain them if they are true, and if they are facts of his knowledge and experience.
Brush them aside if they are untested.
Then, with the core of ideas, emotions and actions that remain, he must begin to build the superstructure, little by little, adding only his own experience and direct knowledge and rejecting all spurious stuff, i.e. he must examine every new idea that comes, scrutinize it carefully and then accept it only if true.
This is re-education.
So de-education first and re-education next is the order.
You can never build on the old structure.
If you do, one day everything will come down with a crash.
So don’t have a soft corner for any of your pet ideas and prejudices.
They should all be thrown out lock, stock and barrel.
Then you must lay the foundation for the new building.
Only bricks hot from the oven of experience and knowledge must be used.
They must stand the test of strength and durability.
They must be based on truth.
Bricks must be brought from the direct experience of the senses – Pratyaksha.
They may be supplemented by the bricks from the shop of reasonableness – Anumana.
They should be completed by the bricks from the store of intuition.
A citadel built on such sure foundation cannot but last, cannot but stand the test of time and cannot but radiate knowledge and happiness all around.
Swamiji's Sayings
Let another make any statement he pleases.
You are not to say anything unless asked and in good faith.
To know is to be!
Unless one can act according to knowledge, such knowledge is partial and superficial.