<center><b>Preface</b></center><p>
From times immemorial man is trying to find out Reality, Truth or God. Various people have tried to seek through idol worship, prayer, medi-Him in various ways tation, Japa and rituals. Most of the seekers fail in their endeavour and are living a life full of fear, anger, conflict, frustration, occasionally punctuated by fleeting pleasures.<P>
Most of them have failed and failed mainly because they tried to reach God through symbols and through effort. Both symbols and effort ultimately mean thought and time. All the places of worship with their idols and rituals be Reality. and all the paraphernalia of organised religions are nothing but symbols, which are supposed These seekers think that through these symbols they can to reach Reality. Thus they mistake the symbol for Reality.<P>
the Maha-are in fact the Vedas, the Gita, All the scriptures bharata, the Ramayana, the Koran, the Bible words. Words, however lofty they may be, are nothing but symbols. They in themselves are not Truth. Just as the word 'cow' is not the actual cow or the 'God' is not God Himself, symbols, however venerable, are not the actual Reality. Words at best are like a finger pointing to the moon, but in course of time we begin to regard the finger as the actual moon. Eckhart is reported to have once said: "Why do you prate of God? Whatever you say of God is untrue." The great Chinese Saint, Lao Tze, when compell-ed by the emperor to write whatever he knew about truth, said: "Truth cannot be said in words and that which can be said in words is not Truth." In Brahadaranyaka Upanishad also it is said that<P>
एवं वै तमात्मानं विदित्वा ब्राह्मणाः पुत्रैषणायाश्च वित्तैषणायाश्च लोके-षणायाश्च व्युत्थायाय भिक्षाचर्य चरन्ति...<P>
तस्माद् ब्राह्मणः निविद्य बाल्येन तिष्ठासेत् । (III 5.1)<P>
तमेव धीरो विज्ञाय प्रज्ञां कुर्वीत ब्राह्मणः। नानुध्यायाद् बहुञ् शद्वान् वाचो विश्लापनं हि तत्। (IV 4.21)
"A brahmin ought to grow disgusted with all his wis-dom and lead a life of childlike simplicity; behaving in quietistic life, he should not give himself to so many words for that is verily a weariness of the flesh."<P>
In fact without Self-knowledge whatever one does in the name of religion is nothing but illusion and an escape from oneself. Mundaka Upanishad declares that<P>
न चक्षुषा गृह्यते नावि वाचा नान्यैर्देवस्तपसा कर्मणा वा । ज्ञानप्रसादेन विशुद्धसत्वः तदस्तु तं पश्येते निष्फलम् ध्याय मनः ।। (III 1.8)<P>
"It is only when a perfect Catharsis of the whole moral being takes place by the clearness of illumination that one is able to realise the immaculate God after meditation, for He can be attained neither by sight nor by word of mouth, nor by any sense, nor by penance, nor by any action what-soever." Our so-called religious life wholly centres round words and symbols and hence we never come face to face with Reality. In our daily life just as we learn gradually some art, craft or language through time, so do we feel that by constant effort we shall in course of time reach Reality. However, we fail to realise that in the psycho-logical field there is no time. In Yoga Vasishtha, Vasishtha explains to Sri Rama: "Time and Space, O Ram, are thoughts. It is upon thought that their existence depends." Once somebody asked Christ what would be the most important thing in his Father's Kingdom. Christ replied: "There shall be time no longer." If time has no existence, one cannot change oneself through time. If we are egoistic, we cannot get rid of our ego by effort, i.e. through time, because the maker of the effort is ego itself. It is obvious the ego cannot get rid of itself by itself.<P>
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