Oil Lamp

07/07/08

 The oil-lamp has a great lesson for us.  The wick gives out light and dispels darkness. The light is what is manifest to us.  But we normally even do not think of the oil without which the wick cannot burn. That oil is the unmanifest. The lesson is that the manifest is not possible without the unmanifest. But note that the wick would not shed light if there be water in the lamp instead of oil. So also the light of knowledge would not be emitted if the wick of the mind is immersed in the water of ignorance.  The water and even the wetness has to be fully viped off, and oil filled in, to enable the wick to light up.Thus one has to get a correect grasp of what the  Unmanifest is.

    The Unmanifest can exist without the manifest, but the manifest cannot without the Unmanifest.  In this world, whatever we perceive, from thoughts that sprout in our mind, the functions of our sense-organs, the movements of our body, to the numerous activities in world outside, and the myriad interactions between individual and universe, and even the thought of the so-called Creator .... all these fall in the category of the manifest.The oil-lamp tells us that for the existence and sustenance of the manifest, there must be the silent invisible 'Unmanifest', without which all that is manifest is impossible. That Unmanifest is the Brahman the Supreme Being.

Call it by any name 'Atman' or 'Suth and Chit' etc. It can be seen that Karma is manifest but Gnyaana is Unmanifest. All names, forms anhd attributes are manifest, for which there should be the Unmanifest underlying it. On deeper reflection, the Sages and Seers of Bharat realised that ultimately, it is the Unmanifest alone that merely appears as the manifest. The Unmanifest is the Truth Eternal. All else appears, but is transient and on deeper analysis, an illusion, make-believe, like Conjuror's (Jadugar's) wonderful manifestation !  That is the essence of Advaita. The Unchanging Eternal alone appears as the ever-changing.

     Well, that is some food for thought !  The quest for Truth, the supreme ideal
of our life, to attain the Existence-Consciousness-Bliss state.