Vedanta preaches not so much the negation of the world, as the re-evaluation of things, beings and happenings constituting the world. Generally we perceive our own pet ideas and emotions, coloured by our unsteady understanding and changing emotions. To see the world, not through these equipments, but with the clear eye of wisdom, is to recognise perfection and bliss, divinity and sanctity in the very drab and dreary world of today, amidst its very sorrows and ugliness. Erroneous perception of the Reality, through maladjusted equipments, is the perception of the world, which, in its turn is throttling the individual perceiving it.
When the Pure Consciousness looks upon Itself through the refracting medium of matter envelopments, It perceives, as it were, a world-of-plurality, and the pluralistic world grins and dances, whistles, shrieks and howls — ever ugly, stinking and sweating — according to the maddening changes that take place in the very equipments (FIELD) through which the ego (KNOWER-OF-THE-FIELD) happens to gaze. To re-discover the spiritual Reality, the Supreme Lord, in and through this horrid welter of change and sorrow is to end all our agitations and unprofitable aims and exertions, “FOR HE SEES THE LORD DWELLING IN EVERY PLACE ALIKE.” Such an individual, in his own experienced wisdom, no more suffers from sorrow or fear. When the post is realised, the dread created by the ghost is ended.
HE DESTROYS NOT THE SELF BY THE SELF — Earlier the Lord has explained when exactly the self becomes the enemy of the Self (VI-5 & 6). Whenever the lower ego-centric individuality is not available for sure guidance by the Higher-Principle-of-Wisdom in ourselves, the lower becomes our enemy. When a vehicle is no more under our control, it will cease to be of any service to us and becomes, as it were, an engine of destruction. Similarly, when the lower in us is not available for the guidance of the Higher, the former turns out to be an enemy of the latter. And in an individual who recognises and experiences the one Parameshwara that revels everywhere, the lower cannot fight against or shadow any longer the glory of the Higher.
THEREFORE HE GOES TO THE HIGHEST GOAL — The true nature of the Self remains undiscovered due to the non-apprehension of Reality (ajnana), or due to the mis-apprehension (mithya jnana) arising out of the non-apprehension. The non-apprehension of the one Parameshwara everywhere, makes an individual act in the world in a way which renders him incapable of appreciating the glory of the Self in all other living beings. Thus, he becomes a source of sorrow to the community of living beings around him. The non-apprehension (ajnana) creates a veil because of which, not only do we not recognise the one Eternal Divine everywhere, but we also identify ourselves with the body and the mind, and behave as though they alone are real; in consequence, sensuality, materialistic pursuits, and selfish satisfactions become the only worthwhile objects or pursuits in our life, which we destroy for ourselves and others. The state an individual gains when both these, non-apprehension (ajnana) and mis-apprehension (mithya-jnana) are ended, is that Absolute experience, the experience of the Highest Goal, and therefore, “HE GOES TO THE HIGHEST.”INDIVIDUALS ACT DIFFERENTLY, AND THEREFORE, THE PARAMESHWARA, PLAYING BEHIND EACH INDIVIDUAL MUST BE A SEPARATE SELF. TO CONTRADICT THIS CONCEPT OF PLURALITY IN THE SELF, IT IS SAID: