Let us continue the contemplation on Mandukya Upanishad and Omkara Meditation.

How does the teaching of Upanishads and Omkara Meditation help you?

Omkara is the supreme sound that has an ability to remove the ignorance in you. As told earlier all of us suffer from the sense of limitedness, Upanishads teach you, ‘you are not limited you are unlimited’. Upanishad teaches you that ‘you are not a human being trying to get a spiritual experience, you are a spiritual being experiencing human body. Because you are in human body you feel limited. Upanishads are trying to remove the ignorance of limitation in us.

There are three ways to understand life. Three ways we can get knowledge

• Pratyaksha – Direct Perception, means ‘by seeing’, sense have a limitation in whatever we are experiencing, beyond a visible spectrum I can’t see, even the same thing is about sound.
• Anumana – Inference, means, ‘I can sit and imagine or visualise that ‘I am unlimited’ can become fantasy, conviction will not come.
• Shabda or Pramana - Words of authority, when the teaching is given with authority, it has the ability to remove the ignorance in you.

Suppose you have a stomach ache and your friend says ‘hey why don’t you take this tablet’ there is no conviction. But when you go to a doctor, and the doctor prescribes the same tablet and you take it and the stomach-ache is gone, because of the conviction in the doctor. So there is a trust in the doctor, trust in the words, faith in the words make a difference.

Words can only teach what I know. For example if I tell a flower, you know a flower so you can relate to it. I just invoked the knowledge of flower which is already there. Similarly if I talk about a tree you can relate to it, because you already know about it. So knowledge can be given only if you have the knowledge of the same thing. Suppose you know French and I know German, then no knowledge transfer can happen.

Then how Upanishads can give the knowledge of infinite. Obviously the knowledge of infinite cannot be given, what Upanishads do, they remove the ignorance what you have, through the authority, through the teachings of enlightened masters, Upanishads and rishis. When the ignorance is removed what remain is the knowledge. Nobody has to give the knowledge the knowledge shines on its own once the ignorance is removed.

Who has the ignorance? The mind has the ignorance, once the ignorance of the mind is removed, the Self shines on its own. Through Omkara teaching the ignorance of the Self is removed and you experience the unlimited.