Panchadashi Chapter 9

The absence of Self-enquiry is responsible for bondage. For a qualified seeker, possessing both purity of the mind and focus of the intellect, Self-enquiry immediately bestows Self-realisation and ends the bondage. For seekers who lack the capacity for deep and subtle Self-enquiry, due to the inadequacy of their mind-intellect equipment, Vedanta advocates that they first gain the paroksha-jnana to comprehend the Truth through the teachings of the shastra and the Guru, and thereafter, meditate upon It. Gradually such seekers also gain direct Self-realisation.

In Pancadashi Chapter 9, Dhyanadipa-prakarana (The Lamp of Meditation), Swami Vidyaranya details this meditation in his characteristic logical fashion by explicating the concepts of ‘samvadi-bhrama’ and ‘visamvadi-bhrama’. He delineates how meditation on Brahman, though being a samvadi-bhrama, nevertheless has the capacity to usher in the direct Realisation of the Self.

This album contains discourses by Swami Advayananda, President of CIF, recorded during the webinar satsangs conducted at Adi Sankara Nilayam from July to November 2023.