by

Guru Nitya Chaitanya Yati

The search for certitude is the most universal of all programs. The mark of certitude is the "fact" truth that resides in a conclusion. When we enter the philosophical world we find the reference to the logical truth and the fact truth. One of the old paradoxes given in the textbooks of school philosophy is that of Achilles running in a race with a tortoise. Factually, the slow tortoise can be easily overtaken by the Olympic runner Achilles. Yet logically one can prove that the tortoise cannot be defeated because the tortoise leaves his stationary post before Achilles and, when each of them has covered half the distance, half the distance will remain. The logical conclusion is that half the ground will always remain uncovered; thus the tortoise can never be defeated by Achilles. Even a child knows that this is factually not true. Fact is the basis of action. If you want to be successful in your endeavor, it should be based on fact. Therefore, the certitude you look for should satisfy the norms of a fact. Whatever you search for should have the fact which enables you to accomplish it. A procedure of action can be based on the final conclusion you get. Certitude has to guarantee the factual accomplishment. How many such certitudes are to be looked into? All these searches are happening within the ambit of being - whatever is now and forever. Plurality in being refers to several processes of becoming.

It doesn't matter what the subject matter of search is. From time immemorial millions of forms of becoming have been changing the grouping of those who seek certitude. When a certain formation in arranging a process is adhered to, it is in resonance with the action proposition. In this world we have millions of such approaches to achieve the most successful understanding of the process which will win what one seeks. That means it is a world of multiverses. There are different ways of channeling energy and monitoring the search, making it all quite chaotic. In spite of the chaos, the world is one universe. Hence, we have to find out how becoming is tenable in being and multiverses are tenable in the universe. We can reduce the seeming enormity of this problem by reducing its dimensions or the number of bristling factors it includes. The first problem-solving method is reduction, to delimit possibilities. Each individual wants to enjoy life. The first need of life is nourishment, food. The process of eating satisfies the palate of the eater. That is not the only part. It should have a favorable smell and be handy to be picked up and put in a mouth. We can't eat hard and brittle things like stones or metal. In order for us to process food, it has to be flexible enough to reach our center of digestion for analysis and synthesis. We usually don't take the time to look into all these details. They are taken care of by the unknown. The structural and functional details are already marked out in the unknown from which the known comes.

One has to rely on that unknown entity which has organized every item of life in some useful program. The unknown is like a mother leading her child into his or her new world. It is not like a typical teacher but one who programs things so they can act in a specific way. This is what is called God. To those who understand the known and unknown, the unknown has a great depth and can't be easily observed. Only at a later time can we understand the mechanisms and energies there. The multiverses again and again are made to conform to a central universal pattern. Education begins by recognizing at the rational level how we are led by the irrational, the unknown. Then we come to appreciate the repetition that is happening in the concurrence of events. Slowly we begin to get the idea of law. Mostly law is not known but to some extent we can infer it. We derive an inferential logic out of the perceptual world of objects which gives us an idea or vision. This is called darsana in Sanskrit. Darsana literally means mirror: the mirroring mechanism in the soul or Self, the mirroring mechanism in every sensory faculty of a living organism, the mirroring mechanism of the cosmic power which can be used to infuse cosmic energy into the crude matrix of the world of creation. Recognizing this mirror effect is called darsana.

When you drive a car and look in the rear-view mirror, you can see things coming from behind and then moving away. That enables you to drive safely. There are such mirroring devices in all of us. When you first hear a word, it has to make an image in the logical mirror of your consciousness. Then it builds bridges of relationship between one meaningful group and another. This is collectively called a vision (darsana) of life. The six systems of Indian Philosophy are called the Six Darsanas, six systems of the mirror effect to find truth. A thing is reduced to a small area where the intellect can act upon it with profit. This has been going on for millions of years, in organisms from algae to human beings. A leaf mirrors the photons of the sun to other aspects of the plant through photosynthesis, thus producing nourishment. There are millions of such minute areas of operation. This is the world of multiverses which come together to make the law that is the universe. In all that, there is the need for a center to search for that which has been facilitated by an earlier arrangement. The East-West University of Unitive Sciences is for making that which has been arranged in the world available to those who are far from taking delivery of it. One who owns the right of being a person should not be harmed by what is not available to them in their physical location. Unity should not only be in one's mind, but in the actuality of life. Why is there an East-West University? Because certain things are not available in the East or the West, the North or the South. But a person who is far away should not be hampered by the distance. There has to be a delivery here, now, at once, anywhere in the world. This is not theoretical, but an actualization of fact. That is why fact is the most central area of certitude.

Now everyone is conscious of a cyber-space. Cyber-space has always been there, but human beings have created many boundaries in space and time. So it is now necessary to push away barriers and overcome those boundaries. We need a new concept of space which does not belong to anyone. The East-West University and the Internet serve the same purpose - to help those hampered up until now by conventional notions of time and space. There should be a factual facility, based on education, which is familiarization with the origin, development and elaboration of a theory. In ancient India, two kinds of people were counterpoised and bracketed. One was the king in his court, ruler of the dwellers in his city, the citizens, who conformed to his laws in their civic life. The other was the forest-dweller who was not a citizen or a ruler, but rather could feel "I am monarch of all I survey." The king used to seek out the seer in the wilderness to gain a wisdom he couldn't get in city life. The truth of the city was to keep things in their right place and time. The truth of the one who lived in abandon was the natural truth.

The East-West University was conceived by a seer who lived in the forest and who lived in all the great cities of the world. He saw the complementarity between the rustic and the gentleman. What one has, the other has not. He envisioned a world without prejudices based on history or geography, where people could live as members of one family. There has to be a facilitation between the simple and the complex. We need a way to reach to those who are deprived, abandoned, homeless, those who have been out of touch. We can't think of the government spoon-feeding everybody. We have to be good neighbors, like Jesus said. Narayana Guru said the same thing. This is how we should program the East-West University. Where there is wrong understanding, we need to remove the darkness; we need to know what handicaps us or our neighbor. The East-West University is to know what ails each person, including oneself and how to aid each. We have a wrong proportion of needs and facilities. We need to cut it all into proper proportion. One's immediate life should be reasonable. If you have extra, then you can share. This is the kind of education we can look into. All the theorization has killed the possibility of education. Everything has become fanatical, even the theorization about education. Each person has things in them to benefit the world. We should look for that which is reasonable, meaningful, valuable, precious. It should be at the tip of our tongues, at the tip of our fingers, at the tip of our thoughts, so that we are always engaged in restructuring our lives, making new functions, continuously making our repetitive life anew. Then there is no end to discovery, to making life wonderful and passing it on to others. The goal of the East-West University is to have a knack for finding out that which is new, most interesting, even interesting mistakes.

That is the only way: to revise and restate your life - this is the way to find out the one friend we each have who is always there, God, but we have to understand God as scraped of all religious notions. Nowadays, many devices to aid us are coming from science. For a long time, science was seen as a rival to religion, but we can see that in the search for happiness, for wisdom, for fulfillment, both science and religion aid in the search. Through the computer and the modem, we can whisper the thoughts of our souls and hearts to others, irrespective of distances and differences. Each person is a special world created by a special God. There is no need to think of one big God, there can be many little little gods, participating in the hearts and souls of little things which make the center of life. We each have our own little candle of the Self or soul which illuminates our world. The word and the world are not two. The word of a wise person can have far-reaching implications. The thoughts of a man who loved people, like Narayana Guru, were expressed in his poems in a rhythm and flow of sound which blossoms into a meaning. That is how the world becomes the word and vice versa. We live in the outer sky. There is an inner sky which is holding the outer. That is the secret.

Other Contemplations by Guru Nitya
Gaia Mind	Dialogue	Meditation