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Reversion into the Nirguna Brahman To turn
inward is to enact the most radical gesture of fidelity: a deliberate
movement beyond the consolations of samsara, into the unbounded plenitude of
the nirguna Brahman. In the
Vedantic vision, samsara—the apparent world of name, form, and distinction—is
neither wholly illusion nor ultimate reality. It is the limited, refracted
analogue of That which alone is unconditioned. Its multiplicity arises as maya,
the radiant play of appearances, shimmering with provisional reality yet
never touching the essence of Brahman. The jiva of the brahmachari, the individual self of the
seeker of Brahman, is a wave that imagines itself separate. Yet its very urge to turn toward the deep testifies to its
hidden knowledge that it was never other than the ocean. The First Reversion: Visionary Recognition In the
first reversion, the jiva withdraws from the
apparent multiplicity without yet dissolving its locus of perception. Like a
diver who plunges to the threshold of an unplumbed ocean, the brahmachari
descends into the contemplative depth where samsara no longer compels the
mind, but where vestiges of individuality remain intact. Here, the
nirguna Brahman shines through the veil of
perception—ungraspable in essence, yet refracted as insight: ·
A cognition that no distinction is ultimately
binding. ·
A lucidity that perceives samsara not as bondage
but as a partial, shimmering articulation of the one reality. This is
the first recognition, the dawning of knowledge (jnana) that
the surface is not apart from the substratum but a transient configuration of
it. The
brahmachari returns from this contemplative plunge not as a conqueror of
reality, but as one whose awareness has been clarified: who carries back into
samsara the certitude that samsara itself is Brahman appearing as manifold. The Second Reversion: Consummation But the
logic of nonduality is inexorable. Recognition prepares for dissolution. The
second reversion is no longer contemplative but consummatory: ·
The jiva, having
glimpsed the attribute-less nature of Brahman, releases even the last residue
of separateness. ·
The perceiver and the perceived merge. ·
The finite locus of individuality disintegrates
into that which no mind can witness as an object. This is
not annihilation but reversion: the cessation of identification with any
limitation, the return to the Self that was always unconditioned. The final
reversion is not a movement in space or time but the dropping away of the
conceit of difference. Here,
samsara as surface no longer arises even as a reference point. There is no
remaining distinction between the witness and the witnessed, no trace of the
notion I am other. Conclusion The path
of the brahmachari unfolds as a twofold reversion: ·
The first reversion is the luminous recognition
that samsara is only the play of selected analogues of Brahman—a necessary
refraction, but not the ultimate. ·
The second is the cessation of all
differentiation, the unqualified merging into the nirguna—where
no trace of jiva remains to declare attainment. In this
consummation, there is no triumph, no tragedy, no witness left to commemorate
the dissolution. Only the Self remains, indivisible and without attribute. Thus, the
final reversion is not an achievement but the recognition that there was
never, in truth, any descent or return—only Brahman alone, unbroken by
illusion, beyond the reach of mind and word. |