Vedanta is the Science of Reality. Reality is uncontradicted experience, the experience that is not transcended or sublated by any other experience. Naturally, Reality must be imperishable, for perishability marks a state or a thing as unreal. Imperishability means, at the same time, unlimitedness, for limit is non-independence and non-absoluteness, which means changefulness. Changelessness is the nature of Truth. The world which we live in is characterised by change and destruction. The world includes the individual, also. The body of an individual is a part of the world as a whole. The changing character of the world is kept up by changing events, changing actions, changing thoughts and feelings. Hence, the quest for Reality must necessarily be of a nature quite different from the natural ways of the world. The seeker after the Real has to be specially equipped with the power of separating Truth from falsehood; Reality from the unreal, transient universe.

The change required of an aspirant after the Real is not an ordinary external one, but a total transfiguration of life itself. This extraordinary change in life is hard to be had; the seeker after Perfection is asked to get himself ready for this great change for good.

The immediate reality which presents itself before us is the physical body situated in the physical world. Hence the first discipline required is of bodily actions or karma. Karma has a special significance in religion and philosophy. In addition to service devoid of individualistic motive or desire, karma means the selfless performance of one's own prescribed duty without reluctance or failure. Every person is expected to be either a brahmachari, a grihastha, a vanaprastha or a sannyasi. One should not live, as far as it is within one's capacity, in a stage which is not one of these four. And also, a person can belong to only one ashrama at a time, not to more than one. Performance of one's own duty means the observance of the ashrama-dharma. Nitya and naimittika karmas pertaining to an ashrama constitute svadharma or one's own duty, as far as the Vedanta philosophy is concerned with it. Kamya-karmas are excluded from svadharma.

The rigid observance of svadharma renders the mind pure (shuddha), freeing it from mala, the gross tamas and rajas which are the deluding and the distracting factors in it. The Vedanta prescribes Upasana or the worship of and meditation on the personal God (Saguna Brahman) to those who have thus already purified their nature or attained chitta-shuddhi through nishkama-karma. Upasana removes vikshepa and brings chitta-ekagrata or one-pointedness of mind. It is this prepared aspirant who is qualified with shuddhi and ekagrata of chitta that is required to possess the Sadhana-Chatushtaya, the ethical requisites which are directly connected with the entrance to the main court of Vedanta-Sadhana.

Sadhana-Chatushtaya means the fourfold equipment, the necessary means to brahma-vidya, which removes avarana or the veil of ignorance. The discussion about the adhikari is one of the main subjects in the Vedanta. The first of these sadhanas is viveka or clear discrimination between the Eternal Principle and the perishable universe of names and forms. viveka generally comes through purva-punya or the effect of past meritorious deeds accelerated by the perception of pain and death here. Satsanga is another factor which generates viveka. Perhaps satsanga is the greatest of all the means that transforms a person from worldliness to divine life. Satsanga leads to viveka and vichara, consciousness of the inadequacy of the phenomenal world and enquiry into the nature of Truth.

Viveka creates an indifference to the world and its contents. This supreme indifference born of viveka is the second of the four means, vairagya. True vairagya is the effect of correct discrimination and not of mere failure in life. Real dispassion is the consequence of the perception of the impermanence of things, the falsity of the existence of happiness in objects, the knowledge of the distinction between Reality and appearance. This vairagya reaches even up to Brahma-loka, the highest phenomenal manifestation and discards it as defective. Thus, vairagya is distaste for everything that is objective (including one's own body). It is not possible to love the Eternal as long as there is faith in the impermanent. Immortality and mortality are set against each other. Passion for the world and its objects is op posed to devotion to the Supreme Being, even as darkness is against light. Where the latter is, the former is not. Vairagya is the gateway to the knowledge of what truly is.

The third of the requisites is shatsampat or the sixfold wealth of internal discipline and virtues. (1) Tranquillity of mind (shama) which is the result of viveka and vairagya, (2) Self-restraint (dama) or control of the senses which is the effect of the knowledge of the ultimate worthlessness of the forms of external objects, (3) Cessation from distracting activity connected with the world (uparati), (4) Fortitude (titiksha) or the power to endure the ravages of Nature, like heat and cold, hunger and thirst, censure and praise, insult and injury, etc., (5) Faith (shraddha) in God, Preceptor, Scripture and the Voice of one's own purified Conscience, and (6) One-pointedness of mind (samadhana), i.e., resting of the mind in the spiritual Ideal alone to the exclusion of everything else, are the six spiritual qualities which together make up the shatsampat All these virtues are to be developed on the basis of correct understanding or clarified intelligence and not by mere force. The greater and more purified tile understanding, the more precious and diviner is the virtue.

The last of the four means is mumukshutva or an ardent yearning for freeing oneself from the ignorance of finite life. These are the important conditions that are to be fulfilled by every aspirant after the Absolute Truth, before he actually starts sadhana in its strict sense. It is to be, however, pointed out again, that none of these Sadhanas is to be practised with brute force without proper purification and a brilliant discrimination.

There are certain general principles which every aspirant has to observe before starting spiritual discipline. Otherwise, there is the danger of perverted notions and wrong practice. The purpose of spiritual sadhana is to realise the Supreme Reality and not to attain some psychic Siddhis, as the common aspirant-world would seem to think. For this purpose, it is necessary, in the beginning itself, to know what the purpose of sadhana is, what is meant by God, and what is life.

Life as it is lived here, is a perpetual struggle to acquire happiness, physical and egoistic, through possession of objects, desirable conditions, name, fame, power, worship, exaltation, etc. Every action, speech or thought, whatever be its form, is, consciously or unconsciously, directed towards the attainment of a supreme, unlimited, indivisible form of happiness. This is the final meaning of all desire and love. The aspiration is, no doubt, genuine; but the method through which man tries to win this happiness is foolish, defective and incapable of achieving what it wants to achieve. He is deluded by the desire and love he cherishes for external things. No amount of addition to one's possessions, no amount of fame, respect or power is going to bring the happiness, of which one is really in need. It is everybody's personal experience that what seemed desirable in the past does not appear to be so at present, and every thinking person would be able to infer from this, as to what the nature would be of such experiences as are at present thought to be conducive to the happiness of one's self. It should always be remembered that only those conditions which are suited to the happy well-being of a particular form of a temporary transformation of the functions of the mind are considered desirable, only at that lightning-like rapid duration of time when that particular mental transformation occurs. Another variety of mental modification would require another kind of experience suited to itself, which must necessarily be of a nature different from that of its predecessor. These modifications of the mind are numberless and inscrutable, wherefore there is no end for desires and the objects longed for. The mind takes as many forms, and demands as many varieties of experience, as there are potential desires and impressions of previous experiences piled up in its subconscious substratum. And there can be no end for these potential residual impressions, as every fresh experience adds on a fresh impression to the old stock, and as, also, every impression stimulates another new experience, and thus ad infinitum. This would mean the never-ending misery of the mortal individual, because, thus, he will be endlessly required to cast off old bodies and put on new ones in order to be able to fulfil the conditions of these endless desire-impressions, through struggle, love for the perishable body and consequent pain. This process is called the cycle of samsara. This endless movement born of endless dissatisfaction shows that unbroken happiness is not to be found in contact with external forms of existence.

Aspirants are to be warned against hankering after siddhis, for these very reasons. A Siddhi is a power, and a power is useful only in fulfilling one's desires and ambitions. A desire is always a desire for external possessions, objects, states or conditions. These, however, will quickly be realised to be worthless and incapable of bringing permanent satisfaction to the Self, since what the Self really needs is not an object or an external environment, but pure happiness. If this happiness is in external forms, how can it be transferred to the Self? What is the relation between the Self and the externals? Certainly, this cannot be either an identity or a difference. If it is identity, the object loses its objectness; it difference, the object ever remains unconnected with the Self. This proves the impossibility of acquiring happiness from truly external beings. This also demonstrates the unworthy character of siddhis. The siddhis are not only incapable of bringing happiness, but they positively obstruct the process of Self-Perfection, by inducing the aspirant to the mistaken idea that there is objectively something real.

Hence, the practical urge for perfection seen in life is to be fulfilled through a method of self-integrating completeness, which must include every possible aspect of existence in one's own Being. The contact of the self with externality is not the way to bliss, it is the womb of sorrow. The only recourse to be taken, therefore, is to discard objectivating desires, disregard the appearance of the external form of the universe and become the whole Existence oneself. This must be a self-existent, self-evident, ever-existing, self-conscious, unquestionable, truth; otherwise, the practical urge for absolute perfection in individuals cannot be accounted for. It must, therefore, be a realisation, and not an acquisition of something existent as the very Self of everyone. The Self cannot be obtained, or acquired, or possessed, for it is not an object; it can only be realised. One can only "know" one's Self and not "possess" oneself. It is only this realisation that is the purpose of life, the goal of activity, the culmination of desires, the cessation of misery, the attainment of perennial joy.

The above analysis of life will give an adequate idea of the purpose of sadhana and the nature of Reality, world and soul. The purpose of sadhana is the realisation of unending, perfect bliss. This bliss is found only in the Absolute and nowhere else. This is logically proved and also corroborated by intuitional declarations. The Absolute is the Self of all. and therefore the realisation of the Self is the same as the realisation of the Absolute. The world and the individual cannot have any intelligent meaning except words indicating different conceptions of One Truth.

It will be quite clear from this that the realisation of Brahman is the zenith or the most exalted form of selflessness; nay, it is the very dissolution of the self in God-Being. Hence, evidently, sadhana for this realisation should begin with righteousness, morality and virtue. That which is "indivisible" and "absolute" can be realised only on the condition of impartial and undivided universal love, sense-restraint, perfect selflessness of feeling and utter truth. Enmity, falsehood, sensuality, greed, anger, pride, jealousy, domination, conceit, egoism, self-adoration and attachment contradict the truth that God is the Absolute Being, and hence, turn the individual away from the path to Perfection. This is the reason why moral and ethical discipline should form the first step of all forms of sadhana. Also, this discipline of the self should be practised with a proper understanding of the purpose and technique of sadhana, the nature of the Goal to be realised, the probable obstructions thereto, and the means of conquering obstacles.