Here the highest and the noble no longer seek happiness; they seek only liberation from this whirling cycle of birth and death—which to them is nothing but suffering. Kings have renounced their thrones for this. The wealthy have surrendered their most cherished treasures for it. All earthly bonds have been severed, and those who have advanced even the slightest toward it have been worshipped as gods, revered as mahatmas—great souls. Temples have been raised in their honor, and their deeds have been preserved as models for humanity to follow.
Is this merely a mirage, or is there something real—something that draws the most brilliant and wisest minds? What appears to the common person steeped in pleasure as merely a bewildering light—is that then the truth? Philosophy answers: the mirage is this world itself, not the perception of the infinite—which comes through the forgetting of the 'I'.
If the senses alone were real, if nothing remained after the body's end, if a life filled with hurry, excitement, and competition were the only valuable form of life, then modern man would be far happier than men of old and would never yearn for a simpler, more inward existence. Yet the reality is seen to be quite the opposite. Everywhere, man, deceived, believes happiness lies in the outer world—yet experience, that stern teacher, compels him to turn inward, in search of true joy.
Vedanta serves as the guide along the path of such a person's life. It makes no strange promises to him, nor deceives him by claiming it will erase his suffering with a stroke of the pen. It teaches him that most difficult teaching—self-denial, self-sacrifice, and self-forgetfulness—by passing through which alone he can reach that goal which he seeks in vain in the world of the senses. To the person immersed in pleasure, Vedanta's teaching may seem merely the raving of a dream. Yet there comes a moment in every life when one must pause and think—what are the masters of Vedanta saying?
When controversy arises over the superiority of the senses and the intellect, it becomes clear that intellect is not merely a guide; there is something beyond it. Beyond the intellect stands the individual soul, which abides in the body. If to that soul the Supreme Self becomes manifest, then action is no longer necessary.
Five senses are not enough; for them to function, a sixth entity—the mind—is needed. But the mind too is not enough; the intellect is required to make sense of it. There is something beyond the intellect—the ego, endowed with consciousness. Thus, passing through layer upon layer, we see that the senses, mind, intellect, and ego—all are limited, all are changeable.
Materialism says that the world manifests itself from the different combinations of three qualities—sattva, rajas, and tamas. But true insight says—everything has an underlying foundation, which is the tenth principle: the Supreme Self. Through Him matter seems to exist, not outside Him. Behind the naming of "the tenth principle" there lies in fact a philosophical method of reckoning.
First were posited the five senses of knowledge (eye, ear, nose, tongue, skin). To these were added the five organs of action (speech, hands, feet, organs of excretion, organs of reproduction). These two together made ten principles of sense. Then were added the mind—the sixth. Above it, the intellect—the seventh. Above that, the ego—the eighth. Further, it was said that the world manifests itself as the ninth level through the mixture of nature's three qualities (sattva, rajas, tamas). Now, standing above all these, that truth which is the source and foundation of everything—it was called "the tenth principle: the Supreme Self."
Materialist logic: nine principles (senses, mind, intellect, ego, the mixture of qualities) are sufficient together. Against this it was said: No, these are all changeable, all dependent. The One which, if accepted, makes the foundation of everything clear—that is the tenth principle, the Supreme Self.