Discernment (Viveka)
The trained eye that tells the lasting real from the passing unreal.
Viveka is the trained power of discrimination: the ability to tell the real from the unreal, the lasting from the passing, the self from what merely belongs to it. In Advaita it is the very first qualification a seeker must cultivate, because the whole path of knowledge depends on learning to see clearly what is and is not the true self. In Yoga, the dawning of perfect discrimination is itself the doorway to freedom.
How it traveled
- UpadeśasāhasrīKālaḍi (Kaladi) · 710applies
- VivekacūḍāmaṇiŚṛṅgeri (Sringeri) · 1400applies
Key passages(20)
Vivekacūḍāmaṇi · Śaṅkara (traditionally ascribed; authorship doubted)
Vivekacūḍāmaṇi · Śaṅkara (traditionally ascribed; authorship doubted)
The good and the pleasant approach man: the wise goes round about them and distinguishes them. Yea, the wise prefers the good to the pleasant, but the fool chooses the pleasant through greed and avari
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O Pârtha, no set determination is formed in the minds of those that are deeply attached to pleasure and power, and whose discrimination is stolen away by the flowery words of the unwise, who are full
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He who has known him who is more subtile than subtile, in the midst of chaos, creating all things, having many forms, alone enveloping everything , the happy one (Siva), passes into peace for ever.
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Objects fall away from the abstinent man, leaving the longing behind. But his longing also ceases, who sees the Supreme.
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Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad · Vedic Revelation (śruti)
'This eternal being that can never be proved, is to be perceived in one way only; it is spotless, beyond the ether, the unborn Self, great and eternal.
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In that vast Brahma-wheel, in which all things live and rest, the bird flutters about, so long as he thinks that the self (in him) is different from the mover (the god, the lord). When he has been ble
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'There is this verse, "He who sees this, does not see death, nor illness, nor pain; he who sees this, sees everything, and obtains everything everywhere. '"He is one (before creation), he becomes thre
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