The Story of Ten Men

Sri Tandavaraya Swami

Master:

Through this maya, jivas experience seven stages of development as follows: ignorance, veiling, multiplicity, indirect knowledge, direct experience, freedom from misery and supreme Bliss.

Of these, ignorance is to lose sight of the fact that the inner self is no other than Brahman; veiling makes one say, 'There is Brahman, I do not see Him'; multiplicity springs up as 'I am a man. I am a jiva'; indirect knowledge is to know the nature of the Self, by the teachings of the Master; direct experience is to stay unshaken as the unitary Being after enquiry into the Self; freedom from misery is to end limitation and the sense of doership, and supreme Bliss is the final accomplishment, i.e., release from bondage.

I shall now relate to you a story to illustrate this: Ten men forded a stream and, on reaching the other shore, each of them counted nine others and omitted to count himself. They were all perplexed (because the tenth man was missing).

Ignorance is want of right understanding and causes confusion. 'The tenth man is missing - not to be found' - this thought is the veiling. Grief at the loss of the companion is vikshepa. To heed the words of a sympathetic passerby who says, "The tenth man is among you', is indirect knowledge. When the kindly man further makes one of them count the others and points to the teller as the tenth man, the discovery of oneself as the missing tenth man forms direct experience. The cessation of grief for the lost man is freedom from misery. The joy of indubitable ascertainment by oneself is Supreme Bliss."