Ulladu-Narpadu Verse 37: The Tenth Man
Channel: Consciousness Research Centre
Date: 2017-06-16

This series is classified Ajata-vāda | Jñāna-yoga | Turīya | Sahasrāra-cakra

"Even the argument which says, “Duality during sadhana—which one undertakes due to not knowing the truth that one is always Brahman—and non-duality after attainment (that is, duality is true during the time of practice and non-duality becomes true only after the attainment of Self-realization)”, is not true. Who else is one except the tenth man, both when one is anxiously searching for the tenth man and when one finds oneself to be the tenth man." 

According to some schools of thought, duality is true during the time of ignorance and non-duality becomes true only after the attainment of Self-knowledge. However, Sri Bhagavan says that even this is not true, because non- duality (advaita) is always the truth and duality (dvaita) is always unreal. That is, the one non-dual Self alone exists and is real even when in the ignorant outlook of the individual it seems to appear as this unreal world of duality and diversity.

In order to emphasis that duality is unreal even during the time of its seeming existence, Sri Bhagavan cites the parable of the ‘lost’ tenth man. Ten foolish men forded a river, and on reaching the other side they wished to make sure that all had crossed safely. So all of them began to count the number of persons on the shore, but since each one forgot to count himself, they all counted only nine. Believing that one of their companions must have drowned, they all began to weep, until a passing wayfarer who understood the situation asked each one to count himself, whereupon they realized that they were always ten men, both during the time of their seeming loss and after their ‘finding’ the missing man. Similarly, when we attain Self-knowledge we will realize that non-duality (advaita) is always the sole truth, both during the time of our seeming ignorance (when non- duality appears to be lost and duality appears to prevail) and after our ‘attaining’ Self, the non-dual reality.

It is to be noted here that, though non-duality is the truth even during the time of seeming ignorance, this does not mean that no spiritual practice (sādhana) is necessary, as some theoreticians/theorists have wrongly concluded.

So long as the tenth man appears to be lost, it is necessary for each one of the ten to enquire and find out ‘Who is lost?’ , for then only will the truth be realized that the so called ‘lost’ tenth man is only oneself, who has in fact never been lost. Similarly, so long as the experience of non-duality appears to be lost, it is necessary for us to enquire and find out ‘Who am I, who have lost the experience of non-duality?’, for then only will the truth be realized that the seeming individual ‘I’ who does not experience non-duality is merely an unreal appearance, and that the real ‘I’ has in fact never lost the experience of non-duality.

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