ADVAITA DIALOGUE Continued from
Page 3
601.
S: What about a
dream?
602.
G: Yes, dream is mAyA.
Our scriptures say that the whole universe of creation is a mAyA.
603.
S: Does it mean
then that we are all living in mAyA?
604.
G: Don’t ask that
as if you are surprised. Your surprise is because you are still thinking that mAyA is
falsity.
605.
S: If mAyA is
not falsity, then is it real?
606.
G: I told you
whatever is transient is mAyA. Our life comes and goes. Happiness and
suffering come and go.
607.
S: Then in that
case the world is also a mAyA; because it comes and goes.
608.
G: Therefore the
transience of the mAyA has to be transcended.
609.
S: How is that
possible?
610.
G: How did mAyA
originate?
611.
S: I know my
dream originates from me.
612.
G: But the origin
of the Cosmic mAyA
by which the world came into existence, is not known.
613.
S: Don’t the
Vedas say something about it?
614.
G: They say it is
the work of Ishvara,
God.
615.
S: Where did this
Ishvara
come from now?
616.
G: Ishvara
is man’s conception of Brahman.
617.
S: I don’t get
you.
618.
G: Now comes the punchline of advaita!
619.
S: I am all
alert!
620.
G: Brahman
is attributeless. In particular, nameless and formless. It is never the object
of perception or thought. But man’s mind finds it difficult to grasp that
impersonality. Anytime he thinks of Brahman, he has already made it an object of
thought. Either he gives it an anthropomorphic form or he gives it a name.
Either way what he is doing is he is thinking of a Brahman with attributes. It is
called saguNa
Brahman,
commonly known as Ishvara – equivalent to the Almighty God of all religions. The
attributeless Brahman
is known as nirguNa-Brahman.
621.
S: But in
reality, what is the contention of advaita? Is Brahman nirguNa or saguNa?
622.
G. Brahman
is nirguNa.
623.
S: Then why do we
at all need a saguNa
Brahman?
624.
G: We cannot but. You saw that just now.
625.
S: Still this
impersonal Brahman
along with a
personal substitute bothers me.
626.
G: What would you
have?
627.
S: Only the
impersonality.
628.
G: Then you
cannot even talk about it. The definition
of Brahman
would not allow any duality.
629.
S: Are you saying
that Ishvara
concept comes only in the case of duality?
630.
G: How else would
Ishvara
arise?
631.
S: Then advaita,
which means non-duality, should not have any concept of Ishvara.
632.
G: Other than Ishvara there is no guide
for us to reach Brahman
or to grasp the basic non-duality.
633.
S: But a worship of Ishvara would mean we are coming
down to duality.
634.
G: “na anyaH panthA
ayanAya vidyate”. There is no other road to Moksha.
635.
S: Is that the
reason why we are worshipping several Gods and Goddesses?
636.
G: That is the
philosophical reason.
637.
S: But the idea
of several Gods completely throws overboard the concept of non-duality!
638.
G: You must know
they are only different names and forms of the same Ultimate.
639.
S: But the
Puranas speak of multifarious stories of the different Gods.
640.
G: You must have
also noted that in each such case the God of that Purana is raised to the
status of Brahman.
641.
S: Does it mean
then they are all various manifestations of Brahman?
642.
G: Choose your
style of interpretation. It does not matter so long as you are not deluded by
the names and forms.
643.
S: Yes. If Ishvara
arises in the way you have described, then He is also coming and going. Is that
also mAyA?
644.
G: Yes, but with
a difference. In the case of God He controls His mAyA. Whereas we are in mAyA’s
control.
645.
S: Can mAyA be
considered as God’s Potential?
646.
G: In a sense,
yes. In fact, two facets of Energy (shakti) are associated by us
with Brahman.
647.
S: Is this what
is called PrakRti?
648.
G: Yes. There is
a parA-prakRti
and there is an aparA-prakRti.
‘parA’ is
supreme and ‘aparA’ is not-so-supreme.
649.
S: I have heard
them talked about as parA-shakti and aparA-shakti.
650.
G: You are right.
It is aparA-prakRti
that corresponds to mAyA.
651.
S: Is it the
source, origin of all matter and the universe?
652.
G: In Vedanta
cosmology, it is the qualitative guNa or svabhAva from which all matter arises.
653.
S: Whereas, in
Physics, it is the quantitative matter, their weight, substance and constituents, that are fundamental.
654.
G: These guNas
are inherent in aparA-prakRti
(Cosmic Energy). It is what gives matter its substance.
655.
S: In other
words, Energy is self-existent and Matter is the product of this omni-present
Energy.
656.
G: Whereas, in
Physics, it is the other way.
657.
S: I see now, in
Vedanta, PrakRti
is the source of all matter in the universe.
658.
G: For that
reason, PrakRti
is also called PradhAnaM,
the Fundamental.
659.
S: But it is very
subtle, isn’t it?
660.
G: Yes, it is the
unmanifest thing that manifests into everything. Therefore it is also called avyaktaM
(unmanifest).
661.
S: But it is not
manifest all the time.
662.
G: It alternates
between manifestation and unmanifestation. So gets the name of kshhara,
the Perishable.
663.
S: Is this then
the Perishable purushha
(kshhara-purushha)
in us, that you referred to earlier.
664.
G: No. Wait. The
spiritual undercurrent vibrating in all beings, called jIva, is under a
matter envelopment.
665.
S: I see. The
matter envelopment, that is perishable, comes from PrakRti.
666.
G: JIva
itself, our spirit component, is a fragment of the Cit-shakti (Pure Consciousness) of Brahman.
667.
S: I thought you
said there are two shaktis, parA-shakti and aparA-shakti.
668.
G: Yes. The parAshakti
has three facets: Desire (IcchA), Action (KriyA) and Consciousness (jnAna or
cit).
669.
S: Is parA-shakti
the source of our
jIva?
670.
G: JIva,
the kshhara-purushha
in us, is just
an atomic fragment of that Power of Consciousness (cit-shakti).
671.
S: So that is why
our essential content is Consciousness. Is this our akshhara-purushha, the Witness in
us?
672.
G: Exactly. It is also called kUTastha,
the One which remains unchanged like the anvil in a smithy.
673.
S: If I remember
right, the Gita talks of a third purushha, namely, purushhottama.
674.
G: The Purushhottama
is the supreme who appears as the other two purushhas.
675.
S: Can I have a picture that
incorporates all the three purushhas and their roles?
676.
G: The roles are
actually three poises of the same purushhottama. The kshhara-purushha – who is the
result of identification of the jIva with the BMI – reflects the varied workings of PrakRti
and thinks of himself as the ego-doer of works.
He is the one that remembers ‘I slept well last night’. So He is saguNa,
personal. On the other hand when the Purushha takes the poise of akshhara, he is nirguNa,
impersonal. He is dissociated from the doings of the guNas. He is aware that prakRti
is the doer and himself is only the witnessing self. The purushottama creates, sustains and
dissolves, through His prakRti and manifests in the jIva. In the akshhara, He is untouched and
indifferent. In the kshhara He is the immanent Will and the present
active Lord.
677.
S: It is all
pretty complicated. Why don’t you give some analogies?
678.
G: Certainly. Let
the entire space represent the Purushottama. Then the space within a jar is the akshhara-Purushha.
679.
S: That fits in with
the Purushottama
appearing as the akshhara-Purushha,
just because of the limitation of the jar.
680.
G: Now fill up
the jar with water.Outer space is reflected in that water. This reflected space
is the kshara-Purushha.
681.
S: What goes on
in the reflected space due to vibrations in the water, does not affect the
jar-space, the akshhara.
682.
G: Not only that.
The reflected space, the kshara, hides the very presence of the jar-space,
the akshhara.
683.
S: Wonderful.
When you throw the water away, the jar-space comes to light.
684.
G: Exactly. That
water is our mind. The Supreme, reflected in our mind, is what makes us the jIva,
the kshara.
685.
S. When there is
no separate thing as mind – water in the jar – the akshhara shows up by itself.
686.
G: There you have
the entire picture.
687.
S: PraNAms,
Guruji, That
makes matters clear! Now I think we can resume our discussion of Cit-shakti.
688.
G: Ishvara
Himself is another fragment of that Cit-shakti. He is Brahman conditioned by our
intellect (cit).
689.
S: Is Ishvara
then the base for all the beings in the universe?
690.
G: Yes. All
beings are in Him, says
691.
S: But I have
heard that He
immediately appears to contradict Himself.
692.
G: True. You seem
to be very familiar with all controversial things.!
693.
S:
694.
G: Are you
familiar with the snake-rope analogy?
695.
S: Certainly. A
rope appears as a snake or a streak of water in dim light.
696.
G: I bring the
light and I now question you: ‘Where was the snake?’.
What would you reply?
697.
S: On the rope.
698.
G: Now I ask:
‘Was the snake there?’
699.
S: No, Guruji, it
was never there!
700.
G: Now the same
thing happens with the Lord’s statements.
701.
S: I don’t think
I fully understand it.
702.
G: If you ask the
Lord: ‘Where are all the beings?’, what would He
reply?
703.
S: ‘They are in Me’.
704.
G: But if you
then ask Him: ‘Were they ever there?’....
705.
S: He will have
to say ‘They were never there. Only I was there and am there.’
706.
G: This is
exactly what is happening in that Gita shloka. This is the beauty of the great mAyA of Ishvara.
707.
S: Is that why we
have to transcend mAyA or PrakRti to reach Brahman?
708.
G: Exactly.
709.
S: How do we
transcend mAyA?
Through the use of our intellect?
710.
G: Intellect is
not enough. Intellect is
for doing Atma-vicAra, that is, intellectual enquiry about
the Atman.
711.
S: What will this
enquiry do?
712.
G: It will churn
the mind thoroughly and bring all the dirt to the surface.
713.
S: Is our mind then like a trash can
that we can empty at will?
714.
G: I wish it
were. You cannot throw away the mental dirt by that means.
You can only purify them.
715.
S: How do we do
that?
716.
G: By pouring
continuously into that reservoir of the mind, thoughts of God and of noble
things.
717.
S: Guruji, may I
request you to go back to explain mAyA further?
It is really very tricky.
718.
G: You are not
the only one who feels so. The entire world feels it so.
719.
S: Let me
particularise a few questions on mAyA.
720.
G: That would
help me too.
721.
S: Is mAyA
real or unreal?
722.
G: You have asked
the most difficult question first. mAyA is neither real nor
unreal.
723.
S: How can that
be?
724.
G: It is real
because we see the effects of PrakRti existing before us.
725.
S: It is also not
real because, ...
726.
G: Being of the
nature of transience, it vanishes in due time.
727.
S: If something
vanishes after a certain time, is it not taken to be real?
728.
G: The word
‘real’ has to be carefully handled. On one side there is the absolute reality
of Brahman.
729.
S: Because it is
ever there and its presence can never be negated or denied.
730.
G: Yes. On the
other extreme there is an absolute unreality like, say, a hare’s horn, or, the
son of a barren woman.
731.
S: Actually they
don’t exist at all.
732.
G: That is why it
is called absolute unreality. The Sanskrit term is “asat”. It is absolute
non-existence.
733.
S: Then ‘sat’
means reality?
734.
G: In advaita ‘sat’
means absolute reality, the Sanskrit being “pAramArthika satyaM”.
735.
S: What about the
reality of the world?
736.
G: It comes
between ‘sat’
and ‘asat’. It is neither ‘sat’ nor ‘asat’. ‘vyAvahArika satyaM’ operational reality.
737.
S: What about
dream reality?
738.
G: Dream is real
only to the dreamer and during the dream only. It is subjective reality, “prAtibhAsika
satyaM”.
739.
S: So there are
four kinds of reality?
740.
G: All that come in between ‘sat’ and
‘asat’
are bunched under the term ‘mithyA’.
741.
S: So ‘mithyA’
includes both operational reality of the world and the subjective reality of
the dream. Is that right?
742.
G: Yes, mAyA belongs to the order of
reality called ‘mithyA’.
It is neither ‘sat’
nor ‘asat’.
743.
S: The way you
have described it implies that the world belongs to the ‘mithyA’ type of reality.
744.
G: Yes. That is
why Shankara’s famous quote says: “brahma satyaM, jagat mithyA”.
745.
S: I have heard
it translated as ‘Brahman is the reality, the universe is unreal’.
746.
G: That
translation would be wrong if you mean by ‘unreality’ the absolute unreality
called ‘asat’.
747.
S: Can you
elaborate this further?
748.
G: In all cases
of ‘mithyA’,
the ‘is-ness’ is not questionable. But the understanding of ‘what it is’ is
wrong.
749.
S: But I think
there are still some loose ends.
750.
G: Like?
751.
S: Is creation by
Ishvara
real or not?
752.
G: Creation also
belongs to the ‘mithyA’
category, neither absolutely real nor absolutely unreal.
753.
S: But within the mithyA category, there seem to be
several shades of difference in reality.
754.
G. In fact,
everything that is made up from something else, has a
lesser permanence than what it is made of.
755.
S: Yes, clay is
more permanent than a clay-pot.
756.
G: If you keep
pursuing this idea of permanence relentlessly, you will find all except the
Absolute is impermanent.
757.
S: But I was
referring to the shades of difference in reality, for instance, the reflection
in a mirror.
758.
G: It belongs to
the category of subjective reality, within all impermanence, that is, mithyA.
759.
S: Is there any
other?
760.
G: You may recall the standard
example of a rope appearing as a snake, in a dimly lighted environment.
761.
S: That is also
subjective reality.
762.
G: Yes. The
appearance of a snake is only real to the observer of that appearance during
the appearance.
763.
S: And it
vanishes when the environment is lighted.
764.
G: It is said
that the existence of the universe itself is like this appearance of snake on
the rope.
765.
S: What
corresponds to the rope here?
766.
G: Brahman,
of course.
767.
S: In other
words, there is only Brahman, everywhere?
768.
G: Certainly. We
see the universe, instead of Brahman, erroneously.
769.
S: What is the
cause of this error?
770.
G: Our own
Ignorance.
771.
S: But Man has
been seeing this universe ever since he first appeared on this earth.
772.
G: That is why
the Ignorance is called ‘beginningless’ – “anAdi” in Sanskrit.
773.
S: We know when
it started – I told you, when man first came on this earth.
774.
G: In Hindu
Vedanta, there is no first, for these things. Because Time is cyclic. Creation
and Dissolution recur.
775.
S: That explains
the “anAdi”
nature of Ignorance. But Ignorance of
what?
776.
G: Ignorance of
two things: “I am the Atman” and “Atman is Brahman”.
777.
S: I would like
to think about these two statements more carefully.
778.
G: To help you
think and contemplate, the Vedas have given them in four ‘mahAvAkyas’.
779.
S: I would love
to understand them.
780.
G: Each of the mahAvAkyas,
incorporate both of the above two statements of which man, by nature, is
ignorant.
781.
S: One
interruption. Before we try to remove the ignorance, should we not find the
cause of the Ignorance?
782.
G: That is where
even your scientific spirit would not help you in Vedanta.
783.
S: I don’t get
you.
784.
G: The cause of
the Ignorance is one of the few things declared to be unexplainable.
785.
S: How can
Vedanta ignore this aspect of Ignorance?
786.
G: They say
Ignorance is the effect of mAyA.
787.
S: And they get
away with it?
788.
G: There are two
powers of mAyA
that do havoc.
One veils the Truth. Another
projects what is other than Truth.
789.
S: The veiling of Truth by mAyA is understandable. But it is
the projection that is more puzzling.
790.
G: Let us go to the different analogies for this
relationless relationship of the
projected Universe and Brahman.
791.
S: I know already
four: Snake on a rope; Dream; Reflection in a mirror; Movie on a screen.
792.
G:There are some more: Water in a mirage; Silver in the
mother-of-pearl; Beads strung together on a string.
793.
S: The last one
seems to be the easiest.
794.
G: But it helps
the understanding of a delicate principle called “anvaya and vyatireka”.
795.
S: I have not
heard of this.
796.
G: “anvaya”
is inclusion: The beads together cannot hold unless you conceive the substratum
of the string.
797.
S: And what is “vyatireka”?
798.
G: The string can
hold by itself without the beads. This is the ‘exclusion’ of the beads.
799.
S: I don’t see
clearly the connection of this with Brahman and the universe.
800.
G: The Self is
the string in which every non-Self is strung like beads. The fact that the Self
is the continuity or connection part of the string in all that is non-self is “anvaya”.
The non-self is dependent on the Self for their appearance as non-self, just as
the beads are dependent on
the string for their appearance in a line. The fact that the Self
itself is still separate from the non-self is “vyatireka”. The Self is independent
of the non-self, just as the string is independent of the beads. Again, the existence of the Self in deep sleep
while the BMI is dormant is anvaya (accordance). That the Self is conscious independently
of the BMI, as in deep sleep, is vyatireka (divergence).
Copyright
© V.
Krishnamurthy