Shaṅkara uses the term saṁsthAnam to point to the configuration or arrangement through which a form becomes recognizable. From the standpoint of Advaita, the diverse configurations we encounter in the world constitute the structural display of the one underlying Reality. Names and forms distinguish one appearance from another, but they do not possess an independent existence apart from that Reality.
This is the essential shift in vision that the teaching seeks to bring about: from seeing a world of separate things to recognizing the one Reality appearing as all things. The forms may differ, but their apparent multiplicity does not overturn the non-dual truth.
Sage Yajñavalkya tells us that our bodies are like salt crystals—condensed forms of the essence of the Ocean of Consciousness. When salt is dissolved in water, its finite, solid form disappears, and it becomes indistinguishable from the water. Likewise, the teaching invites us to dissolve the apparently solid boundaries of the body and other objects, understood as condensations of Consciousness, back into Consciousness itself. The scripture urges us to bring about this dissolution through understanding before death puts an end to the body.
The bṛhadAraNyaka discusses two kinds of dissolution (pralaya-s): natural (prAkṛtika) and absolute or final (Atyantika).
prAkṛtika pralaya is the dissolution that occurs as part of the natural cycles of creation and destruction. The individual is reborn in the next cycle of creation.
Atyantika pralaya, on the other hand, is the final dissolution associated with liberating Knowledge. There is no further rebirth, because the ignorance that sustains “the sense of separate individuality” has been dispelled.
The kenopaniṣad says:
प्रेत्यास्माल्लोकादमृता भवन्ति ॥ — 2.5, kena Upaniṣad.
Meaning: (The wise having realized the Atman in all beings) become immortal on departure from this world.
The bṛhadAraNyaka says:
न प्रेत्य संज्ञास्तीत्यरे ब्रवीमीति होवाच याज्ञवल्क्यः ॥ — 2.4.12, bṛhadAraNyaka.
Meaning: After attaining (this oneness) it has no more consciousness. This is what I say, my dear. So said Yājñavalkya. (Translation: Swami Madhavananda).
Maitreyī is puzzled by this statement and asks Yājñavalkya for clarification. On the one hand, he has taught her that she is the immortal and immutable brahman; on the other, he appears to say that consciousness comes to an end when the separate individual dies. What, then, is it that actually ends?
Śhaṅkara, in his bhASya, clarifies the meaning by adding the word विशेष, thus reading the passage as:
न तत्र प्रेत्य विशेषसंज्ञास्ति …
The addition helps distinguish the loss of particularized or individual consciousness from the non-dual Reality itself. What comes to an end is the sense of a separate me—the identification with the body-mind-prANa complex, sustained by ignorance. This separate individuality was never independently real in the first place.
Thus, what disappears is visheSa-sañjñā, the particularized awareness associated with finite worldly identities and objects: my spouse, my family, my property, and so on. The point is not that Consciousness itself is destroyed, but that the apparent limitations imposed upon it by individuality cease to hold.
Consider a wave collapsing into the ocean. The water that appeared as that particular wave ceases to have the wave-form, but water itself does not disappear. It remains as the ocean. The wave-form ends; the water does not.
Yājñavalkya’s teaching can be understood in this way: Maitreyī, you have to realize, “I am brahman,” rather than persist in the conviction, “I am merely my body.”
Recognize that you are not confined to the body—that the Reality you are is not bounded by its physical limits. The sense of being a separate, solid entity begins to loosen. You cease to regard yourself as something enclosed within the body’s boundaries.
This process may be described as “melting.” When you identify exclusively with the body, you seem to have condensed into a hard, solid entity, separate from everything else. When you recognize that your true nature is not confined to the body, that apparent solidity begins to dissolve. This is not merely an intellectual conclusion; it has to be felt and assimilated.
You move through the three states of consciousness—waking, dream, and deep sleep—but you are none of these states. For example, you may move around a house, but you are not the house. Similarly, the three states come and go, while the Consciousness that knows them is your nature.
Virāṭ is associated with the waking state, Taijasa with the dream state, and Prājña with the deep-sleep state. These are the corresponding designations of the individual and cosmic principles as understood in the traditional teaching.
Remember that you are not any of these states. Nor are you the limited knowledge that identifies you with one state or another. You are beyond them: the Fourth (turIya), the Absolute Consciousness, prajñAna.
As you move from one state to another, it is the state that changes; you, as Consciousness, do not undergo that change.
Imagine a mighty fish swimming in a huge river, moving from one bank to the other. The fish is neither the river nor either of the banks it visits. The banks represent the different states of consciousness. The river, its banks, and the fish’s body are distinguishable within the analogy; none of them, taken as an object, is the Consciousness that knows the states.
You are neither the states nor merely the individual who experiences them. You are the Absolute Consciousness that knows them all. In this sense, Consciousness—not the limited physical body—is your true identity.
The Upaniṣad says:
असङ्गो ह्ययं पुरुषः । — 4.3.15, bṛhadAraNyaka.
Meaning: This infinite being is unattached.
You are asaṅgaḥ, unattached. Nothing can bind you or adhere to your true nature. Whatever appears, appears in Consciousness, but does not alter or limit Consciousness itself.
The Upaniṣad further says:
अनन्वागतं पुण्येनानन्वागतं पापेन तीर्णो हि तदा सर्वाञ्छोकान्हृदयस्य भवति ॥ — 4.3.22, bṛhadAraNyaka.
Meaning: (This form of his) is untouched by good work and untouched by evil work, for he is then beyond all the woes of his heart (intellect). (Translation: Swami Madhavananda).
Neither merit nor demerit can attach to your true nature.
A doubt may now arise: could ignorance itself be our nature? If ignorance is present, how can we be the unattached, limitless Consciousness described by the Upaniṣad?
Consider desire. When we cling to a desire, it can torment us; when we let it go, it loses its hold over us. We are not compelled to retain every desire. We have the choice to relinquish it. And since desire impels action, the action that follows a desire can also be avoided.
Here, kAma (desire) is associated with the subtle body, while karma (action) is associated with the gross body. When desire and action cease, our identification with these two bodies can also be relinquished.
Right now, as you listen to a discourse on the bṛhadAraNyaka, neither the subtle body nor the gross body needs to be engaged in some other activity. Yet ignorance appears to remain in the background, as the causal body. When you return home, avidyA may once again manifest through familiar tendencies, giving rise to desires that impel you into action.
The causal body is explained here in terms of the residual traces of past experiences, called vAsanA-s, or impressions. These impressions give rise to desires, which in turn motivate action.
In deep sleep, there is neither manifest desire nor deliberate action. The impressions, however, are temporarily covered over; they are not thereby eradicated. They persist in a latent form and re-emerge when we wake. We resume our activities, often driven by the same desires and tendencies that shaped the previous day. In this explanatory model, the accumulated impressions also account for rebirth after the death of the gross body.
(To Continue … Part – 43 (brih 5))