Regarding preparation the only difference I see between traditional advaita vedanta and Western advaita satsang teaching is: traditional teaching owns up to the need for preparation whereas Western teaching usually doesn’t. Yet most Western teachers are constantly occupied with working on the preparation of seekers. The talks published on their sites and even more those that are made into DVDs or CDs, must not deceive one. Continue reading
Author Archives: Sitara
Thoughts on Seeking and Seekers I (adhikaris)
In this series I intend to post several short essays reflecting, from different angles, the topic of the month: adhikaritvam, the eligibility of the seeker. Along the lines I started in 2011 in Advaita Academy, I would like to point out the differences and similarities of Western and traditional Advaita – this month in respect of how to approach the students of both.
In Vedanta, the need for the preparation of the seeker is beyond question and the nine virtues of sAdhana chatuShTaya sampatti are considered to be prerequisites for anyone who wants to find a guru and embark on the path of knowledge. Not so in most Western Advaita where all this preparation is thought to overcomplicate matters.” Continue reading
I – Pure Sweetness
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Vicara begins with a course of uncompromising arguments within yourself to prove and affirm that you are not the body, senses or the mind, and that even when all these are changing in the course of the three states, you alone stand changeless as the background, knowing the apparent changes.
When the argument hits home, the objects drop away, one by one, until at last you stand alone in your own glory as the background. Then you cannot even say ‘I know’, because there is nothing else to be known and you stand as that knowledge, pure. This is, in short, the course of Atmavicara.
madhuryyattal anya vastu madhuri krtam akayam,
vastvantarattal maduryyam madhuri krtamayita .
[It is from sweetness that some other thing can get to be made sweet.
But sweetness in itself is not made sweet, by any other thing.]
Bhasha Pancadashi, Pancakosha-viveka, 15 (Malayalam translation)
This is a significant verse to show the self-luminosity of Atma.
By association with sweetness, any other thing becomes sweet. But sweetness by itself does not need the association of anything else in order to be sweet.
Similarly, all objects become known when they come into contact with the ‘I’. But the ‘I’ does not need the help of anything else in order to be known. It shines, by itself, even in deep sleep where no object exists. Therefore the ‘I’ is self-luminous.
Notes on Spiritual Discourses of Shri Atmananda, taken by Nitya Tripta, note 1081
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To begin with I, Awareness, seem to be in the world, then the world seems to be in Me and finally the distinction between Myself and the world dissolves.
Rupert Spira from his website
The Self – Projection
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What you see is nothing but your self. Call it what you like, it does not change the fact. Through the film of destiny, your own light depicts pictures on the screen. You are the viewer, the light, the picture and the screen. Even the film of destiny (prarabdha) is self-selected and self-imposed.
Nisargadatta Maharaj
Atma-j.āna, Self-knowledge (2)
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(ii) Svarūpa-j.āna, knowledge of one’s true nature. What is the nature of this
Atman? Unfortunately we are aware of only the existence of the Atman but, owing to the covering of kāraṇa-aj.āna, we are not aware of its true nature, svarūpa. According to Shankara, the true nature of the Atman can be known only from Vedantic scriptures. The Upanishads state that the true nature of Atman is Brahman. This kind of knowledge is at first only a conceptual knowledge produced by mental vṛttis, modifications. But this vṛtti-j.āna is the starting point. According to Shankara, once this knowledge is gained, all that remains to be done is to stop identifying oneself with one’s body, mind, and so on.
This non-identification, practised with the help of the ‘neti, neti ’ process,begins as dṛg-dṛśya-viveka—discrimination between the seer and the seen—andculminates in a higher type of inner absorption, known as nididhyāsana.
Sureshwaracharya equates nididhyāsana with savikalpa samādhi. Beyond this lies nirvikalpa samādhi, in which akhaṇdākāra-vṛtti, a unitary mental mode, removes themūlāvidyā, causal ignorance. When the mūlāvidyā is completely removed, the Atman is realized as Brahman. When this happens, astitva-j.āna is replaced by svarūpa-j.āna.
The popular notion that in Advaitic experience the Atman ‘merges’ into Brahman is not quite true.
The Atman remains as self-existence. Owing to the coverings of aj.āna and its products, the Atman is at first experienced as ‘I exist’. But as the coverings are removed, the Atman’s self-existence expands until it becomes infinite. The same Atman that was at the beginning remains at the end also, only its coverings are gone; we then call it Brahman.
From: Four Basic Principles of Advaita Vedanta
by Swami Bhajanananda, Ramakrishna Mission
Source: Prabuddha Bharata — Jan/Feb 2010
Atma-j.āna, Self-knowledge (1)
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This, again, is of two kinds: astitva-j.āna and svarūpa-j.āna.
(i) Astitva-j.āna, knowledge of one’s existence. If Atman and Brahman were completely hidden by aj.āna, then we would know nothing about our own existence or about other things, and we would be no better than a stone or a clod of earth. But, like the light of the sun coming through dark clouds, the light of the Atman comes through the coverings of aj.āna. It is this filtered light of Atman that gives us the notion ‘I exist’. My own existence, astitva, does not need any proof; it is self-evident, svataḥ-siddha.
This awareness of our own existence comes from the Atman in us.
It should be mentioned here that the ‘I’ or ego in us is the result of the association of the Atman, which is cit or pure Consciousness, and buddhi, which is jaḍa or aj.āna. This association is conceived as a ‘knot’, cit-jaḍa-granthi, or as a red-hot iron ball—fire stands for the Atman, the iron ball for buddhi—or as a transparent crystal appearing as red owing to the presence of a red flower near it.
When we say ‘I exist’, the ‘exist’ aspect comes directly from the Atman.
From: Four Basic Principles of Advaita Vedanta, Sw. Bhajanananda,
Ramakrishna Mission, Source: Prabuddha Bharata — Jan/Feb 2010
- Part 2 will be posted in a few days
One with All
A little story…
On the kitchen shelf of an apartment shared by students, there’s a colourful mixture of containers – a large box of teabags, a coffee tin, smaller jars with spices, a high glass with spaghetti, a blue and white saltshaker, a big muesli jar, etc.
The muesli jar squints at the glass with the spaghetti and sighs, feeling much too fat once again. But after a while, he realizes that the glass with the spaghetti is used a lot less frequently, which gives him a boost. Then he glances at the box with teabags, which is even more popular and moreover has an exotic design. His mood sinks. But luckily he remembers that actually the inner values count; he recognizes that he has a great variety of things to offer, exceeding all others, and he feels better immediately. But once he is placed back on the shelf, entirely empty after breakfast, the muesli jar falls into a deep depression. Continue reading
The Ego – Walls
He whom I enclose with my name
is weeping in this dungeon.
I am ever busy building this wall all around;
and as this wall goes up into the sky day by day
I lose sight of my true being in its dark shadow.
I take pride in this great wall,
and I plaster it with dust and sand –
lest a least hole should be left in this name;
and for all the care I take
I lose sight of my true being.
Rabindranath Tagore
(title by Sitara)
Poem source: http://www.saieditor.com/stars/tag.html
Photo credits: pogobuschel@pixelio.de
Karma Cubed – Three Views of Karma
Quoting from S.N. Sastri’s Terms and Concepts in Vedanta:
“The word ‘karma’ is used in two different senses in vedAnta:
(1) the results of actions performed, in the form of merit and demerit (puNya and pApa), which produce their effects later on, usually in another birth, and
(2) the action itself, whether secular or religious.”
After reading Swami Narayana Muni Prasad’s superb booklet “Karma and Reincarnation” I would like to point to a third sense in which the word karma can and needs to be understood, especially for advanced students of Advaita.
Karma as puNya and pApa
At some point every seeker comes across the concept of karma in this sense. If he follows Western Advaita he may dismiss the concept as something altogether irrelevant or, if he is not yet an advaitin, he may subscribe to the Western version of karma as an assignment for this lifetime (see http://advaita-academy.org/blogs/Sitara.ashx?Y=2011&M=June) which, if successfully absolved, will produce the kind of life that everyone is wishing for: safe, pleasant and ethical. Continue reading