The Theory of Vivarta

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Advaita Vedaanta explains the creation of the world by the theory of vivarta. (…) According to Advaita, the effect is not an actual transformation of the cause. Brahman is immutable and there can be no transformation of it. It only serves as the substratum (adhishThaana) for the appearance of the universe, just as the rope serves as the substratum for the appearance of the illusory snake.

(…)

This appearance of the universe is due to avidyaa, or nescience, which conceals Brahman by its veiling power (aavaraNa s’akti) and projects the universe by its power of projection (vikshepa s’akti). The universe is therefore said to be only a vivarta, or apparent transformation, of Brahman. Like the illusory snake with rope as the substratum, the universe is illusory, or mithyaa, with Brahman as the substratum.

But there is a vital difference between the illusoriness of the rope-snake and that of the universe. While the snake is purely illusory, or praatibhaasika, the universe has empirical, or vyaavahaarika, reality. That means that the universe is real for all those who are still in ignorance of Brahman. It loses its reality only when Brahman is realized as the only reality and as identical with one’s own self, or, in other words, when identification with the body-mind complex completely disappears.

Bondage is nothing but identification with the body-mind complex. This identification being due only to the ignorance of the truth that one is really the aatmaa, which is the same as Brahman, it can be removed only by the knowledge of one’s real nature as Brahman.

Vedanta Spiritual Library | http://www.celextel.org/                                                 Elucidation of Terms and Concepts in Vedanta                                                         [Based on the Commentaries of Sri Sankaracharya and other authoritative texts]                                       By S. N. Sastri

More short Q and As

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OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAQ: I’ve read something in Advaita about making meaning out of meaningless events. Are there any events to which meaning can be given?

A: You need to be a bit more specific here. But you are in any case talking about the empirical level of experience, not absolute reality. Time (and hence ‘events’) is within the former; it is not absolutely real. Similarly, there are no separate ‘objects’ (or ‘people’) in reality. Whether or not an event is ‘meaningful’ is going to be a subjective opinion! If you want my subjective view, there are probably only two meaningful events: when you commit to Self-inquiry and when you realize the truth! Continue reading →

Three Advaitic Views on Creation

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The Supreme Brahman is both the material as well intelligent 
cause but unchanging;

The creation is transfiguration and not production of a thing not 
existing before or transformation.

97668_web_R_by_Hans Georg Staudt_pixelio.de

  1. yathA srShTi tathA drShTi – as the creation so the vision 
(experience) is put forth by advocates of many 
individual souls. Hence creation of the world is by God; certain experiences (universal) like fire burning whether you know it or not, 
sun will rise in east and set in west even if you know truth to be 
otherwise; sky will appear blue though colourless…. World has 
empirical reality.
  1. yathA drShTi tathA srShTi – as the vision (experience) so the 
creation is put forth by advocates of single soul. 
One’s own likes and dislikes are the cause for 
experience of pleasure and pain and contact of senses with objects is 
the producer of heat and cold. So whole world is subjective. World is 
apparent reality.
  1. ajAta – not separately born is put forth by those who say there is 
no individual soul separate from brahman at any point of time. 
As all have to agree that in the beginning (before world) only brahman was there and after dissolution it is only going to be there, that 
which was not in the beginning and not going to be in the end need not be accepted to exist in the middle. Since Vedas declare all these are brahman only, they hold at no point of time there is a jIva
(individual soul) ever separated from brahman to be re-united through efforts and become brahman – none in bondage or trying for release or as released. Since brahman cannot be grasped but is the substratum of this 
superimposed world, all talk about world/its creation by Veda is to teach about the brahman.

All three are advaitic in nature and based on Vedas. So no one school needs to criticize the other two.

From a post of Br. Pranipata Chaitanya in the Yahoo Advaitin group (March 2009)

Photo Credits: Hans Georg Staudt@pixelio.de

Creation according to Vasishtha

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P1000932asa~NkalpajAlakalanaiva jagatsamagraM

sa~Nkalpameva nanu viddhi vilAsacetyaM
sankalpamAtramalam utsRRijya nirvikalpa

mAshritya nishcayam avApnuhi rArna shAntiM (39)

 

VASISTHA continued:

To illustrate this there is an interesting legend. Kindly listen to it,

A young boy asked his nanny to tell him a story, and the nanny told him the
following story to which the boy listened with great attention:

Once upon a time in a city which did not exist, there were three princes who
were brave and happy. Of them two were unborn and the third had not been conceived. Unfortunately all their relatives died. The princes left their native city to
go elsewhere. Very soon, unable to bear the heat of the sun, they fell into a swoon.
Their feet were burnt by hot sand. The tips of grass pierced them. They reached
the shade of three trees, of which two did not exist and the third had not even been
planted. After resting there for some time and eating the fruits of those trees, they
proceeded further. Continue reading →

Science and Vedanta (Part 1)

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P1030138_tonemapped-1Part 1 of a 3-part essay by Dr. K. Sadananda, AchArya at Chinmaya Mission, Washington.

Science is Objective

The word science is derived from the root ‘scire’, meaning to know. Hence science really means knowledge which reveals a fact or truth. In Sanskrit, ‘vid’ means to know, and ‘veda’ means knowledge. Combining these two statements we can say that Veda means science. Vedanta means that which reveals the ultimate knowledge or absolute truth. From this, it follows that Vedanta is the ultimate science. This is not a fanatical statement but a statement of fact, as in ‘Light travels at 299,792,458 m / s’. This is not an opinion or belief but just plain fact, whether one believes it or not. We will examine here why Vedanta is the science of absolute.

Epistemologically, the word ‘knowledge’ without a qualifier, cannot be defined. The qualifier objectifies the knowledge as in ‘knowledge of Chemistry’ or ‘knowledge of Physics’, etc. It is always knowledge of something. It can be knowledge of the physical or phenomenal world, or knowledge of some subtle entities such as emotions, thoughts, intellectual concepts, etc. The former can be considered as the knowledge of gross entities that can be known via sense input, while the latter can be called the knowledge of subtle entities and can be known without the need of any sense input, or can be inferred indirectly from the sense input. Continue reading →

Topic of the Month – Creation

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Creation

The ‘original’ topic for discussion! Lots of potential material here. I have a number of interesting extracts to post, as soon as I can get around to scanning them in.

Meanwhile here are a couple of my favorite quotes, which I used in ‘Book of One’:

In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and is widely regarded as a bad move. Douglas Adams

In the beginning there was nothing and God said ‘Let there be light’, and there was still nothing but everybody could see it. Dave Thomas (This one especially for budding Buddhists)

Now therefore the description of Brahman: not this, not this

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From Shankara’s commentary on Gaudapada’s Karika (from Sw Nikhilananda’s translation):

II.32: “Though Atman is by nature pure and non-dual, yet It is not aware of Its true nature on account of such obstacles as the notions [Venkat: thoughts?] of happiness, unhappiness, corporeality, etc superimposed by ignorance. The purpose of scripture is to remove these illusory notions; thus it serves a negative purpose. This is accomplished when scriptures describe Atman as neti, neti. Thus dissociating from Atman such adjectives as happy or unhappy, which would make It an object, scripture indirectly helps to establish It as the eternal subject. The negation of attributes reveals the real nature of Atman”

II.36: “As non-duality, on account of its being the negation of all evils, is bliss and fearlessness, therefore knowing it to be such, direct your mind to the realisation of the on-dual Atman”

Note here that Gaudapa and Shankara, both differentiate between knowledge of what Atman is (which has been defined as negation of all notions, rather than any positive knowledge) and its realisation.

Then there is Shankara’s commentary on Brhadaranyaka Upanishad II.iv.12 (from Sw Madhavananda’s translation):

“That separate existence of yours, which has sprung up from the delusion engendered by contact with the limiting adjuncts of the body and organs, enters its cause, the great Reality, the Supreme Self, which stands for the ocean . . .  When that separate existence has entered and merged in its cause, in other words, when the differences created by ignorance are gone, the universe becomes one without a second.”

“These elements, transformed into the body, organs and sense-objects, from which the self comes out as an individual . . . are merged like rivers in the ocean, by the realisation of Brahman through the instruction of the scriptures and the teacher, and are destroyed. And when they are destroyed like the foams and bubbles of water, this individualised existence too is destroyed with them . . . After attaining (this oneness) the self, freed from the body and organs, has no more particular consciousness . . . How can the knower of Brahman, who is established in his nature as Pure Intelligence, possibly have any such particular consciousness? Even when a man is in the body, particular consciousness is sometimes impossible (e.g. as in deep sleep); so how can it ever exist in a man who has been absolutely freed from the body and organs? So said Yajnavalkya – propounded this philosophy of the highest truth to his wife, Maitreyi”

Note in the latter part of this quote the absence of ‘particular consciousness” being described in similar terms to the absence of objects/perceptions/thoughts in deep sleep.

Would welcome thoughts from traditional vedantins on your interpretation of this vis a vis the previous discussion on jnana being simply knowledge that is gained by a mind, rather than dissolution of all knowledge.

Is enlightenment an event in the mind?

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This is an interesting question which was initiated through the blogging of Ramesam and Martin on the need for both analyses and synthesis to arrive at knowledge and the conversation between Dennis and Anonymous. It might be interesting to explore this further?

The ‘traditional’ school of Advaita seem to argue that jnana is based upon knowledge that can be gained from scriptures and a competent teacher, together with a period of ‘purification’.

The realised masters of Advaita – most notably Sri Ramana and Sri Nisargadatta – but also the likes of Sw Chinmayananda, JK, Francis Lucille – would argue that mind is a necessary first step, but then it has to be discarded. If I can synthesise my understanding of their pointers – I think it is that the mind itself is just thoughts and this is the cause of the maya / illusion. Therefore to get out of the maya, to become a jnani, mind itself needs to be set aside; but of course a mind / thought cannot volitionally do this.

I’ve already set out some quotes in a previous thread with Martin under “Buddhi is also something perceived”, which includes one on ‘no mind’ from Gaudapada.

Here is what Vasistha had to say (from “The Vision and the Way of Vasistha” by BL Atreya): Continue reading →

Q.364 – Dispassion

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Q: I think I understand “Dispassion” and it’s importance, I’ve read “even loathing for worldly objects”. But I do have some passions or so it feels like it. For instance, I enjoy fabric and sewing “alot” is this just Brahman? At times it feels like an addiction. I don’t think there are judgements againt whatever passion one may have?? I guess I am just a bit confused. I am I guess in the beginning of my journey.

A (Ted): The Sanskrit word for “dispassion” is vairagya. Vairagya is defined as “indifference to the results of one’s actions.” Thus, dispassion is not so much a matter of the absence of desire as it is a matter of not depending on the satisfaction of any desires one does harbor for one’s sense of wholeness, completeness, and wellbeing.

 As long as one is ignorant of one’s true nature as whole, complete, limitless awareness, one’s desires spring from a sense of incompleteness and inadequacy. In other words, discomfited by the mental, emotional, and physical limitations with which one seems afflicted as an apparent person, one feels that if one obtains certain desired objects, attains a certain desired status, achieves certain desired goals, accomplishes certain desired feats, or becomes established in a certain desired state of mind, then one will transcend the limited, inadequate, incomplete person one takes oneself to be and consequently become better or whole or even enlightened. Continue reading →