VEDĀNTA the solution to our fundamental problem by D. Venugopal
Part 9 explains how only the Vedas provide knowledge of the Self.
There is a complete Contents List, to which links are added as each new part appears.
upadesha sAhasrI – Part 20
Part 20 of the serialization of the presentation (compiled by R. B. Athreya from the lectures given by Swami Paramarthananda) of upadesha sAhasrI. This is the prakaraNa grantha which is agreed by most experts to have been written by Shankara himself and is an elaborate unfoldment of the essence of Advaita.
Subscribers to Advaita Vision are also offered special rates on the journal and on books published by Tattvaloka. See the full introduction
Q.360 – Suffering
Q: I have tried several spiritual paths and I was always stopped in my search by this question: How do we explain suffering?. Why does all pervading, partless, actionless Consciousness create, allow, dream of Auschwitz? Surely Consciousness could do better than this?
Answers are provided by: Ted, Martin, and Sitara. For answers by Dennis, see Q.24 and Q.33 and Q.62 and Q.120 and Q.294.
A (Ted): Your question is certainly understandable. It is the same question just about everybody has at an early stage in their spiritual understanding. It is based on a fundamental erroneous assumption we make about the nature of reality due to the conditioning we receive either directly from religion or indirectly from the religious beliefs that undergird the generally accepted perception of reality that informs the society.
Our mistaken assumption is that awareness is an anthropomorphic (i.e. human-like) entity who has some overarching personal agenda and is orchestrating—or at least overseeing—the activities and events transpiring in the world with a vested interest in their nature and results. But this is not the nature of awareness. Continue reading
Topic of the Month – bhakti
The topic for July 2014 is bhakti.
Along with many others, I used to think that there were 3 paths to enlightenment: karma, bhakti and j~nAna. I now know better! There is only one ‘remedy’ for saMsAra – j~nAna, since only knowledge can eliminate ignorance. But karma yoga is valuable for mental preparation and bhakti is an attitude that should prevail throughout. It is also excellent as a starting point for many. We also need to differentiate bhakti and upAsana…
Please submit your quotes, short extracts or personal blogs on this topic!
Reality, appearance, and Time
Quotes:
Lord Vishnu: As a matter of fact, the trunk, stem, branches, leaves and so on did not emerge out of the seed. The seed has transformed itself into all of them.
रूपालोक मनस्कार तत्ताकाल क्रियात्मक्म् ।
कुम्भकारो घटमिव चेतोहन्ति करोतिच ॥ — sarga 48 – shloka 52
What is present now is perceived by the senses. What will be in the future is anticipated by the mind by its projection. What was past is remembered by the mind by identifying itself with the past things/ events. Therefore, it can also be said as:
Present Time rUpAloka kAla Period of Direct Observation (Perception)
Future Time manaskAra kAla Period of Mental Projection (Anticipation)
Past Time tattA kAla Period of Mental Identification (Remembrance)
Thus the three times viz., Present, Future and Past are nothing but what the mind makes up like a potter churns out pottery. It is again the mind that makes them disappear. — p: 84
*****
Sage Gadhi: Pardon me, My Lord! You insist that every event, every ‘thing’ in the world is a phantasm, a creation of the mind. It is quite puzzling to me. Certain things take place in the world as per the Law of Nature regularly on time. If it is taken that the entire world is nothing but a figment of imagination, how can there be a rule or rhyme to it? How can any Law of Nature be valid? The world does certainly seem to revolve around a time frame. How is it possible to attribute it to some fancy? Continue reading
Reality, appearance, and mind
Quote:
“Sage Vasishta: Please listen to me carefully as I shall now teach you the most supreme of all topics — ways to calm down the mind. Just like pillars bear the weight of a building, raajasic and taamasic people carry on their shoulders the unlimited illusion of a world. But saatvic natured persons like you can leave this burden as easily as a snake sheds its skin. The only way to do it is through an understanding of the essence of Truth (tatva vichaaraNa).
Whatever is not existent at the beginning and also at the end, but appears only in-between cannot be Real. Whatever stays permanently at all times (past, present and future) only can be True. How does a thing that has no existence at the beginning and at the end appear to be born and to exist in-between? The fact of the matter is neither anything is born nor anything has grown. All of this is entirely a play of the mind!
जायते मन एवेह मन एव विवर्धते ।
सम्यग्दर्शन दृष्ट्या तु मन एवहि मुच्यते ॥ — shloka 11, sarga 5
What is born here is mind, what develops is also mind. If you consider properly, what is liberated also is mind.”
Extracted from p:7 of the book: Yogavaasishta Part IV: The Calm Down by K.V. Krishna Murthy, (English rendering by Dr. Vemuri Ramesam), Avadhoota Datta Peetham, Mysore 570025, India, 2008, pp: 194.
Nathan Gill
Quote
Nathan Gill (1960 – 2014)
Enlightenment:
As Consciousness You are already awake and aware. In the play of life when there is exclusive focus as the individual, Your true nature is forgotten and there is complete involvement in searching for enlightenment or awakening. But You already are aware, already completely awake; it’s simply that this is veiled by appearances, the story of ‘me’ as an individual.
Whenever Your true nature is remembered the spell is broken. The pursuit of enlightenment is clearly seen as nothing more than the cosmic lIlA. Awakeness is already the case under all circumstances, regardless of contrary appearances in the play.
Transmission:
The guru and the disciple appear as images in the cosmic lIlA – the play of life. Maybe the storyline in the play is that through grace the disciple receives the blessing of the guru, and for as long as there is entrancement with the story of ‘me’ this can be an enthralling drama. In actuality though there is no transmission of anything from one to another because there simply isn’t anyone.
Practice:
No one becomes enlightened because in actuality there isn’t anyone. Only within the story in the play of life does striving to transcend individuality appear to have validity.
There is no individual that could become enlightened; no one that needs to attain or realize anything. The drama of striving to achieve enlightenment through various practices is limited to the play of appearances. What practice is needed to simply be?
All quotations from private Emails, reproduced in Back to the Truth: 5000 Years of Advaita (Paperback), Dennis Waite, O Books, Feb 2007, ISBN-10: 1905047614. Buy from Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk
Appearance versus Reality
Quote
I am posting this quote vom Yoga Vasishta because it perfectly fits the topic of this month. Unfortunately I do not have the exact references, so I am asking anyone who has it to let us know and possibly fix the translation if it is not correct (dear readers, please check the comments).
O Rama, you have reached that state of satva and your mind has been burnt in the fire of wisdom. What is that wisdom? It is that the infinite Brahman is indeed the infinite Brahman; the world-appearance is but an appearance whose reality is Brahman. Page 328
Because the substratum (Infinite Consciousness) is real, all that is based on it acquires reality, though the reality is of the substratum alone. The universe and all beings in it are but a long dream. To me you are real, and to you I am real; even so the others are real to you or to me. And, this relative reality is like the reality of the dream-objects. Page 71
Whatever there is here which exists and functions here is real to the self and not to another who does not perceive it and is unaware of it. Therefore, all these creations and creatures that exist within the field of the energy of consciousness are true to the perceiving self and are unreal to the non-perceiver. All the notions and the dreams that exist in the present, past or the future are all real, because the self which is the self of all is real. Page 574
One can say that this world-appearance is real only so far as it is the manifestation of consciousness and because of direct experience; and it is unreal when it is grasped with the mind and the sense-organs. Wind is perceived as real in its motion, and it appears to be non-existent when there is no motion: even so this world-appearance can be regarded both as real and unreal. Page 88
from: http://www.yogavasistha.com/ptoy.htm
Photo credits: Pascal Willuhn@pixelio.de
GK: III-40 and Some (Mis)Conceptions
During the mid-part of the last century when we were in our adolescence, the most common ambition of an average educated Indian was to go abroad. So we used to have a fancy to learn some foreign language. I tried Chinese but could go hardly beyond two pages of a book I bought from the Higginbotham’s. Deutche (German) was the next attraction because that was still the Lingua franca for Science in those days. I forgot all of what I learnt but one thing that stuck to me was a charming quote which expresses the German spirit of approach in developing their expertise. It goes something like this:
“Es gibt nichts Praktischeres als eine gute Theorie.“
(My thanks to Sitara who was kind to correct my initial wrong wording and also for letting me know that it was Immanuel Kant who said it).
The quote means that “there is nothing more practical than a good theory.”
IMHO, the statement is a delight to every theoretician and undoubtedly very dear to all those oriented to jnAna mArga (Self-inquiry). Continue reading
Knowledge and the Fruit of Knowledge
Following on from the l-o-n-g discussion we had on this topic under the thread ‘akhaNDAkAra vRRitti – The End of Suffering‘, I have written what was intended to be the commentary on kArikA 3.40 in my next book (OM: Waking Dreams… and Reality), which covers the essence of this discussion. I have decided that I will probably simplify this considerably for the book, because it is intended to be an accessible and readable book, rather than an academic one. But, because of its relevance, I am posting the entire section, as first written, below.
You now know all about adhyAropa and apavAda and acknowledge that all of the teaching is only interim, to be used to lead us to the final understanding and then discarded. The corollary to this is that, in principle at least, any teaching could be used for this purpose. If it works, it is valid. So it is hardly surprising that there are other methodologies altogether, which can have the same ultimate purport, e.g. Zen Buddhism, Taoism, Kabbalah etc. (I don’t have any personal knowledge of these other systems but understand that their essential teaching is non-dual.)
As far as Advaita Vedanta is concerned, the finer details of the teaching differed from one teacher or branch to another, both before and after Shankara. And some modern-day proponents tend to adhere to some elements and some to others that are apparently contradictory. None of this matters in the final analysis but does tend to lead to some quite heated discussions on the Internet! Continue reading