Tag Archives: brahman

Appearance and Reality – As Properties

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“In order to understand a new material, one has to understand its Intrinsic properties as well as its Assumed (Transient) properties.  The intrinsic properties of Brahman are Sat (Reality), Chit (Consciousness) and Ananda (Bliss).  His transient or assumed qualities are Creation, Sustenance and Dissolution.  One should know both these qualities of Brahman in order to understand him.  It is very difficult to directly comprehend or talk about the intrinsic qualities of Brahman.  That’s why, at many places, the Vedas firstly talk about the assumed, temporary or transient qualities of the Brahman and then explain Brahman in terms of his natural intrinsic qualities.

The following quote from Taittiriyopanishad is very pertinent in this context among all the statements in the Vedas about the transient qualities of Brahman:

यतोवा इमानि भूतानि जायन्ते
येन जातानि जीवन्ति
यत्प्रय्त्यभिसंविशन्ति ||    —   III-1-i,  taittirIya upanishad

It means: “Brahman is that from which all the five major elements like the sky are born, by which all that were born are sustained and into which all those sustained finally enter and unify with it.”

The properties of creation, sustenance and dissolution do not always adhere to the Brahman. Therefore, they are to be called as temporarily assumed characteristics.  Both Vasishta and Valmiki Maharishis prepared the scope of their teachings in YogavAsiShTha keeping this fact in mind. ”  — From: p: 1-2, Yogavaasishta, Part III – Sustenance, K. V. Krishna Murthy, (English translation Dr. Vemuri Ramesam), Avadhoota Datta Peetham, Mysore, India, 2006.

The transient qualities are the Appearance.

The intrinsic qualities are the Reality.

Waves on the water

Quote

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All the objects in the world are Brahman. ‘I’ am Brahman. Such being the case, both passion and dispassion, craving and aversion are but notions. Body is Brahman, death is Brahman, too: when they come together, as the real rope and the unreal imaginary snake come together, where is the cause for sorrow? Similarly, body is Brahman and pleasure is Brahman: where is the cause of rejoicing when body experiences pleasure? When, on the surface of the calm ocean, waves appear to be agitated, the waves do not cease to be water! Even when Brahman appears to be agitated (in the world appearance), its essence is unchanged and there is neither ‘I’-ness nor ‘you’-ness. When the whirlpool dies in the water, nothing is dead! When the death-Brahman overtakes the body-Brahman, nothing is lost.

The Supreme Yoga: Yoga VasiShTha, translated by Swami Venkatesananda, Chiltern Yoga Trust. ISBN: 8120819640. Buy from Amazon US, Buy from Amazon UK.

Topic of the Month – Appearance and Reality

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dubrovnik_wallThe topic for June 2014 is Appearance and Reality.

Things are not necessarily how they initially seem to be!

Everything apart from Consciousness (brahman-Atman-turIya) is mithyA; only That is satyam. The metaphors of dreams and rope-snakes are highly relevant!

Please submit your quotes, short extracts or personal blogs on this topic!

Who Slept Well – Part 4

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This is the final part of the series from AchArya Sadananda, (only edited by myself).

Deep-Sleep State

When we go into the deep sleep state, we start withdrawing each of the kosha-s, one by one, with the desire or thought of going to sleep. The ‘I want to sleep’ thought forms the contents of the vij~nAnamaya kosha or the intellect, when it goes to sleep or when it goes into an unmanifested state.  In the process of sleeping, there is a withdrawal of each of the grosser kosha-s into the subtler ones: annamayakosha to prANamayakosha, prANamaya to manomaya, manomaya to vij~nAnamaya.  At the time of sleep, the vij~nAnamaya or intellectual sheath becomes unmanifested with all the kosha-s as part of its ingredients, but in undifferentiated form. That unmanifested state of the intellectual sheath with all its constituent kosha-s is now called Anandamayakosha, since there is absence of any discriminative thoughts and associated relationships, other than the homogeneous thought of ignorance or avidya. This is referred to as avidya vRitti.  It is, in a sense, an experience involving the knowledge of the absence of anything and everything.  Hence the Mandukya (mantra 5) says – na ki~nchana kAmam kAmayate – there is absence of desire for any object, since there is no perception or recognition of any particular object of any kind in that unmanifested state. Continue reading →

Who Slept Well – part 3

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OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAExperiencer of the Deep-Sleep-State

As noted in Part 2, we have three experiences in the deep-sleep state: 1. I exist, since I say I slept well; 2. I have the knowledge of homogeneous ignorance, since I say I did not know anything; 3. I was happy or I did not experience the pains of BMI, since I am not conscious of the BMI or any duality. The question remains: if the mind is not there, then who experiences these and who recollects these experiences on waking up, since the experiencer and the recollector have to be one and the same? These appear to be puzzling questions that need to be addressed. Who is going to provide the answer to this – a sleeper or a waker? For this, scripture alone becomes a pramAna, or means of knowledge, since the mind that uses logic cannot provide the answers. No objective tools can be used or would be valid to analyze the deep sleep state, since all objective entities (apart from ignorance) are absent in that state. Hence, objective scientists also have no tools available for investigation. These aspects have to be clear even when we are studying the opinions of other philosophers such as Shree Atmananda-ji , unless these opinions are shruti based. Continue reading →

How Vedanta Works

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OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAHow words work in Vedanta
(based on essays from Sw. Dayananda and Ramji)

by Tan

Vedanta is a means of self knowledge through words called shabda pramANa.

It is able to give you direct knowledge of your eternal nature through words. In spiritual circles this will be generally criticized with the argument that the eternal self, enlightenment, the absolute, Brahman, the Tao or whatever you want to call it, is beyond words and indescribable. Therefore the conclusion is that it is impossible to get direct knowledge and know your “real” self through words. Continue reading →

More on ekajIva vAda

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Rather than add more comments to the ‘mokSha for All’ thread, I thought it better to make this a separate post. It is the same topic but here I posed a question to AchArya Dr. Sadananda of Chinmaya Mission, Washington, whom I have known for a long time. I have interposed comments in his response and his follow-up comments have been added in green.

Dennis:

 Obviously any statement about the ‘nature’ of absolute  reality can only be made from the jIva’s standpoint; i.e. an  ‘as though’ pAramArthika statement made in vyavahAra. Thus, any talk about a world is clearly a vyAvahArika statement;  aham brahmAsmi is an ‘as though’ pAramArthika statement.

Sada:

Dennis – aham brahmaasmi is statement of understanding of the truth – it is recognition of that paaramaarthika state but expressed using the instruments available in vyavhaaha that is the BMI. It is not just vyaavahaarika statement about paramaarthika state. It is like when I say sugar is sweet – it is statement which may not mean much to a listener who may not know what sweetness means, but it means a lot to one who knows and is the statement born of direct experiential understanding – or aparoxaanubhuti. Continue reading →

Some Thoughts And Questions On ‘mokSha for all’

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Our last ‘Thoughts and Questions’ proved so popular that we are offering a new topic for your consideration:

I received an interesting Question that touches on several aspects of creation and liberation for ‘everyone’. I posted the question at Advaitin discussion group because of my doubt about its value in gaining Self-Knowledge which is after all the one that matters for us here. The question is this:

“Is there any teaching anywhere in the scriptures regarding the enlightenment and ‘freeing’ of all jIva-s? What the questioner is getting at is: will the cycle of sRRiShTi – sthiti – laya ever come to an end, namely when there are no more jIva-s left to be enlightened? Or even: if this does occur at some point, will the process start all over again with a new set of jIva-s? If not, what happens then?”

My initial apprehension was that any ‘answer’ is clearly going to be in the same category as the various creation myths that we can find scattered about in the scriptures. However, a lively discussion ensued that eventually led to eka jIva vAda, a powerful but contentious theory that describes liberation of the jIva and the simultaneous end of creation.

I give below some of the salient points that have come up in those discussions: Continue reading →

Q. 358 – mAyA and avidyA

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Q:
1) If Atman is perfect, how can it ever be deluded by mAyA?

2) What is the source of avidyA? If there is only brahman, how and why does avidyA exist?

Answers are provided by: Ted, Martin, Shuka, and Dennis.

A (Ted):
1) Atman (i.e. pure limitless awareness) is never really deluded by mAyA (i.e. ignorance), but rather only apparently so.  Given the non-dual nature of reality and, thus, the fact that Brahman-Atma is the only thing — though, of course, pure awareness cannot be said to be a “thing” at all due to its attributeless and unobjectifiable nature — that exists, mAyA is nothing other than Brahman-Atma itself.  That is, it is a power inherent in the very nature of Brahman-Atma.  Ironically, if Brahman-Atma, whose nature is limitless, were limited by the inability to apparently delude itself, it would not be limitless and, therefore, would not be Brahman-Atma :-). Continue reading →

upadesha sAhasrI – part 16

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upadesha16

Part 16 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.

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