Tag Archives: brahman

Enjoying Being Brahman – Q. 324

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Q1: When I was in the constant of awareness that I was Brahman I used to enjoy the Thoughts that all indeed was Brahman. Since I progressed to the simply I AM I am not enjoying the earlier feelings of thinking everything as Brahman. Is it that the state of being in simply I AM is absolute absence of any thought whatsoever? 

 Q2: How to overcome the sleep state to be in constant awareness of Who am I? Please some practical hints!

 Regarding my second point I intended to know more about the Fourth State in which the Saints wait to consume all their Prarabdha. How is this state practised and what are the skills of it?

Please shed some light on how do the realised but unpractised people live in their day to life while all the time immersed in their truest identity. My readings tell me just to let things happen without least botheration how they happen. Is it this way?

A (Peter): These questions make a strong case for why seeking proper guidance in this work is vital. Vedānta isn’t something that anyone can just pick up from a book, any more than anyone can dive straight into advanced mathematics from a book. If one doesn’t have a basic concept of numbers and the ways they combine through addition, multiplication, subtraction and division then how could one cope with the more esoteric realms of the subject? And compared to the science of self-knowledge, which is subtler than the subtlest, higher maths is crude. Self-knowledge needs appropriate prep work before the books make sense. Continue reading →

Vision Of Truth (sad darshanam – 3)

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mRRityu~njayam mRRityu bhiyAshritAnAm

ahammatirmRRityumupaiti pUrvam

atha svabhAvAdamRRiteShu teShu

katham punarmRRityu dhiyaH avakAshaH—2

 

mRRityu~njayam = vanquisher of mortality;  mRRityu bhiyA = by the fear of death;

AshritAnAm= of those who have sought protection; ahammatiH = the ‘I’ notion (I am

devotee);mRRityumupaiti = attains death;  pUrvam = first; atha = thereafter;  svabhAvAt =

by nature;amRRiteShu teShu = in the immortals; katham = how; punaH =again; mRRityu

dhiyaH = of the notion of death; avakAshaH = possibility.

 

The vanquisher of mortality (Lord shiva) destroys the “I am a devotee’ notion of those who have sought protection in him. Thereafter in them, who are immortal by nature, how can there be a notion of death?

 

Lord shiva is called mRRityu~njaya. He destroys the mortality of those who seek his protection. What does this mean?

I, as the individual see myself as limited. I consider myself as a part in the whole. A natural consequence is the rest of the world is the other part and the Lord is the protector of all parts. There is this feeling and need of being salvaged by the protector and one becomes a devotee. This devotee-hood though seems religious and serene makes once life stagnant and redundant, in that, the division is set and maintained forever. One has to grow beyond this. At the beginning, it is helpful to consider oneself a devotee, but carrying it too long will stunt a person’s spiritual growth. Continue reading →

QUESTIONS NOT RAISED OR ANSWERED – Part 2

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It is about 40 days ago I had posted the first part posing what I thought would be questions that will interest many readers.

Shri Panigrahi and Shri Peter have been kind to respond giving their observations. I am grateful to them for their comments.

I do not know why there are not many more reactions. The reasons could vary from the reader profile, website personality to flippancy of the questions. But as you may have already anticipated, there cannot be ‘the one correct answer.’ There can only be  different views.  So without going into much elaboration, I shall spell out my thoughts for the answers. Continue reading →

upadesha sAhasrI – Part 3

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Part 3 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 and part 1 of the new series.

Experience and Knowledge (Q. 321)

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Q: ‘Experiential’, seemingly, is becoming a stumbling block in current discussions within spirituality and non-duality. There are the ‘experiential’, usually ‘anti-intellectual’ types (who deprecate ‘merely intellectual’, or ‘conceptual’ approaches), and those who defend the proper use of mind and the intellect, without denying the validity of experience.

 Would it be possible, though, to dispense with either of the two concepts: ‘knowledge’ and ‘experience’?; they appear to overlap, practically being synonyms and, indeed, one can say “I know pain in the belly”, or, “I know such and such emotion”, “I know (I am acquainted with) life”, etc., without resorting to the word ‘experience’ – the word ‘acquaint’, conveniently, is derived from the Latin via old French: cognoscere, gnoscere. The other alternative would be to dispense with the word ‘knowledge’ and use instead ‘real’/’unreal’, ‘reality’, which is, precisely, sat/asat in sanskrit – and expressions using these terms are quite frequent, as everybody… realizes (‘is cognizant with’, then, would have to be ruled out). Just today I wrote in a comment that true understanding is an experience, but now I have my doubts. Ultimately, certainly, the only Experiencer/Knower is brahman/atman (though he remains ever unmoved). Continue reading →

Vision Of Truth (sad darshanam – 2)

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Verse 1 continued…

 

Ramana Maharshi then puts down a question; “How can we remember this un objectifiable, one truth”.  He goes on to answer in the same breath. Remembering it is abiding in it as one’s own self.

ABIDANCE itself is REMEMBRANCE. One cannot remember it as an object. Remembering is a thought; remembering constantly is repeated thought; forgetting is also a thought. The self is not an object of remembrance and forgetfulness. The constant abidance in it as non different from one’s own self is real remembrance.

It is not mentally repeating “I am Brahman”. Instead it is a firm, unshakeable conviction of one’s own true identity. Come what may, objective experiences, within and without keep changing but the truth is apprehended as is. If there is repetition of words in the form of remembrance then it is a mind- based transaction. Any mind based transaction has a beginning and an end (it also being an action). Hence, prior to the beginning of the action and post the action, the identity of Atma and Brahman, then, has to discontinue. If this is so, the eternality of Atma will be in question. Hence, it cannot be a mind-based transaction. Continue reading →

saMskAra-s, svadharma and karma (Q. 320)

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Q: I read about the above topics in your book and struggled with them, not only because there are a number of things to remember, but also because how exactly they function is complex.

 I thought about what you said regarding svadharma and how not going with it, with the example of Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita, would have been bad for ones karma and thought about Hitler.

 You might say that it was Hitler’s svadharma to do as he did and that to go against that, in other words, to be an ordinary politician or something for example, would have given rise to bad karma for him, the same way as going against his duty would have caused Arjuna bad karma, as explained by Krishna: ‘slay thy foes’. But then that seems unfair to him (Hitler), since surely his ‘bad actions’ (genocide, etc.) that his svadharma would have had him following would have brought him bad karma any way, so either way, things, from that perspective, looked pretty bleak for him? Then one might say that what Hitler did was not really his svadharma, but this I personally would agree with, as a ‘person’ cannot act outside of Brahman, that is, everything we do, feel, think is Brahman, so even Hitler’s ‘evils’ were also Brahman? Continue reading →

Apparent contradictions in Advaita (Q. 319)

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Q: I read some serious critique of Advaita by a philosophy professor in a web page. If you have time, I`d like to know your thoughts about it.
 
Here it is:
 
. The View is Self-Contradictory: The first problem with the core of Sankara’s philosophy is that it seems to be self-contradictory. As advocates of the other Hindu schools of thought have pointed out, if the only reality is Brahman, and Brahman is pure, distinctionless consciousness, then there cannot exist any real distinctions in reality. But the claim that this world is an illusion already presupposes that there is an actual distinction between illusion and reality, just as the claim that something is a dream already presupposes the distinction between waking consciousness and dream consciousness. Moreover, Sankara’s idea of salvation–that is, enlightenment through recognition that all is Brahman–already presupposes a distinction between living in a state of unenlightenment (ignorance) and living in a state of enlightenment. So this view contradicts itself by, on the one hand, saying that reality (Brahman) is distinctionless, while on the other hand distinguishing between maya and the truth of Brahman, and by distinguishing between being enlightened and unenlightened. Continue reading →

QUESTIONS NOT RAISED OR ANSWERED – Part 1

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[Here are three questions that I did not come across a seeker raising them. Nor did I find any teacher discussing directly those specific issues and answering them in a logical way. Maybe my literature search is incomplete, I admit. Before I go on to provide my replies to these questions, I will very much appreciate to know the reactions / thoughts of the interested / knowledgeable readers – ramesam.]

The Questions:

A.  Bhagavad-Gita related: Continue reading →

Clearing some myths about mithyā

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Adi Shaṅkara’s vision of advaita is most succinctly expressed in the following pithy statement: Brahma satyam, jagan-mithyā; jīvo-brahmaiva nāpara. (Brahman is Absolute Reality, satyam; the universe is dependent reality, mithyā; the individual, jīva, is none other than Brahman itself).

In this statement there is one word that has caused great confusion by being wrongly understood – much of the critical rejection of advaita (as well as the fundamentalist stand on non-duality adopted by some Western advaitins) can be avoided if this word is understood correctly. The word is mithyā.

Traditional advaita vedānta postulates two orders of reality: absolute and relative. The name given to the relative order of reality is mithyā, commonly mis-translated as ‘illusion’. Whereas the neo-advaita teachers accept only one level as valid (i.e. satyam), vedānta accommodates both levels. In the Taittiriya Upaniṣad it talks about two birds on the same tree: one enjoys the fruit of the tree, the other just witnesses. The Īśa Upaniṣad says that one should see everything as the Lord, but if that’s not possible due to attachment to the body then one should live a life performing one’s duty. The very structure of the Vedas themselves reflects this acceptance of a two-fold reality and prescribe (in the karma kāṇḍa section) the best way to live the worldly life and in the vedānta section it reveals the vision of truth. Satyam is the absolute level of reality, mithyā is the ‘as though’ real. Continue reading →