Q: Can one ever KNOW that reality is non-dual?
A (Ramesam):
(i) YES, The moment you can grasp tight your reflection in the mirror!!!
(ii) No, you cannot know it like you know the salary you get.
(iii) Yes, you cannot ever NOT know it; what all IS, is your perception alone.
(iv) No, if you place yourself aloof trying to know it as a distant object.
(v) Yes, you know It in your deep sleep.
(vi) No, if you want to measure and compare to duality. Continue reading
Q: I need clarity on some questions.
01. The understanding is everything is life/consciousness/totality, it is the totality that functions through animals including human beings ( so-called separate entity/Body Mind Organism) and life/god/consciousness’ true nature though indescribable in words has been described as Sata Chit Ananda in other words peace love etc. So my question is if that is true why animals attack and kill, when they too have Life? Though humans too do that but, Master has good explanation for that under Advaita teaching as to why humans possibly do wrong or kill. One answer some what suffices when it comes to humans in particular as to why they kill or do wrong, i.e. when this impersonal consciousness identifies with the body and mind suit, there is every chance that actions that will happen will be imbued by the understanding that I am a body and so are others and actions with ignorance can take place, but the question is what about in the case of animals, why they do kill/attack if they have Life or rather they are Life? Continue reading
In the comments following the Question and Answer on the subject of mAyA and Ishvara – Q.325, Peter and I began the following exchange on the subject of ‘reflection of Consciousness’ (between the <<< >>> marks below). We continued this discussion off-line. Now that this has been concluded, we are posting the discussion so that others may, perhaps, benefit from the clarification that ensued.
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PB: 2. The easiest misunderstanding to resolve is the distinction between ‘original consciousness’ and ‘reflected consciousness’: there is NO difference. To explain this we are given the analogy of light. Any opaque object is seen because it reflects light. One can say that the light reaching our eyes from the object is ‘reflected light’. But what is the difference between ‘reflected light’ and ‘original light’? There is no difference: light is light. ‘Reflected light’ is merely the name given to ‘original light’ seen together with a reflecting medium (the object). In the same way, ‘reflected consciousness’ is the name given to ‘original consciousness’ seen together with the reflecting medium of the perceptible gross and subtle universe. ‘Original consciousness’ is given the name Brahman. Continue reading
sarvairnidAnam jagatohamashcha
vAchyaH prabhuH kashchidapAra shaktiH
chitretra lokyam cha vilokitA cha
paTaH prakAshopyabhavat sa ekaH—3
sarvaiH = by all; nidAnam = cause; jagataH = of the world; ahamaH cha = and of ‘I’;
vAchyaH = is (popularly accepted); prabhuH kashchit = somemLord; apAra shaktiH =
limitless power; chitre = picture; atra = here; lokyam cha vilokitA cha = seen and the
seer; paTaH = canvas; prakAshaH = light; abhavat = became; saH ekaH = that one.
The cause of the world and the ‘I’ (individual) is popularly accepted by all to be some Lord of limitless power. Here, in this picture, that one has become the seer, seen, the canvas and the lights also.
Even as children, we have a curiosity to know how the universe began. If the big bang occurred in time, there would have been time and space already; even otherwise who created that dense matter that made a bang. Such curiosity to go to the root is natural to a thinking person.
Here are a few more short Q & A’s which do not merit a separate post of their own: (Dennis’ answers, so don’t blame any of the other bloggers!)
Q: Nisargadatta says : Delve deeply into the sense ‘I am’ and you surely discover that the perceiving centre is universal, as universal as the light that illumines the world. All that happens in the universe happens to you, the silent witness. On the other hand, whatever is done, is done by you, the universal and inexhaustible energy.
My question in two parts:
1. If my awareness is the absolute one and there is no other – then yours does not exist?
2. If they both exist as the Absolute but are separately perceived by two minds why am I not aware of your experience as well as my own?
So far as I can see, without reliance on solipsism, non-duality/Vedanta must posit a reality where the Absolute is being “dipped into” by separate minds? Continue reading
Yogavaasishta is a remarkable Advaitic text in many ways. It is at once a theoretical text and a practical Manual. It combines the abstruse Vedantic concepts of Non-duality with simple doable tips and presents them in an engrossing manner. Sage Vasishta often uses the technique of bringing home the most intricate philosophical point through a fictitious tale crafted on the spot with imaginary characters representing with high fidelity the point to be illustrated in an unforgettable manner. One such story is of Kadamba Daasura**. It tells us about the untenability of the perceived world. Daasura is shown to be living on the last tender leaf of the topmost branch of a Kadamba tree (Anthocephelus – Latin name: Adina cordifolia) where sustenance for any being, leave alone a human, is impossible. Sage Vasishta intends to impress on us that the sustenance of a world (which we take to be real and functioning) to be equally impossible.
Daasura teaches his son that the world is a creature of the ‘thought’ that thinks it. Intent on ending the world, the son who is hardly in his early teens enquires what is thought and how thought itself originates and what are the means of annihilating the thoughts. Daasura’s response to these questions is very profound and a summary is presented below. Continue reading
Part 5 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.
Read Part 1
It is extremely difficult to accept that what we see, what we experience, what we take to be real is not quite real. Even Swami Dayananda wrote of his utter shock on realising that the solid universe is made up of nothing but words and meanings. I personally remember the first time I saw his demonstration of close-up magic when he held up a clay tea cup in the meeting hall, one hot afternoon in his Gurukulam in Anaikatti. “What am I holding?” he asked and then answered for us: “You say cup, I say clay. Tell me which bit of this is cup? My fingers touch clay, the weight of what you call cup is the weight of clay. The feel of the cup is the feel of clay. The colour of the cup is the colour of clay. Where is the cup? Is it on the clay? If it is I can remove it. Maybe it is in the clay?” In this way, as we watched, the thing called ‘cup’ vanished in front of our very eyes. ‘Cup’ is nothing but the name given to a particular form of clay for the sake of distinguishing it from other things made of clay and all other things as well.
Now extend this to all objects that can be traced back to a common cause: even science supports this view. Then at each stage we just have names: Shirt is the name of a form of material, material is the name of yarn, yarn of cotton, cotton of fibres, fibres of atoms, atoms of sub-atomic particles, etc till we arrive at a single cause. (Vedānta śāstram goes one step further than science in stepping from the perceptible to the non-perceptible world.) Continue reading
Q: My understanding of original consciousness, mAyA, Ishvara is follows:
. Ishvara is the reflected conscious.
. mAyA( shudha satva prakRRiti) is the reflecting medium of original consciousness-Brahman.
. Ishvara controls or has full control over mAyA.
My question is how can the reflection (Ishvara) have control over the reflecting medium, mAyA? For example, if I see myself in a mirror how can my reflection (image) control the reflecting medium, the mirror?
Please let me know whether my understanding is correct and throw some light on this. Continue reading
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