Part 4
6.9.1 to 6.9.4 and 6.10.1 to 6.10.3
During sleep, mind is resolved and jiva’s individuality is suspended and therefore he does not know his merger with Brahman during sleep. Bees collect juices from different flowers and make honey by mixing the juices. In the honey, there is no trace of individual juice. Eastern and western rivers flowing towards east and west respectively merge in ocean and lose their individuality. Similarly, during sleep, at the time of death, and dissolution of a cycle of creation, all the creatures lose their individuality, and they resolve in Brahman. During sleep, the karmAs are in potential form. On becoming awake, they become live and functional. Hence going to sleep does not mean moksha. There are two types of entry of an individual into pure Being: involuntary and voluntary. In deep sleep, one’s entry is involuntary. There is no knowledge of the entry, and it is not permanent, and one comes back from that state.
Tag Archives: consciousness
BrihadAranyaka Upanishad (Part 2)
1.4.7
The mantra has core teaching of Vedanta, namely, Brahman is satya, jagat is mithya, and jiva is not different from Brahman. Brahman is all-pervading pure existence. Pure existence is same as pure consciousness. Existence and consciousness are two aspects of Brahman. It is eternal and changeless. It has mAyA power which is a relative reality because it borrows existence from Brahman. MAyA is the aggregate of sanchit karmAs of all the jivAs at the end of one cycle of creation which rests in Brahman in unmanifest and potential form. At appropriate time, the world is projected due to mAyA power. The creation unfolds in stages starting from five elements in nascent forms. The undifferentiated Brahman appears as differentiated names and forms called world. At some stage, jivAs with gross and subtle bodies are created which are inert and they enclose the all-pervading consciousness. It is like a pot enclosing space. The enclosed consciousness is jivAtma. This phenomenon is figuratively described as entry of Brahman. It is like a waking man entering the dream. When the dream is over, the waking man says that he has experienced the dream. It means that the entity which experiences the waking state also experiences the dream.
Q.559 – Atman and intellect
Q: Does Atman make use of intellect? Or does intellect function automatically with Atman just being the witness?
This is because, identification with body mind is possible only when we think. Liberation is possible when we overcome this wrong idea. Either way, it appears that Atman makes use of the intellect to get bound or liberated.
It is said that Atman is ever free and illusion and bondage are concepts only. But this concept can appear to Atman only when intellect is used.
A: First of all, you must clearly differentiate between the ‘absolute reality’ and the ‘empirical’ (worldly) appearance.
In reality, there is only non-dual Brahman. The world, including ‘you, the person’, is not real in itself. It is ‘name and form of’ Brahman, just as ring and necklace are not real in themselves, being name and form of gold.
Continue readingTat Tvam Asi (Part1)
In the commentary on Ch Up 6.1.3, ShankarAchArya says that even if a person has studied all the Vedas and knows all other things which are to be known, he indeed remains unfulfilled if he does not know the Self. As the word ‘unfulfilled’ is not explained, let me do. Unfulfilled means unfulfilled desires. Though a particular human desire is finite, there are countless desires and in this sense they are infinite. A person will have to take infinite births to fulfil them, and he will be in bondage forever. Conversely, with Self-knowledge, a person is complete and has no desires or alternatively all desires are subsumed in his ‘completeness’. He is free in the present life and is also free from rebirth.
Eight Upanishads (Topic-wise) Part 33
Chapter 6 JnAna and moksha
6-9 Tattiriya Upanishad- BrahmAnanda Valli
6-9-4 AnuvAka 7 (Pt 2) The universe is made of matter and is essentially inert. But living and non-living beings are found in the universe. It means that there is an outside source of sentiency. This source is Brahman. Consciousness is the nature of Brahman. The consciousness is reflected in the subtle body of a jiva and the latter becomes sentient. Brahman is also the source of happiness. When consciousness is reflected in a calm mind, happiness is felt. Vedanta claims that there is not an iota of happiness in worldly objects. If happiness is the essential nature of an object, it should give happiness to everybody all the time. But it is not so. An object liked by a person may not be liked by another person. And an object liked by a person now may not be liked later.
Quantum Mechanics
Q (Quora): How does the theory of quantum mechanics affect our picture of consciousness?
A (Martin): The two notions (QM and consciousness) are incommensurable in all respects, which should be obvious:
a) QM is a theory referable to reality or an aspect of reality (the microcosm); consciousness, on the other hand, is a known reality, not a theory – not only a fact but that which is behind, the substratum of, all facts and movements of the mind.
b) The reality that is consciousness does not need to be proven for it is immediate, direct, unstultifiable or unsublatable. Everything else – objects or phenomena, thought-constructions, etc. – are stultifiable.
That means that there is not even an approximation between the theory of QM and reality per se. It would be a category mistake to relate one to the other unless using such exercise as analogy or suggestion. In this sense, there are two or three things that can be said:
1) Reality/consciousness is limitless, like the referent (or an aspect thereof) of QM, but the former is un-measurable, unlike QM which is amenable to measurement/quantification and statistical verification
2) Reality is non-local (Bell’s theorem), like QM.
3) Consciousness/reality does not depend on anything, while QM is theory-dependent.
Brain and Mind
Q (Quora): How does the brain understand philosophy?
A (Martin): The brain… understanding philosophy? My reply to this is similar to the one I gave recently to another question, which was based on Socrates’ answer to an observation that someone was making. The man saw a pool of water being stirred by a stick held by a man and said that the stick was stirring the water. To which Socrates replied: ‘Is it the stick, or the man moving the stick?’ (Which one is the real agent – the material, or the instrumental cause, in Aristotelian terms?).
Equally, is it the brain, or the mind that which ‘moves’ the brain which moves the stick, which stirs the water?
Is it the brain, or the mind that which (using the brain as an instrument) understands philosophy?
Rather, it is consciousness (as a substrate) using the mind using the brain… Consciousness itself does not do anything
Waking Up (Conclusion)
Part 4 (conclusion) of the review of Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion by Sam Harris
Drugs
Many pages are devoted to a discussion of Near Death Experiences, although the reason for this is unclear – it is quite disproportionate, given the supposed topic of the book. He rightly condemns them as having nothing to do with spirituality, since they are merely the result of a cocktail of naturally produced chemicals in the brain. But then, inexplicably, he lauds hallucinogens as a mechanism for artificially inducing spiritual experiences, when all that they do is introduce a cocktail of man-made chemicals into the brain! You know full well (afterwards) that any experience you might have had was chemically created and therefore unreal. How can it possibly teach you anything useful? This is the height of irresponsibility and should have been rejected by the publisher.
Continue readingEight Upanishads (Topic-wise) Part 25
Chapter 6 JnAna and Moksha
6-6 Kena Upanishad
6-6-1 Kena 1.1 The student is an informed student. He experiences the phenomenal world by his senses and knows that they are made of matter and are inert. They have five features: material (inert), objects of experience, changing, with attributes, and temporary (available in the waking state). There should be an outside source imparting sentiency to the sense organs. The student is curious to know the source and asks a pointed question to that effect. He wants to know the divine source which impels eyes to see, ears to hear, speech to happen, mind to go to objects and vital forces to function. The teacher replies.
Waking Up (Part 3)
Part 3 of the review of Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion by Sam Harris
Read Part 2
Other Religions and Non-duality
It is not at all obvious why ‘religion’ should be so disparaged. He recognizes “the needless confusion and harm that inevitably arise from the doctrines of faith-based religions”. The literal meaning of ‘religion’ is ‘joining back’, from the Latin ‘re ligare’. Its essential aim (and, I suggest, one rather more worthy) has nothing to do with psychology or personal happiness but with the nature of reality itself. It is difficult to understand how someone could place more value on a drug-induced experience than upon use of reason applied to scriptural revelation.
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