Tag Archives: jiva

chin mudrA

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small_A-U-MHere is the second extract from my forthcoming book on the Mandukya Upanishad and Gaudapada’s kArikA-s. It explains the symbolism associated with the cover image. This explanation occurs near the end of the book, since it utilizes concepts with which the reader might be unfamiliar (until he or she has read the book). But since readers of this site should certainly be familiar with the terms, there is no harm in presenting it here!

chin mudrA

Now that we have almost concluded the unfolding of the kArikA-s, we can return to that cover image! The ‘hand-sign’ is not actually mentioned in the Mandukya Upanishad, nor by Gaudapada, though it is highly relevant. As I mentioned in the introduction, it is a gesture associated with the Sage who is said to be the first teacher of Vedanta – Dakshinamurti. As such, he was the head of the teaching sampradAya and did not himself have a teacher – i.e. he was already fully enlightened. He is also identified with the God Shiva. It is called chin mudrA or j~nAna mudrA (more usually chin), where chin means Consciousness and mudrA means sign.

It is often said that Dakshinamurti taught through silence. Of course, this would not make any sense. Silence can be interpreted in innumerable ways, few of which are likely to convey useful knowledge! But, once we have the knowledge, a symbol can convey a world of information, reminding us through memory of what we have previously learned. Witness the vast amount of knowledge which is now conveyed to you through the word OM.

The hand position shown on the cover of this book is another symbol of this sort. And it is highly relevant to the same knowledge.

Here is the symbolism:

  • The thumb represents paramAtman. There is some reasoning behind this. The scriptures speak of paramAtman as residing in the space in the heart (hRRidaya). By this, we were expected to understand ‘mind’, since it used to be thought that the mind was contained in the physical organ of the heart. Since the heart is about the size of a fist, it was reasonable to think that the space inside was about the size of a thumb.
  • The forefinger represents the individual or jIva. It could also be thought of as the ego or sense of myself. It is common in many cultures to use the forefinger to point out personal opinions and also to threaten or criticize others whose views differ from ‘mine’.
  • The second finger represents the gross body, sthUla sharIra or waker.
  • The third finger represents the subtle body, sUkShma sharIra or dreamer.
  • The fourth finger represents the causal body, kAraNa sharIra or deep-sleeper.
  • The first finger is normally held in association with the other three, indicating our identification with the body and mind.
  • All four fingers depend upon the thumb for their strength and ability to do practically anything. It is this feature which distinguishes us from other animals and gave humanity its great advantage in manipulating objects.
  • When the index finger is moved to touch the tip of the thumb, it separates from the other three, indicating realization that I am not in fact these bodies at all. In forming an unbroken circle with the thumb, it is recognizing that jIvAtman and paramAtman are one, unaffected by the three mithyA states of consciousness.

I now have a firm publication date for the book, incidentally – it is September 25th. It is now available for pre-order. It is quite expensive, but then it also quite thick (431 pages).

The paperback details are: ISBN 978-1-78279-996-2 UK: £20.99 US: $36.95
and the EBook: ISBN 978-1-78279-997-9 UK: £12.99 US: $21.99

Buy from Amazon US; Buy from Amazon UK

The first extract from the book may be read here.

Seven Stages of Chidabhasa

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chidAbhAsaGuest Author – Vijay Pargaonkar
Seven Stages of Chidabhasa

Based on Panchadasi by Vidyaranya Swami

Chapter 7.0 “Trupti Deepa”(marathi translation by Pundit Vishnu Shastry Bapat (1908) and hindi translation by Pundit Ramavatar Vidyapati (1912))

Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 4-4-12
br4-4-12

 

 

“If a man knows the Self as “I am This” then desiring what and for whose sake will he suffer in the wake of the body.”
(The entire Trupti Deepa chapter of Panchadasi is based on this shruti mantra)

Kutastha, the pure Consciousness, is asanga (without any association) and avikari (immutable). This Kutastha is also the adhisthana (substratum) of “bhrama” (illusions- not to be confused with Brahman) of indriya-sharira (body- mind complex). When it gets associated (the association is only vyavaharic/transactional and not real) with mind through anyonya-adhyasa (mutual superimposition) it is known as Jiva. Kutastha’s reflection in mind “chidabhasa” alone cannot be the Jiva since it has no existence of its own without Kutastha – image in a mirror is not possible unless there is a face behind it. The mixture/combination of chidabhasa and Kutastha is also referred to as purusha in the the shruti above. Continue reading →

Panchadashi and Prarabdha

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OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA(Another salVo in the ongoing battle over jIvanmukti, j~nAna phalam, pratibhandaka-s and prArabdha – see Knowledge, Action and Liberation and Knowledge, Action and Liberation – AV)

The following is an extract from Chapter 7 of Vidyaranya’s Panchadashi:


indra-jAlam idaM dvaitam achintya-rachanAtvataH
ityavismarato hAniH kA vA prArabdha-bhogataH

[7:174] Never forgetting that the world is unreal and its cause unascertainable, the wise man stands secure from harm in the midst of the enjoyment of his fructifying karma.

nirbandhas tattva-vidyAyA indra-jAlatva-saMsmRRitau
prArabdhasyAgraho bhoge jIvasya sukha-duHkhayoh

[7:175] The function of knowledge of the real is to promote (constant) remembrance of the fact that’ world is unreal; that of the fructifying karma is merely to provide the jIva with experience of pleasure and pain.

vidya-rabdhe viruddhyete na bhinna-viShayatvataH
jAnadbhir apyaindra-jAla-vinodo dRRishyate khalu

[7:176] The knowledge of the spiritual truth and the fructification of prArabdha karma refer to different objects and are not opposed to one another. The sight of a magical performance gives amusement to a spectator in spite of his knowledge of its unreality. Continue reading →

Topic of the Month – buddhi

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The mind in Sanskrit is antaHkaraNa. It is the seat of both thought and feeling. It derives from antar – within, interior – and karaNa, which means “instrument” or sense-organ. The mind consists of a number of separate functions – manas, buddhi, chitta and ahaMkAra. The buddhi is responsible for discrimination and judgement, perhaps nearest equated to the intellect in Western usage. It differentiates between pairs of opposites, particularly between transient and eternal. In terms of the ‘spiritual development’ of a man, it is the most important function of the mind, since it is able effectively to exercise control over all of the rest of the body-mind instrument. Without it, we are no better than animals, driven by primitive instincts and selfish, acquisitive urges. Continue reading →

Revision of ‘Critical review of article on Shankara’ – part 2

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‘A New Approach to Understanding Advaita as Taught by ´Sa ˙ nkara Bhagavadp¯ada’ – by Ramakrishnan Balasubrahmanian – 2

We saw in the 1st part of this Review the primary or prior, not to say exclusive, importance that the author, RB, gives to the superimposition of a subject, individual mind or jiva, on the self: “the superimposition of an observer is avidy¯a and is prior to the reverse superimposition” – not mentioning that Shankara does not talk of a ‘reverse process’, as if it was something happening through time, but of mutual superimposition of self and non-self. Period.

As we noted in the first part of this Review, RB ‘half’ concedes the point:  “It is not completely incorrect to say that avidy¯a is the mutual superimposition of the real and unreal. ´ San˙ kar¯ac¯arya and Sure´svar¯ac¯arya do mention this … the superimposition of an observer on the inner-self naturally leads to the reverse process of superimposing the inner-self on the inner organ”. His objective in maintaining this priority of the subject in this ‘act’ seems to be to show that SSS is guilty of circularity (petitio principi, in logic). Even so, and rather surprisingly, he claims that avidya is not something subjective (neither is it ontic nor epistemic – see below). Continue reading →

Review of article on Shankara by Ramakrisnan Balasubramanian

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(This is a slightly modified article published here one year ago, which was improperly and incompletely posted. Ramesam had asked me to review the following article, with which I complied after much hesitation. The article is over 40 p. long and quite dense and complicated in parts – in other words, ‘academic’: for specialists only; one could add: cutting the slices so thin, that the substance is practically lost, or forgotten).

Review of ‘A New Approach to Understanding Advaita as Taught by ´Sa ˙ nkara Bhagavadp¯ada’ – by Ramakrishnan Balasubrahmanian. 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 →

Two Genres Of Thought

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“The Problem is I can’t tell the difference between a deeply wise, nudge from the Universe and one of my own bone-headed ideas!”

(Copy right: Bradford Veley)

It looks to me that we are besieged by two genres of thought.

When I say two genres, I do not mean the yes- no- thoughts or being double minded and undecided in our view about things. Nor do I refer to split personalities. Actually it has NOTHING to do about the “content” of the thought.  What I have in mind is about the suite or family of thoughts – based on their possible source of origin (real or apparent).

As advaitin-s, we all know that everything is a manifestation of brahman. We shall use the term ‘Universal Self’ for It. The Universal Self is kUTastha – does not do or intend to do anything. It is changeless, actionless, eternal and It is Beingness-Consciousness-Infinity. We also know that we act, talk, walk, eat, breathe and live as an individual.  We shall use the term ‘self’ for this separate entity. Continue reading →

Q. 350 – Heaven and Hell

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Q: In Advaita, it is said that the heaven and the hell are mithya. They are just ideas for bhakti-natured people. But Advaita says this world is mithya too. So even though heaven and the hell are mithya, we are still gonna go there just as this world is mithya but it is still real enough for us? I mean the idea of heaven and hell is mithya but it is still as real as this world. So they indeed exist just as this world. Is that the correct interpretation?

A (Ramesam): Firstly the simple and straightforward answer: Yes, you are right, heaven and hell are mithya and are ideas for bhakti-natured people, in the sense that they are experienced by the people who believe in them but these loka-s (worlds) lack a substantive reality by themselves. However, we have to note that they are the second degree imaginations – imaginations of the already imaginary worldly people! By this logic, perhaps they will be strictly comparable to dreams in their order of reality. (The word mithya includes both the empirical (vyavaharika) reality and the dream world (prAtibhAsika) reality). Continue reading →

Vision Of Truth (sad darshanam) – Part 9

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So far, we have seen that ‘I’ thought = ahankAra= ego = sentient mind = mind with reflected consciousness. The ‘I’ thought (ahankAra) knows itself (ahankAra). It  is always present in all experiences as ‘I’. ‘I thought’ remains the same. It is experienced as ‘I am’ ‘I am’, for e.g. “‘I’ know the book”, “‘I’ know the laptop”, “’I am fat” etc.

The ‘This-thoughts’ are thoughts corresponding to objects. ‘This-thought’ is variable, based on the object perceived.

Since these three are unreal, they are not eternal. They have a rising time and a disappearing time.

In the previous verse we saw that the world is dependent on the mind. This verse further elaborates it by stating the exact mechanism of the mind.

The world rises and disappears  along with the ego; meaning the ‘This-thought’ depends on the ‘I-thought’. In other words, only when there is the ‘I-thought’ can then there be the ‘this-thought’. When the ‘I-thought’ is resolved, the ‘This-thought’ also resolves.

Hence, the appearance and disappearance of the world depends on the ‘I’ thought (ego). This is explained in the first two lines of the verse. This can be understood by considering the daily experience of sleep. In deep sleep, the mind (ego) is resolved. The ahankAra is temporarily not here. As soon as one gets ip, the mind is activated, the ego is ignited in the form of ‘I’. the ‘This-thoughts’ follow after this. The ‘This-thought’ does not directly come. The ‘I-thought’ is invoked first. The activities in the world are begun after this. Again, as soon as one goes to sleep, the mind is resolved and the the ego is not there temporarily. The ego gone, the world also does not exist. Hence, the world (this-thought) depends on the ego (‘I-thought’).

What then is the real ‘I’? We know that ‘I-Thought’ is not real, since it depends on consciousness. The mind has the ‘I-thought’ by the blessing of the consciousness otherwise it is inert matter. The origin of the ‘I-thought’ is in the mind , which is unreal. Hence, ‘I-thought’ is unreal, its origin being unreal and it being the kind which rises and sets.

The third line of the verse says that the real thing (self) is the substratum for the birth and death of the world (‘This-thought’) and the ego (‘I-thought’). The mind rises and resolves int eh basis, the self. Hence the world and ego finally depend on the Atma. everything rises, in the self, is sustained in the self and resolves in the self. The ego, the ‘I’ thought, the ‘this’ thought and the objects are all unreal. They are mere words with no substance, since, the basis is the self and they have no existence apart from the self.  The clay pot, the clay saucer, the clay plate, the clay spoon are nothing but clay. The forms are incidental. There is nothing but clay. So also, the mind and world are mere appearances. The truth is the self. The consciousness in which all these shine alone is the truth.

The self is further explained as one, whole which has not birth and decay. The real thing has to be one since otherwise it would be finite. It has to be infinite and hence the whole. Being so, it has to be birth-less and decay-less meaning changeless. If it changes, it cannot be eternal.

The substratum on which the world, mind and its functions rise and set is the self. All except the substratum are unreal. The only truth is the basis behind the play.

The important lesson learnt in this verse is that not only should the world be negated as unreal but even the ego has to be included in the same category.