Q.555 State Express

(A few people might appreciate the joke! Google will give you the answer.)

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The Darkness of Ignorance (Part 5)

*** Read Part 4 ***

Tamas

‘Darkness’ is also used in the sense of the ‘primordial condition’ of the universe prior to creation. In this sense, it is not metaphorical but part of the ancient Hindu cosmology. It appears, for example, in Ṛg Veda 10.129: “In the beginning, there was darkness (tamas) hidden in darkness. All this was one undifferentiated water.” And the stage of pralaya, when the universe returns to unmanifest form, is sometimes described as darkness. A number of Puranic references could be quoted, e.g. the Vishnu Purana (Book 1 Chapter 1): “At the end of the previous kalpa, there was only one vast ocean, enveloped in darkness (tamas). The universe was in total dissolution, and nothing but the incomprehensible God, Vishnu, existed.” The darkness also symbolized the formlessness prior to creation.

This usage as an existent entity is not really the same as the metaphorical usage in which it symbolizes ignorance or ‘absence of knowledge’.

Darkness as Metaphor

In the context of discussions on ignorance, then, darkness is not intended to be considered as a real entity but as a metaphor for ignorance. We can see how this is both useful and potentially misleading. If we think of the common ‘concealing’ usage of the word – e.g. we could not see the stalactite in the cave because it was ‘covered by’ darkness – then we are in trouble. If we simply rephrase this to say that, because there was no light in the cave, we could not see the stalactite, there is no problem.

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mANDUkya upaniShad Part 12

*** Read Part 11 ***

Mantra 11 (and kArikA K1.21)

सुषुप्तस्थानः प्राज्ञो मकारस्तृतीया मात्र मितेरपीतेवर
मिनोति ह वा इदं सर्वमपीतिश्च भव्ति य एवं वेद॥ ११॥

suShuptasthAnaH prAj~no makArastRRitIyA mAtra miterapItervA
minoti ha vA idaM sarvamapItishcha bhavati ya evaM veda || 11 ||

tRRitIyA mAtra – The third mAtra (of OM)
makAra – the letter ‘m
prAj~na – (is) prAj~na
suShupta sthAnaH – the deep-sleep state
miteH – because (it is like) a ‘measure’
va – or
apIteH – on account of absorption.

ya evaM veda – Whosoever knows this
ha vai – verily
minoti sarvam – measures everything
cha bhavati – and becomes
apItiH – (one who) understands.

The letter m, the third mAtra of OM, is prAj~na, the deep-sleep state because both have the characteristic of a measure and are as though absorbed into the final part. Whoever knows this will be able to assimilate and comprehend everything.

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Q. 430 Brahman=changeless, eternal?

Q: I’m aware that I’m on (very) shaky ground when I talk/think about brahman. But there’s something that’s been bugging me for a long time now about the ‘definitions’ of brahman I’ve read.

Brahman is always described as changeless and eternal.

Let’s start with ‘changeless’. When I think (conceptualize, make images) about a changeless ‘force’ (for want of a better non-object word), I envision something static and dead, without animus, without vitality. Absolute zero, utter lack of motion/vibration, fixed-ness. But I can’t put this static-ness together with brahman, the ‘mother of all existence and vitality’. How could utter stillness give rise to such a vibrant universe?

Onto ‘eternal’. Why does brahman have to be eternal? Why couldn’t it have arisen with the Source Event (Big Bang, etc.) and evolved into its ‘current’ fullness? Likewise, why couldn’t it end with the collapse of the universe back to a zero-dimensional point?

So changeless and eternal elude/confuse me. But I suspect that’s because I’m trying to image-ine them, which is an oxymoron: conceptualizing the non-conceptual. Continue reading

Teasing Apart Maya’s Tricks – Black Hole Complementarity and Observer-Dependent Reality

blackhole This article was previously published in two parts on the Beyond Advaita blog maintained by our Dr. Ramesam Vemuri, in continuation of an ongoing series of articles exploring the relevance to Advaita of some of the latest research in theoretical physics. Science is converging to a view that no description of reality can be complete without the observer, and that so-called “objective reality” is really more of a holographic illusion than anything truly solid or substantial. Today’s scientists are busy trying to tease apart Maya’s tricks to see how this illusion works. Leonard Susskind’s theory of Black Hole Complementarity (BHC) — the topic of this article — provides a good example of this driving curiosity in action.

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