Astavakra Gita: The 100 Principle Concepts
Astavakra Gita – an ideas-only-version
Here is the Astavakra Gita stripped of all unecessary literary style and form, and reduced to the 100 most meaningful concepts and ideas that it contains. John Richard's translation from the Sanskrit original has been used, although in the future there is an intention to make a new careful literal translation that preserves all the subtle advaitic essence of the text. Whether you are established in your own glory or not... this condensation of ideas in the Astavakra Gita makes for a remarkable study.
1. Seek liberation by shunning the objects of the senses.
2. Practice tolerance, sincerity, compassion, contentment and truthfulness.
3. You are not earth, water, fire, air or ether.
4. You are consciousness, the witness of earth, water, fire, air and ether.
5. Rest in consciousness and you will be happy, peaceful and free from bonds.
6. You are not any caste, you are not at any stage of life, nor are you anything that the eye can see. You are unattached and formless, the witness of everything.
7. Righteousness and unrighteousness, pleasure and pain are purely of the mind and are no concern of yours.
8. You are not the doer, nor the reaper of the consequences of action. You are always free.
9. The cause of bondage is that one considers the witness as something other than being free from action and instead as someone who reaps the consequences of action.
10. Self opinion is the bite of a black snake.
11. Knowledge is the fire that burns away ignorance.
12. That world in which all this appears is imagined.
13. You are joy, supreme knowledge and awareness.
14. Your real nature is one perfect, free, and actionless consciousness, the all-pervading witness - unattached to anything, desireless, at peace.
15. Meditate on yourself as motionless awareness.
16. You are free from all dualism.
17 You are not anything external or internal.
18. You are self-illuminating, unconditioned and changeless, formless and immovable, unfathomable awareness and imperturbable.
19. The apparent is unreal, while the unmanifest is abiding.
20. The eternal, everlasting Being exists in the totality of things, just as one and the same all-pervading space exists within and without a jar.
21. You have been afflicted by delusion. All this, everything, has emanated from yourself, and is no other than yourself. Everything has been produced out of yourself and is completely permeated with yourself.
22. The whole world is yours and, alternatively, nothing is yours. You possess nothing at all, and alternatively possess everything to which speech and mind can refer.
23. From ignorance of oneself, the world appears, and by knowledge of oneself it appears no longer.
24. Shining is your essential nature. When the world shines forth, it is simply yourself that is shining forth.
25. From Brahma down to the last blade of grass everything in the world is destroyed. But for yourself there is no destruction.
26. You are solitary! Even though with a body, you neither go anywhere nor come from anywhere. You abide forever, filling all that is.
27. Knowledge, and that which is known, and the knower - these three do not exist in reality. You are the pure reality in which they appear. Knowledge, and that which is known, and the knower, are contaminated by ignorance.
28. Dualism is the root of suffering.
29. The only remedy for dualism and suffering is the realisation that all this, all that one sees, is unreal, and that you are the one stainless reality, consisting of consciousness.
30. There is neither bondage nor liberation. When the illusion has lost its basis and ceased, then there is the realization that truly all this exists in me, though ultimately it does not even exist in me.
31. The physical body, heaven and hell, bondage and liberation, and fear too, all this is active imagination.
32. There is nothing left to do for one whose very nature is consciousness.
33. You are not a living being. You are consciousness. It is your thirst for living that is your bondage.
34. You are one and indestructible.
35. You are the limitless ocean. Living beings are waves. In the limitless ocean of yourself the waves of living beings arise, collide, play and disappear, according to their natures.
36. When one is oneself in all beings, and all beings are in oneself, then the sense of individuality is no longer able to continue.
37. See even one’s own body in action as if it were someone else’s.
38. When you see this world as pure illusion, and are devoid of any interest in it, then you will no longer feel fear, even at the approach of death.
39. If you manage always to be aware of the supreme self-nature you will discover that you are neither expectant nor disappointed and are completely undisturbed by praise or blame.
40. When all attachment has been eliminated, and there is no longer any dualism, then there is freedom from both desire and repulsion. Then any object that comes of itself is neither painful nor pleasurable.
41. The wise person of self-knowledge plays the game of worldly life.
42. You are infinite like space. To know this is knowledge, then there is neither renunciation, nor acceptance, nor cessation of it.
43. The world is a wave of its own nature which rises and vanishes in the infinite ocean of myself. There is no increase or diminution to me from it.
44. It is in the infinite ocean of myself that the imagination called the world takes place.
45. Truly I am but pure consciousness, and the world is like a conjurer's show.
46. Bondage is when the mind longs for something, grieves about something, rejects something, holds on to something, is pleased about something, or displeased about something.
47. Liberation is when the mind does not long for anything, grieve about anything, reject anything, or hold on to anything, and is not pleased about anything, or displeased about anything.
48. When there is no 'me', that is liberation, and when there is 'me' there is bondage.
49. Rare indeed is the person whose observation of the world’s behaviour has led to the extinction of the thirst for living, for pleasure and for knowledge.
50. Abandoning desire, practice indifference to everything.
51. Being, non-being and transformation are of the very nature of things, but when you realize that nothing exists here but Isvara, the Creator of all things, you will no longer be attached to anything.
52. When you realize that misfortune and fortune come in their turn from fate, you will place your senses under control, and no longer like or dislike anything. You will be unconcerned about what has been attained or not.
53. When you realize that pleasure and pain, birth and death, are from fate, and that desires cannot be achieved, you will remain inactive, and even when acting no longer be attached.
54. Realizing that all this varied and wonderful world is nothing, one finds peace.
55. A sage said: "First of all I was averse to physical activity, then to lengthy speech, and finally to thinking itself. Trying to think the unthinkable is unnatural to thought."
56. Just as the performance of actions is due to ignorance, so their abandonment is also due to ignorance.
57. The inner freedom of having nothing is hard to achieve, because it requires living as one pleases, abandoning both renunciation and acquisition.
58. Recognising that in reality no action is ever committed, the sage lives as he pleases, just attending to what presents itself to be done.
59. No benefit or loss ever comes to you, consequently live as you please, abandoning the pleasant and unpleasant.
60. One person of pure intelligence may achieve the goal by the most casual of instructions, while another may seek knowledge all his life and still remain bewildered.
61. Liberation is indifference to the objects of the senses. Bondage is love of the senses.
62. You are eternally pure consciousness, the witness, and you are in need of nothing.
63. Desire and anger are objects of the mind, but the mind is not yours, nor ever has been.
64. You are beyond natural causation.
65. You consist of pure consciousness, and the world is not separate from you. So who is to accept or reject it, and how, and why?
66. It is through your ignorance that all this exists. In reality you alone exist. Apart from you there is no one within or beyond samsara.
67. Knowing that all this is an illusion, you become free, as if nothing existed.
68. When the mind is freed from such pairs of opposites as ‘I have done this,’ and ‘I have not done that,’ it becomes indifferent to merit, wealth, sensuality and liberation.
69. So long as desire, which is the state of lacking discrimination, remains, the sense of attraction and revulsion will remain; that is the root and branch of samsara. The wise person is free from the pairs of opposites like a child.
70. Those who desire pleasure and those who desire liberation are both bound in samsara.
71. Someone established in the absolute state with an empty mind does not know the alternatives of inner stillness and lack of inner stillness, nor of good and evil.
72. The liberated person is not averse to the senses nor is he attached to them. He enjoys himself continually with an unattached mind in both achievement and non-achievement.
73. One may get all sorts of pleasure by the acquisition of various objects of enjoyment, but one cannot be happy except by the renunciation of everything.
74. This existence is just imagination. It is nothing in reality.
75. The realm of one’s self is not far away, nor can it be achieved by the addition of limitations to its nature. It is unimaginable, effortless, unchanging and pure.
76. When you know yourself to be God, and being and non-being are just imagination, what should you, free from desire, learn, say or do?
77. The worlds of heaven or beggary, gain or loss, life in society or in the forest, these make no difference to a mystic whose nature is free from distinctions.
78. There is nothing needing to be done for the mystic who is liberated while still alive. There is no delusion, no world, no meditation on That, nor liberation for the great soul. All these things are just the realm of imagination.
79. Nothing is done by one who is free from being and non-being. He is contented and desireless. He encounters no difficulty in either activity or inactivity.
80. One who is desireless, self-reliant, independent and free of bonds functions like a dead leaf blown about by the wind of causality.
81. There is neither joy nor sorrow for one who has transcended samsara. With a peaceful mind one lives as if without a body. One whose joy is in oneself, and who is peaceful and pure within has no desire for renunciation or sense of loss in anything.
82. The pure person realizes that this action was done by the body but not by me. He is not acting even when acting. He acts without being able to say why.
83. One who is beyond mental stillness and distraction does not desire either liberation or its opposite nor their compliments. Recognising that things are just constructions of the imagination, that great soul lives as God here and now.
84. There are no rules, dispassion, renunciation or meditation for one who is pure receptivity by nature, and who admits no knowable form of being.
85. Pure illusion reigns in Samsara which continues until self realisation.
86. The enlightened person lives in the beauty of freedom from me and mine, from the sense of responsibility and from any attachment.
87. There is neither dissolute behaviour nor virtue, nor even discrimination of the truth for the sage who has reached the goal and is the very embodiment of guileless sincerity.
88. The wise person who is contented in all circumstances is not asleep even in deep sleep, not sleeping in a dream, nor waking when he is awake.
89. The seer is without thoughts even when thinking, without senses among the senses, without understanding even in understanding and without a sense of responsibility even in the ego.
90. Neither happy nor unhappy, neither detached nor attached, neither seeking liberation nor liberated, one is neither something nor nothing.
91. For one established in his own glory, there is no past, future or present. There is no space or even eternity, there is no self or non-self, no good or evil, no thought nor even absence of thought, there is no dreaming or deep sleep, no waking nor other state beyond them, and certainly no fear.
92. For one established in his own glory, there is nothing far away and nothing near, nothing within or without, nothing large and nothing small, there is no life or death, no worlds or things of this world, no distraction and no stillness of mind, there is no need for talk of the three goals of life, no need of union nor of knowledge.
93. In the one who is forever actionless, there are no elements, no body, no faculties, no mind. There is no void and no despair.
94. For the one in his unblemished nature, there are no scriptures, no self-knowledge, no mind free from an object, no satisfaction and no freedom from desire. There is no knowledge or ignorance, no me, this, or mine, no bondage, no liberation, and no property of self-nature.
95. For the one who is always free from individual characteristics there is no antecedent causal action, no liberation during life, and no fulfilment at death.
96. For the one who is free from individuality, there is no doer and no reaper of the fruits of action, no consequences, no cessation of action, no arising of thought, no immediate object, and no idea of results.
97. For the one who is free from dualism there is no world, no seeker for liberation, no mystic, no seer, no-one bound and no-one liberated. There is no emanation or return, no goal, no means, no seeker nor achievement. He remains in his own non-dual nature.
98. For the one who is pure and always free from deliberations there is neither conventional truth nor absolute truth, no happiness and no suffering, there is no illusion, no samsara, no attachment or detachment, no living being and no God.
99 For the one who is forever unmovable and indivisible, established in himself, there is no activity or inactivity, no liberation and no bondage.
100. For the one who is blessed and without limitation, there is no initiation or scripture, no disciple or teacher, and no goal of human life. There is no being or non-being, no unity or dualism. What more is there to say? Nothing emanates from him.
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Astavakra Gita
The 100 Principle Concepts
based upon a translation from the Sanskrit by John Richards
the public domain full text of which is available at...
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Ashtavakra_Gita
or alternatively at...
http://www.indopedia.org/Ashtavakra_Gita.html
the sanskrit text is available at...
http://sanskrit.gde.to/all_pdf/ashtgita.pdf
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Introduction
Main source of information: Wikipedia article on The Astavakra Gita.
The Astavakra Gita, also known as The Ashtavakra Samhita, is said to be a dialogue between the perfected advaitic rishi Ashtavakra and Janaka who was the King of Mithila in ancient India. The name Ashtavakra means eight bends or eight deformities. Details of Ashtavakra's life are found in the epic poem the Ramayana in which it is related that Sujata, the mother of Astavakra, while pregnant, exposed the unborn infant to Vedic teachings and the chanting of mantras at the ashram of the sage Uddalaka, who was also her own father. It was believed in ancient India that an unborn child was able to hear and listen to the Vedas, when chanted by a rishi, thus advancing the understanding of them when they would be encountered when a student. Kahoda (sometimes named Khagodara), Sujata's husband and thus unborn Ashtavakra's father, being the chief disciple in Uddalaka's ashram, also had the responsibility of chanting the mantras, but whenever he made a mistake Ashtavakra would move in distress in the womb in indication of the error. Eventually this evoked rage in the humiliated Kahoda and, believing himself to be insulted, he cursed his unborn infant son, wishing upon him eight deformities. Ashtavakra was in fact born with eight deformities.
At the time of Ashtavakra's birth his father Kahoda was invited to debate with the great philosopher Bandi in the presence of King Janaka. Bandi, unknown to everyone, was the son of Varuna, the god of all water bodies, and had been sent to Earth in order to perform a special ritual on behalf of the god. One of the rules of the debating contest was that the loser had to submerge himself and 'drown' in the nearby river Ganges. During the debate Bandi easily defeated Kahoda, who consequently had to peform the ritual of submerging, leading to his own drowning. The fatherless child Ashtavakra was consequently brought up by Uddalaka and his disciples at the ashram where he soon mastered his Vedic studies. Ashtavakra grew up believing Uddalaka was his father. Ashtavakra was never told of the fate of his real father until one day his uncle Svetaketu inadvertently blurted out that Uddalaka was not his true father. Ashtavakra then questioned his mother Sujata who told him the truth and the story of his father's fated debate with Bandi. Ashtavakra then decided to confront Bandi and debate with him.
Ashtavakra, then twelve years old, went to the palace of King Janaka and presented himself for debate with Bandi. King Janaka fearing that the young Ashtavakra would lose the debate, and meet the same fate as many Brahmanas had before, attempted to dissuade Ashtavakra, but Ashtavakra was quite resolute. King Janaka then tested Ashtavakra's knowledge and understanding by a series of questions... which Ashtavakra answered surprisingly profoundly. The very questions testingly posed by King Janaka to Ashtavakra together with the answers given by the precocious twelve year old sage form the text of the Astavakra Gita.
Satisfied with Ashtavakra's responses to his questions, King Janak arranged the debate, with Ashtavakra insisting one condition that Bandi, if he lost, would grant any wish whatsoever to his conqueror. Ashtavakra defeated Bandi in the debate and for his wish asked Bandi to restore to life all the sages and Brahmanas who had been forced to submerge and drown in the water of the Ganges. The defeated Bandi then revealed his true identity as the son of the god Varuna and explained the reason for the ritual which was now completed. Bandi communicated the request to his father Varuna who bade farewell to the sages and Brahmanas who were merged in his water world and sent them to the surface. The released Kahoda, upon learning what had happened, humbly acknowledged his son's superior intelligence and knowledge.
According to Swami Chinmaynanda there are two versions of the legend as to how Astavakra reached the court of the King Janaka. The other traditional version creates the scene with Astavakra in search of his father and the meeting with King Janaka was relatively a matter of chance. Janaka was regarded as a benevolent king and ,in order to have direct knowledge of his subjects, frequently made tours of their villages. He was making one such tour when he saw the young sage Astavakra limping along. Janaka dismounted from his horse and he prostrated himself before the teenage sage, who was then only twelve years of age. The deformities of the young Astavakra became more noticeable when he moved, and viewing the young sage from close-up the king felt a strong aversion to the deformalities of his anatomy. Young Astavakra being expert in Yoga-vidya as well as established in self knowledge read the kings mind and spoke to him:
"O King, just as the shape of a temple does not affect
the akasa (sky), the crookedness of the physical body
has no effect on Atma (Soul). A wise man has Atmadrsti
i.e. he looks at the Reality behind this
manifested world, whereas an ignorant one has
Carma-drsti i.e. he gets lost in names and forms."
The king was taken aback by such an incise wisdom of the young sage and requested him to grace his palace, an invitatioo which Astavakra accepted. When he arrived Astavakra was given a place of honour in king's palace. During conversations with the king he was able to remove all doubts from Janaka's mind. By defeating Bandi, the royal scholar, he got his father released from his watery captivity.
According to Swami Chinmayananda, the story of the meeting and the dialogue between Astavakra and King Janaka is described in Chapter 132 to 134 in the Vana Parva portion of the epic, Mahabharata, where Maharshi Limasa narrates it to Dharmaputra Yudhisthira, the eldest of Pandava princes. In the Mahabharata, there is yet another slightly different version. Astavakra was in search of his father, and was accompanied by Svetaketu, his maternal uncle, who was of his own age. They reached Janaka's kingdom to observe Mahayajan being conducted there. The king was proceeding to Yajnasala and attendants accompanying him were diverting traffic to clear passage for the king.
By his precise knowledge of Sastras, Astavakra pointed out that a brahmana had priority in the right of passage over even the king. On hearing, the king was impressed with the knowledge of the young medicant, and acceded the point and requested him to proceed ahead of him.
Although the Mahayajna was open only to established scholars, the king took him along to the Mahayajna. On learning about his motive of defeating Bandi-the royal scholar, the king tested his knowledge of the Sastras by questioning. With appropriate and precise answers he impressed the king who invited Bandi to engage the young sage in arguments. Astavakra defeated Bandi and thus got his father released.
Astavakra's conversations with King Janaka form the content of the Astavakra Gita.
The date of the Astavakra Gita is not known. It appears to be older than the Mahabharata and its famous philosophical interlude, the Bhagavad Gita, because the text of the Mahabharata refers to material derived from the Astavakra Gita. Mainly because the text resembles the Upanisadic teaching style, incorporating a dialogue between a questioning disciple and his teacher, it is provisionally dated to the late Upanisadic period, circa 1000-200 BC. However, there must be doubts that such an early dating is true. I offer an opinion: considering the literary style, the surprising relatively modern language used, the clarity and openness of the concepts, and the relatively modern form in which the concepts of advaita are expressed.... the Astavakra Girta is probably a late medieval text?
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Other translators and commentators
Swami Chinmaya has made a word for word translation of the Astavakra Gita. His book, titled: The Astavakra Gita, contains the Sanskrit text, a transliteration, the word-to-word meaning, a translation, and a detailed commentary. In paperback form, published in 2006 by The Central Chinmaya Mission Trust, ISBN 8175970626, 450 pages, size 8.3” x 5.3”, price about £12 (about 15 euros or $19).
Thomas Byrom has made a more poetic translation of the Astavakra Gita, titled: The Heart of Awareness ~ a translation of The Ashtavakra Gita
Monday, 18 January 2010
Friday, 7 August 2009
Isvara and Maya - the two magicians
Advaita Vedanta states that the world is a projection of Isvara (God). The world is not even a real projection of Isvara because Maya is involved. Maya is the magical power of Brahman (The Absolute). Once Maya is involved everything becomes illusory. Therefore the world is something that is not genuine, something that exists in appearance only. Being a projection of Isvara enhanced by the power of Maya, the world that occupies space and manifests in time is a mere superimposition upon what is genuinely there. Advaita says that what is genuinely there is Brahman. Only Brahman is genuinely there, everything else is a superimposition. Gods, spirits, natures, physical bodies, your ordinary sense of yourself, all the people you know, all the natural world, all the materiality of the world.... is all illusory.
To understand the Advaita philosophy it is necessary to distinguish between Isvara and Brahman. Isvara is God whereas Brahman is the Absolute. They are not quite the same. Isvara is part of the superimposition, known as the Vyavaharika, whereas Brahman is the Paramarthika. The Paramarthika is that which underlies the superimposition, that which is genuine as contrasted to that which is illusory, the Vyavaharika. The whole aim of Advaita can therefore be understood as the attempt to free the self from the illusory and to merge with, and stay permanently in, the genuine. To put the same idea into different words, the aim of Advaita could be analysed to be an attempt to free the self from a false identification with what it is not, and to return it to what it genuinely is, and has always been.... Brahman.
Isvara and Maya can be regarded as two magicians, one white, one black. White is light, the whole octave of light seen as an unity. Isvara projects light, the light is absorbed by the senses, conveyed along the nervous system to the brain where it reticulates and is converted into an image of the apparent world, which is then viewed by the consciousness of the individual. The consciousness of the individual is the atman. It could be said that the world is nothing more than light dancing in the head.
Another way of describing the process is to suggest that the apparent world is merely the reflection of light upon the screen of the mind.
Although light is received by the senses and undergoes relative transformation as it passes into the retina, and then undergoes more transformation in the nerve cells, passing through a series of chemical changes at the synapses of the nerves, in the peripheries of the nervous system, and perhaps yet more transformations in the cells of the brain.... nevertheless it is still the same energy that reaches the mind. The mind reflects the light, and presents an image of the world. The same energy can take several forms, even apparently disparate forms, perhaps unlimited forms, perhaps all possible forms... but it is nothing more than the same energy. Look carefully at the atomic and sub-atomic structure of matter.... there is virtually nothing there, just waves of energy. Passed on by the senses, it is the reflective nature of mind which transforms energy into an apparently real and solid world. It is a complete illusion. A very convincing illusion. Light consists of two waves of energy at right angles to each other.... understanding that is to understand how one falls into the illusion and how one may escape from it.
Isvara is the magician of light. All the forms are conjured out of light. More precisely, the forms are floating in the light. The light comes from a transcendental source behind one, passing over one’s right shoulder, and angled downwards reaches the mind where it is reflected back towards the consciousness. It is precisely the reflection of light upon the screen of mind that produces the appearance of the world. The sanyasins of northern India carry with them only a few items, including a ceramic pot and a dandhi (a long thin pole or stick).The dandhi is characteristically angled over their right shoulder. The angled dandhi appears to symbolize the light from behind creating the illusion of the phenomenal world. If one turns completely around and attempts to see from where the light originates one will glimpse the causal world. Ordinarily it is not possible to penetrate into the causal world. The glimpse is sufficient to sense that the light originates from someone hidden, present within the causal world. The hypothesis formulates in the mind that it is Isvara. The realization occurs that it is the light of Isvara, reflected upon the screen of the mind, which creates the phenomenon of the world.
Floating in the light is the form of a Buddhi (intellect), which resembles a sculpture, a static form. Maya, the black magician, hides in the shadows of the causal world. Maya sends out an emissary, a small self, a mechanism, called Ahamkara. Ahamkara is the I-maker. Ahamkara creates your sense of I. Ahamkara merely touches the sculptural Buddhi and it instantly comes to life. The Buddhi moves and gesticulates and speaks. By the touch of Ahamkara it has become a spiritual living being... your own spiritual self. It is an astonishing illusion. The Buddhi, your own spiritual self, is located in the higher intellect. To reach it you have to ascend into your intellect, go as high as you possibly can, then turn completely around and look behind you. You will see your spiritual self smiling sweetly at you. You two will love each other, because you are each other. Your spiritual self has been projecting you, your nature, the jiva, in a similar manner to an actor who projects his part in a drama. You, the jiva, your nature, are nothing more than an illusory projection. You do not exist. You are a part in a drama and strangely you quite probably do not fully realize that. Many, perhaps most persons, believe they are the actor, acting out their part in life, consciously or unconsciously, little realizing that they are the part, not the actor. The Atman, the awesome consciousness within you, has identified with what it is not. The Atman has become completely identified with the jiva, your natural self, which is nothing more than a projection of your Buddhi, your spiritual self, which in turn is nothing more than a sculptural form floating in the light of Isvara, and which has been animated into apparent life by Ahamkara, an emissary of Maya.
That is the astonishing trick that the two magicians are playing upon you, upon you, the Atman. The Atman, your awesome consciousness, looking outwards, has become a jiva, an illusion.
To understand the Advaita philosophy it is necessary to distinguish between Isvara and Brahman. Isvara is God whereas Brahman is the Absolute. They are not quite the same. Isvara is part of the superimposition, known as the Vyavaharika, whereas Brahman is the Paramarthika. The Paramarthika is that which underlies the superimposition, that which is genuine as contrasted to that which is illusory, the Vyavaharika. The whole aim of Advaita can therefore be understood as the attempt to free the self from the illusory and to merge with, and stay permanently in, the genuine. To put the same idea into different words, the aim of Advaita could be analysed to be an attempt to free the self from a false identification with what it is not, and to return it to what it genuinely is, and has always been.... Brahman.
Isvara and Maya can be regarded as two magicians, one white, one black. White is light, the whole octave of light seen as an unity. Isvara projects light, the light is absorbed by the senses, conveyed along the nervous system to the brain where it reticulates and is converted into an image of the apparent world, which is then viewed by the consciousness of the individual. The consciousness of the individual is the atman. It could be said that the world is nothing more than light dancing in the head.
Another way of describing the process is to suggest that the apparent world is merely the reflection of light upon the screen of the mind.
Although light is received by the senses and undergoes relative transformation as it passes into the retina, and then undergoes more transformation in the nerve cells, passing through a series of chemical changes at the synapses of the nerves, in the peripheries of the nervous system, and perhaps yet more transformations in the cells of the brain.... nevertheless it is still the same energy that reaches the mind. The mind reflects the light, and presents an image of the world. The same energy can take several forms, even apparently disparate forms, perhaps unlimited forms, perhaps all possible forms... but it is nothing more than the same energy. Look carefully at the atomic and sub-atomic structure of matter.... there is virtually nothing there, just waves of energy. Passed on by the senses, it is the reflective nature of mind which transforms energy into an apparently real and solid world. It is a complete illusion. A very convincing illusion. Light consists of two waves of energy at right angles to each other.... understanding that is to understand how one falls into the illusion and how one may escape from it.
Isvara is the magician of light. All the forms are conjured out of light. More precisely, the forms are floating in the light. The light comes from a transcendental source behind one, passing over one’s right shoulder, and angled downwards reaches the mind where it is reflected back towards the consciousness. It is precisely the reflection of light upon the screen of mind that produces the appearance of the world. The sanyasins of northern India carry with them only a few items, including a ceramic pot and a dandhi (a long thin pole or stick).The dandhi is characteristically angled over their right shoulder. The angled dandhi appears to symbolize the light from behind creating the illusion of the phenomenal world. If one turns completely around and attempts to see from where the light originates one will glimpse the causal world. Ordinarily it is not possible to penetrate into the causal world. The glimpse is sufficient to sense that the light originates from someone hidden, present within the causal world. The hypothesis formulates in the mind that it is Isvara. The realization occurs that it is the light of Isvara, reflected upon the screen of the mind, which creates the phenomenon of the world.
Floating in the light is the form of a Buddhi (intellect), which resembles a sculpture, a static form. Maya, the black magician, hides in the shadows of the causal world. Maya sends out an emissary, a small self, a mechanism, called Ahamkara. Ahamkara is the I-maker. Ahamkara creates your sense of I. Ahamkara merely touches the sculptural Buddhi and it instantly comes to life. The Buddhi moves and gesticulates and speaks. By the touch of Ahamkara it has become a spiritual living being... your own spiritual self. It is an astonishing illusion. The Buddhi, your own spiritual self, is located in the higher intellect. To reach it you have to ascend into your intellect, go as high as you possibly can, then turn completely around and look behind you. You will see your spiritual self smiling sweetly at you. You two will love each other, because you are each other. Your spiritual self has been projecting you, your nature, the jiva, in a similar manner to an actor who projects his part in a drama. You, the jiva, your nature, are nothing more than an illusory projection. You do not exist. You are a part in a drama and strangely you quite probably do not fully realize that. Many, perhaps most persons, believe they are the actor, acting out their part in life, consciously or unconsciously, little realizing that they are the part, not the actor. The Atman, the awesome consciousness within you, has identified with what it is not. The Atman has become completely identified with the jiva, your natural self, which is nothing more than a projection of your Buddhi, your spiritual self, which in turn is nothing more than a sculptural form floating in the light of Isvara, and which has been animated into apparent life by Ahamkara, an emissary of Maya.
That is the astonishing trick that the two magicians are playing upon you, upon you, the Atman. The Atman, your awesome consciousness, looking outwards, has become a jiva, an illusion.
Apartheid and Karma - Essay No 1
Someone on the Crossroads discussion group web site made this statement....
'Leon MacLaren once said something about recurrence which struck me as true. Referring to South Africa (during the time of apartheid), he said that “those who now practised apartheid would find themselves in the next life being practised upon”. I took this to mean that, if you practise something, you get good at it and the more you practise the better you get. An extension of this would be that, if you practise duality (apartheid), you get good at it, that is your world, but there's a twist in the tail. From being the bully you next become the victim.
I'm not sure how this could be an objective truth but it certainly speaks to me emotionally'.
[Note: Leon MacLaren 1910-94 was the founder in 1937 of The School of Economic Science in London, now a world-wide organization, which first taught Economics based on the ideas of Henry George and later in the 1950's gave lectures on a non-academic, mystical form of Philosophy which at first was based on a large collection of philosophical quotations collected by Peter Goffin, and then in 1953, after a meeting with Dr Francis Roles, switched to teaching the ideas of PD Ouspensky, which in the early 1960's became modified by the Vedic version of Advaita Vedanta taught by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, and finally modified again from 1965 onwards by direct contact with the purer Advaita Vedanta teaching of Shantanand Sarasvati, Shankaracharya of Jyotir Math, India.]
This was my reply....
I think that any attempt to understand the words and methods of Leon MacLaren is aided by a little knowledge of his particular biography, especially the esoteric philosophies he encountered in the first part of his life, which left impressions deep in his mind. Here is a short meander through some of them.
The concept that 'if you practice something unethical upon others, then in your next life the same will be done to you' contains several philosophical principles as well as several assumptions. It seems to be based upon a particular view and variation of the Hindu philosophy of karma, which essentially states that merits and demerits are accumulated in life and these condition the next life, via the subtle instrument of the chitta which transmits karma from one life to the next, by means of the impressions left upon it.
A common assumption is that the next life will be different from the present one, but this is denied by some esoteric philosophers, eg P D Ouspensky, who state that we are in for a surprise... because the next life is this same one again. We find ourselves placed in recurrence. If we are unable to remember our past lives we will not realize that we live the same life over again. An appropriate attitude towards such a recurring life is to become tired of it, bored with it, seek to escape, work for liberation or release from it... moksha. Another esoteric quasi-philosopher was Ouspensky's teacher, G I Gurdjieff, who hinted that the next life is indeed a recurrence of this present life, but with the 'twist' that the roles are reversed. He gave an example from Christianity: Jesus and Judas are the two principle characters in the Christ drama, but whoever played Jesus in one life may well play Judas in the next. The roles would be reversed. Strangely, this seems slightly similar to what Leon McLaren was saying? Such an idea is not merely a Gurdjievian invention since it is found in older Greek philosophy to which Gurdjieff, as a Greek-Armenian, would have had cultural access. It is interesting to note that SES lecture material in the mid 1950's to 1970's period, written by Leon McLaren himself, was largely derived from P D Ouspensky's writings and lectures, especially 'In Search of the Miraculous', although publicly such a source was not acknowledged at the time. The Study Society was more open, and both acknowledged and revered Ouspensky as a source, whereas SES seemed embarrassed and generally tried to hide the fact.
Ouspensky came to realize that something was missing from the teaching he had received from Gurdjieff, most probably some type of practice which would facilitate higher states of consciousness? After Ouspensky's death, some members of the Study Society and SES were given the task of trying to discover the source of the Gurdjieff-Ouspensky teaching. Gurdjieff was a member of a small group of 'Seekers of the Truth' who studied and absorbed the philosophy and practices of many Central Asian religions, and claimed to have found the source of them all, the enigmatic Sarmoun Monastery, which was said to have had three branches, one vaguely in the Tajikistan-Kyrgyzstan Hindu Kush, one in Tibet, and a third in Himalayan India. Gurdjieff had hinted that he had gained most of his knowledge while staying at the remote Hindu Kush Sarmoun monastery Many, including Gurdjieff's direct followers, went looking for the Hindu Kush monastery but no one is ever reported to have found it. (Desmond Martin reports finding it in northern Afghanistan in 1965 but his account is suspect?). It would have been difficult for the Tibetan branch to exist after the aggressive Chinese invasion and then, just as today, the Tajikistan-Kyrgyzstan branch was believed to be located amidst very hostile tribes. Not finding anything, some began to speculate that Gurdjieff, rather characteristically, had invented the whole idea, as a teaching allegory, and there was no inner circle of mankind on Earth, periodically putting beneficial influences into humanity in the form of philosophical knowledge, religion and culture. Ouspensky actually hints that the inner circle is located in heaven.
No one found anything significant for years until Maharishi Mahesh appeared in London in 1960. It was not at first realized that Mahesh was a link to the deeper knowledge and special practices that were being sought. Contact was made with Mahesh, meditation taught, and discovered to be beneficial, and so Mahesh's version of the advaita teaching began to be incorporated into the philosophy material read out in groups. Even tape recordings of the Maharishi were played in an atmosphere of induced reverence. The Maharishi had initially created an extremely strong and favourable impression. Soon Mahesh proposed that the Study Society, SES, and his own organisation be combined together under his personal direction. Leon MacLaren and Francis Rolls discussed the proposal together but MacLaren found it difficult to reach a decision, saying that whatever Dr Rolls decided he would agree to. Francis Rolls decided to keep the organisations separate. That was quite a decision, without it the two schools would probably have gone down the same line of development as the TM movement, and become engulfed in endless vedic ritual and the idealized science of being and art of living that Mahesh developed. Later Maharishi Mahesh angrily denounced SES in a public lecture given at the Hilton Hotel, London, attended by the Beatles, accusing them of stealing mantras as well as combining meditation with philosophies that caused harmful stresses. It is probably true that SES did steal many mantras that the Mahesh system of meditation employed, particularly by getting one of his female initiators drunk and encouraging her to reveal everything she knew. Ironically, having tried the mantras and found them to be less effective than the traditional mantras employed in the Jyotic tradition as revived by Brahmananda Sarasvati, they never used them. Mahesh's teachings and tapes were quietly dropped from SES and School of Meditation group lecture material.
Previously, further encounters with Mahesh took place in India circa 1961, where Francis Rolls coincidentally met Shantanand the successor to Brahmananda (who was Mahesh's own 'teacher'), and heard him use the same language as Ouspensky... emphasising the importance of 'self-remembering' etc. An astonished Francis Rolls then sought audience with Shantanand at his Shankar Math ashram in Allahabad, believing that he had at last found a living source of Gurdjieff's philosophy. (Shantanand spent the winter in Allahabad, summer at Jyotir Math). When McLaren was informed, he naturally imitated and, starting in 1965, arranged his own audiences with Shantanand. As a consequence the Gurdjieff-Ouspensky lecture material, a mix of Sufi, Christian, Indian, Asiatic and Western philosophies was replaced by a purer form of Advaita. Nevertheless those who had been studying the Ouspensky ideas for years would not be able to easily discard the old valued philosophical material, nor erase the methods completely from their minds.
It is easy to detect that much of Ouspensky's subtle influences and philosophy still remains embedded in SES, especially in the attitudes of the old hierarchy. Examples are: the secrecy, the habitual slyness, the emphasis on payment, the school's negative methods of teaching, rarely answering student's questions and frequently turning the question back on the questioner with a 'what do you think?' the rigid catechetical style of teaching, the cryptic double language employed, the emphasis on discipline and absolute obedience, also the tricks played on students, particularly the unpleasant artificial teaching scenarios the hierarchy act out and create for the purpose of testing their unsuspecting victims, and in particularly the attempt to take over of the personal lives of almost everyone who comes within their influence, often with disastrous consequences. All the negativity in SES can be traced back to an imitation of Gurdjieff's methods. Gurdjieff and Ouspensky believed that doing something negative to someone, through the invention of an unpleasant scene woven around and exposing the student's chief feature, could produce good teaching results, enlightenment, first-hand knowledge, a hard lesson never to be forgotten etc. Consequently, as a result of the Gurdjieff-Ouspensky residual legacy, I think you will find that Leon McLaren's publicly expressed beliefs about karma were a somewhat confused mixture of Fourth Way Philosophy and Advaita.
Recurrence is in eternity, reincarnation is in time.
Leon McLaren appeared to believe unquestioningly in the cast iron law of karma. I heard him say: 'you can not remain where you are, for ever in the same place, either you work and evolve or you go down'. 'If you don't take advantage of the opportunity you go down into the lower forms'. 'There is great competition for human life, and everything must have its chance'. 'Criminals are those who will soon be out of the universe'. 'God is that which puts things up and puts things down'. In old age, the now frailer shrunken MacLaren, walking with the aid of a stick, would explain that it was 'his karma'. Being relatively authoritarian, McLaren, a barrister by profession, would probably have enjoyed the concepts of retributive justice and corrective punishment that forms the basis of the law of karma, but relatively lacking objective reasoning powers he may have failed to see the fundamental contradictions and paradoxes within such a doctrine.
The chief paradox is that the self is pure consciousness and is not an agent of action. The self does nothing. If the genuine self never performs action who is it that accumulates merit and demerit for actions? Who is performing the actions? How can the self reap the karmic consequences, be put up and down by God, for actions it never performed, but simply observed? The self is never born, nor ever dies, universes come and go and it remains unchanged.... so who is there to be reborn, reincarnated, and beneficially or detrimentally affected, or ethically responsible for, and even improved by, the effects of karma? No one.
The idea of role reversal in reincarnation, even of you becoming your enemy and he becoming you, is also found in the Russian Leo Tolstoy's writings, but to date I have not detected the same idea in Advaita Vedanta. In Advaita you and your enemy are the same, there is only Brahman, and all separation and differentiation is illusory. It is the same Brahman in both South African whites and blacks, and to reverse incarnations in any subsequent life as an administration of justice because of the unethical practice of apartheid is ultimately meaningless.
The concept of role reversal appears to contradict the principle of karma, since in the Gurdjievian Christian example a meritorious Jesus with good karma will next play the role of a despised treacherous Judas. And the reverse, Judas having allegedly accumulated bad karma is apparently rewarded by the role of the paraclete Jesus. Someone who plays their part extremely well, even if it is the part of a villain, must be rewarded according to such an interpretation of karma. To many minds this may appear extremely puzzling. One resolution of this contradiction is to view the whole world, life itself, as nothing more than a subtle drama. Shantanand and many advaitins say that 'the world is a show which God, (Saguna Brahman), is staging all around you in the shape of the universe'. That, I feel, is an essential clue by which one can escape the paradoxes within the law of karma
If life is merely a drama, then it is not completely real. Karma and reincarnation are therefore both part of Maya, illusion. The Self does nothing therefore it cannot be subject to karma. It is the false self, the me, which is subject to karma, and the illusion persists for as long as the individual self is identified with the part in the drama, identified with the suggestion 'me'.
Francis Rolls reports Shantanand saying: 'The way to rid oneself from evil is to cultivate the attitude that it is nature (prakriti) that is acting through the body, and not the self.'
Recurrence and reincarnation continue as long as, the me, the person, the soul, the jiva, believes it is the cause and originator of action. Consciousness and knowledge enable the jiva to realize that the self does nothing and it is prakriti, nature, that performs all action, as part of the drama, as the characters in the play being performed in the theatre of the universe. As long as an individual self believes it acts, it is subject to karma, and it appears to experience of the effects of past actions.
Knowledge removes the effects of karma by the realization that the self does nothing, accumulates no samskara, and is invulnerable, quite beyond the law or effects of karma. Karma is realized to be merely a subtle aspect of Maya. To the genuine self, the Parabrahman, which is beyond the limitations of, and entanglement with, Prakriti, beyond both time and space, karma is illusory.
Therefore it is Prakriti which is practising apartheid. But.... who is it practising on?
'Leon MacLaren once said something about recurrence which struck me as true. Referring to South Africa (during the time of apartheid), he said that “those who now practised apartheid would find themselves in the next life being practised upon”. I took this to mean that, if you practise something, you get good at it and the more you practise the better you get. An extension of this would be that, if you practise duality (apartheid), you get good at it, that is your world, but there's a twist in the tail. From being the bully you next become the victim.
I'm not sure how this could be an objective truth but it certainly speaks to me emotionally'.
[Note: Leon MacLaren 1910-94 was the founder in 1937 of The School of Economic Science in London, now a world-wide organization, which first taught Economics based on the ideas of Henry George and later in the 1950's gave lectures on a non-academic, mystical form of Philosophy which at first was based on a large collection of philosophical quotations collected by Peter Goffin, and then in 1953, after a meeting with Dr Francis Roles, switched to teaching the ideas of PD Ouspensky, which in the early 1960's became modified by the Vedic version of Advaita Vedanta taught by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, and finally modified again from 1965 onwards by direct contact with the purer Advaita Vedanta teaching of Shantanand Sarasvati, Shankaracharya of Jyotir Math, India.]
This was my reply....
I think that any attempt to understand the words and methods of Leon MacLaren is aided by a little knowledge of his particular biography, especially the esoteric philosophies he encountered in the first part of his life, which left impressions deep in his mind. Here is a short meander through some of them.
The concept that 'if you practice something unethical upon others, then in your next life the same will be done to you' contains several philosophical principles as well as several assumptions. It seems to be based upon a particular view and variation of the Hindu philosophy of karma, which essentially states that merits and demerits are accumulated in life and these condition the next life, via the subtle instrument of the chitta which transmits karma from one life to the next, by means of the impressions left upon it.
A common assumption is that the next life will be different from the present one, but this is denied by some esoteric philosophers, eg P D Ouspensky, who state that we are in for a surprise... because the next life is this same one again. We find ourselves placed in recurrence. If we are unable to remember our past lives we will not realize that we live the same life over again. An appropriate attitude towards such a recurring life is to become tired of it, bored with it, seek to escape, work for liberation or release from it... moksha. Another esoteric quasi-philosopher was Ouspensky's teacher, G I Gurdjieff, who hinted that the next life is indeed a recurrence of this present life, but with the 'twist' that the roles are reversed. He gave an example from Christianity: Jesus and Judas are the two principle characters in the Christ drama, but whoever played Jesus in one life may well play Judas in the next. The roles would be reversed. Strangely, this seems slightly similar to what Leon McLaren was saying? Such an idea is not merely a Gurdjievian invention since it is found in older Greek philosophy to which Gurdjieff, as a Greek-Armenian, would have had cultural access. It is interesting to note that SES lecture material in the mid 1950's to 1970's period, written by Leon McLaren himself, was largely derived from P D Ouspensky's writings and lectures, especially 'In Search of the Miraculous', although publicly such a source was not acknowledged at the time. The Study Society was more open, and both acknowledged and revered Ouspensky as a source, whereas SES seemed embarrassed and generally tried to hide the fact.
Ouspensky came to realize that something was missing from the teaching he had received from Gurdjieff, most probably some type of practice which would facilitate higher states of consciousness? After Ouspensky's death, some members of the Study Society and SES were given the task of trying to discover the source of the Gurdjieff-Ouspensky teaching. Gurdjieff was a member of a small group of 'Seekers of the Truth' who studied and absorbed the philosophy and practices of many Central Asian religions, and claimed to have found the source of them all, the enigmatic Sarmoun Monastery, which was said to have had three branches, one vaguely in the Tajikistan-Kyrgyzstan Hindu Kush, one in Tibet, and a third in Himalayan India. Gurdjieff had hinted that he had gained most of his knowledge while staying at the remote Hindu Kush Sarmoun monastery Many, including Gurdjieff's direct followers, went looking for the Hindu Kush monastery but no one is ever reported to have found it. (Desmond Martin reports finding it in northern Afghanistan in 1965 but his account is suspect?). It would have been difficult for the Tibetan branch to exist after the aggressive Chinese invasion and then, just as today, the Tajikistan-Kyrgyzstan branch was believed to be located amidst very hostile tribes. Not finding anything, some began to speculate that Gurdjieff, rather characteristically, had invented the whole idea, as a teaching allegory, and there was no inner circle of mankind on Earth, periodically putting beneficial influences into humanity in the form of philosophical knowledge, religion and culture. Ouspensky actually hints that the inner circle is located in heaven.
No one found anything significant for years until Maharishi Mahesh appeared in London in 1960. It was not at first realized that Mahesh was a link to the deeper knowledge and special practices that were being sought. Contact was made with Mahesh, meditation taught, and discovered to be beneficial, and so Mahesh's version of the advaita teaching began to be incorporated into the philosophy material read out in groups. Even tape recordings of the Maharishi were played in an atmosphere of induced reverence. The Maharishi had initially created an extremely strong and favourable impression. Soon Mahesh proposed that the Study Society, SES, and his own organisation be combined together under his personal direction. Leon MacLaren and Francis Rolls discussed the proposal together but MacLaren found it difficult to reach a decision, saying that whatever Dr Rolls decided he would agree to. Francis Rolls decided to keep the organisations separate. That was quite a decision, without it the two schools would probably have gone down the same line of development as the TM movement, and become engulfed in endless vedic ritual and the idealized science of being and art of living that Mahesh developed. Later Maharishi Mahesh angrily denounced SES in a public lecture given at the Hilton Hotel, London, attended by the Beatles, accusing them of stealing mantras as well as combining meditation with philosophies that caused harmful stresses. It is probably true that SES did steal many mantras that the Mahesh system of meditation employed, particularly by getting one of his female initiators drunk and encouraging her to reveal everything she knew. Ironically, having tried the mantras and found them to be less effective than the traditional mantras employed in the Jyotic tradition as revived by Brahmananda Sarasvati, they never used them. Mahesh's teachings and tapes were quietly dropped from SES and School of Meditation group lecture material.
Previously, further encounters with Mahesh took place in India circa 1961, where Francis Rolls coincidentally met Shantanand the successor to Brahmananda (who was Mahesh's own 'teacher'), and heard him use the same language as Ouspensky... emphasising the importance of 'self-remembering' etc. An astonished Francis Rolls then sought audience with Shantanand at his Shankar Math ashram in Allahabad, believing that he had at last found a living source of Gurdjieff's philosophy. (Shantanand spent the winter in Allahabad, summer at Jyotir Math). When McLaren was informed, he naturally imitated and, starting in 1965, arranged his own audiences with Shantanand. As a consequence the Gurdjieff-Ouspensky lecture material, a mix of Sufi, Christian, Indian, Asiatic and Western philosophies was replaced by a purer form of Advaita. Nevertheless those who had been studying the Ouspensky ideas for years would not be able to easily discard the old valued philosophical material, nor erase the methods completely from their minds.
It is easy to detect that much of Ouspensky's subtle influences and philosophy still remains embedded in SES, especially in the attitudes of the old hierarchy. Examples are: the secrecy, the habitual slyness, the emphasis on payment, the school's negative methods of teaching, rarely answering student's questions and frequently turning the question back on the questioner with a 'what do you think?' the rigid catechetical style of teaching, the cryptic double language employed, the emphasis on discipline and absolute obedience, also the tricks played on students, particularly the unpleasant artificial teaching scenarios the hierarchy act out and create for the purpose of testing their unsuspecting victims, and in particularly the attempt to take over of the personal lives of almost everyone who comes within their influence, often with disastrous consequences. All the negativity in SES can be traced back to an imitation of Gurdjieff's methods. Gurdjieff and Ouspensky believed that doing something negative to someone, through the invention of an unpleasant scene woven around and exposing the student's chief feature, could produce good teaching results, enlightenment, first-hand knowledge, a hard lesson never to be forgotten etc. Consequently, as a result of the Gurdjieff-Ouspensky residual legacy, I think you will find that Leon McLaren's publicly expressed beliefs about karma were a somewhat confused mixture of Fourth Way Philosophy and Advaita.
Recurrence is in eternity, reincarnation is in time.
Leon McLaren appeared to believe unquestioningly in the cast iron law of karma. I heard him say: 'you can not remain where you are, for ever in the same place, either you work and evolve or you go down'. 'If you don't take advantage of the opportunity you go down into the lower forms'. 'There is great competition for human life, and everything must have its chance'. 'Criminals are those who will soon be out of the universe'. 'God is that which puts things up and puts things down'. In old age, the now frailer shrunken MacLaren, walking with the aid of a stick, would explain that it was 'his karma'. Being relatively authoritarian, McLaren, a barrister by profession, would probably have enjoyed the concepts of retributive justice and corrective punishment that forms the basis of the law of karma, but relatively lacking objective reasoning powers he may have failed to see the fundamental contradictions and paradoxes within such a doctrine.
The chief paradox is that the self is pure consciousness and is not an agent of action. The self does nothing. If the genuine self never performs action who is it that accumulates merit and demerit for actions? Who is performing the actions? How can the self reap the karmic consequences, be put up and down by God, for actions it never performed, but simply observed? The self is never born, nor ever dies, universes come and go and it remains unchanged.... so who is there to be reborn, reincarnated, and beneficially or detrimentally affected, or ethically responsible for, and even improved by, the effects of karma? No one.
The idea of role reversal in reincarnation, even of you becoming your enemy and he becoming you, is also found in the Russian Leo Tolstoy's writings, but to date I have not detected the same idea in Advaita Vedanta. In Advaita you and your enemy are the same, there is only Brahman, and all separation and differentiation is illusory. It is the same Brahman in both South African whites and blacks, and to reverse incarnations in any subsequent life as an administration of justice because of the unethical practice of apartheid is ultimately meaningless.
The concept of role reversal appears to contradict the principle of karma, since in the Gurdjievian Christian example a meritorious Jesus with good karma will next play the role of a despised treacherous Judas. And the reverse, Judas having allegedly accumulated bad karma is apparently rewarded by the role of the paraclete Jesus. Someone who plays their part extremely well, even if it is the part of a villain, must be rewarded according to such an interpretation of karma. To many minds this may appear extremely puzzling. One resolution of this contradiction is to view the whole world, life itself, as nothing more than a subtle drama. Shantanand and many advaitins say that 'the world is a show which God, (Saguna Brahman), is staging all around you in the shape of the universe'. That, I feel, is an essential clue by which one can escape the paradoxes within the law of karma
If life is merely a drama, then it is not completely real. Karma and reincarnation are therefore both part of Maya, illusion. The Self does nothing therefore it cannot be subject to karma. It is the false self, the me, which is subject to karma, and the illusion persists for as long as the individual self is identified with the part in the drama, identified with the suggestion 'me'.
Francis Rolls reports Shantanand saying: 'The way to rid oneself from evil is to cultivate the attitude that it is nature (prakriti) that is acting through the body, and not the self.'
Recurrence and reincarnation continue as long as, the me, the person, the soul, the jiva, believes it is the cause and originator of action. Consciousness and knowledge enable the jiva to realize that the self does nothing and it is prakriti, nature, that performs all action, as part of the drama, as the characters in the play being performed in the theatre of the universe. As long as an individual self believes it acts, it is subject to karma, and it appears to experience of the effects of past actions.
Knowledge removes the effects of karma by the realization that the self does nothing, accumulates no samskara, and is invulnerable, quite beyond the law or effects of karma. Karma is realized to be merely a subtle aspect of Maya. To the genuine self, the Parabrahman, which is beyond the limitations of, and entanglement with, Prakriti, beyond both time and space, karma is illusory.
Therefore it is Prakriti which is practising apartheid. But.... who is it practising on?
Atman has separated from Brahman
Heaven, Brahma-Loka, can be known. It is a golden world. We are expelled from Heaven when we sound an "I" for the first time. "I" indicates separation. I and the world have become separated, in truth they are not. A separate "I" cannot stay in Heaven, and we pass out through the gates, which close firmly behind us. This can be remembered. Some advaitins say that Brahma-Loka, Siva-Loka, and Visnu-Loka are all part of the illusion, and merely aspects of the Vyavaharika. Heaven is not the Paramarthika.
Atman has separated from Brahman. This is due to ignorance. Atman looks out, and is that awesome consciousness within us which is looking out. Because Atman is everything, he identifies with whatever he sees. Atman is pure consciousness, and everything else is consciousness, therefore Atman identifies everything he is conscious of... as himself. What Atman does not know is that the Shakti has unfolded herself as space-air-fire-water-earth and entered into them. When the Atman identifies with anything present in, or constructed from, these five subtle elements he becomes lost in the illusion, in the dream, magically created by the Shakti. The magical power of the Shakti is Maya.
Space, akasha, is universal mind, inner space is individual mind. Air, vayu, prana, is the serving medium of the causal world, and has the power of animating the unmanifest, bringing being into manifestation, turning mere forms and mechanisms into apparently living things, including spirits. Fire, light, tejas, is the projection from Isvara which reflects upon the screen of space in the mind to create the appearance and forms of the world. In Water, ap, are the characters in the drama, the illusory people and selves in the world, their natures, hopes, desires, loves and hates. Earth, prithivi, is associated with the physical bodies of everything.
Space is mind, air is power, fire is form, water is nature, earth is body.
When Shakti-Maya, via various subtle intermediaries, presents a person, a character, a part in the drama, before Atman, he identifies with it, and becomes the jiva. If Shakti-Maya presents a spirit before Atman he becomes a spirit, buddhi, if she presents a god before Atman he becomes a god, chitta, and so on. The Shakti is playing with the Atman, and some jnanis say it is a very serious game. Atman is being tricked into believing that he is born, living, dwelling in a house with a pretty garden, falling in love, marrying, having children, and dying. Sometimes, and eventually, the game becomes intense, extreme, and apparently very painful to the jiva. When the pain or folly becomes too great, Atman will disengage, turn completely around, and looking back into himself.... remember himself. The end of ignorance.
Does the Shastra tell the Atman to disengage from the Prakriti of Shakti-Maya? I suspect not. The Shastra tells the jiva to do so, and that is not quite the same thing? The Shastra therefore has to be understood as a theoretical aid to the education of the jiva only. Who can teach the jiva that he does not even exist? Who can demonstrate the illusory nature of space-air-fire-water-earth? Who can demonstrate that Shakti-Maya, your own shaddow self, is playing mercilessly with you, the Atman? Who can show you the sakshin and purusha witnesses within you who alone can see that everything is merely a succession of octaves according to law, and that Prakriti is unreal, and consists entirely of the action and interaction of the three gunas? .... only the power of the guru. Darshan. The shastra cannot do anything. Those who put their faith totally in the enlightening power of Vedas are possibly further deluding themselves? And finally who can separate the jiva from the Atman? Only the Atman himself by divesting himself of ignorance. The jiva is Atman identified with what he is not. Being identified with anything in the play of Shakti-Maya is ignorance. Atman is not physical or material, Atman is not a person or nature, Atman is not a spirit, Atman is not divine. Atman is not light or darkness or shaddow. Atman is powerless and disinterested in action. Atman is not in time, Atman is not in space. Atman is not in mind. Atman is beyond mind.
When Brahman sleeps his Shakti awakes, when Brahman awakes, the Shakti sleeps. Nothing can change while Brahman is dreaming. We are all part of the dream of Brahman. We all have to wait for him to awake. Who can awaken Brahman?
Atman has separated from Brahman. This is due to ignorance. Atman looks out, and is that awesome consciousness within us which is looking out. Because Atman is everything, he identifies with whatever he sees. Atman is pure consciousness, and everything else is consciousness, therefore Atman identifies everything he is conscious of... as himself. What Atman does not know is that the Shakti has unfolded herself as space-air-fire-water-earth and entered into them. When the Atman identifies with anything present in, or constructed from, these five subtle elements he becomes lost in the illusion, in the dream, magically created by the Shakti. The magical power of the Shakti is Maya.
Space, akasha, is universal mind, inner space is individual mind. Air, vayu, prana, is the serving medium of the causal world, and has the power of animating the unmanifest, bringing being into manifestation, turning mere forms and mechanisms into apparently living things, including spirits. Fire, light, tejas, is the projection from Isvara which reflects upon the screen of space in the mind to create the appearance and forms of the world. In Water, ap, are the characters in the drama, the illusory people and selves in the world, their natures, hopes, desires, loves and hates. Earth, prithivi, is associated with the physical bodies of everything.
Space is mind, air is power, fire is form, water is nature, earth is body.
When Shakti-Maya, via various subtle intermediaries, presents a person, a character, a part in the drama, before Atman, he identifies with it, and becomes the jiva. If Shakti-Maya presents a spirit before Atman he becomes a spirit, buddhi, if she presents a god before Atman he becomes a god, chitta, and so on. The Shakti is playing with the Atman, and some jnanis say it is a very serious game. Atman is being tricked into believing that he is born, living, dwelling in a house with a pretty garden, falling in love, marrying, having children, and dying. Sometimes, and eventually, the game becomes intense, extreme, and apparently very painful to the jiva. When the pain or folly becomes too great, Atman will disengage, turn completely around, and looking back into himself.... remember himself. The end of ignorance.
Does the Shastra tell the Atman to disengage from the Prakriti of Shakti-Maya? I suspect not. The Shastra tells the jiva to do so, and that is not quite the same thing? The Shastra therefore has to be understood as a theoretical aid to the education of the jiva only. Who can teach the jiva that he does not even exist? Who can demonstrate the illusory nature of space-air-fire-water-earth? Who can demonstrate that Shakti-Maya, your own shaddow self, is playing mercilessly with you, the Atman? Who can show you the sakshin and purusha witnesses within you who alone can see that everything is merely a succession of octaves according to law, and that Prakriti is unreal, and consists entirely of the action and interaction of the three gunas? .... only the power of the guru. Darshan. The shastra cannot do anything. Those who put their faith totally in the enlightening power of Vedas are possibly further deluding themselves? And finally who can separate the jiva from the Atman? Only the Atman himself by divesting himself of ignorance. The jiva is Atman identified with what he is not. Being identified with anything in the play of Shakti-Maya is ignorance. Atman is not physical or material, Atman is not a person or nature, Atman is not a spirit, Atman is not divine. Atman is not light or darkness or shaddow. Atman is powerless and disinterested in action. Atman is not in time, Atman is not in space. Atman is not in mind. Atman is beyond mind.
When Brahman sleeps his Shakti awakes, when Brahman awakes, the Shakti sleeps. Nothing can change while Brahman is dreaming. We are all part of the dream of Brahman. We all have to wait for him to awake. Who can awaken Brahman?
The Beginning
There are cycles of Creation, Maintenance, and Destruction.
Advaita Vedanta suggests that there is no beginning and no end. It is endless.
At the beginning of one cycle, the god Brahma remembers himself, awakens, and discovers the principle of existence.
What Brahma discovers is that existence is possible if all support all.
It is not possible to remember yourself unless you love.
Advaita Vedanta suggests that there is no beginning and no end. It is endless.
At the beginning of one cycle, the god Brahma remembers himself, awakens, and discovers the principle of existence.
What Brahma discovers is that existence is possible if all support all.
It is not possible to remember yourself unless you love.
Language
No one has ever understood anyone else by means of words and language.
Why?
Consider how language operates.... you have an experience, but being human you cannot share your experience directly with someone else. You conceptualize the experience, attempt to capture it in thought, then you attempt to transpose the thought into words, but realize that the right words are difficult to find, you realize that no words exactly represent what you are trying to express, you keep trying and compromise with words, eventually accepting some that approximately correspond to the thought, then you sound the words via some flaps of membrane in your throat and observe them come out through your mouth, noting that the particular sound, timbre, rhythm, pitch, colour, phrazing etc that your inherited body makes doesn't quite correspond to the quality and dynamism of the original thought, and now has, by a series of transformations, become even more distant from the living original experience. You realize that your words sound slightly contrived and empty, almost random, a very poor approximation to what you had hoped to express. Nevertheless the sentence has now been spoken, and you watch your beloved listen to, and react to, your words. You see her struggling momentarily in her mind to match the sounds that you made with words, as she personally and uniquely understands them, and next to match them with what she believes are the conventional meanings that she has absorbed from the society within which she has grown up. She also struggles momentarily to match your words with her own experience, and then match those experiences with concepts already present in her own mind..... and amazingly, suddenly she seems to connect the sounds with something. She smiles, and says; Yes, that is very interesting.
You have no idea whether or not she understands you, whether what is now in her mind is exactly the same as what is in your mind. Her words may reassure you, but ultimately you are confined to your own mind and she to hers.... unless you have direct access, which is possible. But direct access doesn't use language.
Let us take an example.... I give you a peach. You hold it in your hand, touch it and smell its subtle paradisal fragrance You bite into it and taste it. Oh... magnificence. Pick up the telephone and tell your beloved what you have experienced..... without using the word 'peach'. All you have to do is to convey the essence of peachness in language.
Difficult? Even impossible? I agree.
No one has ever understood anyone else through the medium of language.
You haven't understood one word I have used so far. Nor have I understood anyone who has ever spoken to me. Nor have I ever understood anything I have read, neither what the author was expressing, nor why he wanted to write what he did. Poignant? Melancholic? Separate? That is the human condition. The human nature is one of unbearable limitations.
The gods do not use language. They have mouths but they do not open them. They are silent. If it is necessary to communicate... they have a much better method. Unlike human language which is almost random and uncertain in result, their method is exact and certain. They use darshan, showing. If they wish to demonstrate something to you, they put the experience directly into you. Their experience becomes your experience. Of course you may misinterpret the experience, fail to understand it, but any misunderstanding can no longer be due to misconceptions of language. Time is strange, in the divine world the past has not disappeared into oblivion, it is still present. Therefore the divine being can put any experience directly into to you, for you to observe and understand, even as far back to the beginning of creation, and so reveal the forces at work. The divine being can, through the process of darshan, show you Great Brahma discovering the principle of creation. Then you know as gods know.
Advaita Vedanta teaches that there are many Brahmas. Probably that is true. The Brahma associated with our world, did open his mouth and a sound came out, continues to come out. Advaita says it is the sound OM. It is a sort of rhythm, a vibration, a rhythm of huge overpowering force. It creates everything. The traffic noise in the city, the cooing of the pigeons in the trees, the sound of the pedestrians walking along the pavement, even your own heart beat..... all are part of the great rhythm. It seems impossible to escape from it, since it both encompasses everything and holds everything transfixed. Our Brahma seems to suffer from a compulsive creation disorder. No one seems to be able to stop him. Maybe he has a reason, an instruction, we know not of. For myself, looking at the world and the things that are in it, evaluating its nature and quality, I can't help thinking it is all somewhat immature, bizarre, cruel, appalling. Maybe that young immature Brahma should have kept his mouth shut? Great Brahma is of a different quality to the young Brahma who creates our world, and of him no criticism is made. Reluctantly, I tentatively have to propose the thesis that all our problems, all the imperfections of our world, result from the immaturity of the gods. Silence is a finer state than sound.
Why?
Consider how language operates.... you have an experience, but being human you cannot share your experience directly with someone else. You conceptualize the experience, attempt to capture it in thought, then you attempt to transpose the thought into words, but realize that the right words are difficult to find, you realize that no words exactly represent what you are trying to express, you keep trying and compromise with words, eventually accepting some that approximately correspond to the thought, then you sound the words via some flaps of membrane in your throat and observe them come out through your mouth, noting that the particular sound, timbre, rhythm, pitch, colour, phrazing etc that your inherited body makes doesn't quite correspond to the quality and dynamism of the original thought, and now has, by a series of transformations, become even more distant from the living original experience. You realize that your words sound slightly contrived and empty, almost random, a very poor approximation to what you had hoped to express. Nevertheless the sentence has now been spoken, and you watch your beloved listen to, and react to, your words. You see her struggling momentarily in her mind to match the sounds that you made with words, as she personally and uniquely understands them, and next to match them with what she believes are the conventional meanings that she has absorbed from the society within which she has grown up. She also struggles momentarily to match your words with her own experience, and then match those experiences with concepts already present in her own mind..... and amazingly, suddenly she seems to connect the sounds with something. She smiles, and says; Yes, that is very interesting.
You have no idea whether or not she understands you, whether what is now in her mind is exactly the same as what is in your mind. Her words may reassure you, but ultimately you are confined to your own mind and she to hers.... unless you have direct access, which is possible. But direct access doesn't use language.
Let us take an example.... I give you a peach. You hold it in your hand, touch it and smell its subtle paradisal fragrance You bite into it and taste it. Oh... magnificence. Pick up the telephone and tell your beloved what you have experienced..... without using the word 'peach'. All you have to do is to convey the essence of peachness in language.
Difficult? Even impossible? I agree.
No one has ever understood anyone else through the medium of language.
You haven't understood one word I have used so far. Nor have I understood anyone who has ever spoken to me. Nor have I ever understood anything I have read, neither what the author was expressing, nor why he wanted to write what he did. Poignant? Melancholic? Separate? That is the human condition. The human nature is one of unbearable limitations.
The gods do not use language. They have mouths but they do not open them. They are silent. If it is necessary to communicate... they have a much better method. Unlike human language which is almost random and uncertain in result, their method is exact and certain. They use darshan, showing. If they wish to demonstrate something to you, they put the experience directly into you. Their experience becomes your experience. Of course you may misinterpret the experience, fail to understand it, but any misunderstanding can no longer be due to misconceptions of language. Time is strange, in the divine world the past has not disappeared into oblivion, it is still present. Therefore the divine being can put any experience directly into to you, for you to observe and understand, even as far back to the beginning of creation, and so reveal the forces at work. The divine being can, through the process of darshan, show you Great Brahma discovering the principle of creation. Then you know as gods know.
Advaita Vedanta teaches that there are many Brahmas. Probably that is true. The Brahma associated with our world, did open his mouth and a sound came out, continues to come out. Advaita says it is the sound OM. It is a sort of rhythm, a vibration, a rhythm of huge overpowering force. It creates everything. The traffic noise in the city, the cooing of the pigeons in the trees, the sound of the pedestrians walking along the pavement, even your own heart beat..... all are part of the great rhythm. It seems impossible to escape from it, since it both encompasses everything and holds everything transfixed. Our Brahma seems to suffer from a compulsive creation disorder. No one seems to be able to stop him. Maybe he has a reason, an instruction, we know not of. For myself, looking at the world and the things that are in it, evaluating its nature and quality, I can't help thinking it is all somewhat immature, bizarre, cruel, appalling. Maybe that young immature Brahma should have kept his mouth shut? Great Brahma is of a different quality to the young Brahma who creates our world, and of him no criticism is made. Reluctantly, I tentatively have to propose the thesis that all our problems, all the imperfections of our world, result from the immaturity of the gods. Silence is a finer state than sound.
Conception Reincarnation Recurrence
The self is not located upon any eternal wheel, nor is it subjected to fate, reincarnation, or recurrence. It is the jiva which is subject to reincarnation, etc. The jiva associated with yourself and myself is the atman identified with an individual nature, identified with someone who exhibits all the various characteristics of you and I. The atman has identified with someone or something it is not.
It happens like this... being pure consciousness, together with the fact that consciousness is one and is everywhere, the atman identifies with whatever it sees. To explain... the consciousness that is atman and the consciousness that is present as the object appearing before atman are the same one consciousness, therefore atman moves, identifies with, and relocates in the object because it believes it is itself. The atman believes 'I am you, you are I'. Identified and relocated, the atman now looks out from the object. The atman has become one with the consciousness of the object and can now look out using the object's consciousness. They are the same are they not? Subtly, that is ignorance. I would guess we have all made the same mistake. We are not what we appear to be. Advaita offers the well known aphorism: If you can see it, you cannot be it. It is the jiva, which is the combination of the atman identified with a nature, or the atman identified with a non-existent being, who we mistake to be ourselves and who, surviving death, is subjected to reincarnation etc. Philosophically it is necessary to separate atman and nature when discussing someone. One, they unknown are, whereas the other, they appear to be. Fortunately or unfortunately, it is the natures of both you and I that are eternally located in 'the wheel', 'The wheel', is part of the turning cosmic cogs of prakriti. Prakriti is an inexorable cosmic mechanism, when it moves and engulfs you, you hear the wrath of God. The individual nature of both you and I is prakriti (Nature).
The fact that atman moves, identifies, becomes what it is not, is the essential problem.
Our consciousness moves. Brahman does not move. Brahman is eternal stillness. Nor does Brahman identify with anything. It is the atman that has moved, separated from Brahman. This universe is about the poignancy of separation.
An interesting question is to enquire: where has the person, the nature, come from? Advaita suggests that it is a combined creation of Isvara and Maya. My ordinary sense of self, as the person covering the nature, is an illusory creation of Maya and is part of prakriti. I, as the jiva, am nothing other than a projection (vikshepa) upon the screen of mind. Someone is playing with me, and is probably playing with each of us. My nature is merely a part in the play of creation, a drama which is said to have no beginning and no end. Sankara says that transmigratory existence is like a wheel that rolls on forever. Just like a reel of film in a cinema projector, 'a wheel' slowly unwinds and presents the life of myself upon the screen of my particular inner space, my mind, and when fully unwound, it stops. When it stops it is probably rewound. Time is not something that is outside one, it is coiled up inside one, inside the body, in the solar plexus, in the subtle body. The life unwinds and then it is rewound. Recurrence is merely watching, viewing, the 'same' life again. If you want to rescue yourself from this subtle cinema, or theatre, you have to tell your consciousness, tell your atman, to stop identifying with one particular favourite character upon the screen and, if he can.... get out.
Theoretical mathematicians and astro-physicists are certain that time and space are curved, and some philosophers have said that the individual life is also curved, resulting in a circle, so that its end and its beginning are the same. Others say that the circle doesn't meet exactly its starting point, and there is a small gap, so that a spiral or helix is a better description. Recurrence is therefore passage from one circle of time to a parallel circle of time which is subtly spatially located alongside it. Everything, every detail, in the two parallel lines of time appears to be the same, but significantly they are not precisely the same circle, and thus there are rare small differences. However, there are some incomprehensible consequences as a result of the structure of recurrence.... there are at least two of everything you have experienced.... you have two mothers and in fact two of everything else. But you only have one self. Here is a story told by Shantanand, the former Shankaracharya of Jyotir Math....
'Now we will consider a divine creation.
The child Krishna once wanted to go out grazing cows along with the other boys. Everyone dissuaded him as he was too young to remain out the whole day, but he insisted on going. Yashoda, his mother, then gave some sucking sweets to the boys and asked them to give them to him when he felt hungry, to save him from the hot sun, fatigue, etc. Then the boys and Krishna went to the bank of the river Yamuna to graze the cows. There Krishna appeared to be eating the sand of the Yamuna instead of the sweets, and he did not stop when told not to indulge in that dirty habit.
In the evening, when they returned to the village they complained to Mother Yashoda about Krishna's mischievous behaviour. She questioned Krishna, and he denied it point-blank. Then she caught Krishna with one hand, took up a stick with the other, and threatened to beat him. Krishna said: “ Mother, just peep into my mouth. If I ate sand, you will surely see it there.”
Yashoda looked into Krishna's mouth. First she saw only his lovely pinkish lips and pearly teeth. But soon she began seeing in it the whole village – their own house – another Yashoda holding another Krishna – another earth and another sky – mountains and rivers – and everything. She was completely non-nonplussed. Seeing her frightened out of her wits, Krishna withdrew the vision and assumed his former appearance.'
Life is very different from Hell. In life there is the possibility of moving, the possibility of evolution and compensation, there is the possibility of understanding, there is the possibility of self remembering, although it is extremely difficult. In Hell there seems to be no possibility. It is pure pathos. The jivas smash each other into bewildered fragments and the spirits are buried in delusion (avarana), covered over for aeons of time in self forgetfulness.
Perhaps you may say: 'I hope my next life will be a life in which I can understand the things I didn't before. If I want it, of course', the interesting idea here is that one doesn't have to accept the life. It is inevitable that eventually, at conception, the divine arranger of lives will offer you a life. The secret is to somehow realize that the being who is offered the life is not your genuine self. The first part is quite easy. The person in the life offered, the being who you will have to get into, and who will live out the life, is clearly seen to be not yourself. From a distance you may be deceived, but close-up it is nothing like yourself. The much more difficult realization to make is that the person who is being offered the life is not your genuine self either. It is very subtle. You are merely the observer of conception, not the conceived, not the incarnated, not the transmigrant. The genuine you is not offered a life, it is only someone who you think you are, the someone who you have mistaken to be yourself for a long time, and who is being offered the life. But, considering where one has come from, considering that one cannot stand being a jiva, considering one cannot bear one's limited nature, considering that one is searching for oneself, considering one's natural inclination to help another, considering the poor quality of the intellect available to one at conception.... does one have any choice? Worse... the divine arranger of lives may well trick you into accepting. He has his own secret aim. You and I are here, therefore we must have accepted the life, either willingly or perhaps reluctantly.
It is possible to realize that you are not a physical body, not a person, not a nature, not a spirit, not even a god.... only when you see that they are all mere mechanisms. We all want to be spiritual, but when we discover our spirit we find that it is a mechanism. A subtle mechanism. A definition of the self could be... that which is not a mechanism. If you are in search of the self then.... the search goes on. Someone is playing with us. I am certain that someone is playing with myself, but I can only assume someone is also playing with you. Assumptions are often wrong.
It happens like this... being pure consciousness, together with the fact that consciousness is one and is everywhere, the atman identifies with whatever it sees. To explain... the consciousness that is atman and the consciousness that is present as the object appearing before atman are the same one consciousness, therefore atman moves, identifies with, and relocates in the object because it believes it is itself. The atman believes 'I am you, you are I'. Identified and relocated, the atman now looks out from the object. The atman has become one with the consciousness of the object and can now look out using the object's consciousness. They are the same are they not? Subtly, that is ignorance. I would guess we have all made the same mistake. We are not what we appear to be. Advaita offers the well known aphorism: If you can see it, you cannot be it. It is the jiva, which is the combination of the atman identified with a nature, or the atman identified with a non-existent being, who we mistake to be ourselves and who, surviving death, is subjected to reincarnation etc. Philosophically it is necessary to separate atman and nature when discussing someone. One, they unknown are, whereas the other, they appear to be. Fortunately or unfortunately, it is the natures of both you and I that are eternally located in 'the wheel', 'The wheel', is part of the turning cosmic cogs of prakriti. Prakriti is an inexorable cosmic mechanism, when it moves and engulfs you, you hear the wrath of God. The individual nature of both you and I is prakriti (Nature).
The fact that atman moves, identifies, becomes what it is not, is the essential problem.
Our consciousness moves. Brahman does not move. Brahman is eternal stillness. Nor does Brahman identify with anything. It is the atman that has moved, separated from Brahman. This universe is about the poignancy of separation.
An interesting question is to enquire: where has the person, the nature, come from? Advaita suggests that it is a combined creation of Isvara and Maya. My ordinary sense of self, as the person covering the nature, is an illusory creation of Maya and is part of prakriti. I, as the jiva, am nothing other than a projection (vikshepa) upon the screen of mind. Someone is playing with me, and is probably playing with each of us. My nature is merely a part in the play of creation, a drama which is said to have no beginning and no end. Sankara says that transmigratory existence is like a wheel that rolls on forever. Just like a reel of film in a cinema projector, 'a wheel' slowly unwinds and presents the life of myself upon the screen of my particular inner space, my mind, and when fully unwound, it stops. When it stops it is probably rewound. Time is not something that is outside one, it is coiled up inside one, inside the body, in the solar plexus, in the subtle body. The life unwinds and then it is rewound. Recurrence is merely watching, viewing, the 'same' life again. If you want to rescue yourself from this subtle cinema, or theatre, you have to tell your consciousness, tell your atman, to stop identifying with one particular favourite character upon the screen and, if he can.... get out.
Theoretical mathematicians and astro-physicists are certain that time and space are curved, and some philosophers have said that the individual life is also curved, resulting in a circle, so that its end and its beginning are the same. Others say that the circle doesn't meet exactly its starting point, and there is a small gap, so that a spiral or helix is a better description. Recurrence is therefore passage from one circle of time to a parallel circle of time which is subtly spatially located alongside it. Everything, every detail, in the two parallel lines of time appears to be the same, but significantly they are not precisely the same circle, and thus there are rare small differences. However, there are some incomprehensible consequences as a result of the structure of recurrence.... there are at least two of everything you have experienced.... you have two mothers and in fact two of everything else. But you only have one self. Here is a story told by Shantanand, the former Shankaracharya of Jyotir Math....
'Now we will consider a divine creation.
The child Krishna once wanted to go out grazing cows along with the other boys. Everyone dissuaded him as he was too young to remain out the whole day, but he insisted on going. Yashoda, his mother, then gave some sucking sweets to the boys and asked them to give them to him when he felt hungry, to save him from the hot sun, fatigue, etc. Then the boys and Krishna went to the bank of the river Yamuna to graze the cows. There Krishna appeared to be eating the sand of the Yamuna instead of the sweets, and he did not stop when told not to indulge in that dirty habit.
In the evening, when they returned to the village they complained to Mother Yashoda about Krishna's mischievous behaviour. She questioned Krishna, and he denied it point-blank. Then she caught Krishna with one hand, took up a stick with the other, and threatened to beat him. Krishna said: “ Mother, just peep into my mouth. If I ate sand, you will surely see it there.”
Yashoda looked into Krishna's mouth. First she saw only his lovely pinkish lips and pearly teeth. But soon she began seeing in it the whole village – their own house – another Yashoda holding another Krishna – another earth and another sky – mountains and rivers – and everything. She was completely non-nonplussed. Seeing her frightened out of her wits, Krishna withdrew the vision and assumed his former appearance.'
Life is very different from Hell. In life there is the possibility of moving, the possibility of evolution and compensation, there is the possibility of understanding, there is the possibility of self remembering, although it is extremely difficult. In Hell there seems to be no possibility. It is pure pathos. The jivas smash each other into bewildered fragments and the spirits are buried in delusion (avarana), covered over for aeons of time in self forgetfulness.
Perhaps you may say: 'I hope my next life will be a life in which I can understand the things I didn't before. If I want it, of course', the interesting idea here is that one doesn't have to accept the life. It is inevitable that eventually, at conception, the divine arranger of lives will offer you a life. The secret is to somehow realize that the being who is offered the life is not your genuine self. The first part is quite easy. The person in the life offered, the being who you will have to get into, and who will live out the life, is clearly seen to be not yourself. From a distance you may be deceived, but close-up it is nothing like yourself. The much more difficult realization to make is that the person who is being offered the life is not your genuine self either. It is very subtle. You are merely the observer of conception, not the conceived, not the incarnated, not the transmigrant. The genuine you is not offered a life, it is only someone who you think you are, the someone who you have mistaken to be yourself for a long time, and who is being offered the life. But, considering where one has come from, considering that one cannot stand being a jiva, considering one cannot bear one's limited nature, considering that one is searching for oneself, considering one's natural inclination to help another, considering the poor quality of the intellect available to one at conception.... does one have any choice? Worse... the divine arranger of lives may well trick you into accepting. He has his own secret aim. You and I are here, therefore we must have accepted the life, either willingly or perhaps reluctantly.
It is possible to realize that you are not a physical body, not a person, not a nature, not a spirit, not even a god.... only when you see that they are all mere mechanisms. We all want to be spiritual, but when we discover our spirit we find that it is a mechanism. A subtle mechanism. A definition of the self could be... that which is not a mechanism. If you are in search of the self then.... the search goes on. Someone is playing with us. I am certain that someone is playing with myself, but I can only assume someone is also playing with you. Assumptions are often wrong.
Choice
Someone once said: 'All actions are ruled by three aspects, attraction, repulsion or neutral'....
Agreed, different words for the same idea could be: positive, negative, neutral. These are in fact the three gunas acting and interacting with each other, rajas the positive, tamas the negative, sattva the harmonizing neutral. Rajas and tamas are at war with each other, their eternal conflict is the basis of all the creative and destructive tendencies we experience in the world. The incarnations of Brahma are the benevolent creative rajasic types, the incarnations of Siva the malevolent destructive tamasic types, and whatever guna predominates in yourself, so you become attracted to other people of the same guna type, and conversely repelled by the opposite type. The incarnations of Visnu are the types who are the maintainers in society, those who naturally gravitate to the work of keeping it all going. Brahmas are attracted to cultured Sarasvati's, Sivas to voluptous Kalis and Visnus to maternal Lakshmis.
Sarasvatis are noble, beautiful, lovers of culture and wisdom, they have light and love in their eyes, their ears are large and plainly shaped, their legs are strong practical and relatively unattractive. Kalis are ignoble, they are lovers of the dark arts, they have blackness and malevolence in their eyes, their high cheek bones, flared nostrils and subtle primitive facial features are not genuinely beautiful, their ears are pointed or kinked, but their legs are perfect and very beautiful. Lakshmis are neither noble nor ignoble, often they are quite ordinary and plain looking although sometimes they have a sweet homely appearance, they are lovers of children, family happiness, wealth and good fortune, look deeply into their eyes and you will see utter slyness there, their ears are of medium size and simply formed, their legs are heavy with the calf muscles distinctively pulled down towards mother earth. These are the main characteristics by which each of the three main types of women may be recognized. Mate with a Sarasvati and you will live a creative cultured life, mate with a Lakshmi and you will spend your life rearing children and amassing a family fortune, mate with wild sexually dissolute Kali and you will end as one of the skulls in her necklace, as is the usual fate of all her lovers.
In Karma Yoga Schools it is taught that the aim is to come under the will of Brahman. Critics of Karma Yoga say that there is an error in such a principle because when you say you are doing Brahman's will it is merely the 'I' or ego making the choice to be 'neutral'..... To that objection one could reply like this... Yes, it looks like the I or ego is making the choice to commit 'suicide'. The ego has to fade away. It depends what you want, whether you are completely happy with your nature, and want to stay as an individual, or whether you can't stand your nature and are in search of a lost finer self. Because the genuine self is everything you may realize that the I or ego is not yourself, it is actually an imposter that has taken possession of one. Brahman is everything, therefore the true oneself is everything and not an individual. Brahman is unity, and it depends if that wholeness, oneness, is what you want. Because we identify with the I, with the ego, we are apprehensive about dissolving ourselves into the whole, fearing loss of identity. The I doesn't want to lose its grip on one, it doesn't want to be annihilated.
It is always the I or ego which believes it has choice, and can do, and that it does the deciding and performs all the actions. But careful observation shows that everything just happens, and the self never does anything, including making choices. It is your nature, prakriti, that is acting through the body and mind, not you. Advaita says the only thing that is possible is for you to change your attitude. Attitude is free, and is not determined. You can change your attitude to what is happening, either you can enjoy it, or resent it, or you can regard it with equanimity. If you have a nature which decides to do and say whatever is necessary in the moment, then you happen to come under the will of the all, Brahman, if you have a nature which ignores or neglects what is necessary then you happen to come under the will of the unseen force which suggests, induces and controls your separate egoism. It is your attitude to what is happening that makes some difference. We are not our natures, we have become identified and entangled with parkriti (Nature). Because we are identified with our I, our me, it is very difficult to see this. Only the witness, the sakshin, can see this clearly.
Be the witness.
Agreed, different words for the same idea could be: positive, negative, neutral. These are in fact the three gunas acting and interacting with each other, rajas the positive, tamas the negative, sattva the harmonizing neutral. Rajas and tamas are at war with each other, their eternal conflict is the basis of all the creative and destructive tendencies we experience in the world. The incarnations of Brahma are the benevolent creative rajasic types, the incarnations of Siva the malevolent destructive tamasic types, and whatever guna predominates in yourself, so you become attracted to other people of the same guna type, and conversely repelled by the opposite type. The incarnations of Visnu are the types who are the maintainers in society, those who naturally gravitate to the work of keeping it all going. Brahmas are attracted to cultured Sarasvati's, Sivas to voluptous Kalis and Visnus to maternal Lakshmis.
Sarasvatis are noble, beautiful, lovers of culture and wisdom, they have light and love in their eyes, their ears are large and plainly shaped, their legs are strong practical and relatively unattractive. Kalis are ignoble, they are lovers of the dark arts, they have blackness and malevolence in their eyes, their high cheek bones, flared nostrils and subtle primitive facial features are not genuinely beautiful, their ears are pointed or kinked, but their legs are perfect and very beautiful. Lakshmis are neither noble nor ignoble, often they are quite ordinary and plain looking although sometimes they have a sweet homely appearance, they are lovers of children, family happiness, wealth and good fortune, look deeply into their eyes and you will see utter slyness there, their ears are of medium size and simply formed, their legs are heavy with the calf muscles distinctively pulled down towards mother earth. These are the main characteristics by which each of the three main types of women may be recognized. Mate with a Sarasvati and you will live a creative cultured life, mate with a Lakshmi and you will spend your life rearing children and amassing a family fortune, mate with wild sexually dissolute Kali and you will end as one of the skulls in her necklace, as is the usual fate of all her lovers.
In Karma Yoga Schools it is taught that the aim is to come under the will of Brahman. Critics of Karma Yoga say that there is an error in such a principle because when you say you are doing Brahman's will it is merely the 'I' or ego making the choice to be 'neutral'..... To that objection one could reply like this... Yes, it looks like the I or ego is making the choice to commit 'suicide'. The ego has to fade away. It depends what you want, whether you are completely happy with your nature, and want to stay as an individual, or whether you can't stand your nature and are in search of a lost finer self. Because the genuine self is everything you may realize that the I or ego is not yourself, it is actually an imposter that has taken possession of one. Brahman is everything, therefore the true oneself is everything and not an individual. Brahman is unity, and it depends if that wholeness, oneness, is what you want. Because we identify with the I, with the ego, we are apprehensive about dissolving ourselves into the whole, fearing loss of identity. The I doesn't want to lose its grip on one, it doesn't want to be annihilated.
It is always the I or ego which believes it has choice, and can do, and that it does the deciding and performs all the actions. But careful observation shows that everything just happens, and the self never does anything, including making choices. It is your nature, prakriti, that is acting through the body and mind, not you. Advaita says the only thing that is possible is for you to change your attitude. Attitude is free, and is not determined. You can change your attitude to what is happening, either you can enjoy it, or resent it, or you can regard it with equanimity. If you have a nature which decides to do and say whatever is necessary in the moment, then you happen to come under the will of the all, Brahman, if you have a nature which ignores or neglects what is necessary then you happen to come under the will of the unseen force which suggests, induces and controls your separate egoism. It is your attitude to what is happening that makes some difference. We are not our natures, we have become identified and entangled with parkriti (Nature). Because we are identified with our I, our me, it is very difficult to see this. Only the witness, the sakshin, can see this clearly.
Be the witness.
Sat-Chit-Ananda
Christianity proposes the trinity of Father-Son-Holy Spirit and it is interesting to attempt to see what this may be related to in Advaita Vedanta? If one takes the Son to be the child in us, the Father to be ageless wisdom in us, and Spirit to be the finest and holiest level of being in us.... then the mystery begins to unravel?
Study any young child and it can be observed that they are essentially pure consciousness, therefore the Son perhaps represents consciousness, which in Advaita is the Atman. Wisdom depends upon knowledge and understanding. Knowledge is very cold. When one meets a pure intellectual in ordinary life you can observe how they look at oneself, study one, as an object of knowledge. They love knowledge more than they love people, and they never see the 'you', only you as an object of knowledge. Observing intellectuals more closely it can be detected that they are operating in a two-way direction, they look out at the object of knowledge, and look within, relating what they are seeing to what they already know. Knowledge is already within themselves, and to them the whole enjoyment lies in connecting the knowledge outside with the knowledge inside. Therefore perhaps the Father represents Knowledge in Advaita? There is a third type of person one meets in life who are almost wholly inturned. Their attention is turned within upon themselves. They are the enjoyers of their own being. This is the season of the Christmas Party, and people are encouraged to 'enjoy themselves'. If you go to a party in the next few weeks observe the moment when someone is laughing, or expressing pure enjoyment, or happiness.... you may well observe that they are completely turned in, turned momentarily in upon themselves. They are in love with their own being. They are enjoying their own being. Therefore the Holy Spirit perhaps represents the happiness-joy-bliss of pure Being?
Playing with the words, one arrives at: Consciousness is the Son, Knowledge is the Father, Bliss-Happiness is the Holy Spirit. Consciousness is Sat, Knowledge is Chit, Bliss is Ananda. Advaita is always reminding us that our true nature is Sat-Chit-Ananda. Therefore it can be concluded that Atman, which is pure consciousness only and is looking out, lacks knowledge, which looks simultaneously in two directions, in and out, in order to regain contact with our true being which is inturned within. Perhaps this partially explains why Advaita states that only knowledge, aided by the study of Jnana Yoga, leads to self-realization?
Usually Sat-Chit-Ananda is translated as Being-Consciousness-Bliss, but I suggest that this is a slightly incorrect translation of the sanskrit, due to a slightly incorrect understanding of our true self? It is better to understand the self, as far as it can be put into words, which is doubtful, as Consciousness-Knowledge-Bliss?
Just to throw everything into confusion again, just as one is beginning to think one understands Advaita... the young god of consciousness, the ancient-ever-new god of knowledge, the holy inturned god of being.... are all masks of Visnu. Visnu is playing with us. He is hiding behind these three images. He projects himself as these three forms. Then he peeps out from behind and lets you catch a glimpse of himself, just to make you realize that it is all an illusion. Visnu is utterly, utterly sly. Because you react, and conclude you can never trust the sly man, Visnu intentionally induces mistrust in you, intentionally confuses you, so that.... you have to discover everything for yourself. That is his unseen sly aim... to create a self-evolving being.... You. You may desire to evolve. You may, as a limited nature, long for perfection. But it is prudent to remember that all evolution is in Prakriti. The self is already perfect and doesn't evolve. The self is not Prakriti. The self is not a nature. The self has no nature, no characteristics. It is all a trick.
This explains why Vaisnavism, the worshippers of Visnu as the supreme godhead, come closest to Christianity... both are dualistic systems proposing self and god as separate beings, with the individual wholly dependent upon the god. Both Visnu and the Christian God appear in the form of Father-Son-and Holy Spirit. But Advaita goes one step further when it unequivocally states, self and Brahman are the same, not two, without duality. It is Purusha, the real spirit which, being the highest witness, is located above the three gunas, above Brahma-Visnu-Siva (which are personifications of the three gunas), and it is this highest witness, the Purusha which sees everything as mere Prakriti (Nature).
Beyond Purusha is Brahman, the self.
When the Shankaracharyas are addressed as 'your holiness'... it may simply be an indication that they have, at least, reached the level of Purusha, Holy Spirit, and realize that everything in Nature is merely the action and inter-action of the three gunas?
Study any young child and it can be observed that they are essentially pure consciousness, therefore the Son perhaps represents consciousness, which in Advaita is the Atman. Wisdom depends upon knowledge and understanding. Knowledge is very cold. When one meets a pure intellectual in ordinary life you can observe how they look at oneself, study one, as an object of knowledge. They love knowledge more than they love people, and they never see the 'you', only you as an object of knowledge. Observing intellectuals more closely it can be detected that they are operating in a two-way direction, they look out at the object of knowledge, and look within, relating what they are seeing to what they already know. Knowledge is already within themselves, and to them the whole enjoyment lies in connecting the knowledge outside with the knowledge inside. Therefore perhaps the Father represents Knowledge in Advaita? There is a third type of person one meets in life who are almost wholly inturned. Their attention is turned within upon themselves. They are the enjoyers of their own being. This is the season of the Christmas Party, and people are encouraged to 'enjoy themselves'. If you go to a party in the next few weeks observe the moment when someone is laughing, or expressing pure enjoyment, or happiness.... you may well observe that they are completely turned in, turned momentarily in upon themselves. They are in love with their own being. They are enjoying their own being. Therefore the Holy Spirit perhaps represents the happiness-joy-bliss of pure Being?
Playing with the words, one arrives at: Consciousness is the Son, Knowledge is the Father, Bliss-Happiness is the Holy Spirit. Consciousness is Sat, Knowledge is Chit, Bliss is Ananda. Advaita is always reminding us that our true nature is Sat-Chit-Ananda. Therefore it can be concluded that Atman, which is pure consciousness only and is looking out, lacks knowledge, which looks simultaneously in two directions, in and out, in order to regain contact with our true being which is inturned within. Perhaps this partially explains why Advaita states that only knowledge, aided by the study of Jnana Yoga, leads to self-realization?
Usually Sat-Chit-Ananda is translated as Being-Consciousness-Bliss, but I suggest that this is a slightly incorrect translation of the sanskrit, due to a slightly incorrect understanding of our true self? It is better to understand the self, as far as it can be put into words, which is doubtful, as Consciousness-Knowledge-Bliss?
Just to throw everything into confusion again, just as one is beginning to think one understands Advaita... the young god of consciousness, the ancient-ever-new god of knowledge, the holy inturned god of being.... are all masks of Visnu. Visnu is playing with us. He is hiding behind these three images. He projects himself as these three forms. Then he peeps out from behind and lets you catch a glimpse of himself, just to make you realize that it is all an illusion. Visnu is utterly, utterly sly. Because you react, and conclude you can never trust the sly man, Visnu intentionally induces mistrust in you, intentionally confuses you, so that.... you have to discover everything for yourself. That is his unseen sly aim... to create a self-evolving being.... You. You may desire to evolve. You may, as a limited nature, long for perfection. But it is prudent to remember that all evolution is in Prakriti. The self is already perfect and doesn't evolve. The self is not Prakriti. The self is not a nature. The self has no nature, no characteristics. It is all a trick.
This explains why Vaisnavism, the worshippers of Visnu as the supreme godhead, come closest to Christianity... both are dualistic systems proposing self and god as separate beings, with the individual wholly dependent upon the god. Both Visnu and the Christian God appear in the form of Father-Son-and Holy Spirit. But Advaita goes one step further when it unequivocally states, self and Brahman are the same, not two, without duality. It is Purusha, the real spirit which, being the highest witness, is located above the three gunas, above Brahma-Visnu-Siva (which are personifications of the three gunas), and it is this highest witness, the Purusha which sees everything as mere Prakriti (Nature).
Beyond Purusha is Brahman, the self.
When the Shankaracharyas are addressed as 'your holiness'... it may simply be an indication that they have, at least, reached the level of Purusha, Holy Spirit, and realize that everything in Nature is merely the action and inter-action of the three gunas?
Frozen Words
All the words, all the voices, all the ideas and concepts in our head, come originally from an inner silence. As an impulse, originating in the silence, something stirs and rises up in us, which is first perceived as silence, then seen as an intense soundless vibration, then as a dynamic sound, then passing through various transformations the rising bubble finally breaks at the surface of the mind as.... words. Such frozen, almost random, words, so stale and disappointingly transformed, changed beyond recognition from the initial magnificence! The silence, the dynamic sound, the pure comprehensible idea, the tamed concept, the transfiguration and translation into words... is exactly the same impulse which merely passes through different levels of the mind. Mind is inner space, subtle inner space, and connects internally and transcendentally with outer space, subtle outer space. Subtle outer space is universal mind.
Therefore there are no individual minds. Mind is one continuum. The individual mind is simply a terminal of the universal mind. The two are connected in a straight line. Therefore if you go very, very far within, plunge very, very deep within, beyond the usual limits, you find yourself outside yourself in vast space. It is from that transcendental unknowable inward, but outer space, that our thoughts originate. Inner and outer lose their distinction. The source of language, the source of an idea, the source of all words, appearing in our mind is silence. Silence is the only word that can attempt to describe the source. The source is simply something intensely compressed beyond the range of our ordinary cognition. Inner cognition has a limited range and the source of concepts, ideas, and language is beyond the extreme limit of that range. If we could think and speak at a level even a little closer to the source.... our lives would be quite different.
Therefore there are no individual minds. Mind is one continuum. The individual mind is simply a terminal of the universal mind. The two are connected in a straight line. Therefore if you go very, very far within, plunge very, very deep within, beyond the usual limits, you find yourself outside yourself in vast space. It is from that transcendental unknowable inward, but outer space, that our thoughts originate. Inner and outer lose their distinction. The source of language, the source of an idea, the source of all words, appearing in our mind is silence. Silence is the only word that can attempt to describe the source. The source is simply something intensely compressed beyond the range of our ordinary cognition. Inner cognition has a limited range and the source of concepts, ideas, and language is beyond the extreme limit of that range. If we could think and speak at a level even a little closer to the source.... our lives would be quite different.
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