Tattva Bodha - Post 28

JIVA AND ISWARA

Sthoola shareera abhimaani jeeva-naamakam,

brahma pratibimbam bhavati;

Sah eva jeevah prakrityaa swasmaat eeshwaram bhinna- tvena jaanaati.

Avidyaa upaadhih san, aatmaa jeevah iti uchyate.

Maayaa upaadhih san, eeshwarah iti uchyate.

Evam upaadhi bhedaat Jeeva-eeshwara-bheda-drishtih, yaavat paryantam tishthati;

Taavat paryantam, janma-marana-aadi-roopa samsaarah,

na nivartate.

Tasmaat kaaranaat, jeeva- eeshwarayoh bheda-buddhih,

na sveekaaryaa.

Identifying himself with the gross body, and known as the Jiva, is the reflection of Brahman. 

This Jiva by its very nature considers itself to be different from Iswara the Creator. 

Conditioned by Ignorance, the Self is called the Jiva;

Conditioned by Maya, the same Self (Brahman) is called Iswara. 

In this way, due to different conditioning, seeing Jiva and Iswara as being different, as long as that continues... 

so long, this worldly existence of the form of repeated birth and death, can never be removed.         

For that reason, the mentality of seeing difference between Jiva and Iswara, should never be accepted. 

Nanu saahamkaarasya, kinchid-jnasya jeevasya;

Nir-ahamkaarasya, sarva-jnasya eeshwarasya.

     i.            endowed with ego, and

  ii.            having limited knowledge, is the Jiva;           

while 

i) without any ego, and

ii) having Omniscience, is Iswara.

When sunlight gets reflected in a river or in a bucket of water, 

1.    the pure sunlight is Bimba or Chid-Akasa or pure consciousness. 

2.  the reflected sunlight is Pratibimba or Chid-Abhasa or the reflected consciousness. (sunlight, after falling on the river surface or on the water in a bucket).

3.  the bucket stands for the individual body and.

4.  the river / ocean stands for the Cosmic Body. 

The reflections appear different due to the vast difference in the medium / limiting factor through which they are reflected. 

If the differences due to the medium / conditioning factor are ignored, it means the reflections are ignored. 

What is left is just the Pure Consciousness in both cases. 

It makes it very clear that the pure consciousness is unaffected by the size or shape of the Upadhis / limited medium through which it is reflected. 

In this manner the Jiva (the “sunlight from the bucket”) is seen to be identical to Iswara (the “sunlight from the ocean”) from the point of view of Consciousness. 

The above analogy could be aligned with the pure canvass talk given to few / written elaborately in Creation of Universe theme, with teachings from Panchadasi on the Drawing in pure canvass chapter.

While the pure canvass can be compared to the sunlight falling on the ocean and the drawings on the canvass related to the water in bucket, if the reflection on the water (drawings on the canvass is erased, as told by the author in a talk, then what remains is just the pure canvass).

A secondary deduction from the analogy is this: The reflection from a bucket of dirty water would be different in quality to that from a bucket of clean water. 

The Jiva has a large amount of impurity in it. The Sattva in the Jiva is sullied by impurity, which is why it is deluded by Avidya. It does not know its true nature. 

As far as Iswara is concerned, the comparison here is the ocean, which is always Sattvic and pure. This ties up with the fact that Iswara is predominantly Sattvic, and hence not deluded by Maya, but is the master of Maya, i.e. Maya-Pati. 

 

Let us take another example.

This is a famous example in Vedanta, of Pot space and Universal space. 

This model compares:

1.    the Pure Consciousness to unlimited space, 

2.  the Jiva to the limited space within a pot or ‘ghata’, and 

3.  Iswara to the limited space of the building or ‘mata’ in which the pot is kept. 

The ghata and mata are Upadhis or “that which conditions or limits”. 

The ghata is the individual body and the mata is the Prapancha of the Cosmic Body. 

The space within the pot is Ghata-Akasha or ‘ghata space’, and within the building it is Mata-Akasha or ‘mata space’. 

When the ghata is broken, the ghata space merges with the mata space, and when the mata is also demolished, the mata space merges with Maha-Akasha or the ‘universal space’. 

As the space within the pot was never different from the mata space, which in turn was never different from the universal space, so also, the Jiva in essence is not different from Iswara, and both are not different in essence from Brahman. 

When the Upadhis or conditionings are removed, the distinctions between Jiva and Isvara are destroyed and their identity is seen, in accordance with the Mahavakya statement “Tat Twam Asi”. However, whilst the Upadhis are present, they give an apparent unique identity to both Jiva and Isvara.

Avidya Visishtha Chaitanyam Jivah

“Limited by Avidya, Atman is called Jiva at the microcosmic level.” 

Maya Visishtha Chaitanyam Ishwara

“Limited by Maya, Brahman is called Iswara at the macrocosmic level.” 

Summary

i)                            Space is always one, even when the limitations exist.

ii)                         The limitations give the ‘appearance’ that they are different, but that is illusory. When the limitations are removed, the oneness is made clear. 

iii)                     Space is not affected by the shape of the ghata or the mata. 

It ever remains pure, like the Pure Consciousness, which ever remains unaffected and pure. 

Love.