Upadesa Saram - Post 27

Verse 24

ईशजीवयोर्वेषधीभिदा |

सत्स्वभावतो वस्तु केवलम् || २४ ||

īśajīvayorveṣadhībhidā |

satsvabhāvato vastu kevalam || 24 ||

Of  both the Lord and the individual, the assumed appearance and intelligence are the difference.

 Being’s own Existence is the Reality that alone is.

Between the Lord (Easwara) and the individual (Jiva), the difference is only from the standpoint of the body and intellect (the gross and subtle Upadhis(conditioning)). 

But from the standpoint of their true nature, the Supreme Reality alone is. 

God and individual soul look separate from each other because God looks unlimited beyond time and space, etc. while the Jiva looks limited. 

The former is immortal and the latter seems mortal. The former has got the full knowledge while the Jiva is imperfect. 

Thus, God and Jiva wear different costumes in the same drama. This mortality, limitedness are all called Upadhis or limiting adjuncts. 

They are all only costumes and different make-up worn by the same actor who enacts a double role. A child’s father acts as Ravana in a drama. But the child who witnesses the drama cannot be convinced that the Ravana in the stage and the father is one and the same. He thinks that they are different. 

Similarly, there is only one Ultimate Reality. 

While we are dreaming even though we are all alone, our thoughts project various people who are none but ourselves. When we dream, all the tigers in our dream were only in our thought and thought is our own energy and hence all those dream figures are only ourselves and have not been projected from elsewhere. 

Similarly, this entire world and all the Jivas in the dream are only the thoughts of the Ultimate Reality. They are all dreams which are superimposed on the Self. 

Hence, the world and all the individuals [Jivas] even though they look to be separate with different characteristics are only one and the same.

If only we see them from the standpoint of the essential nature of existence alone, both are existent and never become non-existent. 

There can only be one existence which is everywhere. It is because of our ignorance of our nature as to who we are, that delusive duality looks real. 

When once the various costumes of Jiva and God are removed, there is only the non-dual Self which has no attributes or Upadhis. When the Jiva becomes free from all conditioning and limitations, the ego which is the same as the mind disappears forever. When the superimposed ‘I’ goes, what remains is the pure Self which is also known as God.

If the waves are considered as Jiva and the ocean, ne, not even the ocean but the water is considered as Easwara, then how far, how different, how impure are the waves from the ocean. 

The waves are far away and different from the substratum water in an ocean, only as long as one looks at them (through sense, through mind) and sees them different from the water. 

When one looks towards the basis of the wave, the source from which the waves arise, the basis on which the waves sustain, grow large and the basis in which the waves recede and end their identity (each wave) is what?? The basis, the substratum is only the water. Even when one realizes this truth, the distinction between the wave (Jiva) and the water (Easwara) disappears at that very instant!!

One’s humanness is part of the Divine and is, indeed, the Divine Itself – much as the waves of an ocean (that appear to arise and fall on the surface) and the calm depth of the ocean are basically one and the same, both being constituted of water – it is only at a superficial level that they appear to be separate and are felt as different from each other. 

Dear Readers,

If we go deeper and ask ourselves as to what is it in Jiva and Easwara that makes us realize that they are one and the same?

For giving the answer, the secret in the Upanishads have to be revealed, one of the Upanishads have to be taken and dealt in detail. 

Author is almost tempted to do that but ends up giving the truth with such easily understandable illustrations / analogy as the wave ocean analogy given before.

Extending the truth of ocean / water, the one common factor / truth that unites Easwara and Jiva is, both of them exist as the substratum water and not as the apparent waves. The substratum of the existence of Jiva and Easwara is “THE ONE SELF or THE ONE PURE CONSCIOUSNESS”.

Consciousness within a Jiva is ATMAN and then Easwara is the universal consciousness or Brahman.

Merger (Merger here never means that the two were different and now they have merged. Merger means the discovery within the core of the heart that there is never any duality between the two ever) of Atman and Brahman as given above is Moksha or Liberation.

Those who would like to get deeper into this with an easy analogy may refer to this Atma Bodha verse.  Atma Bodha theme posts are pregnant with the ONE SINGLE TRUTH, which Sankara gave with numerous analogies, easy to grasp and absorb.

Love.