Let us take up the last 2 lines of the 2nd stotram today
(Just as a juggler
unrolls his magic, even so the “Great Yogi” (Brahman) manifests this universe
by His own free will
To that “Great Yogi”,
who is the form of the Guru, do I offer my salutations.)
Sri Dakshinamurti in
this verse is referred to as the one who causes the expansion of this entire universe.
How? Through his maya.
Here maya has yet another meaning. In common
parlance, maya here means magic. Mayavi means magician.
The ‘Juggler’ simile
removes the defect of destruction of the Creator in the above simile. We now
have a Creator who creates as a juggler creates his magic performance.
Does this improve on the
previous example? Yes, the juggler is not destroyed when the magic-show takes
place.
Brahman is the only reality
Even so, Brahman is not
destroyed when creation takes place. Everything else is the same as
before.
Just like the magician, Eswara expands the universe. This
is the metaphor used to impart the profound Vedanta. It does not mean Eswara is magician.
Whatever magician
creates is not as real as the magician. The magician is more real than his or
her creation.
The magician may create
a living creature, a real world of beings etc. at the stage.
When Sri Rama
fought Ravana, Ravana used to manifest himself with same 10 heads as several
Ravanas.
However, the real Ravana
always knew that only he is real and all other Ravanas created with his maya shakti
are all unreal .
Similarly, Eswara is compared here to a magician
where, Only He/Brahman exists. For us human beings, creation may be there, but
Brahman has no association with the creation though Shruthis declare that
He created this universe.
Creation is unreal
In addition, we have the
added benefit of demonstrating that Creation is something unreal; it’s just a
piece of ‘magic’.
Brahman is the efficient cause for creation
There is a further
advantage to this simile. The juggler expresses His own free will (Swecchayaa). That is very accurate for the Creation
process, where Brahman is the Nimitta Karana
or efficient cause of Creation. Nimitta
means “that which stands far apart from the effect and produces it.”
Brahman is the efficient
cause, providing the “blue-print” of creation, like an architect is the
efficient cause for a building being built. The architect has to “live” in a building
before it is built! It is the same with Brahman and His creation.
The Blue print referred
here is the outline of the drawings we learnt in Panchadasi session.
Creation is an illusion
The Mayavi’s creation is purely an illusion. The objects he creates
cannot be touched. No transaction can take place with them. This is also
agreeable to the seeker. It helps him to understand the illusoriness of the
world even better and thus, he develops dispassion towards such an illusory
creation.
Creation for a videhamukhta - is it there?
We often read in various
verses in vedanta treatise that a sage sees SELF in all or all as SELF.
Even as Sai devotees, we
go about saying that we must see God in all.
For a sadhaka or a
devotee, this deliberate efforts to see Swami in all is acceptable.
However, a videhamukhta (who has no duties left to
perform in this creation) does not even perceive creation as He is
liberated without his body.
He does not see human beings
as human beings, this macrocosm world as world, nature as nature, any Deity as
God.
He just exists as
Brahman; that is all.
Till the time he lives,
his breathing is on, He exists (as Brahman/SELF) and only He exists.
If anyone, out of their
stupidity or ignorance, tries to relate such a sage with this creation,
they can at best get only one answer
"He exists and only
He/THAT exists. Therefore, whatever you call as creation, as human beings etc,
must all be contained in His/THAT existence. In this context only, you may say,
all creation is SELF, even this is a very limited intellectual understanding of
His state"
Let us look at how we
human beings create the world for us as magicians ourselves.
Janaka roars in
Ashtavakra Gita,
(O marvelous! I am pure
consciousness. The world is like a magic show. Hence, how, and where, can there
be any notion of rejection or acceptance in me)
What a magic show is for a magician
A magician creates an
environment and performs magic which are unbelievable and fascinating.
However, the magician is
never carried away by the magic that is shown / that appears at the end, as he
knows the tricks behind the magic and he also known that it is illusory, what
appears to be real and fascinating, is not real.
Magician knows that the
magic is illusion, and he never gets fascinated by the magic, though he created
that with his mind and intellect
How Jiva looks at the creation he has created for himself as a
magician
But a human being,
filled with avidya and then, Raga, dvesha etc., gets carried away by the fascinations that he with his
mind created and starts believing them to be true and starts living in that illusory
fascinations…..
How a Jivanmukhta sees the world as a magic show
I am pure consciousness, says a realized
Seer.
The magician’s mind that can create all
fascinations as explained above, has merged in me the pure consciousness and is
not separate from me the self anymore.
So, when I look at human beings caught in
their own created illusory fascinating unreal world, I laugh like a child, I am
amused. I don’t reject, I just laugh.
What is there for me in this whole
scenario, in such a world, with illusory appearances, to either accept or
reject?
Not only that. In my own life, depending
upon my dharma, I also must do / undertake something with my mind, which,
though not an illusion for me, I don’t get caught with my mind’s created action
or event or whatever, still, I know, whatever done by mind at worldly level is
all illusion as the world itself is an illusion.
So, not only that I laugh at the world
(world’s minds causing illusory fascinating experiences) but I also laugh at
myself, when I also have to take up something with my mind, though inwardly
knowing all of that to be unreal and illusory.
I don’t have to make special efforts like
one has to make for watching a magic show, standing in queue, getting ticket,
pay for ticket, enter, sit, wait for a long time for the magic show to commence
etc.
Wherever I am, I can see through the
world of fascinating illusions and wherever I am, I can just laugh at the same
and get back to my samadhi
effortlessly!
Coming back to the
stotram, the last line of each stotram is the same and once it has been
explained in the 1st verse itself.
To that “Great Yogi”
Dakshinamurthy, who is the form of the Guru, do I offer my salutations.
Love.
