Jnana Vahini - Post 25

The Atma is always content and blissful. To you, one thing appears more attractive than another and so this sensual attachment and affection are the results of delusion and desire. 

The attachment to the Atma will not undergo any modifications; even when the senses and the body fall, the Atma will remain and infuse bliss. It is unlimited and indestructible. Everyone has attachment to the Self, or Atma. 

It is of the nature of Paramananda. For this reason, it is also described as of the nature of Sat, Chit and Ananda.

Are these three the characteristics or qualities of the Atma? Or are they its essence, its nature? A doubt of this type may arise. Redness, heat and splendor are the nature of Fire, not its attributes. Atma, too, in the same manner, has Sat, Chit and Ananda as its very nature. Liquidity, coldness and taste are of the very nature of Water; yet, water everywhere is the same, not diverse.

(Author's note - Swami clarifies here that Sat-chit-ananda is not the characteristic of Atman like we describe all other objects in this world with their characteristic but sat-chit-ananda is the very nature of Atman, not mere attributes of Atman)

The Eternal Knower - Chaitanya

Atma is Chit and all else is jada. Atma alone can know, nothing else is capable of knowing; and Atma knows that all else is Atma. Can the pot know the Akasa inside it? 

Though it does not know, the Akasa is there all the same. But the Atma in man knows even the inert that is of the senses. Thus, the body, the house, the field, the village, the country, are all "known"; so too, the unseen items like heaven etc., are 'understood'.

In dream, though one experiences multiplicity, one knows that they are unreal creations of one's own mind; this is clear to the witness of the dream. Similarly, the experience of the waking stage also is a mental picture, at the most. 

Some people declare that they have had Realization! How can it be taken as true? When according to the statement, "Aham Brahmaasmi", one understands that "I am Brahman", the Jivi who is the 'I' is a mutable entity, a Vikari. How can he possibly grasp it? A destitute cannot realize that he is a monarch; so too, a mutable entity like man cannot grasp the immutable Brahman or posit that he is Brahman.

(Author’s note - In the last para, what Swami is revealing? He is drawing our attention between idam and aham which we understood in Upadesa Saram, He is teaching us the difference between Aham which is pure and Ahankara which is Ego.

So, till the time one exists as pure Aham or Sat-chit-ananda, he cannot say that he has realized SELF / Brahman. And, when one actually roars that he has attained realization, then, there is no thought, no mind, no ego involved there. Such a roar is from and as the source and not from the Jiva.

How is that roar?? 

Janaka reveals about His… ne... THAT state, in Ashtavakra Gita when He says,

aho ahaṁ namo mahyaṁ

vināśo yasya nāsti me

brahmādistaṁbaparyantaṁ

jagannāśo’pi tiṣṭhataḥ

How wonderful am I! Adoration to myself, who knows no destruction, surviving even beyond the destruction of the entire world from Brahma down to a clump of clay.

aho ahaṁ namo mahyaṁ

eko’haṁ dehavānapi

kvacinna gantā nāgantā

vyāpya viśvamavasthitaḥ

Wonderful am I! Glory to myself who, though with a body, am One, who neither goes anywhere nor comes from anywhere but abide forever, pervading the Universe.

aho ahaṁ namo mahyaṁ

dakṣo nāstīha matsamaḥ

asaṁspṛśya śarīreṇa yena

viśvaṁ ciraṁ dhṛtam

Wonderful am I! I bow down to myself! There is no one so clever as I, who is bearing the Universe for all eternity without even touching it with my body!

aho ahaṁ namo mahyaṁ 

yasya me nāsti kiṁcana

athavā yasya me sarvaṁ 
yad vāṅmanasagocaram

Wonderful am I! I bow down to myself! I who possess nothing at all or possess everything that is thought or spoken of.

It has to be known clearly that all along when Janaka says "I am" in the above verses, the I referred is beyond his body, mind, intellect, vasanas, senses. It is the Pure SELF, SAT-CHIT-ANANDA which is the very nature of "I" when Janaka roars - "How wonderful AM I".

Love.

Jnana Vahini - Post 24

The Jnana derived from the mere hearing of Vedanta cannot be termed Direct Knowledge. 

Sravanam

Of course, by hearing about the Swarupa of the Brahman (which is Sathyam, Jnanam and Anantham), one may be able to picture it or imagine it; but one has to actually 'see' the Brahman, the Witness of the Five Sheaths of the individual (the Annamaya, the Pranamaya, the Manomaya, the Vijnanamaya and the Anandamaya.)

You may know from the Sastras that he who has four arms and carries the Sankha, Chakra, Gada and Padma in them is Vishnu; you may even be picturing Him as such in Dhyana; yet, unless you have actually 'seen' Him by your own vision, the knowledge gained by the study of iconography can never be equated with Prathyaksha or Direct Perception.

Since the Form of Vishnu is considered different and external when understood through the study of the Sastras, what you really get is indirect inference, not Direct Experience. Though a person is ignorant of the fact that the Brahman is His own self (not different or outside), can he not realize Himself as Brahman as soon as he hears the exposition of a Mahavakya like "Tat Twam Asi" which reveals that basic Truth? But he does not.

Mananam

He ruminates over what he has heard with faith and earnestness until he understands the characteristics of the Atma in an indirect way; then, to bring that knowledge into the field of actual experience, he takes up the process of Manana, i.e., revolving it in the Manas or mind.

Anantham

The Atma is present everywhere and is in everything; it is unaffected; it is omnipresent like Akasa or Ether; it is even beyond the Akasa; it is the Akasa in the Chit or the Universal Consciousness; so it is referred to as 'Param' or Beyond; it is described in the Sruthis as 'Asango-ayam Purushah', "this Purusha is unattached".

The Atma is unaffected and untouched by anything; it is beyond everything and devoid of agitation or activity. You should not doubt whether it is unlimited or not. It is beyond the three Limitations of Space, Time and Causation. 

You cannot state that the Atma is in one place and not in another. It is not limited by space. You cannot state that it exists at one time and not at another time. It is not limited by time. Atma is everything; there is nothing which is not Atma. Atma is All. So it has no limitation of Vasthu, (thingness), of Name or Form. Atma is Full and Free; knowing this is the Fullest Jnana, the Highest Truth.

Sathyam

A doubt may be raised here: If the Atma is immanent in everything, like the Akasa, is it not subject to transformation, Vikara, or change? No; existing, emanating, growing, changing, declining, dying - these are the six transformations or Vikaras; but the Atma is the universal, eternal witness cognizing Akasa and the other elements and hence it has no modifications at all; it is Nir-Vikara.

When it is said that the Atma is Nir-Vikara, it means some other things have Vikara or modifications. So the question may be asked, how then can the word, Advaitha, be used? 

Now, some things have Vikara and some have not. But when there is nothing besides Atma, it is wrong to speak of a two-fold entity; it is not two; it is one! There can be no doubt about this; it cannot arise.

Love.

Jnana Vahini - Post 23

Truth and untruth must be kept apart by means of the sharp sword of Jnana. It keeps the world afar and bring the Residence of the Lord within reach. That Residence is Nithyananda, Eternal Bliss, Paramananda, the highest Bliss; the Bliss of Brahman:

Jiva and Eswara are caught up in this proliferation and they are inseparably intertwined in the Jagath and so they too are creations of mental process like things appearing in the dream-world.

In the waking stage and during dreams, these three appear as real, but during deep sleep or while unconscious (as during a fainting fit), the mind is not working and so the three do not exist! This fact is within the experience of all. 

Therefore, it is easy now for you to realize that all these three will disappear for good when, through Jnana, the mental processes are destroyed. Then one gets release from bondage to all these three and knows the One and Only Entity. In fact, he gets established in Advaitha Jnana.

The idea of the snake which is Maya, flourishes on the ignorance of the real nature of the rope; it grows and becomes deeper the more one forgets the rope which is the base. Inquiry makes the snake disappear; the rope alone remains thereafter. 

To the question, how can one thing appear as two, the reply may be given that, prior to inquiry, Brahman appears as Jagath (like clay appears as pot, like gold appears as ornaments) though its real nature has not undergone any change at all. The one Brahman is apparent in many forms and under various names and so gives the impression of multiplicity. 

The Jnana won by the analysis of the mental process can alone end Maya. Maya flourishes on ignorance and absence of discrimination. So, Vidya spells doom of Maya.

When one tree rubs against another in a forest, fire starts and the fire burns both. So too, the Vidya or knowledge that arose from Maya destroys the very source of the knowledge. Avidya is reduced to ashes by Vidya.

Like the expression "hare's horn", which is the name for a non-existent thing, Maya too is non-existent and one has only to know it to dismiss it from the consciousness. So say the Jnanis.

Nor is this all. You label anything non-existent as Avidya or Maya. Whatever becomes meaningless, valueless, untrue, baseless and existence less when knowledge grows, that you can take to be Maya's manifestation.

Brahman alone is, was and will be. The conviction that this Jagath is but a superimposition is the real Vidya. This Vidya is the end of all ignorance.

Love.