Essence of Vedanta - Part 2

Dear All,

We continue from the last post when we read 3 scenes.

Scene 4

“What did you say? This garden is for sale? Good, consider it sold. I’ll take it”. So saying a trader went in search of the owner of the garden and returned after some time accompanied with a few labourers. The labourers immediately started plucking all the rose flowers. The trader stood there watching it all and so was the gardener. But now he couldn’t even let out a whimper of protest. Mustering up enough courage, he softly asked of the trader, “Sir, why are you plucking all the flowers?”

“WHAT ?” the trader screamed back at him. Then taking pity on the poor fellow he winked at him and laughed out, “I’ll make Gulkand (a herb made of rose petals) out of it”.

Now, let’s see – how many of the above 4 or 5 people actually saw the flowers. What a question? Of course, everyone saw the flowers. But Vedanta asserts, “No. None of them saw the flowers”.

“Well then, you mean to say, they saw donkeys? Your Vedanta says anything. Nothing is clear”.

“Wait………..Listen carefully”.

The first girl saw the beauty of her flower – bedecked hair. 

The bhakta saw the beauty of Krishna’s idol. 

The lover saw the blossoming of his beloved’s face. 

And the trader had set his eyes on the Gulkand. 

The gardener never even had time to notice them. 

In short, everyone saw merely their own vasanas or desires. Failing to notice the flowers all of them established their own personal relationships with them. And this alone is Maya !

We never really see any object or person in totality. We see only our own preconceived notions about them, in them. And this is Maya. 

For example, we don’t see a radio or a cycle as a radio or a cycle, rather, we see it as my radio or my cycle. 

And were someone to just mention to us that our radio is not functioning properly, we would feel so offended as though he had said that we ourselves had some defects in us. 

Why is this? 

Because of Maya. Since, in essence, this relationship is itself delusory; Maya has ensnared everyone in its spell of delusion and make believe. So much so that even the spell of delusion is itself a delusion.

Vedanta teaches that whatever we see, hear, feel…………….. is all, in reality, a delusion, but being within the web of Maya, we have ourselves superimposed names and forms upon various objects and deluded ourselves completely. 

Just as a rose is not the beauty of any bedecked hair, nor is it any trader’s Gulkand, but is actually, merely a rose. In the same way, what we consider to be the jiva or the jagat is, in essence, Brahman itself. And what we are lost in is Maya. And thus, Vedanta emphatically asserts,

Brahma satyam jagat mithya,

jivo brahmaiva naparaha

Brahman is the reality.

This world, a mere transitory phase.

The jiva is not separate from Brahman.

Indeed, it is difficult to understand and assimilate this Truth but he who has searched for the Truth has verily found it. The rest are drowning themselves in the ocean of Maya.

Hari Aum Tatsat.