Sandeha Nivarini - Post 11

Dear All,

Swami goes on further to explain the most intense and difficult subject of Permanent and Impermanent in the most easier manner possible.

Devotee: But, Swami! I heard you say imperishable-perishable and permanent-impermanent. 

Swami: Yes, my boy! You were speaking now of pictures; do they have names and forms?

Devotee: Haven’t they? It’s only because they have names and forms that the story is understood. Only then do we recollect Ramayana and Bharatha. There is no formless name and nameless form.

Swami: Good! That is well said! Where there is form there must be name; where there is name, there must be form. They are connected with each other. When we say, “separable relationship”, it is to this relationship that we refer. Have you understood now the meaning of “cosmos (prapancha)”?

Devotee: I have grasped that it is identified with name and form. But Swami, I would like to hear you describe how it originated.

Swami: Do not fall into the tangle now. If we engage ourselves in describing that, it would be like getting into a mango garden without eating the fruit we have plucked —calculating the number of trees in the garden, the number of twigs on each branch, the number of fruits on each twig, and what the total price of all the mangoes would be if the price of one mango were so much. 

Instead of senselessly wasting precious time in the collection of this information, we should, like the person who eats the fruit, find out what is of primary importance, understand that thing first, and attain contentment and joy. Leave that alone.

What did you say is the nature of this world (prapancha)? 

This world has another name —do you know it? 

Devotee: I said that the world is identified with name and form. I have heard that it is known by another name,

creation (jagath).

Swami: This name-form world, this creation (jagath), is like magician’s art: it is real only as long as you see it. So too, the world is real only as long as you experience with your senses (indriyas). That is to say, anything not experienced in the wakeful stage is taken as non-existent. Under such circumstances, we say sat for existence and a-sat for non-existence. Now what do you say of this world? Is it existence or non-existence?

Continued......

Author's note:

We will try and arrive at essence of Swami's answers after we complete this series of Question and answer on the real and unreal/ Permanent and Impermanent/ Akshara and Kshara , in the next couple of posts.

Love.

Swami Chidananda

The power of divine love cannot be fathomed, it cannot be described. It will follow you wherever you go, whatever you are, whatever you have done. Even if you go to hell, it will reach out for you there and break hell to pieces and redeem you.

— Swami Chidananda

Sandeha Nivarini - Post 10

Let us pick up some important learning from Swami's answers in previous posts and elaborate on the same

Devotee: Ever seen! Why, Swami, the cinema is also part of the world (prapancha), isn’t it? I have seen many. 

Swami: What did you see? Tell me.

Devotee: I have seen many wonderful “pictures”; I have heard numerous experiences of joy and sorrow.

Swami: “I have seen,” you say. The screen is one; the “picture” is another. Did you see both? 

Devotee: Yes.

Swami: Did you see the screen and the “picture” at the same time?

Devotee: How is that possible, Swami? When the picture is seen, the screen is not visible; when the screen is visible the picture is not seen.

Swami: Right! The screen, the pictures, do they exist always? 

Devotee: No. The screen is permanent; the pictures come and go.

Swami: As you say, the screen is permanent and the pictures come and go. For this “permanent” and “impermanent”, we use the words steady (sthira) and unsteady (a-sthira), permanent (nithya) and impermanent (a-nithya), imperishable (a-kshara) and perishable (kshara).

I’ll ask questions on another subject. Does the picture project on the screen or the screen on the picture? Which is the basis for what?

Devotee: The pictures project on the screen, so the screen is the basis for the picture.

Swami: So too, the external world, which is like the picture, has no permanence; it changes. The internal world is fixed; it does not change. The external has the internal as its basis, its substratum. 

Author's note

Dear All,

To understand the above revelation by Swami, let us go back to our learning on the Pure canvass screen (permanent / fixed, as explained by Swami in previous post) and the objects on the screen (we human beings, impermanent), as learnt in posts on the theme "creation of universe").

4 Stages in Pure Canvas - 

Pure canvass without any beginning and without any end.

The pure canvass as shown in the first diagram  has been been stiffened by starch for making it suitable for painting.

A light sketch in some form on this stiffened canvas is drawn, which is barely visible and indistinctly cognisable as to its real features. 

The lines that have been drawn are filled with ink in different colors as would be necessary to present the requisite picturesque scene.

Let us visualize a strange situation in the context of the Pure canvass – Starched canvass - Outline of drawings - Inking of drawings and completed drawings appearing on the canvass or a motion show running on the movie screen.

We are seated away from the screen in both cases and we see drawings / human beings of so many different dimensions - some short, some tall, some thin, some fat, some beautiful, some ordinary, some ugly, etc.

Suppose, imagine, a miracle happens and we, at that instant, travel and sit on the canvass ourselves.

What will happen?

Seated on the canvas, how will we be able to see the other varied objects on the canvas? It is impossible because there is no space / no distance between us and the other drawings and the eyes cannot see itself, the eyes can only see things to our right / to our left / in front of us / above us / below us. It cannot see ourselves, it cannot see anything which exist as ourselves on the screen, with no space between us and the other drawings.

Correct?

This imagination takes us directly to the highest philosophy, highest truth which is pregnant in all the 100+ Upanishads.

What is the highest truth which follows the above imagination?

·     The pure canvass is Brahman which is referred as Purusha in Panchadasi and Purushottama in B. Gita.

·                All the fallacies, all the issues, all the karmas are faced by us only because WE EXIST AWAY, AS A SEPARATE IDENTITY, AS MR. SO AND SO, FROM THE PURE CANVASS, FROM  BRAHMAN, FROM GOD.

·       Existing away from God (avidya and asmita) as explained in MBCA, we are seeing / perceiving all drawings, the varied creations, good people, bad people, beautiful people, ugly people, good things , bad things etc. and are disturbed seeing this variety.

·           As per our ego (attachment / hatred), we deal with different human beings, different things perceived by us, standing away from God.

·                   GO, MERGE, SIT ON THE SCREEN YOURSELF!!

(Go towards God through spiritual sadhana, merge in  God in the climax of your sadhana and exist as God yourself)

·                   If you have merged with the screen/ God, then how will you see other things/ diversities in the canvass / world?

Now, for the ONLY truth which  follows from the above, which is the theme / essence of vedantha.

·   The pure canvass is the universal consciousness / absolute consciousness which is referred to as Purusha or Brahman or Paramatman in vedantha

·    You, the one who have occupied a portion of the canvass is referred to as JIVA

·     The portion of the pure canvass which has been occupied by you in the individual consciousness or Atman or Jivatma

·   When, in sadhana undertaken with intense craving for God realization (Mumukshatva in vedantha), a day or THE DAY arrives when you have totally discarded  your identity with your body, mind, intellect, ego then what happens?

·         The discarding of your identity is to be understood as erasing your identity which is sitting on the pure canvass, occupying a portion of the pure canvass.

·   What happens when your physical identity seated on the canvass is erased?

·         Is it not that the portion of the pure canvass on which you had super imposed your physical identity, GOT FREE??

·         This erasing of your identity  is FREEDOM OR MOKSHA

·     The arrested portion of the pure canvass on which you has    super imposed yourself, getting free now, is ATMAN or JIVATMAN

·    With the portion on which you had  been existing on the canvass getting free, it has now regained its original free existence and post erasing, there is no difference between that portion and the other area of the pure canvass. 

·  This non difference explained above is MERGER OF JIVATMAN WITH PARAMATMAN, Merger of Atman with Brahman, Merger of your individual consciousness with absolute, universal consciousness.

Love.

Paramhansa Yogananda

Man's conscious state is an awareness of body and breath. His subconscious state, active in sleep, is associated with his mental, and temporary, separation from body and breath. His superconscious state is a freedom from the delusion that "existence" depends on body and breath. God lives without breath; the soul made in his image becomes conscious of itself, for the first time, only during the breathless state.” 

 (Autobiography of a Yogi)

Dear All,

What does Paramahamsa reveal in the above Gospel??

When we are awake       -    Body and Breath conscience present

When we are asleep.     -   Body and Breath conscience is missing temporarily

When  one 
gets Realization.            -     Body and Breath awareness is eternally 
                                             gone

And, the last state, the Paramahamsa aligns / relates with God's state and states that God has no breath.

So, only when we reach that ultimate state of SELF REALIZATION which Swamiji has referred as super conscious state, both we ( existing as soul and not as this body) and God's state are same and that is why THAT state is called SELF realization or GOD REALIZATION where,

SELF                =/ Merges with           GOD!!
(Atman).                                             (Brahman)

And, the author concludes for Nth time in this blog, "The above = or merging" with is the only purpose of our birth/ existence on this earth.

Love

Sandeha Nivarini - Post 9

Swami: Oh! When did you arrive? You were not visible anywhere outside. Are you well?

Devotee: I came two days ago. I see here a number of people everywhere outside. I hear the incessant confusion of voices. Coming from my place to avoid that confusion, I find here crowds also. 

Therefore, I came inside. There, it is fine, blissful, quiet. That is why I was inside the Hall. It is as quiet inside as it is restless outside.

Swami: What is special about this? It is natural. Where there is sugar, the ants gather —and between outside and inside, this is the distinction! That is the characteristic. That is how it is.

Devotee: Swami! I don’t understand what You say. If You tell me in detail, I shall listen and be happy.

Swami: You yourself said, didn’t you, that there is an outside and an inside? Well. Those are what we call the external world (bahya-prapancha) and the internal world (antara-prapancha). Now, which is the internal? Give me your idea.

Devotee: You want it to come from my mouth itself? It would be so good if You speak.

Swami: Well. Making the questioner give out the answers is the ancient and eternal method of teaching. If those who question gave the answers, they would clearly understand the subject. The lecturing style is now different. In olden days, all the sages enabled their disciples to understand Vedanta by only this method. So come on! Speak! Let us see.

Devotee: Do you ask me to speak of the objects I have seen with the eye?

Swami: Not only the eye. Tell me all that you have experienced and known through all the senses of cognition,

the eye, the ear, etc.

Devotee: Earth, sky, water, sun, moon, wind, fire, stars, dusk, mountains, hills, trees, rivers, women, men, children, old persons, animals, birds, coldness, heat, the happy, the miserable, fishes, insects, diseases — like these I have seen many.

Swami: Enough, enough, that’s enough! This is the world (prapancha). Did you see it only today? Did it exist yesterday? Will it exist tomorrow?

Devotee: Why do you ask me, Swami? It has existed like this for ages, hasn’t it? Who knows for how long it will exist, or for how long it has existed?

Swami: “For how long it has existed!”, you said, right? That is what we speak of as beginningless. This external world is beginningless.

Where there is “external”, there must also be “internal”, right? Well, have you ever seen a cinema?

Devotee: Ever seen! Why, Swami, the cinema is also part of the world (prapancha), isn’t it? I have seen many. 

Swami: What did you see? Tell me.

Devotee: I have seen many wonderful “pictures”; I have heard numerous experiences of joy and sorrow.

Swami: “I have seen,” you say. The screen is one; the “picture” is another. Did you see both? 

Devotee: Yes.

Swami: Did you see the screen and the “picture” at the same time?

Devotee: How is that possible, Swami? When the picture is seen, the screen is not visible; when the screen is visible the picture is not seen.

Swami: Right! The screen, the pictures, do they exist always? 

Devotee: No. The screen is permanent; the pictures come and go.

Swami: As you say, the screen is permanent and the pictures come and go. For this “permanent” and “impermanent”, we use the words steady (sthira) and unsteady (a-sthira), permanent (nithya) and impermanent (a-nithya), imperishable (a-kshara) and perishable (kshara).

I’ll ask questions on another subject. Does the picture project on the screen or the screen on the picture? Which is the basis for what?

Devotee: The pictures project on the screen, so the screen is the basis for the picture.

Swami: So too, the external world, which is like the picture, has no permanence; it changes. The internal world is fixed; it does not change. The external has the internal as its basis, its substratum. 

Author's note

The above profound secret revealed by the Purna Avatar in such a simple manner has been explained in great detail, in few posts under " creation of universe" theme.

We will refresh our learning on the same in the next theme.

Love.