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.

Swami Vivekananda