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Index Page
By Jayaram V
There is only one reality and it is God. (Sounds familiar?)
Dvaita means duality, the sense or separation, the notion that there
is one and
there is another, the conscious experience of the subject
with the object and the knower with the known. Advaita means non-duality
or absence of duality. It is a state of oneness with the rest of
creation, of the subject with the object, of the knower with the known,
of the lower self with the highest self and of the ordinary
consciousness with the higher consciousness. It comes with a heightened
sense of awareness in which one sees everything in oneself and as
oneself. It is the state described in the Upanishads that experiences
the self as everything and everything in the self.
Many religions that we know including the atheistic religions such as
Jainism and Buddhism are dualistic. So are Judaism,
Zoroastrianism, Christianity and
Islam.
Some of them believe that God may not exist but souls do exist
eternally, without ever having been created by any primacy cause such as
God. Others believe that both God and souls exist and though they are
made in the image of God they are different in some respects and remain
so throughout the period of creation. They
may continue to exist till
such time the creation continues or eternally for ever. A soul may have
the essence of God, but it is not God. A soul may become liberated from earth and go to
heaven, but
would not become the absolute. A soul may become liberated and remain
free from any obligation, but it would not (for heaven sake!) merge into
him. Even after dissolution the souls may be withdrawn into a latent
state but continue to exist eternally independent of what happens to the
material manifestation. Ignoring the subtle details and differences, this in
brief is what dualism or dvaita is all about.
The non-dualistic (advaita) schools (for there are many) believe that god and
souls are not different. According to them there is only one reality and
it is God. The souls come into existence because the One becomes many
for his own joy or ananda. Through his dynamic power (or
shakti) he
brings forth many worlds and many jivas or individual souls and subjects
them, through the action of maya or illusion, to the limitations of self
(egoism), time (mortality), awareness (ignorance), concealment
(illusion), completeness
(desires) and action (karma). Deluded, the souls continue their
individual existence till they realize their true nature either by the
grace of God or through their own previous effort. This realization is
called liberation or moksha (cessation of moha or delusion). Once
liberated, the individual soul realizes what it has always been and
becomes one with itself.
Thus in its dualistic state, under the influence of maya or illusion,
an individual soul alternates between two realities, one true and
permanent and the other untrue and impermanent. One never changing, eternal
and absolute and the other ever changing, transient and relative. To
realize the truth hidden behind the veil, to see the radiant being
hidden behind the golden lid, to experience the absolute in a relative
state and to emerge from a world of dark desires into a world of
absolute freedom, this is what a jiva has to aim for and
live for in its mortal state.
There is a misconception that Sankaracharya propounded the theory of
Advaita. It is not true. Centuries before him the Advaita school existed both as a
philosophy and a dogma. We can trace it in the Upanishads, the
Brahmasutras, the Bhagavadgita and many schools of
Saivism. Long before
him, Yagnavalkya, Uddalaka Aruni, Ashtavakra and Gaudapada expounded the same
philosophy. Sankaracharya added logical or scriptural base and made it
more prominent. Through his commentaries and writings he gave a new
direction to the school of thought and made it more contemporary. His
action was timely and god sent, because it saved generations of Hindus
from confusion and conversion in the face of Islam knocking at their
doors with a sword and whip as well as gifts and the promise of a better
life. His followers continued his work and the momentum generated by him
in his short life of 32 years or so. His disciples and their disciples
like Suresvara, Padmapada, Prakasatma,
Vidyaranya, Vachaspati and many more who followed him and in his
footsteps added a rich body of religious literature in support of this
school and preserved the tradition and its philosophy for the modern world.
Theory of Knowledge and Means of Interpretation
The advaita school accepts the six pramanas or
tests of the Hindu theory of interpreting or arriving at empirical
knowledge. They are: perception (pratyaksa), inference (anumana),
comparison (upamana), testimony (sabda), presumption (arthapatti) and
negation (anupalabdhi). Of these Sankara refers to three pramanas:
perception, inference and scriptural testimony. Of these again, the
scriptural testimony or the testimony of the Vedas is considered the most
important. In the Vedas again it is the knowledge of the absolute
Brahman (jnana kanda in contrast to the karma kanda) which is more
important in preparing the jiva for the experience of oneness. Advaita vedanta does not advocate dogmatic blind
belief based on scriptural evidence. Reason is important. Accepting any dogma without subjecting it to
reason would lead to evil consequences. But more important than reason
is experience (anubhava). It is the ultimate test of truth and the
scriptures are valid only because they reveal the nature of such experience.
The inner self is self-aware and self-luminous. Its very nature is knowledge
and consciousness. But it becomes veiled by the actions of the physical
self which depends upon the mind to know. The knowledge it gains through
the mind is not valid because it does not stand the test of the three
times (past, present and future) and of the different states of mind (waking, dreaming, deep sleep etc).
The phenomenal world we experience is also a projection of the mind. It is
also self contradictory because of its diversity, impermanence and
inconsistency. For the individual, it exists through his mind, which has its own
modes and defective methods of perception. So from an absolute
perspective, the phenomenal world in which we live and experience cannot be relied upon as a true
source of knowledge.
Knowledge of the objective world is but a kind of
ignorance or illusion because it prevents us from perceiving things as they are
and also the
truth hidden in them. Much of what we see is a mere projection. We
mistake one for the other, couple the truth with untruth and relate
ourselves with the world in terms mine and not mine. The objective of
self enquiry is to free ourselves from this confusion and see the truth
as it is, to become aware within our own pure consciousness and know
simply without any dependence on the external means of knowing. This
will come through direct experience.
According to the Advaita Vedanta, reality cannot be two because
anything that implies division, contradiction, negation, or conditionality fails the test of
supreme consciousness whose
nature is eternal and unconditional oneness and indivisibility. If Brahman
and Atman are separate, it means one of them is not real, or
dependent or imperfect or incomplete or mutable or divided while none of
these can truly describe Brahman who is a negation of all these.
Therefore Atman and Brahman represent one and the same consciousness. For our understanding
we may name them differently as Atman and
Brahman but in reality they
are but one absolute indistinguishable consciousness which we can
experience only by removing our ignorance.
Similarly what we term as saguna and nirguna Brahman are in reality
one and the same consciousness. Their apparent division in our minds is
an illusion (maya) or a phenomenal appearance caused by
maya, just as we
tend to mistake the rope for a snake in certain states of mind.
The concept of maya is another important aspect of Advaita Vedanta.
Maya is responsible for our phenomenal experience of duality. This
maya is neither real nor unreal. It is unreal when viewed from an
absolute state of consciousness and real when we view it from relative
state. Because it is neither real nor unreal, it is difficult to
determine what it actually is (anirvachaniya).
Maya creates ignorance and through ignorance we fail to discriminate
between truth and untruth and become attached to the phenomenal world or
the world of illusory appearances (samsara). Because of ignorance we
also develop false notions of self and identify ourselves with our
physical minds and bodies. This results in our bondage and cycle of
births and deaths. This mistaken identify leaves impressions or
imprints on the imperishable soul and results in its continuation in the
phenomenal worlds through many births and deaths. Actually the soul has
neither death nor birth, but what appears to be its birth and death is
also an illusion.
One can become free from this illusion through jnana or wisdom or
through devotion and practice or a combination of all these. Self
realization or liberation does not mean that the self needs to know
something new or that it has to attain a state of freedom some time in
future. Atman is eternally free and self-luminous. It is already aware
and already free. What is required is to overcome our ignorance about
its state, or the veil of illusion that hides its luminosity from our
egoistic selves. Knowledge here does not mean intellectual knowledge,
but awareness that comes out of insight and personal experience, through
a process of inner purification and self-discipline. The senses have to
be withdrawn from the phenomenal world into the mind and the mind into
the self. When the senses are quiet and the mind is withdrawn, the veil
of ignorance drops and the self shines forth in its full radiance.
It is possible for human beings to realize this state while in their
physical bodies. Those who realize it are freed forever. It does not
make a difference if they are jivanmuktas (freed from mortal life) or
videhamuktas (freed from bodies). There is nothing else to be
realized or achieved because the soul has realized its non-difference
from the Absolute self which is it true nature.
Suggested Further Reading
Ashtavakra Gita translated by John Richards
Ashtavakra gita is considered as a standard work on Advaita Vedanta
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