In this world, from Lord Brahmaa to a moth, there is no being that does not want to avoid sorrow, and does not make attempts to avoid it. Without teaching or learning, naturally, all have a distaste for death, ignorance and sorrow. If you contemplate on this, you realize that there is no question of freeing oneself from sorrow that has passed. That which is being experienced is already passing away. That which has yet to come is not known. Then what does freeing oneself from sorrow mean? The things that cause sorrow, freedom from those causes, freedom forever, complete freedom, freedom in all forms, in other words, the permanent cessation of sorrow. In this state, naturally this question arises : What is the cause of sorrow and how do we prevent it?
Sorrow arises along with the body alone. Sorrow is experienced in both birth and death. Disease, separation, enjoyment, meeting, favourable-unfavourable, all happen due to connection with the body alone. Independence-subservience also is enjoined with this. Rules of action, action, situation, state, all are children of the body. The connection with the body alone is the cause of sorrow.
And what is the connection? Accepting it in the form of I and mine. Perform discrimination on your true nature and understand yourself as different from the body : This body is not me, nor is it mine. Then, let whatever is being said about the body be said, let it be, whatever is happening, let it be, how it is happening, let it be, but it is neither me, nor mine. For I am the seer, witness, unattached, indifferent. Imbibing the body in the form of I and mine alone is the material cause of sorrow.
Where did this body come from? After casting away the me and mine. where will it go? After leaving its connection, what is the guarantee that such a connection will not happen again? Whether the body is created out of one element or out of many, the shaping or joining of elements cannot happen without injunctions and prohibitions, and injunctions and prohibitions cannot happen without action. Action happens with the body. Then the succession of the body progeny will never. Ordained and prohibited actions will continue to occur, just like they did in the past. Action from body, and body from action. Both of these, like tree and seed, are going on in succession since time immemorial. Then, is the life of an individual soul the life of the seed? No, there is a difference in both!
You have a seed in your hand. If you can recognize the tree from which this seed came, then once you see it, you can imagine its past form and future form. How this seed come through the roots, leaves, branches, buds and flowers, and now after sowing it, it will take on a form similar to its source tree. But all this is not seen in the seed, even though it is contained in the seed. The seed needs earth, water, heat, light, wind and space, as well as a field, manure and irrigation. It will become moist, it will sprout, it will burst, it will increase. It needs space, it needs time, Even after all this happens, it will express its shape, form and taste as per its nature. The seed has been transmitted in succession since time immemorial. Inside-outside, down-up, it attains to all these. It will keep going on until its seed-ness is destroyed through fire or other means.
Now, imagine that there is an (individual) soul in your hand. It has a particular type of soul-ness (jeevatva). It also needs time for its appearance and disappearance, space for its coming and going, matter for taking on various forms, and for all these actions, it requires connection with action (karma sambandha). Without action, rising-falling, living-dying or coming and going cannot happen. The same object cannot transform into various forms without action. These actions alone are known as modifications (vikaara) or vikriyaa in common language, which through a particular process, create a flow (dhaara) of shapes. These actions alone, by virtue of being performed with doership in this soul world, imbibe the form of particular desire-created (vaasanaajanya) impressions (sanskaaras). Because of this, they are called injunctions or prohibitions (dharma adharma).
The soul is due to predominance of awareness, and the seed due to that of inertness. The "va" in jeeva refers to its inwardness, and the "ba" in beeja refers to its outwardness. The seed is the cause of creation alone, but the soul is the cause of creation as well as perception (pramaana). The powers of the seed remain in physical matter alone. Those of the soul remain in physical and beyond physical. Both the internal and external organs of the soul remain aware, but the organs of the seed are dormant (moorchita). There is no genesis of injunction or prohibition in the seed (dharma adharma). But, since the soul is the basis of the perception thought flow (praamaana vritti) and is independent in performance of action, it becomes the basis of injunction and prohibition. The enjoyed-aspect of the seed is predominant, whereas the enjoyer-aspect of the soul is predominant. That is why the joy-sorrow of the soul is awake, and that of the seed is dormant. The soul attains higher or lower destinations due to its performed injunctions or prohibitions, and the seed attains its destinations by being helpless in the natural flow of Prakriti.
Even souls are downward-channel, horizontal-channel and upward-channel in the realm of Prakriti, of three types. By and large, the first two demonstrate a predominance of inertness, not the knowledge of right or wrong. But in the upward-channel (which is the human species), evolution has reached its pinnacle. In this, there is the full scope of action, knowledge and love to express. This is because, we see the evolution of hands and other organs for new actions, intellect for new inventions, and love for experiencing bliss. In this species, there is complete prowess for the experience of the real notion (sad bhaava), the awareness notion (chid bhaava) and the bliss notion. It imbibes the impressions of science (vidyaa) and action in its internal organ, and the arising of prior intelligence is also seen. That is why, the entire responsibility of prohibition and injunction is expressed in humans alone.
Prohibited behaviour weakens the command of the soul on the body, senses and mind. That it why, it again goes under the control of Prakriti and has to take birth as a human or some other lower species. Opposed to this, by behaviour as per injunctions, the body, senses and mind are purified, and their regulation is enhanced. When this happens, the soul becomes qualified to enter heavenly kingdoms. Even in these heavenly kingdoms, there is an excess of sense pleasures alone. But after worshipping one dear deity, there is manifestation of divine joy, which is different from sense pleasures. Due to the variety of deities, chantes and methods, there is many-ness also in results of joy of right actions (dharma sukha). When there is one deity, chant, method and faith in worship, there is manifestation of divine joy in emotion-dominant one-pointed thought flow.
The Saankhya-described witness-nature of the soul is the witness of the internal organ. But it is different in every body, it is unattached, and it is self-illumined awareness. The witness of the internal organ, the self-illumined awareness has no connection with space, time and matter. Due to restraint of thought flows, this seer gets established in its self-nature (aatma svaroopa). Then, it gets liberated from coming and going in space, birth and death in time, change of species in matter. By being unattached from adjuncts, at that time, this seer becomes established in its true nature. But, when the samaadhi breaks, it again takes the form (saaroopya) of the thought flow. That is why, through the controller (niyantaa) of the thought flows, the control and birth-death etc. of this is also possible.
Per Vedanta, the witness nature of the soul is brahman alone. Therefore, by investigating into the true nature of soul and brahman, that soul which experiences the oneness between both of them through the great statements of Vedanta as his self, for that soul, space-time-etc. become falsified or illusory once and for all. Then, there is permanent cessation of birth and death. Until there is reality given to thought flow and consequent identification to them, till then the reality of difference, many-ness of the seer and separateness from Ishvara cannot be deleted by anyone, and the flow of birth and death will continue..
Since seed-ness is physical, it is destroyed by physical fire. That is why it is without beginning. But since the soul is aware, it cannot be destroyed by physical fire. It has ignorance-rooted identification with the seed-impressions of desire at the root of thought flow. That is why, through the fire of knowledge, without the extinguishing of ignorance, the soul-ness of the soul cannot be removed.
The soul is aware, its life-existence is without beginning or end. It imbibes the imagination of space, time and matter into its vision. The appearance (bhaasamaanataa) of space, time and matter is falsified, and the inherent nature of the aware is ever non-falsified. In the course of experience, there is no non-existence. No one can experience "I am not". That is why, the authentic nature of soul is endless and non-dual. In its own imagination alone, it identifies with the appearing time and thinks of itself as timeless, it identifies with the appearing space and thinks of itself as pervasive, it identifies with the appearing matter and thinks of itself as the self of all. In reality, even timelessness, pervasiveness and all-self-ness is not the factual nature of the self, it is due to identification with the imagined scene. The substratum awareness alone is the factual nature of the soul, and there is not a trace of duality in it anywhere. There is no value for obstructed appearance (baadhita bhasamaanataa). Fundamentally, seed-ness and soul-ness are ignorance-oriented. Both the seed-reality and soul-reality are non-different than the undivided aware-only reality.
Now, let us again return to the earlier topic. What is the cause of variety in any object? Action or transformation. Transformation is due to Prakriti or is natural, but action is executed by the doer. Action remains intertwined with injunction and prohibition, since it has the wish of attainment or avoidance at its root. Due to the firmness or weakness of this wish, allowed or forbidden actions are performed. Superimposition has ignorance at its root. That is why until ignorance remains, superimposition will remain, and due to the non-removal of desires, the cycle of birth and death will also not cease. Vedanta knowledge is concerned with the removal of this cycle alone.
Assume the following were not to exist : birth and death due to predominance of time, coming and going due to predominance of space, change in species due to predominance of matter, result regulated by Ishvara, the bondage of the ignorant souls to experience these results. Then there would be no need for the knowledge derived for the "you are that" etc. great statements. The entire hearing, contemplation and meditation of Vedanta would be useless. The need for identity of self and brahman is for its cessation alone.
"So long as there is insistence on the cause and result, there is the expanse of the universe. On the weakening of the frenzy of cause and result, the wise person does not acquire the universe." (Maandookya Kaarika 4.56).
When the self is not accepted as brahman (without the division of space-time-matter, inter-intra-part-whole-difference devoid) and it is accepted that I am the doer of right and wrong, and the enjoyer of its resulting joy and sorrow, then the intellect becomes that of worldly birth and death. When, with the knowledge of the identity of self and brahman, the ignorance-rooted doership, enjoyership, worldliness, disconnectedness etc. are falsified, then the disastrous world with birth-death, coming-going etc. is removed. That is why, prior to the knowledge of the essence, rebirth and other realms need to be accepted. Otherwise, one turns against Vedanta science and gets stuck in massive misfortune.
The life of the soul is an undivided aware-only reality. This is the opinion of Vedanta and is logically sound. The delusion of difference is caused by ignorance alone [duality on an LCD screen is fake]. Difference alone is appearance only (praatibhasika). Difference is not real in essence and not different than its self illumined substratum, the self.
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