Charles's post

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>It rather depends what you mean by "knows": if you mean realisation,

>then subsequant practice is superfluous; if you mean knowing _about_

>the real, i.e. theoretically, then discrimination can be either

>objective or subjective.

 

This is the most troublesome area. I'm not sure whether it's worth it to

spend time on this. When the self is all there is, why should one be

worried about knowing etc? The Indian philosophers broke their heads

over this for a couple of millennia. Anyway for what it's worth, here's

my understanding :

 

In the shruti and in Shankara's works, there're numerous passages which

warn the sadhaka not to be distracted by the world after "knowing" the

Self. When one's already the Self, how can it be that one knows the

Self? And after knowing it how can one be distracted?

 

In the Katha Up : there's mention of the conscious self, the great self

and the calm self, which one is supposed to discover in that order.

 

In the Chandogya Up : When Yagnavalkya explains Brahma VidyA to

MaitreyI, he says that after death there's no consciousness. He

elaborates by saying, when there's nothing but yourself, what's there to

be conscious of? And further questions : "how can the knower be known?"

 

In the hymn of creation in the Rg Veda it's said : In the beginning,

there was neither consciousness or un-consciousness.

 

This is the subtle distinction between the PurushA and the PurushA

manifested through PrAkritI. Atleast this is my understanding.

 

I'll use an analogy : There's a battery operated toy jeep, which flashes

a siren light. Here the battery is the true "source" of energy. It

generates electricity. The siren on contact with the electricity

performs it's function. OK, if the siren thinks it's the siren - it's

true from it's point of view. But the problem is that without the

electricity the siren cannot operate. But without the battery even the

electricity cannot be generated. So there are three levels of the entity

one can descend to here : 1. siren - electricity - battery, 2.

Electricity - battery and 3. The battery alone, which is the true

source.

 

So when the brain thinks it's itself, for the virtue of it being a

thinking entity, there's nothing wrong with it - as it's with the siren.

So Shankara says it's for the person who thinks there's ignorance that

there's ignorance. But the brain cannot function without the

consciousness - as the siren without the electricity - and even the

consciousness cannot exist apart from YOU - as there can be no

electricity generated without the battery. So you, who's the brain, the

consciousness and the Self combined, when realizing that you're not the

brain, draw back one step on the consciousness. But that doesn't mean

that the brain is dead. It's just that the "focus" of your consciousness

has shifted to the consciousness. The brain is still active due to it's

contact with the consciousness and that's the reason you "know". Even

when you descend from the consciousness level to the level of the Self,

both the brain and the consciousness, are still active, but just that

you being yourself or the Self, dominate them.

 

When you have the patience to sit and meditate like Bodhi Dharma for

seven years facing a wall, you're the Self alone. But even when you

"know" who you really are and still live in the normal world like a

normal man, using both your brain and your consciousness, it's only the

knowledge of who you truly are, which can save you (the brain,

consciousness and Self combo) from the lures of the world. The "knowing"

is vivekam, the temperament to resist the non-you is vairagyam and

finally the desire to renounce the world and just abide in yourself is

mumukshutvam.

 

Some people confuse Advaitam with VijnAnavAda Buddhism. They think that

by maya, it's meant that the whole world is an illusion in the plain

sense. They think when you realize yourself, the world disappears like

"poof" and there's just you. Not so. For Shankara the world is only a

relative unreality. The brain, the consciousness and the world has it's

reality in the world of vyavahAra. The Atharva Veda says : "All this is

verily Brahman". The world is but Brahman manifested, but the path to

the realization is only through the Self in you. It's only in the

highest state that the duality is broken and non-duality established -

that all is Brahman - *not before that*. It's not an intellectual

understanding of superimposition, which is only at the level of the

brain - which is not even at the level of consciousness - leave alone

the Self. But something to be actually experienced - that the snake is

indeed the rope.

 

Atleast that's my "understanding" at this point in time :-)