On Divine grace (also Help)

[Guest guest]

Namaste Diego and others,

 

This is just so you don't get confused if you read a wide range on

English texts dealing with consciousness, awareness, etc. I had

earlier said that 'consciousness' and 'awareness' could be used in

different ways in different contexts. Then Michael (ombhurbhuva)

said:

>However we could be conscious and be aware or unaware.

>Thus consciousness is a term of greater extension than awareness.

 

As I said, many people do use the terms in this sense. And if you

keep to a certain type of literature, you may think this is the only

sense. But I assure you that when you consider English philosophical

and spiritual literature as a whole, you can sometimes find these

terms interchanged, with 'awareness' being the more comprehensive

term and 'consciousness' restricted to the subject/object duality, as

I said. Likewise 'mind' can refer to all conscious activity or

merely to conceptual activity.

 

The point is simply to be always aware of the context and to be

mentally nimble when you read English literature of this type.

 

 

Michael also said:

>They are fundamentally the same, Atman and Brahman.

>It is this inseperability which the term non-duality refers

>to and not the non-duality of subject and object as Benjamin

>maintains in his acolyte of Bishop Berkeley mode.

 

It is quite true that nonduality (Advaita) refers to the ultimate

nonduality of Atman and Brahman. And in Vedanta, Atman has the

meaning of 'self' or 'subject' or 'witness' and Brahman may mean

either the Ultimate Reality (which is also the Self ... now

distinguished with a capital 'S') or may also mean the apparent world

(i.e. world of objects). The latter occurs when we are in the lower

dualistic level of consciousness, in which case Atman and Brahman

(subject and object) appear different. This is clearly stated by

Swami Sivananda in the Introduction to his treatise on the Brahma

Sutras:

 

"According to Sri Sankara, there is one Absolute Brahman who is

Sat-Chit-Ananda,

who is of an absolutely homogeneous nature. The appearance of this

world is due to Maya - the illusory power of Brahman which is neither

Sat [being] nor

Asat [non-Being]. This world is unreal. This world is a Vivarta or

apparent modification through

Maya. *Brahman appears as this universe through Maya.* Brahman is the only

reality. The individual soul has limited himself through Avidya

[ignorance] and identification

with the body and other vehicles. Through his selfish actions he

enjoys the fruits

of his actions. He becomes the actor and enjoyer. He regards himself as atomic

and as an agent on account of Avidya or the limiting Antahkarana [a

rarely used Sanskrit term for

lesser self]. The individual soul becomes identical with Brahman when

his Avidya is destroyed. In reality Jiva [Atman as it appears at the

dualistic level] is all-pervading and identical with Brahman."

 

Notice that Brahman (the Absolute Reality) appears as 'this universe'

through Maya or illusion. When under the influence of Maya, Atman

(subject or self) and Brahman (the vast universe of objects) appear

as distinct. The whole point of Advaita is to realize their ultimate

unity, as Michael says, but until this is realized, the apparent

subject/object distinction is an essential theme of Advaita, as

evidenced by the following quotes from Shankara's Vivekachudamani

(where 'knower' is of course synonymous with 'subject'):

 

Perfect discrimination, born of direct experience establishing the

truth of the distinction between seer and objects, severs the bonds

of delusion produced by Maya (the creative power, which makes things

appear to exist), and as a result the liberated person is no longer

subject to samsara. 345

 

Like fire in conjunction with iron, the mind manifests itself as

knower and objects by dependence on something real, but as the

duality that causes is seen to be unreal in the case of delusions,

dreams and fantasies, so the products of natural causation, from the

idea of doership down to the body itself and all its senses, are also

unreal in view of the way they are changing every moment, while one's

true nature itself never changes. 349, 350

 

That Reality which manifests itself as the many through the illusions

of names, shapes, attributes and changes, but which, like gold is

always itself unchanged (in different objects) - you are That, God

himself. Meditate on the fact within yourself. 262

 

 

By the way, Michael is a good man with a certain literary flourish.

He just has a bit of that endearing Celtic cantankerousness in him!

We need people like that in this world to add a bit of color.

 

Om!

Benjamin