The Real and the Unreal - Part I - The Razors Edge

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INVOCATION

 

I bow down to Lord Shiva, who is of the nature of Sat-Chit-Ananda,

and who, out of compassion for beings in this world, took birth as

Jagadguru Sri Shankara Bhagavadpada for establishing the path of Self-

Knowledge.

 

I bow down to Matha Annapurneswari, the Mother of the Universe, who

sustains and nourishes us with Love, and whose infinite grace alone

removes the veil of blinding darkness to Self-Knowledge.

 

I bow down to the lotus feet of my Guru, known as Tryambaka, who is

none other than Lord Tryambakeswara in human form, whose infinite

grace shows the way through Darkness to Light. I submit these essays

as a humble offering to His lotus feet.

 

 

MISTS OF THE INEXPLICABLE

 

People often interpret Advaita by dissolving the great mystery that

lies in the Heart of Reality. But Advaita cannot be spoken of without

speech being shrouded in the mists of the inexplicable. As Adiji

writes in her message, there is already a mystery in the "and"

between the real and unreal. Lord Krishna says that "the unreal never

is, the real never is not". I believe that the meaning of

the "unreal" is known only on knowing the meaning of the "real", and

that one is asleep to meanings until the Self, in which all meanings

lie, is known. To know one must be awake, and to awaken one must

know. The path of Advaita is called asparsa. It is also called the

razor's edge.

 

The notion of truth lies within us. It is not given to us from

outside. It is the heart of the discriminative capacity in us. It is

the stamp within our souls by which we seek to know the world and

understand the shruti. We cannot understand the shruti by violating

this innate stamp of truth within us for that would be a ravishment

of the intellect rather than an understanding of the shruti.

 

It is natural for us to ask questions about the world. A philosophy

that seeks to answer these questions must explain the world and not

negate the very thing that is to be explained. To negate the thing

that is asked about is not answering the question. Experience is

never negated. If I see a tree this morning, it is true for all time -

for all of eternity - that I saw a tree this morning irrespective of

the fact that any subsequent experience negates it or not. Sublation

is the seeing of a different meaning in what was seen earlier and not

the negation of the experience itself.

 

It is with these two guiding principles – that the notion of truth

lies within us, and that an answer must answer to the question that

is asked – that I shall attempt to proceed with this month's

discussion. As I had mentioned earlier, the topic actually takes off

from the third part, but I felt that one particular theme, which I

have called the "Reality Divide" (and is included as Part II), would

be a useful addition to the discussion as it attempts to uncover a

certain conception about the world that comes to us from contemporary

thought. I believe that it is necessary to dispossess ourselves of

the "wrinkle" of this conception before we move on to a discussion of

Advaita. I shall post the second part later today; as for the rest of

the postings, I shall let the pace of the actual discussion decide

the timing.

 

Throughout Advaita we find that there is a dialectical tension in

which the world is expressed to be identical with Brahman and yet

denied any existential reality. I believe that we must not lose sight

of this dialectic when we seek out the meaning of Advaita. Sri

Ramakrishna Paramahamsa used to say that a sadhaka on the path of

Advaita discovers first that the world is unreal, and then later sees

that the world is real. Perhaps, we must fall into the cauldron of

perplexity before we can rise like a phoenix rising from the ashes

into the Empyreal of pure Light.

 

_________________

 

 

With regards,

Chittaranjan