Summary - The Real and the Unreal

[Guest guest]

Om Sri Gurubhyo Namah

 

 

SAMANVAYA (RECONCILIATION):

 

If we are to understand Advaita as a darshana of absolute non-

duality, then our interpretation of it must not deliquesce into a

kind of disguised duality. We must find the dialectic wherein the

thing that Advaita negates does not stand as a second thing apart

from the reality that it posits as the sole Reality. In order to

achieve this, the negation must not negate 'something' and then say

euphemistically that what it negates is 'nothing' – because

the 'something' that it negates is seen, and is not like the 'son of

a barren woman' that is neither seen nor conceived. Therefore we must

seamlessly reconcile the two statements that represent the final

vision of Advaita:

 

- Brahman alone is real, all else is unreal.

- Brahman is That by knowing which all this is known.

 

How are we to interpret these two statements so that there may be

samanvaya (reconciliation) and not virodha (contradiction) between

them?

 

The answer lies in the dialectic in which the ALL is not denied, but

the condition whereby the ALL appears to be ELSE is denied. For the

ALL to be ELSE, it must stand in OTHERNESS from Brahman. That

otherness from Brahman constitutes the core of the negation that is

employed in Advaita. Therefore Advaita remains as the highest

expression of Absolute Non-duality, because there is only Brahman and

nothing else, and still there is no-thing that is actually denied,

because the All that is denied as standing in otherness from Brahman

is affirmed as being subsumed in the Oneness of Brahman.

 

Shankara, in one of the most telling commentaries, and perhaps the

only place where he explains the snake-rope analogy, elucidates this

Oneness:

 

Chandogya Upanishad (VI.ii.3): "That (Existence) saw, 'I shall

become many. I shall be born'."

 

Shankara: "How did That visualise? This is being answered: 'Syam, I

shall become; bahu, many; Prajayeya, I shall be born excellently',

like earth taking shapes of pots etc. or ropes taking the shapes of

snakes etc. imagined by the intellect."

 

Objection: "In that case whatever is perceived is unreal, like a rope

perceived in the shape of a snake etc."

 

Shankara: "No. Since it is Existence itself that is perceived

otherwise through the duality of different forms, therefore, THERE IS

NO NON-EXISTENCE OF ANYTHING ANYWHERE. That is what we say."

 

Shankara (continuing): "As the Nyaya school, after assuming that a

thing is different from existence, says again that it has no

existence before its birth and after its destruction – it is not

assumed by us in that way, at anytime or anywhere, that any word or

any thing denoted by the word can be there differently from

Existence. But all words and all things that are spoken of with THE

IDEA OF THEIR BEING DIFFERENT FROM EXISTENCE, are Existence only,

just as in the world a rope itself is spoken of as a snake, under THE

IDEA THAT IT IS A SNAKE."

 

Shankara equates the false idea 'that it is a snake' to the false

idea 'of the world being different from Existence' thereby denying

the otherness of the world while retaining the Existence of the world.

 

 

THE NATURE OF DIALECTIC IN ADVAITA

 

The locution in which the unreality of the world arises cannot be

considered in isolation from the dialectic that is used in Advaita.

This dialectic is a tension of opposing poles wherein one pole is the

pole of truth and the other pole is the pole of falsity. What is not

separate from something is separate from it only through falsity.

That is the same as saying that it is not separate from it. For

example, guna (attribute) is separate from dravya (substance) only

through falsity. It is the same as saying that the guna is one with

dravya. Its separateness can arise only through speech because speech

has the capacity to allow it to be articulated in a manner whereby it

can be spoken of as separate. But in speaking thusly, speech speaks

discordantly with the nature of the thing and it therefore speaks

falsely. The strange thing about speech is that it allows the false

to be spoken. The perplexing and bewitching nature of speech whereby

difference arises is logically inexplicable. It is anirvacaniya

because it arises through the self-referencing nature of Maya (for

Maya is self-referencing to itself). What it shows forth as identity

in perception, it makes separate when the distinctions are cogitated

upon. But what is cogitated upon is not the same object seen in the

perception because it is mediated by the cogitation itself i.e., the

object in the cogitation is another thing that is self-referencing to

the cogitation itself. Discursive thought is the loss of spontaneity

in the neurosis of samsara. Neurosis is the schism of being separate

from the Self when in truth there is no separation. That is why, in

the language of certain schools, realisation is termed 'union' and in

others it is called 'healing'.

 

 

THE DIALECTIC OF MATERIAL CAUSALITY

 

Now, the dialectic that is employed in Advaita both affirms and

negates the world. The effect (the world) is non-different from the

cause (Brahman). The seeming separateness of the effect from the

cause is 'vacarambhanam', it has only speech for its origin. In the

dialectic, the pole of truth is the identity of the effect with the

cause, and the pole of falsity is the separateness of the effect from

the cause. The falseness is 'vikarah', transformation, that

is 'namadheyam', having its origin in name only. But the effect is

always pre-existent in the cause and undergoes no real

transformation. It is the mystery of speech that generates the

illusion of a changing generative world. Therefore, the locution

of 'jaganmithya' relates to the speech-generated pole of falsity. But

the pole of truth is that the world is non-different from Brahman and

hence the world – in truth - is real only.

 

It is due to the non-difference of the world from Brahman that the

All is known when Brahman is known. Shankara points this out in the

bhashya in the context of the instructions given to Svetaketu (BSB,

II.III.i.6): "Hence it is to be understood that the all-knowingness

is concerned with the knowledge of everything without exception, and

that this statement is made from the point of view that everything is

an effect of Brahman."

 

 

THE MYSTERY OF VAK

 

Advaita cannot be fully appreciated without understanding the nature

of speech because it is the differentiating mystery of speech that is

at the heart of the dialectic used in Advaita to show that Brahman is

the material cause of the universe. Unfortunately most (contemporary)

interpretations of Advaita pay scant respect to Advaita's philosophy

of language and thereby remain sequestered from the breath of the

Divine. There are three important but related doctrinal tenets that

the Acharya mentions in the bhashya. These are:

 

1. A word is eternal and is eternally connected to its object.

2. A word denotes the samanya and not the vishesha.

3. A particular (vishesha) is non-different from the universal

(samanya)

 

These three tenets are combined in the conclusion that the difference

of the effect from the cause arises due the mystical difference in

THE CONDITIONS OF SPEECH. The Brahma Sootra (II.1.vi.17) states: "If

it be argued that the effect did not exist before creation, since it

is declared (in the Upanishad) as 'non-existent', then we say, no,

because from the complementary portion it is known that the word is

used from the standpoint of a difference in characteristics."

 

Shankara explains: "The condition in which name and form become

evolved is different from the condition in which name and form is not

so evolved. Hence although the effect exists as non-different from

the cause before creation, still from the standpoint of this

difference in conditions the effect is declared to be non-existent

before creation." Later: "Therefore this declaration of non-existence

of the effect before creation is made from the standpoint of a

difference of conditions. Since in the world a thing is said to exist

when it manifests itself through name and form, therefore, as a

concession to common sense, the universe is said to be non-existent

before being evolved through name and form."

 

The evolution of names and forms (vivarta) is what the Vakhyakaras

call the staging of speech. The stages are para-vak, pashyanti-vak,

madhyama-vak and vaikhary-vak. They are the different stages of

speech and yet in each stage the word and object of the word remains

the same. A form is not a non-form because it is unmanifest, for in

that unmanifest state it is the very same form that is manifest. In

the words of the Katha Upanishad: "What indeed is here, is there;

what is there, is here likewise. He who sees as though there is

difference here, goes from death to death."

 

Difference is seen in the world of particulars. But a particular is

the universal instantiated as a particular. The samanya is the

fullness of the vishesha. Therefore avidya, the privation of

knowledge, is the showing forth of the limitedness of the unlimited.

This is avacchedavada, the doctrine of the falseness of the

limitedness of the unlimited. I had borrowed the term 'avachhedavada'

from the Bhamati school of Advaita to convey this meaning, but later

I discovered that there is another word for it. Abhinavagupta, the

great exponent of Advaita-Tantra in Kashmir Shaivism, uses the

term 'apurnakhyati' to express (what I think is) the same idea.

 

 

VIVARTAVADA AND NON-CREATION

 

Creation proceeds out of the evolution (vivarta) of names and forms.

But whatever is 'created' is only the showing forth of what is pre-

existent in Brahman. Therefore there is in truth no creation. That

which is always already born cannot be born again. This is

vivartavada – the doctrine of non-creation. An object is said to be

transitory only in so far as we are habituated to predicating

existence to its mere manifestation, but in truth the existence of an

object is eternal, and the predications of 'existence' and 'non-

existence' as applied to it only points to its modalities in the

world of vyavahara. What is false is the transitory nature of things

rather than the things themselves, for it is in no way possible for

something that is seen, even once, not to have been existing at the

moment prior to its creation when it is still originating – because

the 'it' that is denoted when we say that 'it is originating' is the

very same object that stands posterior as the created thing. Thus the

thing exists prior to its 'creation'.

 

The real is defined as that which is trikala-abadhyatvam - that which

persists in the past, present and future. Shankara says that "all

things, that are spoken of with the idea of their being different

from Existence, are Existence only" and that "there is no non-

existence of anything anywhere." Therefore all things are eternally

existing. It cannot be said that this perspective is from the

vyavaharika point of view because a jiva in vyavahara does not

perceive the world in this manner. Shankara says that the transitory

nature of objects is only admitted as a concession to vyavaharika-

sathya as borne out by these words from the bhashya (BSB,

II.1.vi.17): "Since in the world a thing is said to exist when it

manifests itself through name and form, therefore, as a concession to

common sense, the universe is said to be non-existent before being

evolved through name and form." Therefore, the vision that "there is

no non-existence of anything anywhere" is certainly not from the

point of vyavaharika-sathya, but is the unbroken vision of

paramarthika-sathya. Likewise the affirmation of the 'all' in the

statement 'all this is Brahman' is paramarthika as this is the vision

of the jnyani.

 

Things change not. It is Time (Maya) that is the substratum of

change, and it imbues objects with its own attribute (of change) thus

creating the chimera of ephemerality that we falsely attribute to

objects. The jnyani sees truly that nothing is born and nothing dies.

 

 

THE NATURE OF BRAHMAN AS NIRGUNA

 

Brahman is Pure Knowledge and Pure Knowledge has no form. A form is

not the form of its Knower, but is the form that the Knower knows.

The object of knowledge is not descriptive of knowledge itself. How

then can one describe Brahman? It does not have the swaroopa of

anything It knows. It cannot be said to be of any guna. In the words

of Brhadaranyaka Upanishad: "O Gargi, the knowers of Brahman say this

Immutable is That. It is neither gross nor minute, neither short nor

long, neither red nor oiliness, neither shadow nor darkness, neither

air nor ether, unattached, neither savour nor odour, without eyes or

ears, without the vocal organ or mind, without the vital force or

mouth, not a measure, and without interior or exterior. It does not

eat anything, nor is It eaten by anybody." Brahman is Nirguna.

 

Forms do not describe Brahman, but Brahman is Pure Knowledge in which

all forms are eternally present as forms that He Knows. Therefore the

highest truth is that Brahman is Nirguna, and Nirguna Brahman is

purna with knowledge. That is His omniscience.

 

Nirguna Brahman is Itself Its all-knowingness. And Its all-

knowingness is Itself the reality of the all. The All does not

contradict the perfect formlessness, the perfect immutability, the

perfect Oneness, and the sole reality of Brahman. This is the Brahman

of the Vedas. It has to be known through the Divine Third Eye. The

third eye is the eye of Shiva. He who opens it is Shiva.

 

 

AVIDYA AND ADHYASA

 

Avidya never 'is' while adhyasa is the 'is' that is not. Avidya and

adhyasa are two facets of the same non-thing – the one being

unmanifest and the other being manifest. Avidya is not a thing. It is

a privation of knowledge. Adhyasa, on the other hand, is a wrinkle –

it is the superimposition that is contingent upon avidya. Shankara

defines adhyasa as simply the mistaking of one thing as another

(Preamble): "From every point of view, however, there is no

difference as regards the appearance of one thing as something else."

The false appearance is adhyasa, superimposition.

 

All this is Brahman. The unknowingness that all this is Brahman is a

privation of knowledge. It is avidya. It is no thing. It is the

unmanifest root from which false bhavas rise up as its multifarious

branches and colourful foliages. The most primary of these bhavas is

that all this is 'other' than Brahman. But there is no otherness in

Brahman. Therefore, the 'otherness' of the world is superimposition.

This is the core of adhyasa.

 

Concealment, or privation of knowledge, is no-thing. It is the avidya

that is called moola-avidya, while the notions we falsely attribute

to the world, because of this privation of knowledge, are the bhava-

roopas of avidya. Bhava-roopa-avidya is adhyasa. It has its roots in

moola-avidya, for in the absence of concealment, the truth is known

and there is no scope for superimposing a false notion. To understand

it, one needs to understand the mystery of avarana – the

unknowingness in knowing.

 

When we see something, the object is known because we see it. Yet the

object is not known because we have questions about it - its true

nature remains concealed even when we are cognising it. We see with

unseeing eyes. This is the feature that characterises our lives as

samsarins wending our way through the universe. The ajnyani's

cognition of the world has in that very cognition a concealment of

the nature of the world. That is why the knowledge of the world

derived from its cognition fails to be apodictic. If the cognition of

the world revealed the nature of the world, then we would not have

had questions about it, and there would have been no sciences in this

world. It is because the natures of things are concealed even when we

cognise them that we have questions about them, and that is the

reason we have the sciences. But the explanations about the natures

of things that proceed out of the sciences, or out of people's

notions, are untrue if they do not conform to the intrinsic natures

of things as they are. Any explanation that is contrary to the nature

of the thing, and which makes us fixated in the artefacts of our

explanations as being the truth, is false. These artefacts are

adhyasa – superimpositions - on the world. So, when Advaita says that

avidya colours the world, it is not saying that the world itself is

false. It only means that the world, which the ajnyani sees, is false

insofar as the ajnyani has a false notion of what the world is due to

his seeing it with unseeing eyes, as it were. The third eye – the eye

of knowledge – has to open for him to see that the world is Brahman.

 

The closure of the third eye is the sleep of samsara. Susupti,

swapna, and jagrat are not merely alternate states, but they are also

states overlaid one on the other. All three exist in the waking state

as explained in the Mandukya Upanishad bhashya (I.5):

 

"Since sleep, consisting in the unawareness of Reality is a common

feature of the two states (waking and dream) where there are presence

and absence (respectively, of perceptible gross objects), therefore

the adverbial clause, 'where the sleeper' etc., is used in order to

keep in view the state of deep sleep. Or since sleep, consisting in

the unawareness of Reality, is equally present in all the three

states, deep sleep is being distinguished from the earlier two

states."

 

Again in explaining Gaudapada's Karika (I.2), Shankara says: "This

verse aims at establishing how all the three starting with Vishva,

are experienced in the waking state itself.... The causal state, too,

is verily experienced in the body, inasmuch as an awakened man is

seen to have such recollection as, 'I did not know anything'. Hence

it is said, 'tridha dehe vyavasthitah' – existing in three ways in

the body."

 

Shankara speaks about it also in the BSB (I.IV.i.3): "Without that

latent state, the absence of birth for the freed souls cannot be

explained. Why? Because liberation comes when the potential power (of

Maya) is burnt away by knowledge. The potential power, constituted by

nescience, is mentioned by the word unmanifest. It rests on God, and

is comparable to magic. It is a kind of deep slumber in which the

transmigrating souls sleep without any consciousness of their real

nature. (Br.III.viii.11)."

 

 

THE REAL AND THE UNREAL

 

We conclude that in Advaita everything that has a name is real. It is

not possible for a thing to not be. Shankara says (Ch.VI.ii.3): "It

is not assumed by us in that way, at anytime or anywhere, that any

word or any thing denoted by the word can be there differently from

Existence. But all words and all things, that are spoken of with the

idea of their being different from Existence, are Existence only."

 

The unreal truly cannot be pointed out – it is 'the son of a barren

woman' which is not there to be. It is a kind of sleep, the causal

state of 'privation of knowledge', which carries with it the potency

for superimposing false notions to things. This potency generates the

second type of 'unreality' that is characterised by loss of

genuineness (one thing appearing as another, like the rope as a

snake). It is this second meaning of the word 'unreal' that we find

in the context of adhyasa. All this is nicely (:-)) summarised in the

table below:

 

 

REAL UNREAL (1) UNREAL (2)

 

 

 

Brahman no-thing one thing

appearing

as another

 

para-vidya moola-avidya bhava-roopa

avidya

 

pramana - vikalpa - viparya -

(pure vrittis as (son of a barren (snake on a

chaitanya rupa) woman) rope)

 

jnyana nidra adhyasa

(knowledge (privation of (false knowledge -

of everything) knowledge) superimposition)

 

advaita dvaita dvaita

(non-duality) (causal-state (manifest state

of duality) of duality)

 

All this is Brahman world as avyakta world as upadhi

(world is real) (no world) (world is unreal)

 

 

 

In recent years, there has been a well-meaning attempt by Swami Sri

Satchidanandendra Saraswati - whose views are ably articulated on

this list by Atmachaitanyaji, Bhaskarji, Stigji, and others -

to 'show' that bhava-roopa-avidya is an aberration of Shankara

Advaita. The prime consideration in espousing such a view seems to be

the apprehension that admitting of bhava-roopa-avidya would amount to

an admission of a 'real' avidya and that such an avidya would occlude

the possibility of moksha and make the Advaita position indefensible.

But such an apprehension is ill-founded. Moola-avidya and bhava-rupa-

avidya are nothing but sushupti and adhyasa. The attempt to cleanse

Shankara Advaita is commendable, but I'm afraid that a large part of

Shankara bhashya is being jettisoned in the process of cleansing.

 

Bhava-roopa-avidya does NOT make Advaita vulnerable to the attacks of

the purva-paksha because its very manifestation is parasitic upon

moola-avidya, which is no-thing. In the vision of Truth, there is no

privation of knowledge (avidya), and hence there is no scope for

superimposition. The purva-paksha loses the weapon of a 'real' avidya

with which to attack Advaita because the causal state of avidya is no-

thing and bhava-roopa-avidya too is not a thing but a wrinkle that

cannot exist without this no-thing. Therefore no thing is there to go

in moksha.

 

 

AVIRODHA (NON-CONTRADICTION)

 

One of the main objections brought forth by the purva-paksha against

Advaita is that it is 'mayavada'. This objection is based on the

premise that Advaita equates adhyasa with the world. But this

objection loses its ground when it is seen that the world in Advaita

is real and that the locution of world-unreality relates only to the

superimposition of the notion of otherness (of the world from

Brahman). Again, the purva-paksha's allegation that Advaita injects

an extra-Vedic notion of adhyasa into the Vedanta Sutras has no base

to stand on because adhyasa is nothing but the no-thing of avidya. An

avidya that is not equated to the world is a common feature of all

schools of Vedanta. Therefore, the purva-paksha's argument that

Advaita is non-Vedic in character is groundless. When the cloud of

confusion regarding 'mayavada' clears up, what remains are the real

differences between Advaita and other schools of Vedanta. These

differences ultimately reduce to the difference of 'difference'. In

the essay on 'Advaita' (Part VIII), it was shown that any difference

between the world and its substratum is not sustainable and is false.

The pratibimba is always one with the bimba.

 

The samanvaya of Advaita reveals the perfect and immaculate non-

duality of Brahman without necessitating that anything be

euphemistically called non-existent. There is no contradiction

between statements of jaganmithya and statements about the world

being real because the former speaks about the falseness of adhyasa

and the latter about the truth of the identity of the world with

Brahman. Again, there is no contradiction between the Advaita

position that the world is mithya and the Advaita argument against

the Buddhists that the world is real. How is this so? It is in this

wise:

 

Advaita position: Brahman is the Self of the world. It is the sat of

the world -- It is what gives to the world its reality.

 

Argument against the Buddhists: The Buddhists deny a substratum to

the world. For them, the world is void like the illusion of a

firebrand. Shankara argues that the world is not void, but has a real

substratum (Self) and is therefore not unreal. The world is indeed

real.

 

Argument for jaganamithya: The jiva, characterised by avidya, affirms

the world, but does not see the Self of the world. He sees the world

bereft of its Self. Shankara says that such a world (that is bereft

of the Self) is unreal, and hence arises the expression

of 'jaganmithya'.

 

Samanvaya: Each of the above two statements is made conditional to a

stated (or implicitly stated) position. But unconditionally - in

truth – the world is real because it has Brahman as its substratum.

 

That it is in this wise is borne out by the Acharya's explanation (in

the BSB, II.III.i.7) made in reply to the doubt expressed by the

opponent that the Self may be a product: "Now, if even the Self be a

product, then since nothing higher than the Self is heard of, all the

products counting from space will be without a Self, just because the

Self is itself a product. And this will give rise to nihilism."

 

 

BRAHMAN AND THE WORLD

 

In Vishishtadvaita, the relationship between Brahman and the world is

that of substance-attribute and hence the world is said to be the

body of Brahman. In Dvaita, the relationship between Brahman and the

world is that of independent-dependent-existences and Brahman is said

to be the independently existing Bestower of dependent-existence on

the world. Another school of Vedanta tries to express the

relationship as achintya-bhedabheda (unthinkable-identity-and-

difference). Advaita does not to any of these doctrines.

According to Advaita, the world is one with Brahman and there is no

relationship that can describe the oneness of the world with Brahman.

Shankara says: "Brahman's relationship with anything cannot be

grasped, It being outside the range of sense-perception."

 

The relationship between Brahman and the world cannot be grasped by

the mind because it is not a relationship. Nothing can fully express

this wonder because it is already the relation-less unity in the

expression of the world. This mystical nature is neither opposed to

reason nor is it fully expressible by reason. It is the quiescence of

reason when reason has returned to the Heart of the Living Waters of

Advaita. What remains is the Song of the Avadhuta!

 

 

I offer these words at the lotus feet of my Guru, Sri Sri Tryambaka

the thirteenth, who is the revelation of all paths.

 

 

With regards,

Chittaranjan