Mithya?

[Guest guest]

Namaste,

 

In message #32492 of Aug 12, Shyam wrote: "The term mithya is

misunderstood by many to mean false."

 

This has got me puzzling as to what exactly 'mithya' means.

Literally, it means a 'coupling' of two different things. Two things

must first be considered differently. And later on they must be

considered together, as somehow joined into one.

 

Seen in one way, a couple is two things. Seen in another, this same

couple is a single unity. But how then can we reconcile these

different ways of seeing? Is a couple two or is it one?

 

This is a question that we leave habitually unexamined. And our

thinking thus gets driven by the blind force of an unexamined habit,

whereby we make an unclear assumption about duality. We assume that

a couple can somehow be described as both 'two' and 'one', even

though these descriptions contradict each other.

 

The contradiction makes our thinking unclear, wherever anything is

thought to be different from something else. For then we have a pair

of things that have to be considered together, as a 'couple', in

order to tell the difference between them.

 

Accordingly, all thought of difference and change gets compromised,

by this inherent confusion in the idea of a 'couple' (or 'mithya' as

it is called in Sanskrit).

 

In the Advaita tradition, there is a systematic questioning of how a

couple may be two different things, and how it may be a non-dual

unity.

 

If two things are found different, some basis of comparison must

carry on, in order to know that a change has taken place, from one

thing to the other. In the world of space and time, while various

things that differ change, they must be known upon a basis that

remains unchanged through all their differences.

 

That changeless basis is thereby found differentiated from the

changing things that appear and disappear in space and time. The

changeless basis is a complete reality, to which no change or

difference applies.

 

Whatever may appear or disappear, just that reality is shown. It's

found beneath all changing show of appearances and disappearances

that show it, in the world's apparent variety.

 

It thus turns out that no changes or differences can be quite real

in themselves. Each shows a reality that does not change or differ

in the least, throughout all space and time. Each change or

difference expresses that unchanged and undifferentiated reality.

 

The reality is unconflicted and perfect, while the changes and the

differences that show it must appear conflicted and imperfect. They

only appear through their coupling with the reality that they

express. This coupling inherently involves a degree of confusion

that obscures and disturbs the expressions we perceive and conceive

through our conflicted and imperfect personalities.

 

To find the perfection of reality, each individual must return back

into it -- beneath all perceiving senses in our bodies and beneath

all conceiving thoughts or motivating feelings in our minds.

Returning there, all differences dissolve entirely, in a non-dual

knowing of one's own identity. It's only there that the perfection

in the world is clearly evident and rightly understood.

 

But I must confess to finding that this question of 'mithya' can be

extremely puzzling and paradoxical. So I've been trying to write a

little piece of verse, which is reproduced below.

 

Ananda

 

====================================

 

Imperfection?

-------------

 

Through faculties of sense and mind

which do not show things perfectly,

what's shown seems to be compromised,

by ignorance that covers truth

with a degree of falsity.

 

What sense perceives and mind conceives

is not then plain and simple truth.

 

Perception and conception show

what's true and real covered up

with an appearance that confuses

what is true with what is false.

 

>From this confusion, sense and mind

seem to produce a show of world

that's partly right and partly wrong.

 

This mixed-up show inherently

confuses plain reality,

with something that seems added on

but isn't really there at all.

 

Since what seems added isn't there,

it's nothing but an empty show

that makes no real difference.

There's nothing really added on

to plain, unmixed reality.

 

Throughout the show, reality

itself remains uncompromised,

by any of the imperfections

that appear confused with it.

 

It's what stays present underneath,

displayed by all the changing show

that shows its perfect changelessness.

 

It is at once the source and goal

of all attempts to make things better

in the world. All judgement of

what's better comes from it alone.

 

In it, perfection brings to end

all judgements made to tell what's right

from what appears to have gone wrong.

[Guest guest]

advaitin, Ananda Wood <awood wrote:

 

"This is a question that we leave habitually unexamined. And our

thinking thus gets driven by the blind force of an unexamined habit,

whereby we make an unclear assumption about duality."

 

"Each change or difference expresses that unchanged and

undifferentiated reality."

 

"Perception and conception show

what's true and real covered up

with an appearance that confuses

what is true with what is false."

 

Pranams Ananda-ji

 

As usual, simply brilliant!!!

 

Thanks for sharing that beautiful poem and those wonderfully

articulate thoughts.

 

Hari Om

Shyam