Shree Madathil Nairji on Advaita

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HARI AUM

 

Below is a post by Shree Madathil Rajendran Nairji on Advaita. I am posting it

with his permission. Hope it is illuminating.

 

Regards

 

Balagopal

 

NARAYANA NARAYANA NARAYANA

 

 

Namaste all.

 

This is my statement of vision on Advaita. It is my touchstone. I

do rub on it any statements that I come across in order to ascertain

their acceptability or otherwise.

 

1. Advaita boils down to the question " Who am I? " and the answer to

it.

 

2. It doesn't primarily concern " Who are we or who are they? "

or " What are we or what are they? "

 

3. When the first question is answered, Advaita assures, the other

questions will be automatically answered.

 

4. The answer to the " Who am I? " question is " I am Brahman " .

 

5. Brahman is sat-chit-Ananda – roughly translated as Existence

(Immortality) , Consciousness / Knowledge and Fullness (without wants)

 

6. Advaita also says that everything is Brahman. It then means

that I am everything.

 

7. Realizing that I am everything is, therefore, self-realization –

the answer to the " Who am I question " .

 

8. This means that, in self-realization, an erstwhile individual

entity `goes' whole into fullness without duality which it

unknowingly was even before. Since BMI is the seat of individuality,

the `transformation' of the individual entity into universal fullness

connotes transcendence of BMI - a full blossoming of the individual

mind into universal consciousness.

 

9. Thus, if individual mind is considered as reflected

consciousness, the realized mind is pure Consciousness. There is

nothing outside it.

 

10. That Consciousness, by the definition above, is both Immortality

and Fullness.

 

11. Thus, with self-realization, the following knowledge should

occur:

 

- I am Immortality (no thought of birth and death)

- I am all Knowledge (There is nothing more to know.)

- I am Fullness (I am everything and I have no wants.)

 

12. This cannot be an understanding as understanding is duality-

ridden with subject-object involvement. THIS IS JUST ME THROUGH AND

THROUGH. That is self-realization – a blossoming forth of the

erstwhile self-evident " I " in me into the full bloom of Wholeness

with which the erstwhile individuality vanishes without a trace.

That Consciousness has nothing outside or inside it to transact with.

 

13. The question is asked: " What then really happens to the self-

realized one? " A logical mind wouldn't bother to answer this. There

is no self-realized *one*. He should be known as a ONE without the

scope for any two. There is no more any happenings in or to that

ONE. He is everything, everywhere, all the time without any tinge of

duality, spatiality and temporality.

 

14. Then, they ask: " What happens to his body? " . Well, as long as

we consider him as a self-realized *one* among us, he needs to have a

body and protect it against bumping into a pillar (someone's worry

here!). This applies to his mind also. He needs it to prepare his

lecture to his disciples and also watch and enjoy the Lord's lIlA

taking place all around him. The self-realized one's body and mind

are simply the botheration of the not-self-realized- ones. We can

have any amount of conjecture on these issues and also find many an

explanation in scriptures. The question to be asked is if that is

the purpose of the last of the puruShArtthA, which is mokSha.

 

15. Those asking the above question forget that they can

never " know " a self-realized one because he is verily Brahman.

 

16. The world is Brahman constantly revealing as Brahman. The whole

purpose of our existence is to submerge in the light of that

revelation and dissolve our individuality in that ocean of Wholeness.

 

17. That cannot happen unless the desire-ridden mind stops hankering

after objects of enjoyment and dissolves its cellular and nuclear

individuality in the universal cytoplasm.

 

18. Brahman, our real nature, is always beckoning. We don't heed

the call in our frenetic perambulations. To those who heed, men of

wisdom emerge from nowhere to hold their hands and help them to the

portals of their own glory. You can call them by any name: jnAni,

brahmaniShta, avadhUta, avatAra – anything. It doesn't matter. They

are the Grace of Brahman manifesting in the world of the *seeker* and

that is very much in the nature of our phenomenal.

 

19. To enquire into the mechanics of such benevolent manifestation

(Questions like: Does it have a mind? Does it need a body? etc.) is

a waste of time when our primary objective is to answer the call of

Brahman – our Immortality. It is just enough to understand that

there is a lot of Grace in the phenomenal and it can come to our

rescue at every turn in any form.

 

BG 4.34 and 5.7-8 are assurances to this effect which attempt to

describe this Grace existing amidst us. Mind you all - these are

descriptions in the phenomenal. It is the phenomenal that clamours

for unending explanations and interpretations.

 

I don't know if I have deviated from Adi Shankara's position. I

confess I haven't read him fully yet and, even if I do, which is just

impossible, I don't think I will understand him fully.

 

Prostrations to Brahman.

 

Best regards.

 

Madathil Nair

 

 

 

 

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