Ramana on Ajata Vada --------

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Ajata vada or the theory of non-causality. This is an ancient Hindu

doctrine which states that the creation of the world never happened

at all. It is a complete denial of all causality in the physical

world. Sri Ramana endorsed this view by saying that it is the

jnani's (Man who is Self-realised) experience that nothing ever

comes into existence or ceases to be because the Self alone exists

as the sole unchanging reality. It is a corollary of this theory

that time, space, cause and effect, essential components of all

creation theories, exist only in the minds of ajnanis (ignorant) and

that the experience of the Self reveals their non-existence.

This theory is not a denial of the reality of the world, only of the

creative process which brought it into existence. Speaking from his

own experience Sri Ramana said that the jnani is aware that the

world is real, not as an assemblage of interacting matter and

energy, but as an uncaused appearance in the Self. He enlarged on

this by saying that because the real nature or substratum of this

appearance is identical with the beingness of the Self, it

necessarily partakes of its reality. That is to say, the world is

not real to the jnani simply because it appears, but only because

the real nature of the appearance is inseparable from the Self.

 

The ajnani on the other hand, is totally unaware of the unitary

nature and source of the world and, as a consequence, his mind

constructs an illusory world of separate interacting objects by

persistently misinterpreting the sense-impressions it receives. Sri

Ramana pointed out that this view of the world has no more reality

than a dream since it superimposes a creation of the mind on the

reality of the Self. He summarised the difference between the

jnani's and the ajnani's standpoint by saying that the world is

unreal if it is perceived by the mind as a collection of discrete

objects and real when it is directly experienced as an appearance in

the Self.