the Self, who remains always the unchanging Ether of Consciousness

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ADVAITA BODHA DEEPIKA[LAMP OF NON-DUAL KNOWLEDGE][Originally

Sri Shankaracharya and other great Sages hadwritten several works like the commentary on the Vedanta Sutrasand thus furnished the methods for those engaged in Self enquiryto accomplish their purpose.From those, Sri Karapatra Swami later condensed thesalient

points

into

Sanskrit

verse

in

a

work

of

twelve

chapters,called Sri Advaita

Bodha Deepika.Still later, some great man seems to have translated thisinto Tamil prose. For some unknown reasons only some eightchapters

of

the

same

are

found

published.]ON SUPERIMPOSITIONDisciple: How can birth and death be illusory?Master: Listen carefully to what I say.107-109. Just as when jiva is overcome by sleep, thebearings of the waking state give place to new ones of dream inorder to reproduce past experiences, or there is total loss of allexternal things and mental activities, so also when he isoverpowered by coma before death the present bearings arelost and the mind lies dormant. This is death. When the mindresumes the reproduction of past experiences in new settings,the phenomenon is called birth. The process of birth starts withthe man's imagining "Here is my mother; I lie in her womb;my body has those limbs." Then he imagines himself born intothe world, and later says "This is my father; I am his son; myage is such and such; these are my relatives and friends; this finehouse is mine" and so on. This series of new illusions beginwith the loss of former illusions in the coma before death, anddepends upon the results of past actions.110-113. The jiva overpowered by the unreal coma beforedeath has different illusions according to his different pastactions. After death, he believes "Here is heaven; it is very lovely,I am in it; I am now a wonderful celestial being; so manycharming celestial damsels are at my service; I have nectar fordrink," or, "Here is the region of Death; here is the God ofDeath; these are the messengers of Death; oh! they are so cruel— they pitch me into hell!" or, "Here is the region of the pitrs;or of Brahma; or of Vishnu; or of Shiva" and so on. Thusaccording to their nature, the latencies of past karma presentthemselves before the Self, who remains always the unchangingEther of Consciousness, as illusions of birth, death, passage toheaven, hell or other regions. They are only delusions of themind and not real.114. In the Self of the Ether of Consciousness, there is thephenomenon of the universe, like a celestial city seen in midair. It is fancied to be real but is not indeed so. Names andforms make it up and it is nothing more.