laying bare the non dual Reality

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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 SUPERIMPOSITION161. Disciple: Should heaven and hell and the four stages ofbeatitude (Mukti) be all false, why should a part of the scripturesprescribe methods of gaining heaven or beatitude?162-164. Master: On seeing her child suffer from pain in thestomach a fond mother desirous of administering pepper to thechild, but aware of the child's dislike of pepper and love ofhoney, gently coaxes the child with a smear of honey beforeforcing the pepper into its mouth. In the same way the scripturesin their mercy, seeing the ignorant student suffer in the world,desirous of making him realise the truth, but knowing his lovefor the world and dislike of the non-dual Reality — which issubtle and hard to understand, gently coax him with the sweetpleasures of heaven, etc., before laying bare the non-dual Reality.165. D.: How can the ideas of heaven, etc., lead him on tothe non-dual Reality?M.: By right actions, heaven is gained; by austerities anddevotion to Vishnu, the four stages of beatitude. On knowingit a man practises what he likes among these. By repeated practicesin several rebirths his mind becomes pure and turns away fromsense enjoyments to receive the highest teaching of the nondualReality.166. D.: Master, admitting heaven, hell, etc. to be false,how can Isvara so often mentioned by the scriptures, be alsodeclared unreal?167. M.: Well, passages dealing with Isvara in all His glory,are succeeded by others which say that Isvara is the product ofMaya, and the jiva of Ignorance (Avidya).D.: Why do the scriptures contradict themselves withpassages of different imports?M.: Their aim is to make the student purify his mind byhis own efforts such as good actions, austerities and devotion.To coax him, these are said to yield him pleasures. Beingthemselves insentient, these cannot of their own accord yieldfruits. So an all-powerful Isvara is said to dispense the fruits ofactions. That is how an Isvara appears on the scene. Later thescriptures say that the jiva, Isvara and the jagrat (world) are allequally false.168. Isvara the product of illusion is no more real thanthe dream subject, the product of sleep. He is in the samecategory as the jiva, the product of ignorance, or of the dreamsubject, the product of sleep.