DEIVATHIN KURAL # 95 (Vol #4) Dated 02 Nov 2010

DEIVATHIN KURAL # 95 (Vol #4) Dated 02 Nov 2010

(These e-mails are translations of talks given by Periyaval of Kanchi Kamakoti Peetam, over a period of some 60 years while he was the pontiff in the earlier part of the last century. These have been published by Vanadi Padippagam, Chennai, in seven volumes of a thousand pages each as Deivathin Kural. Today we are proceeding from the page number 531 of Vol 4 of the Tamil original. The readers may note that here in 'man/he' includes 'woman/she' too mostly. These e-mails are all available at http://Advaitham.blogspot.com updated constantly)
28. The mind with which we have identified and integrated ourselves so totally that we think of it as our selves, in fact does not know itself! It does see, hear, touch, smell, taste and imagine other things of the world but never knows itself! Instead, as against this, when the mind is completely immersed in the Self, it knows itself and nothing else as the other! Not only does it not know anything else other than itself, on deeper analysis the mindless self will also know that there is not anything else other than itself! When the tool mind is not there, everything else that we think of as else is the same self! When a man is closing his eyes in a state of ‘Atma Anubhava’, that is in a state of ‘Self Realization’, not only that he does not see the world, there is not anything other than himself, other than the Atma, because the deluding Maya is absent, the separate identity as an individual is not there, the field of all these activities, the world is not there. All that is, is the Atma only! Rest everything is only imagined! (Note: This point about Atma being Oneness without the differentiation of the dimensions of Time and Space will be further explained in greater detail later in this talk on Adwaitam! Though the whole lot of lectures in this Blogspot are under the name of Adwaitham, just for ease of convenience of understanding, from Deivathin Kural # 91 (of Vol # 4) Dated 25 Oct onwards have been covered under the Title ‘Adwaitam’ without the letter ‘h’.)
29. To continue with our analysis, not only that all the things in and on the earth is imagined, the whole lot of planets, stars and galaxies are all also imagined without a basis of existence! Imagined means that they are all appearances sans reality! From us when a fictitious figure is created, on that very basis, it is clear that it is not real and not us. Is it not so? That is, if some imaginary person is made to appear from our real self with some make up and disguise, that figure is not ourselves, is it not so? That figure cannot be created without us, but it is not us. We are the substratum and that figure is a super-imposition. We are the ‘Adhishtaanam’ and that figure is the ‘Adhyaasam’. You cannot have a super-imposition without there being a substratum. Similarly, without the Atma as the basis, the superimposed imaginary mind and illusory world is not there and cannot be there! Take the actor in a drama or cinema. In the character so created is the original actor present? He is seen to be there. But actually, he is not there! In the imaginary mind and world, the real Atma is not there at all! After removing the make-up, the actor just goes on living his life, leaving no reality or substance in the created character, the story of his life and environment whatsoever! The actor is in no way affected by whatever happened to the character depicted, before or during or after such depiction. If the actor was affected in some way, there should have been some dent or cut or mark in him. It is not there except for some monetary income and name and fame, to the actor, in this life. Similarly all the multifarious Jivas, Jantus, animate life forms and inanimate materials of this world are all there as superimpositions which cannot exist without the Atma, but Atma is not in them! That is what Bhagwan Sri Krishna says, “mat-staani sarva bhootaani na cha aham teshu avastitaha” meaning, “all the living and non-living things are there in me; but, I am not in them”!
30. When He says that He is not in Jeeva and Jagat; that means that He is not to be found in all the living things and non-living things of the world. Does it mean that Atma or God is not there in this world? It only means that He is not to be found in all those things where there is individuality of separateness! That imagined separateness or uniqueness, ego, ahankaar, pride is all imagined, assumed and super-imposed and so not true. From where is this I-ness, separateness imagined? Evidently from the non-existent mind of ours only. After a great search though we may finally arrive at a superior Life Principle above the mind, in a jiffy that is set aside and our ego usurps the centre stage. So, in our practical life, the only all dominating power in being seems to be our minds, which runs our lives virtually!
31. What do we call as our lives? Eating, marrying, begetting children, studying, earning, visiting places, buying, selling, listening to music, playing games on play ground / in the casino / the club / in the life itself; seeing cinema or drama, reading novels and those sort of things; is what we call our lives! (Possibly now you can add, talking on cell phone, interacting on the internet through e-mail or chatting or on twitter or texting or on facebook and such things!) Here too the driving force is once again the mind and its thoughts! So, we find that virtually all the lives of all the persons all over the world are running around the thoughts of the minds and actions borne of those thoughts! We are prisoners of our own compulsions of the mind and its thoughts! Thoughts and actions can never about the Atma, is it not so? So, we arrive at the conclusion that, all those conclusions through any process of philosophy or logic or reasoning, in this life in the world are all dependent on the mind, its thoughts and words! So when Bhagwan Sri Krishna is emphatically saying that, “He is not in any of the things of the Jeeva and Jagat”, that is in life forms and the world, its thoughts and actions, it simply means that God is not to be found in any of these things! However, simultaneously it is also true that there can be not an iota of existence without being permeated by the divine being of God! It means that He is not to be found in the mind, any of the thoughts of the mind, mind’s creations of things and actions motivated by the mind!
32. Atma not being in the mind means that they are two different things. Alien to Atma, second to it or other than Atma is the mind. The question arises as to when there can be nothing other than the one and only being of Atma; how can there be another thing? How can it be? I have already answered this question! Let me tell you again! There is a real man. He puts on a disguise as somebody else. Now if you ask me as to whether the man and his disguise are one and the same or two different things, my answer is, Yes and No! They are two different things also and the same also! Some Tom dresses up as a King. If you ask me as to if he is Tom, I will say yes, he is Tom. If you ask me as to if he is the King? I will say yes, He is the King! But he is not the King also! Is the Kingdom his? No! Are the Queen and her children his? No! That King suffered a lot; enjoyed; went for a hunt; gambled and lost; while sleeping he pulled his hair; played on the guitar; happily sang; and so on. Now are any of these experiences, that of Tom? Are any of the losses and gains of the King that of Tom? Once he removes the disguise, is not Tom exactly as before? So, the point made is that, as for the real man, the disguise is totally alien but, does not make any difference to the reality. That is the same relation between Atma and the mind! Now do you understand?
33. Let me give you another example. This is often mentioned in all Saastraas. In the twilight of the evening, a rope is seen as a snake. Rope is real and is the Adhishtaanam (substratum). Snake is the imagined Aaropita Adhyaasam (superimposition). In dim light of the Maya, Atma is seen as the separate Jeevan – that is the mind that I identify as myself. If there was no rope, the snake could not have appeared. Even now the snake has not appeared but is only a super imposition on the rope! Without the rope, that there cannot be a snake is Adwaitam. But, the rope is never the snake. Is it not so? From the point of view of the rope, is there any connection to the snake? For a minute we were panicking on seeing the snake. Is there any responsibility of the rope for the confusion? Was there any change in the rope’s weight because of the appearance of the snake? No! Then in the light of Gnaana when the snake disappeared, was there any addition or subtraction to the ropes weight? When you think of it, there is no snake in the rope and there was no rope in the snake either. Similar is the relation between Atma and mind!
(To be continued.)
Sambhomahadeva.