Restoring ones trust in ishvara

In the gita, bhagavan makes his promise, ananyas chintayanto mam, yoh jana paryupAsate, tesham nityabhiyuktAnAm, yogakshemam vayhAmyaham

Those who constantly meditate upon ishvara as the goal, and as non separate from ones own being, to such bhaktas, lord krishna promises that he himself shall take care of the acquisition and preservation related needs.

This is a promise coming from the lord himself, in the gita.

In spite of this promise, if one spends ones life manipulating situations, and considering that as a goal, the mistake is made, since the person is not having the requisite trust in ishvaras words.

The lack of trust is entrenched in ones childhood, and during adulthood, we have no choice but to discover the infallible. This ishvara is infallible, it is an infallible order, and he making a claim or a promise is infallible in its efficacy and direction and effect. Therefore knowing thus one has to trust this ishvara, meditating on ishvara as the infallible one, there is no need to judge him, as how are we supposed to know what is indeed good for us, thereby it is better to leave to ishvara to decide what is best for us, and that is where he himself takes very good care of the bhaktAs yoga and kshemam.

This much is understood from gita.

Now when one comes across situations, people and experiences, this ishvara is what is experienced, and this what is experienced, ishvara, is non separate from oneself, as all that is here has its being in the self alone. So we can be welcoming to life as it unfolds, life as it unfolds is ishvara, and needs to be understood. Needs to be understood as grace alone. What unfolds is not karma phala, it is just grace. Why, what is needed for the individual alone unfolds, this is the shift from a life of bhokta , to a life of grace. Grace is available for tapping, and one can tap the grace by constant awareness of ishvara in all actions and being. Awareness implies that ones own presence first of all, I am, this presence is to be regarded as the very presence of the lord, then the act of knowing, is to be regarded as the presence of the lord, then the ations being performed are to be regarded as actions of the lord, then the events unfolding, and experiences are the play or leela of the lord. This way everything is absorbed in the lord alone. This is what we call as the lords leela.

Rather than while away ones life in acquisition and preservation, the invitation by the lord is to be a participant in his leela. By considering oneself to be non separate from the lords being.

To a true bhakta, what else would he want.

Being objective

What is objective, has to confirm to what IS.

Unless one is objective, one is subject to likes and dislikes, and the world has the capacity to get the better off the individual who has likes and dislikes.

On the other hand, for the one who is objective with regard to what IS, the objectivity in itself, the frame of mind, wherein one is objective, means that there is no possibility of likes and dislikes having a hold over the individual.

Per the vedas, what IS, is ishvara, hence in order to be objective, one has to know what is, which is ishvara.

Therefore, one has to understand ishvara.

Now this ishvara, in general, people consider god as external to oneself.

But if we look at the vedic definition of ishvara, ishvara is sarvam, idam sarvam ishAvAsyam.

Therefore ishvara includes oneself as well.

When we say oneself, the individual, the individual has a certain order in terms of individuals priorities, attitudes, and psychology.

The individual includes a certain psychological order. This order is not something the individual should consider as external to ishvara, one has to recognize, in order to be objective, the individual has to see ones own thoughts, and psychology to be confirming to a certain order, that is ishvara.

Hence if the individual feels angry, or disappointed, such feelings may come out from the unconscious has to be seen a ishvara, as orderly.

This gives space for the individual to make oneself , to consider oneself as unfolding, every moment, in accordance with the order that is ishvara.

Ones desires, and ones own needs have to be examined in the light of the reality of isvara, in order to be truly objective, one has to understand, ishvara ,all the way one has to understand.

This also includes the confusion around oneself, and a removal of that confusion.

The confusion that one is as good as the body mind, is confusion that plagues the individual, it is nothing but lack of objectivity.

If one looks at the reality of oneself, through the vedanta pramana, unfolded per the vedanta sampradaya , by means of a sadguru, it is clear, that oneself is not the body mind, rather oneself is consciousness.

Consciousness is non limited in terms of space. And also being non limited in terms of time, i.e. unchanging in terms of time, consciousness happens to be sat as well. 'sat' the word denoting, a vastu which is unchanging in terms of time, and chit or consciousness is that vastu.
Also the terms non limited itself indicates ananta, limitlessness. Ananda or happiness is a laksana of ananta, hence atma or the self is said to be of the nature of happiness, satchitananda.

Now this consciousness is manifest as the witness in ones own buddhi, in the individual body mind , in the individual buddhi it is manifest as 'I' the witness, who is generally said to be the thinker, knower, doer etc.

The thinker, doer, knower are nothing but statuses, superimposed on the consciousness, only with respect to the individual body mind, and the fact happens to be that the consciousness is not a doer, not a thinker and so on.

The other question is , with respect to the body mind, and the rest of the universe, what is it? If ishvara is sarvam idam, all that is here, then necessarily ishvara has to include the objects as well. If the subject I, is said to be consciousness available as I, then what is the body mind and so on.

The body mind and the objects of the universe , the vedas say, the cause is none other than consciousness itself. Thus atma is the cause, otherwise known as Brahman.

This atma itself is both the material and intelligent cause for the manifest universe.

Manifest universe includes space, time, and the 5 elements.

And when we say the manifest universe is the karya, then it is non separate from the karya.

Here atma is both nimmitta and upAdana kAranam, therefore, the kArya is also absorbed into atma since the effect is non different from the cause.

Here that atma is satyam, unchanging, whereas the kArya is mithya, it is changing and has its reality in atma which is unchanging.

The kArya is not said to be real, concsiousness alone is real.

There is no dvaitam, there is only advaitam, whether you see in terms of vyavahara as the all pervading cause, or as the parmartha as pure conciousness.

vyavahara is mithya.

Vedanta - Two unique aspects part II

In the first part of this post, I had called out the two unique aspects of vedanta.

One is that it gives knowledge of atma, and ishvara both, by using an equation, thus one vastu alone is the subject matter, revealing about both atma and ishvara.

Second one being, atma being subject, and not have any aspects also, the nature of the knowledge it gives, is by drawing an equation between self evident atma, equating it to ishvara, the one who manifests himself as the universe. Point being the vastu here is self evident, and hence the knowledge is simply an equation alone made to a self evident vastu.

There alone we had raised a valid doubt, that how can oneself, the atma be the one who has expanded himself from within himself manifested the universe.

After all if I look at this mind and body, there is no way it has all capabilities to do so.

Here alone shAstra points out the nature of the equation. When shAstra says atma is ishvara , it has already minused out the individual body mind, as "objects" of atma, the knower, and also delegated the knower status to be also only in association with "body mind", hence the truth of the knower alone is said to be atma, consciousness.

This atma is what is said to be ishvara, the one who manifested this entire universe from within himself.

But it is also logically not feasible, if we simply say atma manifested, since in our experience, atma is non changing, it doesnt undergo any change. Hence to make this assimalable, shAstra has to have something more in it, and being flawless, shAstra does talk more about this equation.

ShAstra proclaims that atma, is said to be ishvara, with something extra, which makes it ishvara, this extra is called as "maya shakti", which is power to create the universe.

Now this maya shakti is not an additional material outside of atma, it is atma itself as the material and atma itself as the intelligent cause also.

This means that out of atma with maya shakti alone entire universe as arisen and resolves into.

Now what we call as ishvara, is nothing but atma itself, when looked upon as the cause of the universe, i.e with maya shakti.

Now the doubt can be how come same vastu atma, is both attributeless, and also has maya shakti.

Here also the nature of the this maya shakti is explained . The maya shakti is mithya. The nature of the manifestation, is mithya, which means like gold ornaments, chaing bangle, ring etc. have their truth in one gold, same way entire universe has its truth or satya in atma, and same way as gold is unchanging, same way atma is also unchanging.

It is only from the standpoint of ring, chain, bangle that we say gold is the cause, from its own standpoint, neither is gold the cause, nor has it undergone any change, same way from pov of atma neither it is the cause, nor is their any manifestation, it alone is.

From the standpoint of manifestation , maya which is mithya, atma is satya.

So it all becomes clear when we see two standpoints, satya and mithya.

From satya standpoint, truth, there is one unchanging atma, consciousness IS, oneself.

From mithya standpoint there is a manifest universe, and that manifest universe is mithya, which has its being in satya, the atma. 

Vedanta - Its two unique aspects

Atma is a to be known, it is the subject matter of vedanta shAstra.

In other words, every shAstra deals with some kind of knowledge, vedanta shAstra deals with atma, as the subject matter.

Vedanta also equally deals with ishvara as the subject matter.

The same shAstra deals with both atma, as well as ishvara as the subject matter of its contents, the reason being, that , the knowledge that is available in the shAstra, is one that equates atma to ishvara.

Hence both atma-the self, and ishvara- the universal manifest orderly cause of this creation i.e. the total, are both the subject matter.

Any knowledge has to reveal some vastu. Since vedanta reveals atma, and ishvara, again one must not mistake that two different vastu are revealed, rather one vastu alone is revealed, since this is essentially an equation between atma and ishvara.

So summarising, the first unique aspect of vedanta is that, it has both ishvara and atma as its subject matter, by revealing only one vastu, which is essentially an equation between atma and ishvara.

The second unique aspect of vedanta is as follows.

Any shAstra, or source of knowledge, deals with knowledge of an object, or about an object, which becomes evident to atma, or the knower, oneself.

Since in the case of vedanta, atma itself is the object of knowledge, vedanta becomes very unique, since atma is ever the subject, and never an object, that being the case, it is very puzzling as to how can vedanta become a means of knowledge for atma, which is the subject.

Moreover, it is a fact, that atma is self evident, which means, it does not need to be revealed, everyone always knows that I 'am' , and I am is self evident , doesnt require to be known, hence if it is said that atma is the subject matter of vedanta, this still remains a puzzling aspect.

If one were to say, alright, perhaps atma is already known, but there are certain aspects about it , which one doesnt know, and shAstra talks about those aspects, even that though initially may seem promising, on inquiry this is also found to be illogical.

how can you say so, one may ask.. it is a very logical thing to say, one may argue, One may give an example that, look, suppose I know my son, however there are certain things about my son that even I dont know, and someone , some friend of his tells me, I get to learn a new aspect about him, hence isnt that possible in the case of atma. Perhaps shAstra reveals aspects about atma, which I did not know.

If one is to examine this above argument, it is found to be faulty, the reason being that atma is formless subject. Only objects can have attributes, can have aspects, can be categorised, and can have more attributes about it that can be known. However atma is the formless subject , with no attributes that are 'knowable', If it did have attributes, these attributes would be knowable through a means of knowledge, if it had 'non knowable' attributes, then again it is a logical fallacy, since what is 'non knowable' through any means, is essentially non existent.

So clearly atma is the formless attributeless vastu, being the very content of the subject.

This being the case we can safely negate the assumption that shAstra reveals some aspect of atma, as atma has no aspects.

So atma is self revealing, and atma has no aspects, then the question remains that this being so, how can atma become the subject matter of vedanta shAstra.

Earlier we had said that vedanta gives knowledge of both atma and ishvara. And it equates ishvara and atma.
Hence this can give a clue as to what vedanta reveals.

Vedanta does not reveal anything new, atma being self evident.
However all vedanta does, is, it equates this self evident atma, to ishvara.

And when vedanta says ishvara, it bears upon itself the responsibility to define what ishvara means,

So ishvara is explained in so many words in vedanta, the famous sentences being  " the Upanisadic statement “that from which everything comes into being, by whom they are sustained and unto whom they go back” does not mention any cause other than Brahman. It also quotes: “This (universe) was indeed the unmanifest (Brahman) in the beginning. From that alone the manifest (universe) was
born. That (Brahman) created itself by itself. Therefore, it is said to be the self-creator.”

Asadvä idamagra asét|Tato
tadätmänaggssvayamakuruta|Tasmättatsukåtamucyata iti| Yadvai
tat sukåtam|Taittiréya Upaniñad, 2.7.1.

This is what is said to be ishvara.

Thus when ishvara is equated to atma, then quite clearly, this cause which is called brahman is said to be the self evident atma, oneself.

So this is the second unique aspect of vedanta is that, the knowledge of vedanta is in the form of an equation which has a two sides, and atma that is self evident is equated to being ishvara, the cause for this creation.

Hence no new vastu is revealed rather an equation is made, the equation itself conveying some knowledge.

However any knowledge has to be logically assimilable. One should be able to logically assimilate the knowledge.

In the next post, we can discuss , how this knowledge that atma , is nothing but the one who "desired created all that is here" can indeed be logical.

Knowing and Being

Knowing and being has its reality in the same non dual self. You are that self. The knowing self that you are is the one being, and everthing that IS, draws its being from this one being. This is why we are able to equate jiva and ishvara , known as the mahavakya. The mahavakya is the means to this removal of ignorance, and mistaking the body to be the self. 

By removal of the mistaken notion, one becomes as though, a jivanmukta, liberated while living. This is the pratigna or apropos of the vedas. Hence vedas is indispensable for every human, as every human seeks this freedom alone, in all pursuits.

Vedantic enquiry

Vedantic enquiry

A vedantic enquiry reveals that the self is a formless, is of the nature of pure consciousness  and is independent plus self existent.
The enquiry begins with neti neti, I.e. negating the conclusions that the self is as good as this body.
The self is seen as the knower or kshetrajna, while the body is the known and a portion of the kshetra.
Knowerness is a merely status w.r.t. The known.
Self is just pure consciousness.

This self is called as brahman.

With respect to the kshetra , ब्राह्मण  is said to be , looked upon as the cause. All the kshetra is said to have sprung from brahman itself as the material cause.
Pure brahman is the unchanging material cause. Brahman with the vinas in state of laya is the changing material cause that is mithya. Brahman w.r.t the maya is nimitta or efficient slash intelligent cause also. Called as ishvara.

This completes the bodh, revealing that the self alone is ishvara, which is brahman.

Total absorption with the lord

Total absorption with the lord, or bhakti can only be in the form of surrender.

It is a misnomer to claim that dvaita bhakti and advaita bhakti are at loggerheads.
When properly understood, dvaita bhakti and advaita bhakti are found to be only technically different, but in terms of the attitudinal impact, are same in their total purity.

In dvaita bhakti, we dedicate each and every action of ours to the lord alone, the lord being the total source of all actions, the lord has given us the means of actions, the knowledge required for action, even righteous desires are nothing but a pure expression of the lord alone. The lord alone provides the results of the action. By dedicating ones actions to the lord, and accepting the results as the lords order alone, a karma yogi bhakta, attitudinally surrenders to the lord,and enjoys the same kind of benefit in terms of his mental attitude as an advaita bhakta.

The sole difference between a dvaita and advaita bhakta is essentially the fact that what is an assumed and deliberately cultivated "attitude" for a dvaita bhakta, the same attitude is born of "knowledge" for the advaita bhakta.

For an advaita bhakta, there is only one nirguna brahman, which is indeed the lord. There is no notion of a separate jiva and a separate ishvara, there is only the one, the self and that is ishvara, expressing itself as the cause and the effect, from a mithya standpoint.

So from that standpoint, every action is already absorbed into the lord alone, brahman alone as the sole cause, and brahman alone as the experiencer, brahman alone as the very order of karma and its consequences or fruits.

This total absorption is what we call as advaita gnanam, and the attitude for this jnani is no different from a karma yogi bhakta who has given up the individual ego in an act of total surrender , an attitude of total surrender.