Misplaced beliefs on what is

Oneself is always "what is".

Oneself can never be a concept, as oneself is, and what "is" cannot be a concept, what "is" is real.
It exists.

Same way oneself exists.

So the existence of oneself is not an issue as such, as oneself being existent is ones own svarupa or nature.

What seems to cause issues is the idea that oneself is subject to birth, death etc.

Oneself can be said to be subject to birth death etc. only when we say that I am as good as the body.

See the body is me, however I am the consciousness that enlivens the body.

I am not the body, but the body is me.
I am the consciousness that inheres the body, that pervades the body.


Therefore I cannot conclude that I am the body, and the bodies attributes belong to me.

On the other hand if you take isvara, isvara has a great shakti, which is his body. The maya body resolves into him during pralaya, just as I dont experience this jagad during sleep, including my body.

And then during srshti, the maya evolves, it evolves from a causal state to a manifest state, with ishvara enlivening, or inhering the maya sharira.

The body mind, where I am, which I inhere, this body mind itself is a product of maya.

Maya has become this body mind also, amongst other elements and objects and bodies.

The question is regarding the reality of maya.

When we say Maya IS, the isness belongs to atma. Atma being chetana is existent, maya achetana has no existence of its own, due to chetana atma , we say achetana maya IS,

A sculptors (sirpis) work

I have laid down the tools now
The sculpture is built , it's complete
I can rest and lie back

The breath is now balanced
And the awareness is still,
So is the Lord in front of me

I have lifted out all remaining stones of desire within my heart
And sculpted this secret form
Naay, the sculptor is him

While I was mistaken that I am sculpting ,
All along he was the one sculpting me, from within

The vishvarupa darshana of attributeless cosnciousness - A mahavakya.

When we talk about consciousness being satyam, and jagad mithya, we keep in mind the fact that satyam is arUpa, and mithya is sarupa.

Satyam is attributeless or formless, and mithya has form or attributes.

So when we say vishvarupa darshana of satchidananda, one has to marvel at the usage of the words.

When we see a gold chain, it is chain rupa darshana of the satyam gold. In that case the drshta is different from drshya, since the drshya is a gold chain, while the drshta is a conscious seer.

However in the case of vishvarupa darshana, the drshya is the visva, which includes ones own body and mind, and the one whom we "qualify" with the title of drshta, is in fact the attributeless consciousness , the satyam.

So a vishvarupa darshana of satchitananda is a wonderful mahavakya if we understand it in essence.

Satchidananda is none other than the drshta. The vishvarupa is also none other than than the drshta alone, the rupa being that of the entire visva, known + unknown.

The mind , body, the instruments, the experienced objects, ALL of this is the visvarupa, the seer is very much a part of this visvarupa, is there is a"seen" without a "seer" ever, of course not. i am taking about the here and now experience of oneself, in ones own experience there is always seer and seen, so it is part of the vishvarupa. And what is the satyam of this "vishvarupa", the satyam is the reality which is the drshta oneself.

This really makes it "real" , the fact that "I" is not the experiencer or the experienced, rather "I"is the truth , and the "experienced experienceR" paradigm is the rupa, or visvarupa.

This knowledge alone is what qualifies to be called "visvarupa darshana of attributless consciousness".

The knowledge leaves nothing else to be attained, as everything is engulfed in oneself, and oneself is ever attained.

Gulping the psychological "issues" into ishvara

Isvara is a gulper, the reason being he is the truth of all that is here.

Where there are seemingly problems and issues, the presence of ishvara, gulps up the issues, and makes them seem effortless , or issueless, problemless.

The state of "absence of problems", "Absence of vikalpa/indicisiveness" is in fact a positive presence, which is the presence of ishvara, and this presence can be invited into ones own life, when one is confronted with problems.

The human being for a large part, is the mind, and his own psychological state of action and reaction. Fuelled by ignorance, the human in his psyche is exposed to constant fear, desires, then desire leading to either greed or else to supression or failure based anger, then anger to other states of mind such as jealousy and so on so forth.

This is perceived to be a problem, as every human seeks "peace" and "peace of mind", in fact even if we were to think from a non divine, and transactional or secular perspective, peace of mind is very much needed even for health and conscious excellence in ones daily activities.

As isvara is the gulper of problems, one has to invite isvara within ones own psyche, and this can be achieved by simply "acknowleding" and "recognising" the presence of ishvara, or intelligence, within the psyche, as a psychological "order" or "causal state of being the intelligent order of psychology of humans".
The desire unfulfilled leads to anger is a psychological order of cause and effect, and one has to recognize the very much "helplessness" in terms of the very creation of appearance of these states of mind, one can never looking at it objectively ask the question, why anger occurs to me, as some sort of self criticism, as the occurence of anger and so on, are natural cause effect paradigm or order.
So it is not the very presence of anger that one should seek to solve, as that is simply the gulper ishvara who is appearing as anger or fear.

When one is able to welcome fear and anger as a manifestation of the psychological order, there is enough objectivity to visit the very cause of the fear and anger, and if indeed it is based on any wrong conclusions, driven off the lack of "knowledge".

As the very famous rope snake analogy, if there is a "superimposed" snake on what is really rope, there is BOUND to be fear, the fear if you analyse is , is based on an unreal cause, whoever, appears to be a real fear of snake pending the knowledge that the rope is indeed snake.

If one were to immediately sweat, and start running at the sight of snake, there is not enough objectivity to even discover the rope.

It generally appears we are afraid of fear itself, and angry at the fact that we are angry, based on "sermons" ,  such as "dont be afraid, hide your fear", or else "angry people are bad people and hence control your anger".

These kinds of sermon are  based on a non understanding of the psychological order.

By recognizing the arrival or fear , anger, other emotions as a manifestation of "order" as ishvara, one is able to immediately "relate" to ishvara in ones own states of mind. As a very presence in ones own mind. This "presence" in ones own mind is worshipful, he is the being that is the very psychological order.

Vedanta teaches us about this being, and in fact ends with the conclusion and the message, that this being is in fact oneself, the very truth of the mind as well as the psychological order.

One can enjoy total freedom, no matter the state of mind.

One always tends to place oneself at the receiving end, I am the experiencer of fear and anger, and it ocurs to "me" , hence I am a victim of fear and anger.

However if you analyse objectively with the valid shruti pramana, this is based on a false conclusion about oneself due to ignorance, that one is a bhokta or experiencer only.

Consciousness is not just the experiencer, it is the truth of the experienced and the experience itself.

Consciousness is the non dual ishvara, that happens to be also the experiencer.
This being the case it is objectively untrue that consciousness is "subject to" anger or fear as some form of undesirable state. The conclusion that "I am limited" drives the "desire" to "experience" states of happiness, whereas the knowledge that I am limitless consciousness negates this desire as not required, given and in light of the fact that I am eternally free, rather nitya mukta, and the states of mind , I am simply the awareness lighting them up.

We do not oppose the desire " I must experience happy state of mind", rather we do not get "fixated" with the desire for experiencing happiness, your freedom, or your limitlessness doesnt depend upon it, is what we mean to say.

Bodham Bodham prati viditam

How to see brahman, or know brahman, is pointed out in kena upanisad, i.e kenopanisad

Pratibodha viditam matam

In every cognition, we should recognize brahman.

How to recognize brahman in every cognition?

What is involved in a cognition, in an act of cognition?

We can take an example of an act of cognition.

I see an apple. I is the one who sees, apple is an object of sight, and apple thought is the knowledge or thought that is seen, through which mind ascertains, that I see an apple.

Now how to recognize brahman here?

Brahman, first of all has to be non dual existence, as per the definition given by the shastra.

Secondly brahman has to be consciousness, as well.

Thirdly brahman has to be limitless.

So now how to recognize brahman in "I see the apple".

If we analyse what I refers to, it refers to atma, not the eye or the mind, as the kena upanisad has already clarified, what does I refer to?

I refers to chakshusaH chakshuH, manaso mano yat.

Eye of the eye, and mind of the mind. Hence I here refers to consciousness, because of which eye becomes seer, mind becomes knower, the truth of seer, knower , is consciousness, I.

So here I refers to brahman, in I see the apple, I refers to brahman.

Now what about the "apple thought" and the apple object?

Can we see it is other than brahman?, no we cannot .

If we see it is other than brahman, then the seer brahman, becomes another space bound object. And brahman necessarily has to be limitless.

So how to now see apple thought, and apple object.

Apple thought, is a thought. what is the reality of any thought, the reality of thought is consciousness only.

When we say, apple, mango , banana, each of these are a thought, and what is invariable present, as the truth of the thought, as the reality of the thought is not available as an object of course. If it were an object we cannot say brahman is limitless.

Also if we say it is limited to being subject alone, again we cannot say so, as the truth of the subject is not limited by space.

So only explanation is one given by shastra, the reality of the thought is "I" the consciousness or brahman.

Then finally the reality of the object, apple is also "I".

It seems hard to believe at first, due to the dehatma buddhi, but it is indeed the truth. What is the apple object, apple object has its reality in something else, all that is "seen" is mithya, has its reality in satyam. Brahman is that satyam.

We habitually lend reality to object, reality of their "own", but on little analysis itself, we cannot find any object with a reality of its own.

When we examine a tree, a tree is made of non tree parts, such as leaves, stem, etc.

The leaf itself breaks into multiple "is's" as cholorphyll IS and so on, again multiple "is'es" for different names and forms we say "is" and that makes up the jagad, names within names, nAmani, nAmAni. Many names within one name, there are infinite names. All these are names of what, of the one reality, that reality is sat, and that sat is I.

When we say I see the apple, the truth of I, is indeed the truth of seeing, as well as seen.

Reality of seer, seen, seeing is one atma, oneself. In the seer recognise atma as seer. In the seem recognise it is atma when we say "apple is". The apple thought is also brahman. Thus let the vyavaharik be, in the vyavahara itself recognize seer is brahman, seen is brahman, seeing is brahman. Bangle is gold, ring is gold, chain is gold.

Thus one can recognize, oneself as brahman, in every cognition I remain the non subject, non object brahman. As the subject also, I remain brahman  and non dual, so the subject I becomes a role, which is mithya. The object and the thought is also brahman or atman.

At the level of ahamkara alone we say "I am the seer". That is vyavaharika.  We do not deny the vyavaharika reality that you are indeed the seer of the apple. But when we talk about moksa we recognize the reality to be only vyavaharika, and recognize the fact that I am the truth of all that is here, brahman.

Then only vyavahara is seen objectively as ultimately untrue, only transactionally true.

Atma jnanam is not a theoretical knowledge

There are many branches of worldly knowledge which are theoretical in nature. Mathematics physics etc. Have theoretical knowledge . An example is electron, protons etc. These are theories , we cannot see an electron like we see a tree or an apple. It's a theory.

Students of science when they tend to approach an intellectual field such as vedanta tend to fall into this theoretical trap , approaching vedanta as a philosophical theory .

Nothing can be far from truth, with this wrong approach vedanta loses its purpose.

Vedanta is not practical knowledge either. People might think when I say it's not theory will overlook what I am trying to say and imagine I am now going to say vedanta is a practical thing which leads to peace of mind etc. No that may be a side effect but that's not what I mean here either.

Vedanta reveals a vastu , much like eyes reveal an apple. It's a direct pramana that reveals a vastu.
The only difference being , the nature of the vastu. If the vastu is a remote vastu , new vastu like a wilder beast (a rare wild Buffalo variety in Africa), I can take you to africa and show you wilder beast. But here the vastu is atma. Atma need not be revealed in africa like a wilder beast , , you need not say ahaa atma , amazing . Atma is the one who says ahaa. Or oho. Or ouch. Yourself.
This yourself I already know 'IAm ' then why a means of knowledge ?
That indeed is the issue. You know 'IAm ' , but you say 'i am body'. What this 'i am ' is that you don't know. So shastra points at this 'i am ' and says this 'i am' is ishvara or brahman. Thus atma becomes a to be known vastu. Shastra promises at the end of shravana manana , you will know "I am attributeless consciousness , सतचिदानंद, sat chit anantha, I am " brahman I am.
No other understanding will interfere in this firm knowledge. Where is the question of theory ,it is as good as, it is as good as , in fact even more clear than direct perception , seeing an apple in america sometimes we doubt whether this is green apple or pear or what is this avocado even if the eyes are sharp , but atma no such problems if the mind is cleared up by sadhanas and guru shastra available.

Vedanta is not impersonal, yet objective

Although Vedanta deals with knowledge and is essentially an inellectual pursuit , how we the nature of the knowledge is not like modern science , which is imperonal.

Vedanta cannot be imperson, since Vedanta is about 2 persons, purushas, jiva and isvara. So Vedanta is about as personal as it can get, it is about the fundamental reality about oneself . Oneself is the most dear to oneself and is usually fraught with complexes and emotions , it is very hard to make a study of oneself, as it is such an a emotional thing. How can I be objective a bit myself , people tend to think that in order to be objective and become a study of knowledge it has to be necessarily an impersonal study. However for atma Vidya, impersonal study cannot work, as atma is oneself the person.
But at the same time as it is in any field of knowedge there has to be a certain objectivity involved, just because it is a personal study of isvara and atma, when it comes to knowledge it cannot be subjective.

Vedanta if one truly understands it , is as a matter of fact both deeply personal at the same time totally objective.  And this becomes possible only due to the fact that atma is priyaH, loved. There is tremendous love for oneself, since oneself is worthy of being loved. On self is happiness itself , Ananda and worthy of love. All that human being look for in life is happiness and to be loved and Vedanta tells you , you are worthy, you are the object or love, you are indeed that limitless happiness itself.
Hence Vedanta is in fact deeply personal, at the same time it acknowledges the emotional issues , and attributes them to ignorance. Raga, bhaya, krodha, it attributes to the cause which is ignorance.  It promises objective knowledge that is deeply personal and reveals oneself as the vary nature of wholeness and sweetness.