Paramarthika Satyam and Vyavaharika Ishvara

VyAvakahrika Ishvara

It is very important to understand the individual and his relationship with the vyavaharika ishvara.

Individual

I am an individual, and so are many others. When you see a child, you realise the child is an individual in his own right. He is indeed a new arrival into the world, and he is finding and learning about the world through HIS sense organs, every day. He has a certain individuality about himself, and as an individual, he is limited.

As an individual everyone is limited in terms of their capacities, and have limited knowledge, limited power and strength, limited capacities, and try to make the best out of those capacities.

Jagad

The individual jiva, is endowed with mind and a body, mind residing within the body.
This body mind, if you look at it, is a MEDIUM for the jiva to experience the jagad. Hence the jagad INCLUDES the body and the mind of the jiva to. However the difference being , the jiva has a special relationship with the specific body and mind. He is specially connected to the mind, and to its constituents.

Here the model of sukshma sharIra is essential to understand. In the sukshma sharirA, the individual carries the vAsanAs of past in the form of subtle mind, and all the subtle sense organs behind the physical sense organs.

There is also the kArana shariram, which is the cause of the other bodies, karana shariram is total ignorance only.

Now all of the mind and its constituents etc. perform actions as determined by the jiva in the intellect, and these actions have relationship with the external jagad.

DevatAs
There is a cause effect relationship of the jagad with the actions performed by jiva, and this relationship is managed by devatAs, who control the jagad. The devatAs are also conscious beings, who are also originally created by brahma, but are not equivalent to parameshvara, they need not have complete knowledge like parameshvara.

Vyavaharika ishvara or parameshvara

Parameshvara is the cause of everything, including devatas, the individuals and the jagad, he is both the maker and the material. In parameshvara there is no ignorance whatsoever, he is aware even of the ignorance of the jiva, and he also knows what the jiva doesnt know also.

Hence he is sarvajna, all knowing.

Paramarthika satyam

What we discussed so far was vyavaharika, what we observe in our life and what exists.

But vedas discuss also about paramArthika. PAramarthika means that which is More true than vyavaharika.

Per vedas, the jiva, the jagad , the devatAs and parameshvara, are all ONE non dual vastu, which appear to be different due to different upAdhis, or different appearances of name form and function.

The one vastu which is non dual, is nameless, formless, functionless.

However the important teaching is that this vastu is none other than the jivAtma himself.

The jivAtma appears to have the limitations of the 3 sharirams, but simple enquiry reveals that the jivAtma is the conscious knower, who is aware of the 3 sharirams, and is separate from the 3 bodies.

Since he is the knower, he is the non material consciousness principle, and the 3 bodies which are material in nature, gain their existence and appear to be conscious only due to the jivAtma.

This knower jiva also is a knower only w.r.t the mind, through which an object is known.
But by himself, he is pure knowledge or consciousness.

It is indeed the same jivatma, the consciousness, which is also the paramatma, which is the universal consciousness, w.r.t the upAdhi of sarvajna, all knowingness, that is the causal body of the jagad namely mAya.

Therefore if you look at the atman I, it is actually only 1.

The maya or the jagad , it doesnt have any reality of its own, and purely appears to exists only due to the existence lent by the jivatma or rather atma, which is also paramatma, which is the one non dual atma, chaitanya svarupa or brahman.

Hence atma is indeed brahman.

Differences

It is a fact that there is different names and forms.

The fact that there are names and forms, will obviously go alongwith the presence of differences.

Differences can be in terms of attributes, and also in terms of degrees of the same attribute.

For example glow is an attribute.
Shine is a degree of glow.

These differences are what make the jagad, however these differences are all existing, but share a common existence, they exist out of a common edifice, which is the attributeless being.

I am that attributeless being, which gives reality and existence to all the attributeful beings. In me there is no more or less, I am purnatvam.
When we say less glow and compare glow of a candle to a sun or star, we only look at the intensity or density of the attribute, but if you look at the truth of both, you will see the relative moreness or lessness is only in terms of the manifest attribute level differencr, but the truth of both candle light and suns light is light itself , which is fully light and in itself lacks nothing, neither is subject to growth or decline. It is pUrnah.

Parameshvara is an attributeful being, who is the cause of the universe of attributes, he manifests and withdraws the attributeful jagad into himself.

All the jivas are also within this parameshvara, but appear to have birth, death and are subject to laws of  karma.

The talk in this sphere is talk of duality or differences.

But the atman resides at the level of one being, which is the giver of being to both supreme being and the individual beings that take shape in this world, which is upheld by the supreme being.
So atma is pUrnah and this purna atma alone appears as both individual and supreme being.

The individual being itself, in that way can be considered an offshoot or a glory of the supreme being.

The individual being is an imagination of the supreme being, who manifests and pulls back the individual beings and is present as the supreme maintainer of the universe.

How experience along with reasoning will confirm the shAstra pramAna

When I see an object, and in the waker experience, there is

1. The mind as the knower of objects
2. The particular state of the mind which is the thought form
3. The object external to the mind

But if I look at 'I', I is giving existence and consciousness, to the limited mind, which has to know many things.

Now any object, it IS, but we see that through other means of knowledge, we are not able to understand what it is.

Like when we say sky or water, water and sky are name and form. The name and form IS.
But what IS that IS, what is its nature, that we can perhaps say that it  IS existence. But it looks highly likely that the sky has independent existence of its own.

This is false, because sky as we say sky, does not even have homogenous blueness, it is made of composites. Water is made of composites, so we will have to keep going to the atomic smallness to look for existence. But we are assuming many "small" existences combine to form a "big" existence.

This can be easily proven wrong. let us take infintely small existence.
If existence is infinitesimally wrong, adding infintesimally small numbers does not lead to any tangible value. The smallness also is infinite and is not limited only by measurement.

Therefore the fundamental error is to determine that existence can be measured or has a measurable dimension, while at the same time, we can certainly say, that anything that is measured DOES have existence.

Smallness or Bigness of existence- The limits of scientific theory

Let us take any substance say Water. Water is made of composites, so we will have to keep going to the smaller level to look for existence. We go down to a microscope and observe phenomenon that we call as atoms, which we further observe and infer and call them protons , neutrons electrons, then we durther go smaller and see bosons nuetrinos and so on.

But there is a fundamental mathematical issue here.

But we are assuming many "small" existences combine to form a "big" existence.

This can be easily proven wrong. let us take infintely small existence.If we go down the route of breaking existence down to its parts, and assume that existence is a small part, that combines to form a larger whole, then

If existence is infinitesimally wrong, adding infintesimally small numbers does not lead to any tangible value. The smallness also is infinite and is not limited only by measurement.

Therefore the fundamental error is to determine that existence can be measured or has a measurable dimension, while at the same time, we can certainly say, that anything that is measured DOES have existence.

Brahman alone exists

What exists is brahman alone.
But because of the upAdhi called mind, it looks as though mind exists.

When a person feels happy, that happiness is not intrinsic to the mind at all.
There is no such thing as a happy mind, that exists independently.

States of mind are due to ignorance, or due to upAdhi as a result of prArabdha karma.
No state of mind can compare to brahman.

Every moment implies an experience, and this includes the experience of the emotional state of mind.
When the mind is aborbed in knowledge, it is as good as destroyed. This destroyed mind is not completely destroyed, rather its viskhepa, or its potential to project subjectivity is destroyed.

But due to its prArabdha karma, the essential nature of mind still continues, which is its ability to reflect and to stay. This is what is the Ananda experienced by a jivanmukta, due to the reflection of the self as a result of prArabdha karma.

Leading a Religious Life - Part 1

Leading a Religious Life - Part 1

As a householder or student and as a person playing various roles in the society, beyond a certain age, every person is challenged with the two fold commitment of duties and responsibilities.A householder be it a mother or a father has responsibility towards the children, and the grandparents, as well as towards other members of the extended family. This includes financial responsibility as well as responsibilities in terms of time.The same person also has duties to fulfill towards the society, towards the nation and so on. As a hindu he has duties towards ancestors and as a human towards birds animals and even the devatAs.The person has to realise that in a life of a householder, it comes with all these different sets of duties and responsibilities.

In this post, I do not wish to expand on the list of responsibilities, but want to emphasise on a key point, that every duty or responsibility is a shared responsibility.

Whenever we perform any task or action, towards a particular result, it is never performed alone. For every task we need the help of other people, material resources, cooperation from others , as well as a host of other factors that are not under our control. Therefore no task is every performed alone, but there is always a shared responsibility.

Just like raising a child is not just the responsibility of mother, but father also has to contribute, same way running the household also, both husband and wife undertake as a joint responsibility.

As a religious person, as a hindu, I am able to recognise that this performance of responsibilites and duties is not only shared by the members of the household, but every action and its result, also preserves the very presence of bhagavan in those actions.

Life is a series of decisions, and every decision or effort comes with a certain result that affects the family. It is humanly impossible, as well as factually Untrue, if the person believes falsely that the Entire responsibility is on HIS shoulders alone.

Not realising the concept of shared responsibility, a family is put under stress of having to take responsibility, not only for performing an action, but also for having to worry over the result of the action. If the results do not go as planned, the person ends up with self blame and guilt and ends up blaming himself and treating oneself as a failure.

Additionally while undertaking decisions, the person does not seem to be able to decide which path to take for the greatest good, and is waylaid by wealth and greed, instead of ensuring overall well being for the family and the society.

Whole jagad is like a pot

Whole jagad including you the jiva is like a pot.
Pot is clay. You are that clay, all pervading consciousness.
You transcend the pot. Whole jagad resolves in clay.

To gain this knowledge, you need the qualified mind, which is silent and available for contemplation. In that steadiness you can see the jagad is mithya, and satyam brahman is all pervading. And satyam brahman is none other than oneself.

Mind cannot be 'made' steady by force, force itself is opposite of steady.

One can however enjoy sammatvam, and be relatively free of rAga dvesAs. This can be developed through karma yoga.
This sammatvam is gained by seeing ishvara as order, and jagad as orderly presence of ishvara. In this order we can relax and gain the neccesary sammatvam or qualification for knowledge.

Role of karma and upAsana

Karma yoga and upAsana yoga are a mandatory requirement for all seekers, in order to gain the necessary maturity for knowledge.
The personality has to be tuned towards receiving the guru Krupa . Guru Krupa is readily available. But due to my own raga dveshas interfering and my own ideas ,come in my way.
Through the attitude of yoga towards karma, which is two fold
1. Appreciating ishvara as dharma that connects actions and results and leading a life of svadharma, knowing fully well that svadharma leads to spiritual punya, or readiness for gnanam, by keeping raga dveshas in control and allowing one to be objective.
2. Seeing that ishvara is in both the knowledge and organs of actions , as well as the results of the action in the form of situations and material , seeing ishvara in action and result, I can relax in this order, which is samatvam. This samatvam gives me the mental leisure to pursue knowledge.

If karma yoga is the machine tool, the upasana yoga is the fuel and the oil that keeps the machine running smoothly. Upasana enhances the bhakti, enables us to have the bhagavatha smarana (remembrance of the lord ) always. Upasana is a part and parcel of a karma yogi lifestyle. Foremost of these is a bhakti towards ones ishta devata. Establishing a relationship with the ishta devata, with the goal of moksa, enables one to effectively gain the benefits and deepen the attitude of karma yoga. Deepen the bhakti, leading a bhakti filled aware life of purpose. Ishta devata removes all the obstructions to gnanam, and also takes care of our general well being (yoga kshemam).

With objectivity and mental leisure, I can make myself available to the pramana, I can surrender to the pramana, my own subjectivity can be dropped and the pramana can operate unobstructed, to transform as though , and to remove the ignorance which makes one think jiva and ishvara are separate.