The text on Tathva Botha deals with five topics.
They are:
1. Sadana Vicharaga – enquiry into preparatory qualification.
2. Vehesti Vicharaga – enquiry into the nature of the individual human being.
3. Samasti Vicharaga – enquiry into the nature of total creation.
4. Ikya Vicharaga – enquiry into the oneness of the essential nature of the individual and the essential nature of the total.
5. Sadana Palaricharaka – enquiry into the means of acquiring this knowledge and the benefit of acquiring the knowledge.
Sadana Vicharaga
Vedantic study will give full benefit only when the student has four fold qualifications. They can be presented as Discrimination, Dispassion, Discipline and Desire.
Discrimination is the understanding that anything which is anithya cannot give lasting support to human being for getting peace, security or happiness. I should rely upon the eternal for lasting peace, security and happiness. Only eternal is reliable.
Dispassion is to take a serious decision in life; A decision like I don’t rely upon anything not eternal for my peace, security and happiness. I don’t want to philosophically depend upon temporary relationships. This decision will come after a lot of pains that one faces in life. These are the pains caused by depending upon the unreliable.
Desire is to take a firm intellectual decision that instead of depending upon the temporary unreliable one, I will depend upon the permanent reliable one. Nithyam is the permanent reliable one and is called Brahman.
Discipline is preparing the entire personality for the spiritual journey. One discipline is the sensory discipline by not being a slave of sense organs. Second is not being a slave of emotional disturbances. That is to have a psychological balance of mind; to have an intellectual focus. In spite of family life I will concentrate. In spite of material pursuit, I will spend quality time for spiritual pursuits. Karma breeds more karma. I should have quality time and clear time for spirituality. I should have faith in scriptures and the teacher. Teachers don’t have any ulterior motive and don’t have any axe to grind. They are only to help me and I am going to benefit from their teachings. There should be a perfect understanding and complete surrender to the guru and sasthram. Otherwise I am the loser. I should have the mental toughness to withstand smaller pin pricks in life. If I don’t have tolerance and endurance I will be doing parikaram for even a mosquito bite. I should develop a thicker skin like a Buffalo (told in positive sense). A balanced mind together with a focused intellect should be there for me. Six chapters in the “Bhagavad Gita” are dedicated for Karma yoga and Upasana Yoga.
Vehesti Vichara
This refers to the enquiry into the nature of the individual. One is material component and the other is the spiritual component. Material component is the Anathma and the spiritual portion is the Atma. Material portion is divided into 11 parts. 3 gross bodies (Stula sariram, Sukhshma sariram and Karana sariram). 5 layers of personality (Anatomical layer, Physical layer, Psychological layer, rational thinking personality, Anandha Maya the dormant potential layer; the unconscious layer). Plus 3 states of experience called Avasta (Waking experience and the sleep).
Physical body is experienced by me and you also. Subtle body is that part of mind which can be experienced by me only and not by another. Viz. my mind, thought, experience. Causal body is that which is not accessible to me and also others. When I am in sleep my entire personality is dissolved. (Blank condition).
Every individual has got Stula, Sukshma and Karana sariram as material component. They are inert by themselves. They appear sentient (conscious) because they buy consciousness from somewhere. The Spiritual component is that Consciousness principle which is called Athma and is invisible. Athma is chaitanya Swaroopam/ Gnana swaroopam. Athma is neither a matter nor a material. We can say that Athma is a non material principle. In English we call it spiritual principle.
Consciousness alone is elaborated in the Upanishads. The five features of consciousness are as under:
1. Consciousness is not a part or product or the property of the body (inert). Moonlight is not a part of the moon. Moonlight is not the attribute of the moon.
2. Consciousness is an independent principle which pervades and enlivens the body. Sun pervades the moon and makes it bright. So also consciousness pervades the 11 anathmas and enlivens the 11 anathmas.
3. Consciousness is not limited by the boundaries of the body and extends beyond the boundaries, which is all pervading (just as sunlight pervades the entire sky) but invisible like space.
4. Consciousness will continue to exist even if the body or matter disintegrates. It is eternal. It is an independent principle and survives the death of the body.
5. Consciousness which is surviving is not accessible to us. After the disintegration of the body the surviving consciousness is not experienced by us. It requires a medium for its experience. (Not for existence). This consciousness principle is called Athma. Another name of athma is ‘SAT’ (Sathu). Whatever exists in all the three periods of time without undergoing any change. Any material will constantly change. Its appearance and disappearance. Birth and death. Consciousness principle is changelessly permanent. It is called ‘SAT’ (sathu). Time, Space and world (cosmos) evolved in consciousness and got resolved in consciousness. Their dissolution will not bring about any change in consciousness. Athma is also ‘Chit’. Third name for athma is ‘Anandam’ (sugam). Athma alone is the only source of anandha. Entire material principle has no iota of anandha. We can take an example of Dog biting a bone. We are like the dog. Every sense object in the world is like a bone. There is only one source of happiness. That is “I” the spiritual principle. Athma is the eternal source of Anandha. Defenition of Athma is SAT, Chit, Anandha. Satchitanandha swaroopa. Consciousness in lack of medium is unrecognizable. Since it is eternal consciousness, it is called “Satyam” (satyam), “Anandam” (source of happiness) and “Chit” (eternal). Every individual is a mixture of Anathma and Athma.
Third topic: Total Creation
Entire creation already existed even before its arrival. Just as a tree exists in a seed form under the ground before its arrival. The seed form is called MAYA. Consciousness is eternal and all pervading. Maya is called Karanam in Sanskrit. Maya is karana prabhancha which is the universe in seed condition. From karana prabhancha arose five subtle elements called panchasukshma Boothani. Invisible things of the creation. Mind and Prana are born out of this subtle element and are called bouthika prapancha. These 5 elements mingled together and created our body (bouthika prabancha). All this evolved gradually like seed becoming a plant and plant becoming a tree. All our minds and bodies are included in the creation. Entire creation is a mixture of Sthula, Sukshma and karana prapancha. They are material in nature and are inert by themselves. All the six Viz. 3 sarira and 3 prapancha are floating in the eternal all pervading consciousness called athma. This is the nature of the creation.
Fourth Topic: IKYA Vicharaga
Consciousness by itself doesn’t have any attribute or property. All attributes belong to matter only. Space has no form or colour. Still we talk about space in a hall. Consciousness is nirgunam by itself. This nirguna expressed through matter is reflected or manifest in matter just as our face reflects in a mirror. Ikyam is the identification of the body between micro and macro. Universe has three layers Viz. Karana prabancha (Maya or Anadhi; beginningless time), Sukshma prapancha and Stula prapancha.
Brahman expressing through material medium is called jeevatma. Unifying intelligence expressed through prapanjathraya is called paramathma. Superficial difference between jeevathma and paramathma is the difference in medium. Essentially there is no difference as both are one and the same only.
Mahavakiyam: Jeevathma and Paramathma are superficially different but essentially they are one and the same. Aham Brahmasmi. All Upanishads have mahavakiyam as central teaching and says jeevatma and paramathma are one and the same. .
I am ekathma obtained in charirathrayam. Iswara is another word for paramathma. An ignorant person differentiates jeevathma and paramathma (Eswara) but they both are one and the same. Thinking about smallness of mine is called samsara. I am all. I am the eternal Brahman. This is elevating ourselves from dasogam (I am a slave of god) to Sogam (I am god itself). God refers to nirguna chaithanyam.
Fifth Topic: Gnana sadana and Gnana Palam.
Gnana sadana is the study of scriptures under the guidance of a Guru. This is called Guru Shastra upadesam. One has to undergo a spiritual education program. It is not a crash program. If you use a crash program it will crash within a week. Clarity of freedom from Athma angle is called jeevan mukthi. While I am alive, I learn to accept the limitations and problems of anathma. Learning to accept anathma and claim freedom from athma. Learn to contribute and accept. Don’t try to control anything from your own body. Viveka mukthi is bringing the punya papa karma into NIL balance. The whole sanchita karma gets burnt by the power of knowledge. Childs action does not attract legal punishment since a child has no ego. So also a Gnani who is like a child has no ego. His sanchita karma gets burnt because of his power of knowledge. His Agami (Punyam and Papam) is NIL. Prarabhda karma for a Gnani gets exhausted at body level. He hands over entire anathma to Bhagavan. I am only a caretaker of Bhagavan’s body. I am only an Athma. His prarabhda gets exhausted. Thus gnani’s sarirathrayam merges into Bhagavan Prapanchatrayam.
PURNAMADAH
PURNAMIDAM
Om pUrNamadah pUrNamidaM pUrNAt pUrNamudachyate
PUrNasya pUrNamAdAya pUrNamEvAvashiSyate
Om ShAntih ShAntih ShAntih…
PurNam, the single noun in the verse, is a beautiful Sanskrit word which means completely filled - a filledness which (in its Vedic scriptural sense) is wholeness itself, absolute fullness lacking nothing whatsoever. Adah, which means ’that’, and idam, which means ’this’, are two pronouns each of which, at the same time, refers to the single noun, pUrNam:
PUrNam adah - completeness is that,
PUrNam idam - completeness is this.
The first verse of IshAvAsyOpaniSad, following the SantipATa (Prayer Verse) makes clear that idam is used in the traditional sense of all driSya, all known or knowable things:
idam sarvam yat kinca jagatyAm jagat
all this, whatsoever, changing in this changing world...
Verse 1, ISAvAsyOpaniSad
Given this meaning, idam, this swallows up all ’that’s’ subject to becoming ’this’; in other words, idam stands for all things capable of being known as objects. So when the verse says pUrNam idam, "completeness is this", what is being said is that all that one knows or is able to know is pUrNam.
So far, then, the first two lines of the verse read:
PUrNam adah - completeness is I, the subject AtmA, whose truth is Brahman, formless, limitlessness, considered creation’s cause;
PUrNam idam - completeness is all objects, all things known or knowable, all formful effects, comprising creation.
I am PurNam
The reality of I is limitless pUrnam. I as seer of the stone am but an appearance, no more real than the stone I see. In reality I am limitlessness alone, one nondual existent boundless consciousness - pUrNam. Subject and object are nothing but passing projections superimposed upon I; they neither add to I nor take anything away from I. I, unconnected to any appearance, am the One unchanging, nonnegatable formless reality - pUrNam - into which all appearances resolve.
I am pUrNam, completeness, a brimful ocean, which nothing disturbs. Nothing limits me. I am limitless. Waves and breakers appear to dance upon my surface but are only forms of me, briefly manifest. They do not disturb or limit me. They are my glory - my fullness manifest in the form of wave and breaker. Wave and breaker may seem to be many and different but I know them as appearances only; they impose no limitation upon me - their agitation is but my fullness manifest as agitation; they are my glory, which resolves in me. In me, the brimful ocean, all resolves. I, pUrNam, completeness, alone remain.
Om ShAntih ShAntih ShAntih
Om purnam-adah purnam-idam
purnaat purnam-udacyate.
purnasya purnam-aadaaya,
purnam-eva-avashishyate
The literal translation:
That is infinite, this is infinite;
From That infinite this infinite comes.
From that infinite, this infinite removed or added;
Infinite remains infinite.
A simple translation:
Brahman is limitless, infinite number
of universes come out
and go into the infinite Brahman,
Brahman remains unchanged.
The dictionary meanings of the most important word "Purna" in this verse are: full, whole, complete, boundless, accomplished, and powerful. The word Anant (limitless) has also been used to describe Brahman in Upanishads and Ramayana. Therefore we have chosen the word limitless or infinite. Mathematically, the word "limitless" fits better than "complete" or any other word to describe the indescribable Brahman in our opinion. Taittreeya Upanishad (verse 2.1.1) defines Brahman as Satyam (existence), Jnanam (consciousness, Chitta), Anantam (boundless) Brahma. This Upanishad also states Brahman is that from which everything comes from, is sustained, and into which everything enters into in the end (verse 3.1.1). Brahman desired let me be many (verse 2.6.1).
Looking at the literal translation, a new student or any first time reader of Vedanta can get confused. But, as we will see, this verse is very profound. It is so profound that someone said: Let all the Upanishads and Vedic literatures disappear from the face of the earth, I don’t mind so long as this one verse survives and remains engraved in the mind of even a single individual. This is not an ordinary verse. It contains the Vedic vision, the universal Truth of oneself. It answers the fundamental question: Who am I and how should I live in the world?
Everything is limitless, infinite Brahman.
The first part of this great mantra says that everything, known objects of the world or unknown spirit (Atma), is nothing but the limitless Brahman. Gita also says in verse 7.24: Everything is Krishna or Para Brahma Paramatma. There is nothing that is not Brahman. There is Brahman only and nothing else in the universe and that Brahman is limitless, infinite, one of a kind, and the source and sink of the entire cosmos.
Our experience indicates that all the objects that we see seem to be limited in space, time, and in many other ways. Then how can everything in the universe and the world be unlimited? Atma or spirit is considered limitless, but how can visible objects, such the world and our bodies, be called infinite? Can we call everything as infinite? The ocean can be called limitless, but not the waves. Some waves are quite large, some are small, but all are limited in time and space. The waves appear limited as long as we look at the waves and ocean as separate or "dual" entities. If we consider the wave as part and parcel of ocean or consider both as water only, then the wave is limitless like the ocean. From a non-dualistic viewpoint if ocean is limitless, so is the wave, because both the ocean and the wave are a single, non-dual entity. Thus from a dualistic view point, the wave "appears" incomplete, and limited, but is really infinite as the ocean itself. Thus, if there is only a single entity, then the question of one being infinite or complete and the other limited or finite does not arise at all. If we consider we are not the body, but the infinite spirit residing in the bodies, then, we are limitless and infinite.
Duality is apparent, not real.
The negation of duality means negation of the reality of duality, but not the negation of the experience of duality. The experience of duality that we see in real life is apparent or relative, called unreal in Vedanta. From a dualistic viewpoint, a small wave is afraid of being swallowed by the large wave and prays to the ocean for protection from large waves. This is what prayers and worship are. From a non-dualistic point of view, there is no such fear. Everything in the world is an interaction, a play, a cosmic drama, only. Vedanta acknowledges duality as apparent -- not real -- experience of difference between various objects. The Unity appears diversified. The experience of non-duality brings joy, bliss. Even a temporary escape from duality and the experience of non-duality during Samadhi (or superconscious state of mind) brings bliss and peace. The literal elimination of duality in Samadhi is temporary and beyond easy reach of everybody. A complete and full negation of the reality of duality has a permanent, wonderful, blissful, effect on our entire psyche.
The experience of duality does not create problem as long as we fully understand that duality is apparent and not real. And I am not different or separate from the world, and the world is not different from me. Everything is Brahman only. The limitless, infinite or non-dual Brahman also means that no entity other than Brahman exists in the cosmos. Brahman is both the creator and the creation. In other words, Brahman is both the material and efficient or instrumental cause of the creation, the cosmos. There is no other cause or existence, except Brahman.
Brahman is both the material and efficient cause.
Vedanta cites two beautiful examples of how one and the same entity can be both the material and instrumental cause of creation. One example is that of the spider who creates its web from the material within itself. The spider is both the creator and creation, the web. The entire creation, both visible and invisible, comes out during the creative cycle and gets dissolved or sucked into Brahman during great dissolution (Gita 9.07). Brahman brings the material from within, weaves the beautiful and wonderful tapestry called the cosmos, and takes it all within again and again, just as the spider does.
Another example is the dream world where the dreamer is both the material and instrumental cause of his dream world. The cosmos is created as the cosmic mind’s dream creation. When we dream, both the subject (or the creator) and the objects, the dream world (or the creation), happen to be the dreamer himself. The dreamer’s mind is both the material and creative cause of the dream. When we fight a dream-war in a dream-battlefield, the warriors on both sides--- the bombs, bullets, rocky terrain, the land mines, nurses, ambulance and medical supplies --- are all none other than the dreamer himself.
Thus, the first half of this great Upanishadic verse beautifully tells in a nutshell that the limitless Brahman is both the material and efficient causes of creation. The creation comes from the creator, and both the creation and the creator are infinite and the same. There is no entity in the cosmos other than the creator. He has become all, and He is all, and He is in all.Om purnamadah purnamidam purnaat purnam-udacyate.
Brahman undergoes no change to become world.
Now, what happens to the infinite when infinite creations come out of it during creation and goes into it during dissolution is explained in the second half of the verse that states: purnasya purnamaadaaya, purnam-eva-avashishyate. After taking away the infinite creation from the infinite Brahman during the creative cycle or adding infinite universes to the infinite Brahman during the great dissolution, the infinite Brahman alone remains in His infinite Universal form. This can be mathematically expressed as infinity, plus or minus infinity, equals infinity. This infinite Universal form of Krishna, the Brahman, was revealed to Arjuna and is described in the eleventh chapter of the Bhagavad-Gita in great detail.
The limitless Brahman remains unchanged even after countless universes come out of it. What kind of change does the limitless transcendental form have to undergo to produce limitless visible and invisible worlds? Actually, there is no real change during the process of this transformation because nothing is created or destroyed in the universe. It just changes form, and a name-change goes with the new form. According to the law of conservation of energy, energy or matter can never be created or destroyed, but only can be transformed from one form to another; from the invisible form to the visible form. Much later, Einstein came up with the same conclusion when he proposed his famous equation: E= mc2. Thus Brahman does not undergo any intrinsic change when infinite, visible cosmos come out of it. Lord Krishna says in the Gita that the visible infinite world is just a tiny fraction of His energy (Gita 10.41-42).
Several examples can be given of such a change. The dreamer does not undergo any change when the objects of the dream-world come out of him. Cotton appears as cloth without undergoing a real change. The cloth is nothing but cotton in a different form. The gold chain comes out of gold without any real change in gold itself. Similarly, clay appears as pot. Clay remains clay before the creation of the pot, during the creation of the pot, and after the pot is destroyed. There was no pot ever; it was clay all the time. Clay appeared as pot; water appears as ocean waves and bubbles; gold became a chain; dreamer became dream objects without undergoing any real change. Similarly, the rope appears as snake in the darkness of night, and the non-dual Brahman appears as dual world due to our mental conditioning created by the darkness of ignorance. The visible world and all its objects are nothing but the invisible--- but not formless--- Brahman only. This verse leads us to discover that I am not this body, but the limitless spirit which I longed to be.
Religion divides, spirituality unites.
Thus, the creation, an effect, is not different from its material and instrumental cause, the imperishable Brahman (see Gita Chapters 13 and 15). The objects of the world do not have to be eliminated, given up, or even completely negated as the dream-objects to see Brahman everywhere and in everything (Gita 6.30). The chain need not be melted to see the gold in it. Similarly, one need not leave the world to see or find God. In a piece of cloth, the weaver is not hidden inside the cotton or the yarn, but in the creation; the creator is not only the material and the efficient cause, but He is present in every atom of the creation. This is the difference between human engineering and the cosmic engineer. The cosmic mind manifests Himself in different forms. This is the knowledge of transcendental science, so simple and beautiful.
The entire creation is His body, a divine manifestation that one must learn to love, respect and revere. There is no sin or sinner, just different masks of the supreme. The sinner is the one who is unripe mango, very sour and bitter while a true saint is the juicy, sweet, flavorful, ripe mango.
This understanding of spirituality will bring a fresh outlook, a refreshing breeze of fresh air of understanding persons of other faiths, cultures, and countries. It will enrich our individual lives, if not change the world overnight. It can be concluded that an understanding of non-duality is spirituality and duality is the partial knowledge and understanding of any religion. This partial knowledge of so called religions has created the conflicts and religious wars that can only be eliminated with the Vedic science of non-dual transcendental or metaphysical knowledge so beautifully explained in the Vedic scriptures such as the Gita and the Upanishads. This single Upanishadic verse has the essence of spirituality and the true religion. It can bring peace, understanding, and harmony in the world and in our personal lives. One does not have to change one’s religion to become spiritual.
Be Blissful.
S.SEKAR
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