II
THE SELF AND NON-SELF:
THE REALITY AND THE WORLD
EXISTENCE OR CONSCIOUSNESS IS THE ONLYreality. Consciousness plus waking we call waking.
Consciousness plus sleep we call sleep. Consciousness plus
dream we call dream. Consciousness is the screen on which
all the pictures come and go. The screen is real, the pictures
are mere shadows on it.
The Self and the appearances therein, as the snake in therope, can be well illustrated like this. There is a screen. On
that screen first appears the figure of a king. He sits on a throne.
Then before him on that same screen a play begins with various
figures and objects, and the king on the screen watches the
play on the same screen. The seer and the seen are mere
shadows on the screen which is the only reality, supporting
all the pictures. In the world also, the seer and the seen together
constitute the mind, and the mind is supported by or based on
the Self.
The ajata school of Advaita says, `Nothing exists exceptthe one reality. There is no birth or death, no projection or
drawing in, no sadhaka (aspirant), no mumukshu (one who
desires to be liberated), no mukta [?] (one who is liberated), no
bondage, no liberation. The One Unity alone exists forever.'
To those who find it difficult to grasp this truth and ask, `How
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can we ignore this solid world we see all around us?' the dream
experience is pointed out and they are told, `All that you see
depends on the seer. Apart from the seer there is no seen.'
This is called drishti-srishti vada, or the argument that one
first creates out of his mind and then sees what his mind itself
has created.
To those who cannot grasp even this and who further argue,`The dream experience is so short, while the world always exists.
The dream experience was limited to me. But the world is felt
and seen not only by me but by so many and we cannot call such
a world nonexistent,' the argument called srishti-drishti vada is
addressed and they are told, `God first created such and such a
thing out of such and such an element and then something else
and so forth.' That alone will satisfy them. Their minds are not
otherwise satisfied and they ask themselves, `How can all
geography, all maps, all sciences, stars, planets and the rules
governing or relating to them, and all knowledge be totally
untrue?' To such it is best to say, `Yes. God created all this and so
you see it.' All these are only to suit the capacity of the hearers.
The absolute can only be one.
There is first the white light, so to call it, of the Self, whichtranscends both light and darkness. In it no object can be seen.
There is neither seer nor seen. Then there is also total darkness
(avidya [?]) in which no objects are seen. But from the Self
proceeds a reflected light, the light of pure mind (manas [?]),
and it is this light which gives room for the existence of all
the film of the world, which is seen neither in total light nor
in total darkness, but only in the subdued or reflected light.
From the point of view of Jnana (Knowledge) or the Reality, the pain seen in the world is certainly a dream, as is
the world, of which any particular pain like hunger is an
infinitesimal part. In the dream also you yourself feel hunger.
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You see others suffering from hunger. You feed yourself, and
moved by pity feed the others whom you find suffering from
hunger. So long as the dream lasted, all those pains were as
real as you now think the pain in the world to be. It was only
when you woke up that you discovered that the pain in the
dream was unreal. You might have eaten to the full and gone to
sleep. You dream that you work hard and long in the hot sun all
day, are tired and hungry and want to eat a lot. Then you wake
up and find your stomach is full and you have not stirred out of
your bed. But this does not mean that while you are in the
dream you can act as if the pain you feel is not real. The hunger
in the dream has to be assuaged by the food in the dream. The
fellow beings you found so hungry in the dream had to be
provided with food in that dream. You can never mix up the
two states, the dream and the waking state. Till you reach the
state of jnana [?] and thus wake out of maya [?] you must do social
service by relieving suffering whenever you see it. But even
then you must do it without ahankara, i.e., without the sense of
`I am the doer', but with the feeling `I am the Lord's tool'.
Similarly one must not be conceited by thinking, `I am helping
a man below me. He needs help. I am in a position to help. I am
superior and he inferior.' But you must help the man as a means
of worshipping God in that man. All such service is for the Self
and not for anybody else. You are not helping anybody else,
but only yourself.
The book Kaivalya Navaneeta has asked and answered six questions on maya [?]. They are instructive:
1. What is maya [?]? The answer is: It is anirvachaniya or indescribable.
2. To whom does it come? The answer is: To the mind or ego who feels that he is a separate entity, who thinks `I do
this' or `This is mine'.
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3. Where does it come from and how did it originate? The answer: Nobody can say.
4. How did it arise? The answer is: Through non-vichara, through failure to enquire `Who am I??'
5. If the Self and maya [?] both exist, does this not invalidate the theory of Advaita? The answer is: It need not, since maya
is dependent on the Self as the picture is on the screen. The
picture is not real in the sense that the screen is real.
6. If the Self and maya [?] are one, could it not be argued that the Self is of the nature of maya [?] and that it is also illusory? The
answer is: No, the Self can be capable of producing illusion
without being illusory. A conjuror may create for our
entertainment the illusion of people, animals and things, and we
see all of them as clearly as we see him, but after the performance
he alone remains and all the visions he created have disappeared.
He is not a part of the vision but solid and real.
The books use the following illustration to help explain creation: The Self is like the canvas for a painting. First a
paste is smeared over it to close the small holes that are in the
canvas. This paste can be compared to the Antaryamin
(Indweller) in all creation. Then the artist makes an outline
on the canvas. This can be compared to the sukshma sarira
(subtle body) of all creatures; for instance, the light and sound
(bindu and nada) out of which all things arise. Within this
outline the artist paints his picture with colours, etc., and this
can be compared to the gross forms that constitute the world.
Vedanta says that the cosmos springs into view simultaneously with the seer. There is no creation by stages
or steps. It is similar to the creation in dream where the
experiencer and the objects of experience come into existence
at the same time. To those who are not satisfied with this
explanation, theories of gradual creation are offered in books.
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It is not at all correct to say that advaitins of the Sankara school deny the existence of the world, or that they call it
unreal. On the other hand, it is more real to them than to others.
Their world will always exist whereas the world of the other
schools will have origin, growth and decay, and as such cannot
be real. They only say that the world as `world' is not real, but
that the world as Brahman is real. All is Brahman, nothing
exists but Brahman, and the world as Brahman is real.
The Self is the one Reality that always exists, and it is by the light of the Self that all other things are seen. We forget it and
concentrate on the appearance. The light in the hall burns both
when persons are present and when they are absent, both when
persons are enacting something, as in a theatre, and when
nothing is being enacted. It is the light which enables us to see
the hall, the persons and the acting. We are so engrossed with
the objects or appearances revealed by the light, that we pay no
attention to the light. In the waking or dream state in which
things appear, and in the sleep state in which we see nothing,
there is always the light of Consciousness or Self, like the hall
lamp which is always burning. The thing to do is to concentrate
on the seer and not on the seen, not on the objects, but on the
Light which reveals them.
Questions about the reality of the world, and about the existence of pain or evil in the world, will all cease when you
enquire `Who am I?' and find out the seer. Without a seer the
world and the evils thereof alleged do not exist.
The world is of the form of the five categories of sense objects, and nothing else. These five kinds of objects are sensed
by the five senses. As all are perceived by the mind through
these five senses, the world is nothing but the mind. Is there a
world apart from the mind?
Though the world and consciousness emerge and disappear together, the world shines or is perceived only through
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consciousness. That source wherein both these arise and
disappear, and which itself neither appears nor disappears, is
the perfect Reality.
If the mind, the source of all knowledge and activity subsides, the vision of the world will cease. Just as knowledge
of the real rope does not dawn till the fancied notion of the
serpent disappears, vision (experience) of the Reality cannot
be gained unless the superimposed vision of the universe is
abandoned.
That which really exists is only the Self. The world, jiva [?]
(individual self) and Iswara (God) are mental creations, like
the appearance of silver in mother of pearl. All these appear
at the same time and disappear similarly. The Self alone is
the world, the ego and Iswara.
To the jnani [?] it is immaterial whether the world appears or not. Whether it appears or not, his attention is always on the
Self. Take the letters and the paper on which they are printed.
You are wholly engrossed with the letters and have no attention
left for the paper. But the jnani [?] thinks only of the paper as the
real substratum, whether the letters appear or not.
You make all kinds of sweets from various ingredients and in various shapes, and they all taste sweet because there is
sugar in all of them, and sweetness is the nature of sugar. In
the same way, all experiences and the absence of them contain
the illumination, which is the nature of the Self. Without the
Self they cannot be experienced, just as without sugar not
one of the articles you make can taste sweet.
The Immanent Being is called Iswara. Immanence can only be with maya [?]. It (Iswara) is the Knowledge of Being along
with maya [?]. From the subtle conceit Hiranyagarbha rises; from
Hiranyagarbha the gross, concrete Virat rises. Chit-Atma is
pure Being only.
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As regards the existence of pain in the world, the wise one explains from his experience, that if one withdraws within
the Self there is an end of all pain. The pain is felt so long as
the object is different from oneself. But when the Self is found
to be an undivided whole, who and what is there to feel?
The Upanishadic text `I am Brahman' only means Brahman exists as `I'.
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