Knowledge of Reality: The Universe

There are three aspects of life:

1. the individual [jiva]-microcosm
   
2. the world [jagat]- macrocosm
   
3. creator of individual and world [Ishvara]

• 5 great elements
• 5 sense organs of action
• 5  vital energy/ breath [pranas ]
  
• 4 thought modifications

Re: Knowledge of Reality: The Universe

Meenakshi,

This just fits so well with how I see the wholeness.  There is the individuation (which is our personal self), there is the larger whole (which some call Gaia and which is a living Being as well, an individuation among the planets and stars) and then there is the All That Is (which you term Ishvara, nice word).

I do agree that to exist, there must be a cause.  For matter to have purpose, something must need use of it and in nature there is generally no waste and a purpose to all things.

As you note, we are each a “part” of Gaia.  Gaia would not be what it is at this time without us - for good or ill - but I prefer the belief that it is always all for the good.

There must be a consciousness, the knower, that you call here Brahman / Self / Truth.  Most religions or belief systems have some concept of, and term for, this.  The changeless nature is also how the Tao itself is described and yet nothing that is, would be, without it and still, it is more than the sum of all that is.

Maya - yes, I like that word and concept.  The analogy of the rope and snake are so easy for most minds to follow.  Now, I just need to wrap my mind around the thought that Ishvara includes Maya, but then it must, mustn't it?

Deb

Re: Knowledge of Reality: The Universe

Yes, Deb. Beautifully put.

And we are studying together, as the created mind is seeking to understand the creation, it is not going to be easy; even though it is really very simple.

The mind cannot understand a system from within that system. To understand it, we have to be outside it. OR we can sense it by being very still and allowing compassion to guide our expansion. ..

That said, that is my understanding also: that Tao is Brahman or Truth or Self as the Upanishads call it: the whole formlessness from which arose Ishvara, the creator.

I would say Gaia is one of the created systems; but all creation is what is being talked about here. All inner and outer space, known and postulated.


I can't find a good source online; but that is my understanding of what Godel's incompleteness theorem postulates, from one of my favorite books in college]

Re: Knowledge of Reality: The Universe

“The Lord is the seer, and the external energy, which is seen, works as both cause and effect in the cosmic manifestation. O greatly fortunate Vidura, this external energy is known as maya or illusion, and through her agency only is the entire material manifestation made possible.”

Srimad Bhagwatam 3.5.25 (Vidura's Talks with Maitreya)

Re: Knowledge of Reality: The Universe

Eli, lovely verse.

Re: Knowledge of Reality: how the body of light can see

In the Yoga Vāsiṣṭha, there is a story of Queen Lila-[pronounced as Leela]-who
is seeking to see the true form of her dead husband, King Padma. The Goddess of
knowledge, Saraswati, is giving her insights and helping her to
experience it.

The woman’s name, Lila, is itself of importance. According to Wikipedia :”Within monism, Lila is a way of describing all reality, including the cosmos, as the outcome of creative play by the divine absolute (Brahman). In the dualistic schools of Vaishnavism, Lila more simply refers to the activities of God and his devotees, as distinct from the common activities of karma.”

An excerpt [emphasis and explanations mine]:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Goddess Saraswati : “O Lila, give up this form of yours and attain the pure spiritual insight. For only Brahman can really see or realize Brahman. My body is made of pure light, pure consciousness. Your body is not. With this body of yours you cannot even visit the places of your own imagination. Then how can you enter the field of another’s imagination?

But if you attain the body of light, you will immediately see the holy man’s house[what you are seeking to see].

Affirm to yourself :‘“I shall leave my body here and take a body of light. With that body, like the scent of incense I shall go to the house of the holy man.’

Even as water mixes with water, you will become one with the field of consciousness.

By the persistent practice of such meditation, even your body will become one of pure consciousness and subtle. For, I see even my body as consciousness. You do not, for you see the world of matter.

Such ignorance arises out of its own accord, but is dispelled by wisdom and inquiry.
In fact such ignorance does not even exist! There is neither unwisdom nor ignorance; neither bondage, nor liberation.

There is but one pure consciousness.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From The Concise Yoga Vāsiṣṭha by Swami Venkatesananda
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

These words are thrilling! We have heard them in our meditations. I remember the day I realized suddenly :”Only God can know God.” To read the words above, in a beautifully translated version of the Yoga Vāsiṣṭha, is just an amazing and delightful affirmation of the words themselves.

Re: Knowledge of Reality: how the body of light can see

More about how the story of Lila and Padma is about Space, Time and Causation

Re: Knowledge of Reality: how the body of light can see

Beautiful!!  So interesting, I studied a couple of weeks ago with Douglas Brooks, a Tantric scholar, and we were talking about lila for most of the weekend!  He was teaching the stories of the Heroine, and he described lila as what is at play when either miracles happen or sh*t happens. :-) 

Re: Knowledge of Reality: how the body of light can see

Johanna, that’s wonderful! Share some more?

Re: Knowledge of Reality: how the body of light can see

I’d love to!  As an interesting (to me) aside, my spirit name, Lelazjia, is pronounced Leelajhia.  Although the spelling is slightly different, there is no e in Sanskrit and my intuition tells me that LILA is the root of my name.  I wonder what that means?  LOL
 
We went through three stories:  Shakuntala and Dhashanta, Draupadi and the Pandava brothers, Damayanti and Nala, and touched briefly on the story of Ram and Sita as the fourth.  I can share more about the stories if you’d like, but thought I’d summarize what I got out of his teachings here.
 
The first thing to understand is that Tantra comes after Vendanta in history, gaining popularity (so to speak) somewhere around the 1300’s I believe.  There are similarities, and the Tantrikas are great assimilators, so they took what worked for them from a variety of traditions and left the rest.  From the Vendanta they took the understanding that we are all One– there’s no Two.  The Tantrikas disagree that anything that is not One is illusion, they say instead that it’s all real, there’s just an experience of separation because within the One there is differentiation.  The Bhaktas (devotees of Bhakti Yoga, the Yoga of Devotion) and the Tantrikas came around the same time with a revolutionary idea, that there might be an agency of the Divine that allows it to intervene with karma.  The Tantrikas further suggest that the Universe consists of a fabric woven of karma and lila.
 
So with that as a reference, back to LILA and the Heroines.
The HERO solves problems, fixes things, and saves people.  He is focused on the destination, the end result.  He is the essence of Karma– cause and effect, probabilities, and consequences.
The HEROINE embraces the paradox and searches for the midline, the opening through which we receive the experience, she is simple and authentic in her experiences and her emotions.  She is the essence of Lila– entanglement (the idea that A can change B by merely observing it, kind of the original Quantum Physics!) not causality, randomness not probability, and luck vs consequences. 
We do the Karma and receive the Lila. 
 
The Yoga of Lila is to be open to receive it, and then to recognize it when it shows up.  To be receptive to lila, we have to be aligned with creating auspicious karma.  In other words, if you don’t do your karma, you’ll miss lila when she shows up.  And conversely, you can royally mess up on your karma, and still be saved by lila.
 
Meenakshi, if you thing it’s helpful I can give some examples in these stories of the lila and the karma.
 
 

Re: Knowledge of Reality: how the body of light can see

Leela and Lila are actually the same. As Sanskrit has its own script, when it’s transliterated, it is sometimes done loosely. But I don’t know when ‘z’ and ‘j’ are placed together.

Lila -and -Karma sounds like a theme that could take on its own thread; so why don’t you start one, Johanna?

Re: Knowledge of Reality: body of light can see space and time

This story is intended to illustrate the
fact that spaces and times are many and are related to their experiencer.
All our experiences are the results of our previous desire-impressions. One’s
birth, death and the environment in which one lives are all the direct consequences
of the patterns of one’s desires. There is no such thing as a static
and unconditioned world which can be valid for all people and for all times.
The reactions to one’s previous actions—mental, verbal or physical—materialise
themselves as conditions of objective experience for the agent of those actions.
Each one’s world is made up of his own desires, though the material
of that world may be drawn from any objective realm which may be equally
real to many others who, too, happen to be born in that world due to the
similarity of conditions which they are expected to experience.
The philosopher Kant thought that space
and time are empirically real and transcendentally ideal. The ideas of space
and time are, according to him, required to give form and order to the manifold
of sensations which are not presented in an ordered form. Space and time
are perceptual categories, they are the necessary conditions of all perception.
Space is said to represent and determine the form of external perception,
while time represents and determines the perception of internal states. They
are empirically real, for they constitute not mere forms of perception but
actual perceptions themselves. They are the sense-data which, with the structure
of the understanding, make all definite human knowledge possible. They are
transcendentally ideal, for they are ultimately a priori forms of
perception and are contributed somehow by the nature of the sensibility and
the understanding. The view of Kant seems to be that space and time have
a meaning only from the point of view of individuals, though they are universal
in the sense that they are valid also for other minds.

~~~~~~~
From the Philosophy of Life by Swami Krishnananda

Re: Knowledge of Reality: how the body of light can see

Sounds like fun Meenakshi!  I’ll lift this post to start it. :-)

Re: Knowledge of Reality: Maya

[To continue from the book, we go into that elusive Maya.]

Maya has two powers:

1. The veiling power: this is of the nature of ignorance which veils the Truth. This by itself cannot create the world.
   
2. The projecting power: This is the creative power that projects the entire world of names and forms. It manifests inherent impressions. It cannot do so without the veiling power. As in the example, the ignorance of the rope should precede the projection of the snake vision.

Re: Knowledge of Reality: Maya

The Concept of Maya

Vedanta declares that our real nature is divine: pure, perfect, eternally free. We do not have to become Brahman, we are Brahman. Our true Self, the Atman, is one with Brahman.

But if our real nature is divine, why then are we so appallingly unaware of it?

The answer to this question lies in the concept of maya, or ignorance. Maya is the veil that covers our real nature and the real nature of the world around us. Maya is fundamentally inscrutable: we don't know why it exists and we don't know when it began. What we do know is that, like any form of ignorance, maya ceases to exist at the dawn of knowledge, the knowledge of our own divine nature.

Brahman is the real truth of our existence: in Brahman we live, move, and have our being. “All this is indeed Brahman,” the Upanishads—the scriptures that form Vedanta philosophy—declare. The changing world that we see around us can be compared to the moving images on a movie screen: without the unchanging screen in the background, there can be no movie. Similarly, it is the unchanging Brahman—the substratum of existence—in the background of this changing world that gives the world its reality.

Yet for us this reality is conditioned, like a warped mirror, by time, space, and causality—the law of cause and effect. Our vision of reality is further obscured by wrong identification: we identify ourselves with the body, mind, and ego rather than the Atman, the divine Self.

This original misperception creates more ignorance and pain in a domino effect: identifying ourselves with the body and mind, we fear disease, old age and death; identifying ourselves with the ego, we suffer from anger, hatred, and a hundred other miseries. Yet none of this affects our real nature, the Atman.

Maya can be compared to clouds which cover the sun: the sun remains in the sky but a dense cloud cover prevents us from seeing it. When the clouds disperse, we become aware that the sun has been there all the time. Our clouds—maya appearing as egotism, selfishness, hatred, greed, lust, anger, ambition—are pushed away when we meditate upon our real nature, when we engage in unselfish action, and when we consistently act and think in ways that manifest our true nature: that is, through truthfulness, purity, contentment, self-restraint, and forbearance. This mental purification drives away the clouds of maya and allows our divine nature to shine forth.

Shankara, the great philosopher-sage of seventh-century India, used the example of the rope and the snake to illustrate the concept of maya. Walking down a darkened road, a man sees a snake; his heart pounds, his pulse quickens. On closer inspection the “snake” turns out to be a piece of coiled rope. Once the delusion breaks, the snake vanishes forever.

Similarly, walking down the darkened road of ignorance, we see ourselves as mortal creatures, and around us, the universe of name and form, the universe conditioned by time, space, and causation. We become aware of our limitations, bondage, and suffering. On “closer inspection” both the mortal creature as well as the universe turn out to be Brahman. Once the delusion breaks, our mortality as well as the universe disappear forever. We see Brahman existing everywhere and in everything.

http://www.vedanta.org/wiv/philosophy/maya.html

Re: Knowledge of Reality: Maya's 3 qualities

“Maya has three qualities:

Sattva guna: knowledge-based
Rajo guna  : activity -based
Tamo guna: inertia


These 3 qualities pervade the entire creation. By their permutation and combination, an infinite variety of name, forms and qualities are cleated.

Every created object has 2 causes:

the material cause [e.g. mud to make a pot]
the efficient cause [e.g. the potter]

The 5 great elements are the material causes of the world. But who made them? That which made them must exist before creation.
We have seen that Truth/Brahman/Self alone exists before creation. The 5 elements must have emerged from Truth alone.

By the same logic, the efficient cause of the world too must be Truth.

We see that whenever the material and efficient cause is the same, the created object is an illusion.

e.g. in a dream, thewaking mind alone is the dream world and its creator, sustainer and destroyer. Thus a dream is an illusion. This being so, there can be no logical sequence to creation.

But to us , the waking world is real. It does seem to be governed by natural laws, and there also seems to be a cause-effect relationship between various happenings.

Keeping our experience in mind, the author now explains the sequence of creation….
[to be continued]


~Sri Adi Sankaracharya, : Tattva Bodha-Awakening to Reality; Commentary by Swami Tejomayananda

Re: Knowledge of Reality: creation's 5 elements

The three qualities fo maya in their unmanifest form remain in a state of equilibrium. When this balance is somehow disturbed, the process of creation begins.

From that [maya] space was born.
From space, air.
From air, fire.
From fire, water.
From water, earth.


The process of creation si from the subtle to the gross. The more pervasive the object, the less the number of qualities, the more subtle it is…

Truth is the subtlest of all.
It is the  creator and pervades the five elements just as water [pervades] waves.

~Sri Adi Sankaracharya, : Tattva Bodha-Awakening to Reality; Commentary by Swami Tejomayananda

Re: Knowledge of Reality: The Universe/ Wakantanka