[Advaita-l] Who Slept Very Well? - Part IV

[H S Chandramouli]

HS CHANDRAMOULI

Dear Sri Nitiji and Sri Ramesh Vemuriji,

<< I would also be interested to know the major points of dispute between
Sri
Sachidanandendra Saraswathi and the others. >>



Based on the contents of the booklet moolavidya vimarshana, I have tried to
summarize the main issues of contention between the traditional (
vivarana/bhamati as applicable ) and Sri SSSjis views.

1. Issue  << Is bhavarupa moolavidya which is the  cause for samsara
consistent with Sri Bhagavatpada Sidhanta or not >> . According to
traditional views, bhavarupa moolavidya as  the root cause ( moola karana )
for all samsara is entirely consistent with sidhanta. But according to Sri
SSS , based on adhyasa bhashya , mutual adhyasa between atma and anatma is
called avidya and this is the root cause ( moola karana )  for all secular
and vedic vyavahara , and bringingin  moolavidya as the karana vastu even
for this avidya is contrary to the Bhashya.

2. Sushupti. According to traditional views ajnana which is the cause for
bandha is present in sushupti. But according to Sri SSS there is neither
avidya nor adhyasa  separate from the atman in sushupti.

3.  Traditional view considers moolavidya both as moola karana for samsara
( as avidya ) as well as the seed  for Creation ( as avyakta or avyakruta
or maya ) . Sri SSS maitains that avidya is mithya jnana which is removed
by jnana ( as per adhyasa bhashya ) whereas maya is the seed  for avidya
kalpitha namarupa Creation ( as per BS 2-1-14 ) . Also in BS 1-4-3, since
Sri Bhagavatpada  has  interpreted avyakta  as maya on the one hand and  as
avidya on the other separately, the interpretation should be that avidya is
in the realm of jnana whereas maya is in the realm of object ( jneya ) and
therefore the conclusion is avidya is the seed ( nimitta ) for samsara
while avyakta is the seed ( upadana karana ) for Creation.So the two,
avidya and avyakta , should not be clubbed together as a single entity
moolavidya.

There are other differences also in specific portions of the Bhashya. But
as per my understanding they all in one way or the other traceable to these
fundamental issues. Sri SSS has advanced several Bhashya/shruti vakyas in
support of his contention. In fact he goes so far as to state that the
traditional views ( both vivarana and bhamati ) have not even understood
the spirit of the Bhagavatpada Sidhanta at all and have gone against it. He
also maintains that with those views many arguments advanced by the
dvaitins ( both vishishtadvaita and Madhwa sidhanta ) cannot be negated.

I have tried to present the issues to the best of my ability. As Sri
Bhaskarji has mentioned, for a serious study of the views of Sri SSS one
needs to refer to the works of Sri SSS mentioned by him in his post. I hope
this will be of some value to those who just want to understand the basic
issues involved.

Regards


On Wed, Feb 5, 2014 at 9:45 AM, kuntimaddi sadananda <
kuntimaddisada at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Continuation as Part IV
> -------------------------------------
>
> Deep-Sleep State:
>
> When we go to deep sleep state, we start withdrawing each of the koshas,
> one by one, with the desire or thought of going to deep-sleep state. 'I
> want to sleep' thought forms contents of the vijnana maya kosha or the
> intellect, when it goes to sleep or when it goes into an unmanifested
> state.  In the process of sleeping, there is a withdrawal of each of the
> grosser koshas into the subtler one - that annamya kosha to pranamaya
> kosha, pranamaya to manomaya, manomaya to vijnaana maya.  At the time of
> sleep, the vijnaana maya or the intellectual sheath becomes unmanifested
> state with all the koshas as part of its ingredients, but in
> undifferentiated form. That unmanifested state of intellectual sheath with
> all its constituent koshas is now called anandamaya kosha, since there is
> absence of any discriminative thoughts, and associated relationships, other
> than the homogeneous thought of ignorance or avidya. This is referred to as
> avidya vRitti.  It is
>  in a sense an experience involving the knowledge of the absence of
> anything and everything.  Hence Mandukya says - na kinchana kaamam
> kaamayata - there is absence of desire for any object since there is no
> perception or recognition of any particular object of any kind in that
> unmanifested state.
>
> Along with the ignorance, there is an experience of happiness as the
> absence of any duality that involves all relationships. In essence, all
> human suffering comes from the notional relationships and ownerships that
> arise due to individual raaga and dweshaas or likes and dislikes. Hence it
> is happiness born out of absence of suffering.  It is still a reflected
> happiness or consciousness since reflection by the homogenous ignorance
> thought or avidyaa vRitti. Tai. Up classifies the degree of happiness in
> the anandamaya kosha in terms of moda, pramoda, etc. The very
> classification implies it is not an absolute happiness but only reflected
> happiness as in waking and dream states.
>
> Hence it is ananda mayam, and it is kosha since there is inherent
> identification with the Vijnaanamaya now in potential or unmanifested
> form.  It is now in its pure existential form since there is no apparent
> duality or plurality.  Pure existence is nothing but Brahman. Hence, one
> can say that it is Brahman in the form of ananda maya kosha exists in the
> deep sleep state. Identification with the vijnana maya kosha is now shifted
> to the identification with anandamaya kosha.  The experience of 'I slept
> well' involves both the existence (sat aspect of Brahman) as well as the
> bliss or ananda aspect of Brahman.
>
> In essence, this sequence of withdrawal of grosser koshas to the finer
> ones up to the anandamaya kosha is called going into deep sleep state.
> Since there are no two thoughts to differentiate from the other, and there
> is just an experience of a single homogenous thought of ignorance called
> avidya vRitti, there is no concept of space and time. Time arises as a gap
> between two sequential thoughts and movement in time is space; and both are
> absent in deep-sleep state.
>
> What is there in deep sleep state is only an undifferentiable homogeneous
> thought that started originally a thought as 'I want to sleep'. The
> knowledge also in aananda maya kosha, which is nothing but vijnanamaya
> kosha in potential form or unmanifested form, occurs also spontaneously as
> the all-pervading consciousness or sAkshI illumines this anandamaya kosha
> with the avidyaa vRitti. Although we can say that aanandamya kosha acts as
> a knower and the known is the absence of everything or avidya vRitti, it is
> unlike the knowledge in the waking state where the knower and known duality
> involves distinct pramANa or means of knowledge resulting in tripuTi or
> triad mentioned earlier. In the deep-sleep state the consciousness
> reflected in the anandamaya kosha as chidAbhAsa acts as the subject knower
> and the thought of ignorance as avidya vRitti forms the object of
> knowledge.  Since avidyaa vRitti involves homogenious undifferented
> ignorance of everything,
>  the reflected consciousness only illumines this ignorance as object of
> knowledge. The knower is the enlivening ananda mayakosha which is nothing
> but vijnaanamaya kosha with all its components (other koshes) in
> undifferentiated potential form. Hence in deep sleep there are three
> factors, a) vijnaanamaya kosha in potential form as anandamaya kosha, b)
> the reflected consciousness, chidAbhAsa reflected in this anandamaya kosha
> c) undifferented homogenious ignorance as vRitti.
>
> When one awakes from deep sleep state (due to pressure of vaasanaas) the
> unfolding of the koshas occur in reverse order with vijnaana maya kosha
> taking its manifested form, with unfolding of each of the koshas, first the
> manomaya and then praana maya  and then annamaya koshas. The knower -known
> dualily in the potential form is now unfolded where the knower is the
> vijnaana maya kosha and known is the homogeneous ignorance of everything.
> Hence when the mind (vijaanamyaka kosha) says I slept well implies that I
> was there in potential form and I did not know anything expressing both
> experiences one as my existence as I was there to sleep well, and the other
> is my ignorance while I was in that state. I being referred to here is
> again the unholy combination of the pure consciousness with the anandamaya
> kosha or unfolded vijnaanamaya kosha.  One can also say that ahankaara in
> the potential form slept very well since as we mentioned that ahankaara is
>  identification of I am with this - this here being the anandamaya kosha.
> Thus, upahita chaitanya (RC or reflected consciousness) identifying with
> the upAdhi as ahankaara jiiva slept very well and did not know anything in
> the deep-sleep state.  As we mentioned before, the pure all-pervading
> consciousness has nothing to do with waking, dreaming or deep-sleeping
> states. It is the witnessing consciousness that is every shining principle
> without any duality whatsoever.  Hence even the deep-sleep state is also
> from vyavahaara point only, as declared by Mandukya in mantra 7 as turIyam
> as na prajnaana ghanam.  Since the experience in deep-sleep state involves
> absence of all dualities, it is an experience of non-duality but without
> any knowledge of the absolute truth of advaita.  Here I am differentiating
> non-duality from the advaita and the reason is advaita knowledge involves
> knowledge of non-duality, in spite of apparent duality, whereas the in the
>  deep-sleep state there is only the absence of duality and knowledge of
> the ignorance.  Thus advaitic understanding differs from just the
> experience of non-duality. This aspect is very important since many want to
> experience non-duality as the goal of self-realization. What is required is
> the knowledge of the absoluteness of the self that is aham brahmaasmi or I
> am the infiniteness. That knowledge has to take place with the mind and in
> the mind only. Hence, the advice of the scriptures is to approach a teacher
> for this knowledge.
>
> Analysis of our deep sleep experience should provide us many aspects for a
> keen Vedantic student.
>
> 1.    It is an advaitic experience without knowledge of the absolute truth
> - indicating that self-realization does not involve an experience of
> non-duality by shunning or shutting of the mind, since we are experiencing
> this all the time when we go to deep sleep state. No one gets up from
> deep-sleep with advaitic knowledge or with self-realization.
>
> 2.    Self-realization therefore involves clear understanding of my
> advaitic nature irrespective of the presence or absence of duality. That
> understanding comes only with the mind which is ready to learn via
> shravana, manana and nidhidhyaasana that scriptures prescribe. That is
> listening to the scriptures under a competent teacher who himself has
> learned this from his teacher, and reflecting on the teaching until there
> are no more doubts and contemplating on the teaching until one recognizes
> all the time I am that pure existent consciousness, one without a second.
>
> 3.    In the deep sleep state, jnaani sleeps as jnaani and ajnaani sleeps
> as ajnaani. This is because the mind that has the knowledge or ignorance of
> one's true nature is folded with its knowledge to be in potential form.
> Hence jnaanam or ajnaanam of oneself is in potential form in the anandamaya
> kosha.
>
> 4.    The knowledge including the self-knowledge occurs in or with the
> upahita chaitanya or reflected consciousness, reflected in the vijnaamaya
> kosha. Hence viveka or discriminative intellect becomes important tool
> along with shraddhaa or faith in the teaching as emphasized by Lord Krishna
> as - shraddhaavan labhate jnaanam.
>
> 5.  There are several misconceptions about deep-sleep state in the
> literature. See for example the discussion between Shree Ananda wood and
> Shree Dennis relating to Shree Atmanandaji account of deep-sleep state. The
> discussion can be found at
> http://www.advaita.org.uk/discourses/atmananda/atmananda4f.htm
> It appears from the discussion deep-sleep is being described somewhat
> similar to turIyam while in fact in the description of turIyam the
> scripture negates the deep-sleep state as part of mithyaa only. The
> confusion can be due to the misunderstanding that pure consciousness
> involves objectless awareness as the description indicates. Even if one
> takes that operational definition, the deep sleep state is not objectless
> awareness. In deep sleep state we are aware of the homogeneous ignorance
> just as stated above with example of pitch dark room where we are aware of
> objectless-ness.  In both pitch dark room and in deep sleep state we have
> an object for awareness; darkness in the pitch dark room and ignorance in
> the deep-sleep state. For that reason only we can say - I do not see or
> know anything there in the pitch dark room or in the deep-sleep state.
> Absence of non-existence of an object or objects is knowledge stated as
> anupalabdi pramANa. As a final
>  note again - self-realization does not necessarily involves objectless
> awareness but recognition that I am awareness with or without thoughts or
> vRittis or object-thoughts. Hence, advaitic knowledge involves recognition
> that I am pure existence-consciousness-limitless with or without the world
> of plurality present since the plurality that is present is only mithyaa
> and therefore cannot disturb my advaitic state.
>
> Hari Om!
> Sadananda
>
>
>
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