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Re:Aham Brahmasmi - 7 of 10
These series of articles are in response to the so-called repeated
challenges posed by Sri Manish Tandan with his article on "Aham Brahmasmi"
that was published in the net couple of weeks ago. The division into parts
is only to fit into my mail-server. The text is organized mostly in the
sequence of his comments. I welcome your comments on the contents. Enjoy
the articles can. - Hari Om! Sadananda.
Manishji, If there is no real self what is that incarnates or suffers is
your question. If that non-material self is also illusory, than how can it
get carried over from one body to the another is the follow-up question?
This requires some more explanation of what advaita says:
First, let us not use the word Atma and get subsequently confused. The
so-called individual seIf is the pratibimba or reflected consciousness. or
jeeva. Because the true self or atman is all pervading Brahman then it
cannot be only inside the body. It is there in the dead body too as it
pervades all the chara and achara. both sentient and insentient. Then
question is what is that, that transmigrates. - It is the subtle and
causal body - subtle body (sukshma sareera) consisting of mind and
intellect and the causal body(karana sareera) consisting of vasanas or
tendencies - these are the ones that gets separated from the gross body
(bhoutika sareera) at the time of dead. Hence we say he is dead and gone
(mar-gaya). Since the bhoutika sareera is there, then who is the one who
has left. That individual who was living in that body.
Then who is that individual?
This become clear when I ask you Manishji, who are you? Your answer will
be I am so and so, I am a Krishna devotee, son of so and so, and all other
relations etc. You can only tell me with reference to your relationships
with the bhoutica sareera, I am brown, black, white etc, short, long, thin,
fat etc., or your emotional relationships, son of so and so, husband of so
and so or father of so and so etc., or your intellectual relationships,
engineer, doctor, scientist etc. Can you provide anything more beyond
that? You could even tell me that you are some spiritual soul etc. since
you are familiar with the sastras.
But these statements including that I am a soul statement are all
intellectual statements. That is it is nothing but mental and intellectual
notions about yourself based on what has been taught to you and what you
have learned. What J. K. Krishnamurty calls as mental conditioning.
Essentially sum total of your memory. That is why thought it self is
defined as a reflection of the memory. Memory is nothing butÊthe dead
past. I am so and so is the notion based on this dead past. Through
identification with all these, a notion arises that I am an individual -
a perceiver, feeler and thinker, I; perceiver, perceiving the world of
objects through the sense organs; feeler, feeling the world of emotions
with the mind; and thinker, thinking in the world of thoughts. What
advaita calls this identification as conditioned consciousness. I have
already given how I, sitting in a air-conditioned room, forgetting my self
who I am, could identify with the hero and heroin in thatÊtragic movie.
In those mements of identification with the characters in the movie, I am
conditioned to their limitions.
That I am so and so is the Jeeva Bhavana, a thinking that I am so and so
individual, and this is nothing but the ego. The ego or ahankara is a
monovritti and is part of the subtle body; the mind and intellect, because
I am so and so is also a thought or vritti. I am a jeeva is also a notion
or vritti or thought too. I am a Bhakta, I am a bhokta, I am a Krishna
devotee, I am an advaitin or vishistadvaitin etc. is the identification
with these thoughts that raise in the mind. Thoughts are not the problem,
but it is the identification with the thoughts is the problem. The vasana
or the karmaphala belongs to that ego who arises because of the
identification with the upadhies in this case the subtle body. This
individual self is also called a reflected consciousness - pratibibmba. The
reflected medium is the antah karana - subtle and causal body. It is that
amsa that Krishna discusses in the 15th chapter. It is the subtle body
that enjoys or suffers in the dream state and it is the same subtle body
that enjoys the swarga or subtle lokas etc. Subtle body is not
non-material. It consist of subtle material. See pacheekarana and
apancheekarana aspects of how panchabhutas divide and combine themselves to
form the gross and subtle and causal bodies: the pancha bhutas being
akasha, agni, vayu, apah and prithivi.
Jeeva or concept of that I am individual arises when consciousness
identifies with the gross and subtle bodies.
No liberation can occur with death since death does not make me see that I
am not the upadhies, that is, death does not give the requisite knowledge.
Death is the separation of subtle body from the gross body. In fact, even
without death we stop the identification with the gross body during the
dream state. Mandukya upanishad exhaustively discusses these states.
Whether you agree with the concepts or not, first please understand what it
says before you criticize. Atman is Brahman - infinite - and hence it is
achalam - cannot move - because movement is possible only for finite not
for the all pervading infinite because there is no place where it is not
for it to move!
Manishji writes:
>If the body itself is the real self, than moksha/nirvan should be
> automatic at the time of death, i.e. no need for any type of yoga.
>Moreover, this reduced brahman to merely sunyata!!
--There is some mixed up logic bringing some vague statements about
Buddism.
>From advaita Brahman alone is real and it is ananta not sunyata. So there
is no comparison to Bhuddism if in case Bhuddism says sunyata means
nothingness. It is true the Brahman has ÒNo thingÓ - that is no or not a
particular thing - but that is different from being ÒNothingÓ, if that is
what sunyata imply. Being infinite it includes all things -as Purnam.
More in the next part.
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