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Re: Sampradaya in Advaita (was Re: Problems in Advaita)
Giri (gmadras@pinto.engr.ucdavis.edu) wrote:
: Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian <rbalasub@ecn.purdue.edu> writes:
: >If this kind of speculation existed in the waking state it would be called
: >(some kind of ) schizophrenia. I did not know that a counterpart existed in
: >dreams, possible though. In any case there are not just 3 states: waking,
: >dreaming and deep sleep. If someone takes for ex. LSD and hallucinates, is
: >it a dream or waking state? I know someone who took some marijuana and
: >felt that I was in a separate globe and he was in another globe! He
: >seemed very much awake.
: >What can you say?
: Of course, the key criteria is to determine 'WHO was dreaming ? WHO is
: awake ? WHO is resident in deep sleep.'
Dear Friends:
As I understand it, the WHO is the jivAtman or Soul, who realizes Its
identity with the Self (IshvaraH sarvabhutAnam hR^iddeshe.arjuna
tishhThati). They are the two birds of 'dvA suparnA sAyujyA', the Soul
bird eats while the Self bird does not.
The Srimad Bhagavat says that the three: awake state, dream state and
deep sleep state are three types of intelligence (buddhi) that is
available to the jivAtman. These are symbolic descriptions of awareness,
and should be more properly described as awake-like, dream-like and deep
sleep-like states. It is wrong to think that a person has to actually be
physically awake or be asleep to experience these awarenesses. In the SBG,
it is written, that what is awake state for others, is sleep state for a muni,
and what is awake state for a muni is sleep state for others. These three
awarenesses are under prakR^iti, and they are associated with the sattva,
raja and tama-guNas. All of us have a mixture of the three guNas, and
also a mixture of the three levels of awareness.
In mAndukya upanishad, these three states are described as worldly
(vaishvAnara) or bahiHprAGYa (aware of the world around), elemental
(taijasa) or antarprAGYa (aware of the inner world) and unified
awareness (ekibhuta prAGYAna-ghana). The nR^isiMha-purva-tApini says
that in awake state, people become aware of their surroundings by the use
of their annamaya kosha or physical body; in dream state, people become
aware of the prAnamaya, manomaya and viGYAnamaya koshas or the elements
in which the world is built; and in deep sleep state, people become
aware of the anandamaya kosha or the unifed awareness called the chit-shakti.
These awarenesses are the tools that the jivAtman (mental being) has in
Its disposal to relate with the creation in an overall way (vyAshhti) or
as a collection of events (samashhti), described in the first three pAdas
of AUM. The Divine (paramAtman) is best described as the fourth pAda
(turIya, amAtra) who is not known by the bahiHpraGYa. antarpraGYa or
praGYAna-ghana awarenesses.
With best regards,
Dhruba.
