A Triple Boon
It was a great relief to find Vedanta. I had been born into the sweet dualism of a Catholic family and later raised with Religious Science in my childhood. When I learned at age ten that my soul was one with God and there existed the (relative) law of karma and reincarnation enabling all beings to eventually attain perfection, then the world, God, and my existence made sense. I do not remember suffering from the existential angst my peers had to deal with. However, and still at that tender age, I was taught more and more about the impersonal Reality from the student of an uncompromising western nondualist, and, unfortunately, that the personal God was a myth, inferior – an imagination. During my teen years and into my twenties the angst I did have was the product of an intellectual grasp of formless Reality deeply embedded in dual, material perceptions. The Ultimate Reality was Impersonal and did not recognize me as an individual. It was me and I was It, but so what? I had no philosophical system and no practice with which to gain a foothold, and no personal God to appeal to. It was like being cast adrift.
One of the first things Vedanta gave me, along with the assurance of a receding horizon of infinite Knowledge and Realization, was the triple boon of Brahman, Ishvara, and Jivatman, and the three stages of philosophy: Advaita, qualified Advaita, and dvaita (dualism). It was an invitation to the grandest feast imaginable.
The first years were spent falling in love with the personal God again – Ishvara/Ishvari – all with the new understanding that It was actually the upadhi of Brahman, the upadhi of Atman from the standpoint of relativity, cosmic and individual. I was filled with joy and gratitude. If God is all-pervasive and one only, then all these forms are simply that One. It is rather funny in retrospect, because I came to Vedanta as a “nondualist” in a dry, malnourished condition, but immediately got bathed, cleaned up, and feasted in bhakti at this blissful resort of qualified nondualism. All of this matured my understanding. Sri Ramakrishna once gave a pithy analogy of how this works after visiting a photographic studio in late 1800’s. He entered samadhi when the process of photography was explained to him. Afterwards they asked him what had caused his samadhi. He said that the photographer told him that plain glass cannot receive the impressions of the images reflected on it unless it is first coated with silver nitrate. Only then will the impressions stick. That made Sri Ramakrishna think of how higher knowledge cannot make an impression on a mind that is not first coated with love and devotion. So I think that my first years at the Vedanta Society with Swami Aseshanandaji were about coating my mind with love and devotion in preparation for studies in Advaita Vedanta.
I sat for years at the Sunday lectures listening to Swami Aseshanandaji and not understanding most of what he said when he was talking about the philosophy. But I came away with an abiding fidelity to the path and the Chosen Ideal and a firm conviction in the coherence and truth of Advaita. Meanwhile, my future Advaita-guru, Babaji, was also sitting in those classes and cruising the stratosphere on the jetfuel of Gaudapada’s and Shankara’s teachings that Swami was constantly elucidating. Swami was an amazing teacher, giving us what we needed and were ready for. In the teachings, he was like those singers who can sing several notes simultaneously.
It could be asked if teaching a young child about nonduality is such a good thing. My conclusion is that so long as the teaching of it does not eliminate or denigrate the personal God, it is, actually, one of the best things we can give our children. The philosophy of Vedanta explains very neatly how Brahman, Ishvara, and Jivatman are one Reality. Brahman refers to Ultimate Reality, nondual, formless, indivisible, pure Consciousness. Ishvara is that very Reality reflected in cosmic maya, the omniscient Personal God that we can have a relationship with and take refuge in. The individual Soul, Jivatman, is that Brahman reflected in the individual maya, known as avidya, root ignorance. It is birthless, deathless and one with Brahman despite the appearance of various coverings of the psycho-physical being. The Pancadasi states it succinctly:
“When the element of sattva is pure, Prakriti is known as Maya; when impure (being mixed up with rajas and tamas) it is called Avidya (ignorance, nescience). Brahman, reflected in Maya, is known as the omniscient Ishvara, who controls Maya. When reflected in Avidya, it is the Jiva, the individual soul.” – Pancadasi 1:16
In various, more simple ways I would talk to my daughter when she was little about Brahman, Divine Mother, and souls, and how they were all one when their forms were removed. One day she drew on a fogged-up glass and illustrated all this for me. She was about 9 years old.
Depending upon one’s preference, one might see Ishvara and jiva as superimpositions, reflections, illusory, unreal, etc. But from the standpoint of name and form in time and space (Swami Vivekananda’s handy definition for Maya), these have a relative existence, and Ishvara serves as an aid (at the very least), and not as a crutch as some seem to think. Sri Ramakrishna describes Ishvara as the hole in the wall of Maya. By loving concentration on the Chosen Ideal (Ishvara), one eventually passes through Ishvara into Brahman. His direct experience validates the philosophy which aptly shows that Ishvara and Jiva are co-existent. You cannot have one without the other. When the name and form of one dissolves (via Knowledge), so does the other, and we are left with Brahman, One without a second.
I will close with a final quote from Sri Ramakrishna that ties in also to a previous blog on Vyapti and Upadhi:
“As long as a man associates himself with upadhis, so long he sees the many…; but on attaining Perfect Knowledge he sees only one Consciousness everywhere. The same Perfect Knowledge, again, makes him realize that the one Consciousness has become the universe and its living beings and the twenty-four cosmic principles. But the manifestations of Divine Power are different in different beings. It is He, undoubtedly, who has become everything; but in some cases there is a greater manifestation than in others.” – Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna p.319
Om shanti,
Annapurna
