its for abilesh 2.4.1 The Concept of Man in Advaita Vedānta School Śankarachārya wrote commentaries mainly on Brahma-sūtra, but also on the Upanishads and on the Bhagavat-gīta. He chose to name his commentaries advaita, a term that literally means non-dualism” rather than monism. With this negative expression he intended to highlight the nature of the relationship between Brahman (God) and ātman (individual soul), which is not dualistic. In other words, although they appear to be two distinct entities, in truth they are not different but are the one and same reality. In order to understand this insight we need to explain what is meant by Brahman and ātman. The entire teaching of the Advaita Vedānta School can be condensed into the following phrase in Sanskrit: Brahman satyam jaganmitya, Jivo Brahmaiva neparah (Brahman is the only reality; the world ultimately is illusory; the individual soul and Brahman are not different). In other words, the individual soul coincides with Brahman Himself, since the latter is the only and unique reality as taught in the revealed sacred texts of the Upanishads. If Brahman is the only reality and ātman is identified with It, the world, including the body and the psyche of man, although manifestations of Brahman and appear as real, is mere appearance or illusion (māya). Otherwise, Brahman would no longer be the only reality. Brahman, the only reality, is pure consciousness and as such is the only and unique Subject. Atman (the individual soul) is the same as Brahman. The world - both interior (ideas, emotions, thoughts, etc.) and exterior (body and all exterior realities) – ultimately is māya, which however forms part of our experience. The world is inconsistent and undergoes constant changes, the Subject instead is constant and unchanging, and witnesses the changes that take place in the world. Brahman, the Subject, cannot become or be known as an object. All human intellectual knowledge of Brahman is objective and therefore His true nature as a Subject cannot be known. Only in the realization of ātman’s identity with Brahman the soul can intuitively know Him. Such an “intuitive knowledge” takes place when ātman identifies itself with the Supreme Subject (the Supreme I) who is pure consciousness. To clarify this doctrine Śankarachārya makes a distinction between two forms of Brahman: the Parā-Brahman (the Supreme Brahman), or the Nirguna Brahman (the non-qualified Brahman), and the Aparā-Brahman (the inferior Brahman) or Saguna Brahman (the qualified Brahman or personal God – Īśvara). The Parā-Brahman, absolutely beyond all definitions, is the self-illuminating reality which is pure consciousness. The human mind will never be able to know intellectually and therefore cannot give an adequate explanation or description of the Parā-Brahman. It cannot be made the object of knowledge, because it is the Supreme Subject, which is pure consciousness. The only way to describe it is through negative terms, such as neti, neti (i.e. not this’, ‘not this). If anyone seeks to describe it positively he can make use of some positive terms like, Sat-cit-ānanda (Being-intelligence-bliss), Svayambhū (the I that subsists in itself) or Nitya-paripūrna (the eternally perfect), but he can never understand what these positive attributes really mean. In fact, at the moment when one tries to understand Brahman, the absolute Supreme Person, through intellectual categories, he makes Him an object of thought and hence reachable only in as much as object, as He appears and not as He really is, namely as Subject. One may know, therefore, only the lower Brahman (the Aparā-Brahman) or the qualified Brahman (the Saguna Brahman- or Īśvara – the personal God). The qualified Brahman however - Īśvara or personal God - is ultimately māya or illusion, is only a reflection, an appearance of the Parā-Brahman. But there is no other way to speak or to describe Brahman, except through descriptions of its reflection or appearance. According to Śankarachārya, both these forms of Brahman are valid, but only the first (the Supreme Brahman) is absolutely real and true. The lower Brahman is “real” and “true” only for practical life. However when a person realizes the Supreme Brahman, then and only then he will understand that the inferior Brahman is only a reflection, a manifestation and hence an illusion or māya. In practical life this illusion persists until one reaches his self-fulfilment or enlightenment, which is possible only in the realization of the Supreme Brahman. In other words, the one who knows Brahman becomes or identifies himself with Him. Until then he lives in ignorance and believes that Brahman is a person (Īśvara) to be worshipped with love and devotion. Hence the Advaita Vedānta makes a distinction between two types of religion: the inferior religion, which consists in worshipping a personal God (Īśvara) and the superior religion, which consists in the ‘realization’ of ātman’s identity with the Absolute Brahman. After having explained briefly who Brahman is, we ask what is man or who am I in the depth of my existence? According to the Upanishads and the Advaita Vedānta School I (the self, the subject) am ātman. To explain this mysterious ātman, authors of the Upanishads made use of the doctrine of koša (cover or shell) which is a graphical description. According to this doctrine, the soul or ātman is the most subtle reality which is covered or shelled by five layers. The outer cover is the physical body (annamāyā koša). Within the physical body there is the second casing, viz., breath or vital spirit (pranamāyā koša). Within the latter layer there is the third shell, the mind (koša manomāyā). In the depth of the layer of mind there is the fourth cover: the intellect or consciousness (koša vijñānamāyā) and inside this last layer there is the most subtle reality which is enveloped in happiness and bliss (koša ānandamāyā). All these casings can be considered the empirical house of atman. The Mandukya Upanishad makes use of another description to explain ātman or the real I. Atman goes through four different stages of experience: the stage of vigilance (jagara sthana), the stage of dream (svapna sthana), the stage of deep sleep (sushupti sthana), and the last stage of peace and bliss (tūrya or catūrtha. In the stage of vigilance, ātman finds itself practically outside of itself, lost in the objects of sense experiences; it lives in the material level. In the dream stage ātman is less tied to the body; in fact, it is unaware of the physical body. In the stage of deep sleep ātman is completely free from any external constraint and launches itself into a sphere of bliss and happiness. At this stage ātman experiences happiness that rejoices in happiness; it isn’t an experience by ‘a subject of an object’; there isn’t any duality. The validity of this experience is confirmed by the fact that anyone who wakes from a deep sleep retains a vague remembrance of peace and tranquillity. But such experiences last only for very short period of time. In the fourth stage ātman experiences peace and happiness in a more stable and lasting manner. It is a state of illumination or enlightenment and of consciousness that transcends any conceptual description. It is at this stage that ātman “realizes” its intimate essence. Atman is the eternal and immortal fundament of existence and according to the Upanishads it can be “realized” or “experienced” only by those who are able to transcend every form of identification with the false I and with the objective world. The most exciting discovery of the sages of the Upanishads, later taken up by the Advaita Vedānta School, lies in the fact that Brahman (supreme exterior reality) is the same as ātman (the supreme inner reality), because there can be only One Supreme Reality, which can be arrived at by searching either through the exterior world or through the interior world of man. Therefore there is no difference between ātman and Brahman. Atman is Brahman, Brahman is ātman. The Supreme Objective Reality and the Supreme Subjective Reality are One and the Same. In his search for truth and knowledge of himself and of the world, man discovered that everything exists in ātman. It is enough to know oneself in order to know everything else. The key message of the Upanishads is this unity in multiplicity: «In truth all this world is Brahman. He is the source of every activity, of every wish, of all perceptions ... He is the I inside my heart and it is the same Brahman”. “You (your real I - ātman) are Brahman (Tat tvam asī)”. The one who knows his I – through intuitive and self-illuminating experience - knows – “realizes” Brahman. Self-illumination through the “realization” of Brahman is the ultimate purpose of all education, of all strivings and disciplines; it can be achieved neither through sense knowledge nor through intellectual reasoning; it can be reached neither through reading nor by studying books written about it. It can be reached only through a rigid and persevering self-disciple that purifies one from his/her actions and sinful tendencies, that helps him/her to keep his/her senses, desires and passions under control, from all that binds him/her to the things of this world, and establishes in him/her peace and undisturbed tranquillity. Self-realization/illumination is possible only for those who live self-disciplined moral lives and seek for Truth with patience and perseverance. In this state of illumination one does not have the perception of himself as an individual that is separate and distinct, but as one and the same Supreme Reality. It is the ultimate state of intuition and self-illumination in which the identity of the ātman and Brahman shines forth and the Supreme Reality reveals itself. The ultimate objective of the Advaita Vedānta School is the liberation of the soul, which is also its self-realization and it consists in identifying itself with, in being one with Brahman, the Absolute I. The “realization” of Brahman, as we have already mentioned, is not achieved through intellectual knowledge but through an intuitive experience (jñana-mārga or jñana-yoga). Such an experience leads one to a mystical experience of being-with”, of “identifying-with” Brahman. However two fundamental questions still remain to which we need to find adequate and satisfactory answers: (1) from what or from where should the soul (ātman) be liberated in as much as it is the same as Brahman? In fact, according to Advaita Vedānta School, the soul is not created and is eternal, because it is identical to Brahman; (2) how to explain that souls are many while Brahman is the one and only Reality? The Advaita Vedānta School answers the first question by stating that while the cosmos is only an apparent transformation of Brahman, ātman and Brahman are one and the same reality, but with a difference, viz., the soul finds itself as limited and individualized because of ignorance (avidya). To the second question Śankara and his School state that Brahman is the only Reality that pervades and hides in all things, and it is the I in all beings (cf. Sveta Up. VI, 11), but appears divided because of the ignorance of the human mind. In the absolute or ontological order there is only Brahman, which is the Supreme I, Atman, but in the empirical order Brahman seems on the one hand as a personal God (Īśvara) because of its conjunction with māya, on the other hand seems as an individual soul (jīiva), for its conjunction with avidya. Avidya is considered the individuating aspect of māya which is cosmic. Both the personal God and the jīiva belong to the empirical order and consequently are not real. That which is real is Brahman which is Atman: Brahman = Atman. When ātman realizes its true nature, which is possible only through intuitive knowledge (jñana), it identifies itself with Brahman and becomes self-illuminating, pure consciousness, and thus reaches its liberation, surpassing both ignorance (avidya) and māya, which are responsible for creating dualism, conflict, multiplicity and diversity in the one and only Reality, Brahman. Ignorance of the true nature of the soul (ātman) is the cause for its transmigration (karma-sāmsāra) and the only way to break this chain and reach the final liberation (mokşa) is through knowledge (intuitive and experiential) of its true nature. The scope of jñana-mārga is to eliminate ignorance and to arrive at the Truth. Such knowledge is not notional but an experiential perception, a sudden and overwhelming intuition. The practice of jñana-mārga, however, requires various preparatory stages on the part of the one who wants to follow this path, like the capacity to discern between that which is contingent and that which is permanent, detachment from everything that is transitory, renunciation, determination, self-control, confidence in the Absolute and in one’s guru, a profound desire for self-realization and so on. The acquisition of true knowledge (jñana or vidya) besides requires of the seeker to live a life of intellectual, moral and spiritual perfection. A life of perfection that is religious and spiritual does not lead the seeker to true knowledge (vidya) and self-realization but it is absolutely necessary to remove the impediments, purifying the mind and the will, and thus prepare the soul towards the acquisition of liberating knowledge (jñana or vidya), which alone can bring one to his/her ultimate liberation (mokşa). The Advaita Vedānta School distinguishes between two types of liberation: jīvanmukta and videhamukta. Jīvanmukta is the state of liberation of an individual during his/her earthly existence, which is possible through jñana-marga. The life of a jīvanmukta is characterized by his/her complete dedication to serve all humanity and all living beings; he/she becomes, as it were, ‘one’ with the whole cosmos. He/she has to persevere in this state of liberation till the end of his/her life when he/she will reach his/her definitive liberation (videhamukta) after death, which is the second type of liberation of absolute bliss. According to the teaching of the Advaita Vedānta School in the state of final liberation, the ātman is not ‘annihilated’ or ‘absorbed’ in Brahman, but acquires its true identity and uniqueness by losing its false individuality that had held it in slavery. A simple and trivial example can help us to understand this truth: the water, fetched from the ocean and contained in a clay pot, has an independent existence from the water in the ocean, but if you break that pot (the external material reality), the water contained therein would flow and merge into the ocean and become one with it. The water contained in the pot would lose its independent and separate existence, but at the same time continues to exist in and with the ocean water. Similarly, the individual soul (ātman), immersing itself in Brahman, loses its independent and separate existence as individual, but at the same time realizes its true nature and true identity.
Posted on: Fri, 18 Oct 2013 08:07:30 +0000
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