[Advaita-l] A Perspective - 7

[Michael Shepherd]

Anbu

That seems to my linited knowledge to be a very accurate statement of 'how
things are' -- though I don't think that buddhi is fully represented by the
tricky word 'intellect', which so dominates in the Western world !

Without arguing with you, I would like to question your final statement. Nor
do I wish to 'play games with words'.

If our real nature, that of the sakshi, is sacchidananda as we are told,
then is sandhi telling us more than sat-chit-ananda tell us individually ?

If we take sat-chit-ananda to be represented by the English
truth/knowledge-consciousness-bliss, then we could 'compute' the state of
sacchidananda in sakshi, the witness, to be : the knowledge of the
consciousness of bliss, and knowledge of the bliss of consciousness;
the consciousness of the bliss of knowledge, and the consciousness of
knowledge of bliss;
the bliss of knowing consciousness and the bliss of being conscious of
knowledge.

That may not help some readers ! But to me, it fills out the nature of what
the sakshi 'experiences'.

It could be argued that substituting the indifferent 'truth' for
'knowledge', this statement would describe the nature of atman rather than
the nature of sakshi.

I hope this makes some sense. The point which I'm making is that each of us
tends to 'yearn for' one in particular of the qualities of knowledge,
consciousness or bliss as the 'ultimate' experience. Spelling it out like
this suggests to me that 'sacchidananda' is more than a grammatical
convenience, but describing a state or experience which is more than the sum
of its parts.

The same would be true of classical Western philosophy which talks of the
Absolute Truth, the Absolute Good, and the Absolute Beauty -- the Absolute,
by the same token, is only when all three dissolve into each other in the
One..

Comments please !

Michael

-----Original Message-----
From: advaita-l-bounces at lists.advaita-vedanta.org
[mailto:advaita-l-bounces at lists.advaita-vedanta.org]On Behalf Of Anbu
sivam2
Sent: 22 November 2009 22:08
To: A discussion group for Advaita Vedanta
Subject: Re: [Advaita-l] A Perspective - 7



Quote: "The one who was awake even in the deep-sleep state cannot be called
as pramaata, since the status of pramaata comes with tripuTi with prameyam
and pramANa present. In the deep-sleep state, I am pure saakshii, the
witnessing consciousness, witnessing ‘nothing or no-thing’.  In fact Vedanta
says I, as witnessing consciousness, am present all the time, in the waking,
dream and deep-sleep states. ‘tvam’ in the ‘tat tvam asi’ refers to that
pure witnessing consciousness.  All the states of experience come and go; I
am ever present and ever awake as saakshii. Krishna says that saakshii is
the universal consciousness, the ever present, knower of all fields,
KshetrajnaH; Kshetrajnam ca api maam viddhi sarva kshetreShu bhaarata; and
that forms the mahaavaakya."

The "i" who, in deep sleep, experienced nothing (of the world of
multiplicity) did experience the Ananda of the Self for that was the only
thing that kept his company and so he recalls this experience when awake in
the words "I slept happily".  That was his pure positive bhogam.   While
dreaming and while awake he experiences the bhogam in the form of misram,
that is both positively and negatively.  While awake he claims that he is a
karmi for the mere fault of being pressured into doing karma which is always
painful while in other two states he is merely a bhogi.  This 'experiencing'
is suggested as being a witness.  This is vaachyaartham.  In vaachyaartham
'i'-who claims to be kartha and bhoktha- is part of the mind which in the
ultimate analysis is found to be false.  Therefore the 'i' of the
vaachyaartham is false.

The Kshethragnya is the Self that keeps his company in all three states and
the suggestion is that He is the true Witness.

The jeeva in ordinary course would not know of the Kshethragnya and that
would make him conclude that he is merely a kartha and a bhoktha
alternatively, who is born and dead either for one time or to repeat in
endless cycles.  It is to the credit of Prasthaanathrayam that brings to his
attention of the existence of the Kshethragnya that sends him into the fresh
enquiry on the relation between him and the Kshethragnya.

Addvaitins contend that the Jeeva is the Kshethragnya in lakshyaartham and
if indeed he achieves his lakshya by the Grace of his Guru he is sure to
find that there was never a kshethra in the first place!

The suggestion is: Know the true Witness (the 'one who was awake even in
deep-sleep' as Sadanandaji put it) and that true Witness is none other than
you!
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