[Advaita-l] Re: source of mAyA?

[Ger Koekkoek]

A response to the answer of Aditya Varun Chadha on 1-4-2006:
"It is only through Maya that we reach the beyond-Maya. There is no shortcut 
to the process."
Indeed.
We have to study  the mystery that is in the heart of everything, and when 
we really come into this heart then it seems that it is this mystery itself 
that let you go. We don't do that. In a way everybody is busy with this 
process, undergoing and trying to understand good and bad, luck and 
suffering, knowledge and the experience of having questions. In a way you 
could even say that there is no other action going on in the world!
And indeed Maya is never becoming lesser.
When you are asleep you can dream about beautiful landscapes or ugly 
monsters, but waking up and realizing that it all was a dream does not make 
those dreams a lesser dream in themselves. You recognize them as a dream, 
that is only difference.

"The mind is an indispensable tool in reaching the end of the cliff."
Exactly, without this, the idea of Maya can become self-destructive, can 
become very dangerous. And reaching the end of the cliff you can slowly 
learn to watch and to listen to the mystery, and to think about it without 
any preoccupied meaning.

After I got a glimpse of the Supreme Truth (as I wrote in my introduction) 
there was a reaction in two directions: In one way I wanted to turn inwards, 
directly to the heart, but at the other hand my mind did not become quiet, 
but very much awake in a panoramic stream of thoughts and views. In the 
first direction I learned to be very patient. I can do this only for a 
quarter of an hour and this never became any longer during the years. But 
sometimes the result of it is very subtle, and sometimes even overwhelming. 
In the panoramic direction I studied a lot of ways of thinking, and talked 
and listened to many people, and watched the coming and going of thoughts 
and desires in my own mind, I watched the way they wanted to be out of 
themselves.
Perhaps you could say that I am walking (sometimes) closely around the end 
of the cliff, but I am not sitting on itself yet, oh no.

And indeed, philosophy can lead us astray (and perhaps all kinds of corners 
in our mind needs different types of philosophy), but during this process 
your mind becomes more and more capable of observing and thinking without 
being completely ruled by any meaning, and that's no end but a beginning.
Perhaps this is the crossroad where science and Jnana Yoga can meet each 
other, and that would be great, that could be the centre of a new world-wide 
culture, but at the moment this is still very far away.

This is a point I am still wondering about, if I may ask:
I got this glimpse when I was 17 years old. After that I simply KNEW, for 
sure, that liberation exists. But before that I never was interested in such 
a matter, nor my family in a wide range around me, nor the society of the 
small industrial town in which a was growing up. I did not even knew that 
matters like philosophy and meditation existed!
I am, after 35 years, still not really used to this all, but this "being 
sure" always stayed clear and never changed.
And why there was no doubt about this? It is not an experience or a vision, 
it is not an inspirited idea, it is what I am. It is what everything is. And 
this I recognized in Jnana Yoga and Advaita, and in this sharp way any sense 
of this never existed in the western culture.
Could anyone please react on this, for instance also about the relation 
between the seventh chakra and the heart, and about what exactly happened to 
me (see my introduction), for instance about a difference between a short 
flash in the seventh chakra, and the completely opening of it, and about 
going beyond it according to this two possibilities.
I see only one reason why this truth came into me: I saw the whole of the 
world as an illusion, soon dying, as I believed, in a atom bomb, without, 
and this is important, hating it.

During the years I always had the following idea as a kind of Mantra or, as 
I would say, resting point when my situation or my own mood took me very far 
away from this matter:
"What is is pure happiness, without source and timeless.
 And the world is an ambiguous shadow over this:
 It hides the truth, but is also the chance to find it back."

I apologize for this mail did become a bit too long.

With greetings,
Ger

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Aditya Varun Chadha" <adichad at gmail.com>
To: "A discussion group for Advaita Vedanta" 
<advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org>
Sent: Saturday, April 01, 2006 5:35 PM
Subject: Re: [Advaita-l] Re: source of mAyA?


I think that mAyA, the illusion of duality itself, is witness to the
profound simplicity of brahman, the Oneness. I think a prerequisite to
brahman-consciousness is being conscious of the richness of the
illusion itself. To feel Oneness, one has to first understand the
existence of the illusion of many-ness. I was saying previously that
upon realization some mAyA gets destroyed. I think I was wrong. It is
only through mAyA that we reach the beyond-mAyA. There is no shortcut
to the process.

The temporary nature of things can be known and felt through observing
them directly. Thus by observing mAyA we observe its internal
temporality. But mAyA as a whole itself may not be a "temporary"
phenomenon. It seems that brahman consciousness is simply the highest
level of consciousness. In it, what we call mAyA does not "vanish" or
get "annhilated", one simply comes to know the underlying substratum
of mAyA, which is brahman. mAyA is said to be unreal because it is
simply not the final substrate. There is a monist substrate that
inherently implies the temporality of any event in mAyA.

For example, observing that the bright side of the moon is of
different shapes when observed by us at different times is not FALSE
per se. It is just a limited perspective. When we come to realize the
mechanics of planetary motion, we realize the underlying principle
(substrate) of the mAyA of the shape-changing moon. So to observe and
realize that our current perspective is limited, we have to observe
and correct our perception itself. This is the basic principle behind
j~nAna yoga, as well as the scientific method.

I think that although in the "final leap" it is the mind that is
destroyed (because that is the final "thing" whose substratum has to
be known), the mind is an indispensible tool in reaching the edge of
the cliff. When j~nAna yoga is finally applied to the instrument of
j~nAna yoga itself, the instrument is destroyed and the j~nAna alone
is left. But to get the mind to destroy itself we have to hone the
mind to learn to destroy other "limited perspectives". When the mind
is practiced enough, then it is inevitable, the mind because of its
conscience, has to apply its own method of j~nAna on itself.

While I agree that our thoughts CAN lead us astray, I think without
the discipline of observing our thoughts and channelling them, finding
their underlying substratum and their own temporality is extremely
hard if not impossible.



On 4/1/06, Ger Koekkoek <gerkoekkoek at wanadoo.nl> wrote:
> A greet to all who will read this,
>
> Perhaps thinking about Maya has the goal to sea as sharp as possible that,
> when it comes to the heart of the matter, to 'what is', the mind has to
> become silent for the mind itself creates duality, the duality between 
> your
> way of thinking and its object. Thinking about Maya, which is an
> ununderstandable mystery, can clear up and empty a lot of subtle corners 
> in
> your mind that otherwise would stay active in the background, and thereby
> would create subtle but hard borders in your consciousness. The more the
> mind is open for the mystery and is only in an alert and listening mood, 
> the
> easier it will be to turn your attention inwards to its own source.
> It can be very helpful to realize that also Gods, or God, and also heaven
> are still existing in Maya.
> In that way we can realize that that Gods and heaven exits like trees and
> mountains exits, which I think is very important for de world and society,
> for the harmony of it, and at the same time go even beyond God and heaven,
> seeking for the Supreme Truth when you have the capacity to do so.
> And this possibility, as far as I know, exists only in the Indian
> philosophy, in the subtle, beyond there selves pointing ideas around Maya.
> In the medieval scholastic  philosophy of Christianity they also had the
> goal to come as sharp as possible to the mystery in the heart of 
> everything,
> but once you were there you supposed to find the bible and the almighty 
> God.
> The creator God always stayed bigger as the mystical melting together with
> your own heart, and thereby the western holy men never came to that 
> complete
> enlightment that a few of your saints retrieved.
> Therefore, to think about Maya can be very important, but at a certain 
> point
> you have to be alert for the mistake that this thinking in itself creates
> its own never ending circle. That is one of the dreams with which Maya can
> hold you asleep.
> I hope in India you will keep this tradition alive in a proper way. In the
> west it is very difficult to overcome some romantic illusions about India,
> or people think far to quick they understand all of it and become 
> arrogant,
> which is the opposite of what has to happen.
> Therefore I wrote this with respect,  hoping to point out a bit that you
> have a pearl in the contents of your tradition by the word 'Maya'.
> With greetings,
> Ger
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Amuthan" <aparyap at yahoo.co.in>
> To: "A discussion group for Advaita Vedanta"
> <advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org>
> Sent: Tuesday, March 28, 2006 10:52 AM
> Subject: Re: [Advaita-l] Re: source of mAyA?
>
>
> > namo nArAyaNAya!
> >
> > dear shrI vidyAsha~Nkar sundareshan,
> >
> > --- Vidyasankar Sundaresan
> > <svidyasankar_at_hotmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> [...] In other words,
> >> brahman can be said to create the universe through
> >> the instrumentality of
> >> mAyA, and only brahman can be the locus of mAyA.
> >>
> >
> > in the first place, is it necessary to ponder about
> > the locus of mAyA? there is absolutely no basis to
> > suppose that mAyA should have a locus.
> >
> > (and Aditya, i guess asking for a source of mAyA is
> > again meaningless since there is no reason to suppose
> > that such a cause exists.)
> >
> > within the scope of advaita vedAnta, we can never
> > possibly know if mAyA has a source or if it has a
> > locus. hence, any attempt to rationalize mAyA is bound
> > to be futile. mAyA is unintelligble and there it
> > stops.
> >
> > --- Vidyasankar Sundaresan
> > <svidyasankar_at_hotmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> [...] This question is equivalent
> >> to asking, "why does
> >> the universe exist?" In advaita, the short answer
> >> has always been, "lIlA" or
> >> "svabhAva" - e.g. devasyaisha svabhAvaH -
> >> gauDapAda's kArikas.
> >>
> >
> > yes, but this is also a form of running away from the
> > problem. i do agree that no system of philosophy has
> > satisfactorily dealt with the 'why' question. this
> > being the case, there is nothing wrong in plainly
> > stating that we are running away from the problem.
> >
> > going by occam's razor, it seems that the
> > vishiShTAdvaitin is better placed at least when it
> > comes to the issue of mAyA, but this is my personal
> > opinion :)
> >
> > vAsudevaH sarvaM,
> > aparyAptAmRtaH.
> >
> >
> >
> > __________________________________________________________
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--
Aditya Varun Chadha
adichad AT gmail.com
http://www.adichad.com
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