[Advaita-l] What do we interact with as people?

[Kathirasan]

Namaste 

This reply is not a disagreement to your post but rather an additional point. 

The need for such discussions arise as a modern problem since the lines that separated the nivrtti dharma and pravrtti dharma got blurred. The need to interact with people and the hows, whys, whats were of no concern to the itinerant sannyasi who had renounced the world and spent his time in atmavicara. 

This blurring of the line had made people with pravrtti disposition to adopt nivrtti attitudes which go against their disposition. These could be caused by the large scale proliferation of Vedanta teachings without assessing their adhikara. 

When this happens, people do no know how to treat people in vyavahara. For example, people who should be vanquishing the enemy (like the Kshatriyas) would often forgive them due to compassion. And eventually this may weaken the very varna dharma that has been placed for the flourishing of our society. 

Kathirasan K

Sent from my iPhone

> On 23 Jul 2018, at 6:36 PM, V Subrahmanian via Advaita-l <advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:
> 
> What do we interact with as people?
> 
> Swami Paramarthananda in one of his classes made this very crucial, but not
> at all generally perceived, revelation. He asked his students:  How would
> you feel if I were to tell you that I am seeing in front of me inert bodies
> and minds?  Surely you would retort:  How could you ever say that to us who
> are beautiful, well-dressed, well-educated , intelligent and well-mannered
> people?  How indeed could we be inert entities?
> 
> The Swamiji went on to say, what you would say is true of me as well. You
> are seeing in front of you a me, an inert body-mind entity.  And he
> explained:
> 
> When I speak to you, it is the body doing the speech function through the
> speech organ, vaagindriya.  When you hear that, it is the hearing
> instrument, shrotrendriya, that does the hearing. Your mind assimilates
> it.  The shaastra teaches that all this is pancha bhuta kaarya, inert,
> anaatma.  This alone is actually perceived by you and me.  But the Atma
> that is what you and I are  is really not perceived, being not an object of
> perception. Therefore, all interactions happen at the body-mind level alone
> which is inert.  The substratum of all this, the Atman, is there, without
> which these interactions can never happen, is the one missed by most of us
> and the shaastra wants us to recognize this and realize that we are the
> Atman and not the body-mind.
> 
> In this background that the Swamiji has built, we can ask questions like:
> 
> What is it that is cared for, looked after, by parents with regard to
> children?
> 
> What is it that is governed, administered, protected, by the government, or
> the King?
> 
> What is it that is protected, nourished, etc. by Bhagavan?
> 
> To all these questions the common reply is: the body-mind complex alone and
> nothing other than that.  When parents care for, feed, nourish, develop,
> etc. with regard to children, it is nothing other than the body, the mind,
> the intellect, that is what gets nourished, developed, honed, etc. The
> govt. too protects the body alone of the subjects. And by extension,
> Ishwara too enlivens, energizes, protects, nourishes, etc. the body-mind
> alone.  The most significant 'extra' that Ishwara does is: provide the
> means for us to realize that we are not the body-mind but the Atman.
> 
> Thus, children depend on parents only for the protection etc. of their
> body-mind. We depend on the govt. only for our rations, security,
> infrastructure that helps our body-mind grow.  So too we depend on Bhagavan
> only for the protection of our body-mind, the development of the skills to
> realize the Atman as distinct from the body-mind and also realize that it
> is the Atman that is at the back of the mind and sense organs for their
> functioning.  Bhagavan or Ishwara or Paramatman cannot and does not protect
> the Atman, the Pure Consciousness, that is distinct from the
> body-senses-mind complex. This is simply because the Atman, the true nature
> of all of us, does not need any protection for it exists by itself, never
> to be destroyed by any force whatsoever. Hence there is no dependence on
> any other entity by/for the Atman. It is anatman that needs and gets the
> support of the Atman/Bhagavan/Ishwara/Paramatman.
> 
> It is the Upanishads that Shankara has expounded that teach us this truth.
> It is only in Shankara's works, and nowhere else, can we see this message
> explicitly given out.
> 
> Om Tat Sat
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