JAGAT - The world of manifestation.

The indescribable power of Iswara is called Maya. Iswara with his power called Maya manifests thia world. Maya is otherwise called Prakriti. Tigunatmika Maya- maya is made up of three gunas ( modes, preponderences, modalities). They are Satwa, rajas and tamas. Satwa mode makes one seek knowledge. Such a one seeks purity. illumination, clarity. He persues pleasures. Such a one is bound by knowledge and pleasure. A person in the rajas mode is a workaholic. He has a passioon for work. He develops deep attachments and goes to extremes in love, hatred, envy, jealousy etc. By these modes he is bound . A person of tamas mode is lethargic, is given to procrastination, becomes indifferent to priorities in life,is stubborn, refractor yand adament. His mind is always confused.

These modes alternate in the mind and create a pall of thicknes preventing one from recognising the atma, the awareness that he is. These modes find expression in yajna(sacrificial acts) dana (charitable acts), tapas- austerities and in acts that need decisions. Gunas also act in the field of sraddha -faith-beleif systems.

The whole world of transactions come under the sway of these gunas.

The unique power of Maya is reversal. Reversal is to make a noun an adjective and adjective a noun.Maya hides the real and projects the unreal. It makes as it were the anatma as atma and atma as anatma, the attribute of the concrete as concrete and concrete as its adjective. viz: gold chain. Here the concrete is gold and attribute is chain But in the word, chain is the noun and gold is the adjective. this is the reversal.In Sanskrit this reversal is called 'vyatyayaha' . maya gives substantiality to things that don't have substantiality. Maya makes adjectives pull down the noun and make adjectives occupy the throne of the noun. Sat- existence is noun and objects in jagat are adjectives. Maya's pravritti does the reversal.Maya brings out the 'anyonya mithuni karanam ' intermixture. Tne projective power (vikshepa) of Maya is wonderful, this power is the one that manifested the surge called creation. This projective power uses the modes satwa,rajas and tamas and projects the plurality and the variegated variety.

Vedanta a pragmatic approach (continued.....)

With regard to the 'I' , the transactor there is a confusion. In transaction there is a subject part and an object part. The subject part is the Objectless awareness (The Atma). The object part is Atma becoming a transactor.The transactor is attributeless I along with the object transacted. "Aham vritti -the akhandaakara vritii- + buddhi vritti. eg. I see a pot. This is I the observer and the pot that is seen by me. Aham vritti+ Ghata (pot) vritti formed inthe buddhi.In the recognition of this there is the kshetrajna and the Kshetra. The awarer( Pure consciousnes ) and the awared the rocogniser with the recognition of the object -the pot. Here the seer is awareness affected by the object ,pot.To distinctively recognise the awareness and the awarer of the object is called viveka (discrimination- this word does not convey the full content of viveka. So a teacher is necessary to make us understand what exactly Viveka is.In normal transaction we recognise the awarer of thew object but not the subject, the awarer-pure consciousness.Let us look at the mix upwe have made.I am lean. What you mean here is your body is lean and you are trustee of the body. Your are not the body .You are the user of the body.So How can I be thin? We have to say my body is lean.I am not allright. This really means I am the one with a mind or a body that is not allright.To stay as the consciousness unaffected by the recognition ia jnana, liberation from limitations.

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The road taken and not taken - 3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_ENywYuC2c

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The road taken and not taken - 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIMCZZEpOEY

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The road taken and not taken - 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4XfE0OuyUM

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Prapatti - Surrender

Surrender to God has a catch. What are you going to surrender? Will it be of any use to God? Does God need the things that you surrender to Him? If he needs these , then He is a needy person like any of us. Further to surrender everything you must meet God, who then is a personalised entity like you , occupying a place in space and so becomes limited .So then there must be a depth meaning to this word surrender which is free from all these confusions.God here is Iswara who is present in this creation as several orders called Dharma. To conform to the Dharma and to perform our allotted tasks is Surrender. To accept the results of these tasks as a prasada (grace) from Iswara is what is suggested.

My equipment and I

My body is my equipment. It is a three tiered structure. The tiers are gross body, subtle body and causal body. The gross body is perceivable, the subtle imperceivable but conceivable and the causal inferable.
The gross body is made of the pentamerous combination of the rudimentary elements viz: space, air, fire, water and earth. The combination has become the epidermis, dermis, flesh, fat, blood, bone and marrow. This is the tenement in which we live and transact our lives. This is the hutment wherein we have our experiences.
The subtle body is made up of the five senses, five organs of action, and five pranas. Mind, intellect, the five fields in which the senses roam about, memory (recall faculty) and the agent called the ego.
The causal body is the capital (total potential) out of which we draw our blue prints of our lives. This causal one is the collective unconscious (term used by the psychologists).
The one who uses this is the indweller called Kshetrajna (knower of the field which is the three tiered structure and the worlds in which he transacts.
Other than the one ,who uses this three tiered structure, is the Unique incomparable one, Sat chit ananda or satyam jnanam anantham, otherwise called as the atma at the micro level or Brahman at the macro level or Bhooma( used in the chandogya Upanishad) or the Purushottama.

Divert links to the first three videos of the Isavasya upanishad!

Isavasya upanishad 1 - Swami Suvijnanananda
http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=XuJ28667M8E&feature=channel_page
Isavasya upanishad 2 - Swami Suvijnanananda
http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=JeM5F9jLGr4&feature=channel_page
Isavasya upanishad 3 - Swami Suvijnanananda
http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=9iljTWOrBys&feature=channel_page
Sorry for the problems with the direct posts earlier. Will be uploading more....
Pranams!

Vedanta - A pragmatic approach.

Please read this slowly, deliberately ,assimilating clearly every line ,nay every word for words are abiguous and may lead us to confusion. Then reflect and verify personally in your day-to-day transactions all these.

Life is a transaction. I am the transactor. The world is the transacted. This world is apprehended by me from the data collected by the senses that belong to my body. The senses are the faculties of vision, hearing, of Picking up odours,of taste and of touch.The equipments in which these faculties are situated are respectively the eyes,the ears, the nostrils, the tongue and the skin all over the body.The world , with which we transact starts from what is mine i.e my gross body, my subtle body and causal body and moves outwards to the world of perceptions,world of mentations,conceptions and world of axioms and verities.
The transacted is the world made up of the five elements and the elementals ( the ones formed by the pentamorous combination of the five elements) consisting of living beings and non living ones, the flora and the fauna,i.e the land, the fields, the water sources, the structures on the surface of the earth rooted down in the earth and the ones swathing the earth., the valleys , the deserts, the heaths,the wild growth, the hills and mountains and their ranges, the atmosphere, the galaxies, the asteroids, the planets, the stellar constellations, the wast milky way-the micro and the mega. All these fall into the fields apprehended by the senses and the mind.


The transactor is the king-pin. Without this one there is no transacted, for the transacted cannot exist without the transactor. The transactor is me. Sciences gives us the knowledge of the transacted but they cannot give the knowledge of the transactor , the 'I' which is the universal and unique one. With regard to this I , there is a confusion . This confusion is due to the mixing up of the I and the one cognised by the I. It is here vedanta comes to our help.

End of the first contemplation

- Swami Suvijnanananda