Dear Yajvan et.al,
A minor add-on to post
#2 for everyones consideration:
Originally Posted by
yajvan
namast
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Within the advaita vedāntic tradition , (and hence we look to ādi śaṅkara-ji's knowledge) this māyā is tightly coupled to avidyā and is considered inter-changable in their use.
This couplet of māyā/avidyā has 6 marks or defining charactistics
- it is beginningless or anādi
- it is terminiated by proper knowledge or jāna-nivartya
- it covers or veils or āvaraṇa & vikṣepa
- it is indefinible or anivacanīya
- it is the nature of existence or bhāvarūpa
- it is neither located in the individual or in brahman
If we look to ādi śaṅkara-ji's vivekacūḍāmaṇi , 110th and 111th śloka-s addresses māyā and brings controversy to many a scholar/śāstṛi ( that would not be me). The 111th śloka informs us of the following as it discusses this māyā. It says,
It is neither real or unreal or both; it is neither undifferentiated nor dofferent nor both; it neither has parts nor is it partless nor both. It is supremely wonderful and of an inexpressible form.
Here maya is presented as a series of effects. Nobody can think of a cause without an effect. A cause is a cause because it affects something.
Past is past because of the present. As long as the past is here, it cannot be past. It is the present. It is only in relation to the present that we can say something is past. Similarly it is in relationship to an effect that we say cause.
It is only when we taste the saline water that we say it is salty: before we taste it that question doesnt arise. Thus all experiences are clusters of effects.
What we have seen so far is only a little, like the iceberg analogy, but it is nonetheless beginningless.
Hence in the same verse, to obviate such confusions, Sankara adds: She (Maya) is to be inferred by
one of clear understanding only from the
effect (kaarya) she produces.
Sankara describes Maya as the ignorance that is without a beggininng, and that causes the dual aspect which conceals truth and projects untruth, with all its variegated names and forms, in a variety of ways.
Since it has no beginning we cannot say prior to the beggingless.
We think of Being first, and then Becoming starts. We cannot conceive of becoming that starts before being because we already considered the process of phenomenality as beginningless. So there is no point in looking for something that is before it. Whatever beingness is there we have to see within the becoming itself, as being and becoming are inseparable.
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An appreciation to post
#6, which reads:
Originally Posted by
yajvan
hariḥ oṁ
~~~~~~
namast
A most reasonable question to ask : why does the Supreme choose to do this ? To throttle itSelf down and unfold the universe , to beocome 'individual', diversified ? One answer is the following, from abhinanagupta-ji's work called bodhapacadśikā or the 15 verses of wisdom.
tasaivaiṣā parā devī
svarūpāmarṣantosukā |
pūrṅatvaṁ sarvabhāveṣu
yasya nālpaṁ na cādhikam ||
I will rely on svāmī lakṣman-jū for the proper translation of this śloka. This then says,
The collective state of the universe is His supreme energy (or śakti) which He created to recognize His own nature. This śakti who is the embodiment of the collective state of the universe loves possessing the
state of God Consciousness. She is in the state of ignorannce remaining perfectly complete (pūrṅatvaṁ) and full in each and ervey object.
Svāmī lakṣman-jū informs us, why has He ( śiva) created this supreme energy in His own nature ? For one reason - to recognize His own nature. This whole universe is nothing more then the means by which we can come to recognize śiva. You can come to recognize
śiva through the universe, not by abondoning it.
Svāmī-ji further says, that is why this external universe is called śakti because it is the means to realize own's own nature.
In fact Vedanta holds almost the same viewpoint. In 100 verses of self instruction Narayana Guru is offering his approach to this question. It is not merely to satisfy curiosity to know how this world evolved but the centerpiece of discussion here is the Self.
Knowledge, to know its own nature here,
Has become earth and the other elements;
Spiraling up, back and turning round,
Like a glowing twig it is ever turning.
Our very self is like an ocean of potentials. Its own nature is just beingness; at the same time it is infinitely creative and expressive at the level of life.
Where it expresses, it is as if knowledge, to know its own potentials, is changing into all these.
It is like an artist who wants to express her artistic talent, or a musician who can make different kinds of tonal effects.
When we consider all these, the human mind and senses are not the private preserve of the individual who wears them. They belong to the entire universe. They are the universes's way of perceiving itself.
Love
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