4. The physical body, pranas (vital energy), mind, gross elements and subtle elements, being aspects of Prakrti, are not naturally conscious of themselves or of the senses which grasp them or of the presiding deities. But the Jiva who makes them all externally conscious is aware of them all and their source, the gunas of Prakrti. Still the Jiva is not aware of the knower of all, the Ultimate Knower who is the support of the Jiva himself. May I offer my words of praise to that Supreme Being!
A Jiva is generally considered an individual who is not conscious of his true nature being part of the Supreme Being. Ontologically, the Jiva is no different from the Brahman.
Jiva is not a particle emerging from the Brahman or a piece cut out of the Brahman to be ultimately united with It, because the Brahman is all-pervading like Akasa with no form or parts. As the chaitanya part of the so called Jiva is nothing but the Brahman, it is declared Jivo Brahmaiva naparah. This is in short the philosophy of Advaita taught by the Upanisads and expounded by Sri Sankaracharya.
‘Once it is known that Consciousness (the Brahman) is One, All-pervading, Supreme Being, Peerless and Eternal, there can be no second Consciousness called Jiva, independent and different from the Brahman. Jiva is nothing other than Antahkarana which is translucent and is the purest (nirmala) of all the non-sentient objects (acetana
padarthas) being capable of reflecting and radiating of cicchakti of the Brahman with which it is constantly connected and, therefore, is never without chaitanya. There is no question of Jiva moving from place to place (one life to another). It is only the Antahkarana with all its constant associates like the subtle body, sense organs, etc which moves and migrates from place to place (life to life) and from one world to the other. It receives the chaitanya from the all-pervading Brahman wherever it goes. This point may be explained with the help of an example, apart from the well known examples of Ghatakasa (the sky delimited by pots) and Jala-Surya (reflection of Sun in water).
Every living being requires Prana (related to inhaling of oxygen). But it does not carry it wherever it goes, but finds it at every place it visits, lives on it and continues to be a Prani. Similar is the case with Antahkarana which draws cicchakti from the All-pervading onsciousness and itself appears as Cetana. The main difference is that the Prana is not all-pervading like the Brahman’, in the words of P. Sriramachandrudu.
5. Salutations to Thee, who shines in Thy pristine state with a mind that has attained to extreme purity by the subsidence of all perception and memory, and the consequent arresting of the mental modifications that objectify names and forms or take shape as external objects!
The Brahman is considered the Supreme Deity. It is not one among many. Everything in the world has its being in the Brahman. It is concrete in the sense that IT IS and asserts itself in the form ‘I-AM’. We only know that IT IS. It cannot be a person, as the word is generally understood. IT IS, and yet indeterminate, beyond speech and
concept.
The homogenous mass of cosmic consciousness does not give rise to anything other than what it is its essence. Consciousness never becomes unconsciousness. Even if there is modification, that, too, is consciousness. Hence, whatever there may be, wherever and in whatever form – all is the Brahman. Everything exists forever in the
potential state in the mass of homogenous consciousness.
6. Though Thou art covered by Thy powers manifesting as the various categories, mahatattva, ahamkara, manas, and the five tanmatras, wise men separate and grasp Thee through discriminative intelligence as existing in the heart, just as the celestial fire lodged in the sacrificial fuel is ignited and brought into manifestation through the fifteen sacred mantras.
The Brahman is ontologically prior to everything. IT is, therefore, to be regarded as the origin of everything. The Vedanta Aphorisms define the Brahman as that to which the birth, maintenance and destruction of the world have to be attributed. The Brahman is, therefore, considered the creator, the sustainer and the destroyer of the universe.
The Brahman, being the Supreme Being, permeating and pervading everything in the world is the Supreme Consciousness. It is also considered the Supreme Spirit or the Atman. By its very nature of all-encompassing and all-pervading phenomenon, the Supreme Spirit or Atman is considered the innermost attribute or constituent of the individual spirits or atmans. The Supreme Being becomes the Atman of all the atmans – the Universal Spirit residing in all individual spirits. The Supreme Spirit inwardizes into the individual spirits.
7. Thou art the transcendent Spirit ever steeped in eternal bliss, negating the diversities of relative existence produced by Maya. But being the possessor of the innate power Maya that baffles all definitions, Thou art also all manifested beings having names and forms. May that Sri Hari be propitious unto me!
The Brahman or the Self alone is the reality in all beings as clay is the real substance in thousands of pots. As wind and its movement are not different, Consciousness and its internal movement (energy) that causes all these manifestations are not different.The Brahman is neuter, unknown and unknowable. To be objectified, the Brahman covers Itself with a veil of Maya (Prakrti), becomes the source of the universe and so brings forth the creation.
The Cosmic Being has two bodies, the superior body that is Pure Consciousness and the other that is the cosmos. All activity that takes place in the cosmos originates in the Pure Consciousness. As a result, the cosmos is seen to be real. The Cosmic Being exists in its Pure Consciousness as a sage exists in his atman in his meditation.
The Brahman – the highest Being is the Absolute, Transcendental Self. The three distinctions – Being (Existence), Reality and Truth become one in the Absolute Reality. It not only satisfies the criterion of non- contradiction, but also is non-contradictable. It meets the highest criterion of logic, even at the level of transcendental dialectic.
The one eternal immutable Truth is the Spirit or the Brahman. Without the Spirit, the pragmatic truth of a self-creating universe would have no origin or foundation. The truths of universal existence are two-fold. One relates to the truths of the Spirit that are themselves eternal and immutable. The other relates to the play of the consciousness with the said eternal truths of the Spirit. The constant self-creation which we call birth finds in the universal existence the perfect evolution of all that it held in its own nature. All our births are the births of this Spirit embodying individual spirit (atman) and self. TO BE is the object of our existence.
