“That Devadatta (as a child) is this youth” is a statement wherein a child from a given time an place and of a given size and with other qualities of childhood is shown to have become, after fourteen years, this youth. The listener has to subtract the time, the place, the size, the shape, the innocence in the child and add the new time, place, size, shape, and the mischief of the youth, retaining the person himself, in order to arrive at the perfect identity between the person in the child and the square-shouldered teenager who is now sitting right in front of him. This is an example of jaha ajaha laksana.
Sri Ramacandra is elaborately explaining to his dear brother Laksmana that to grasp the significance of the mahavakya, we have to use the method of jaha ajaha laksana, which is also called bhaga laksana. Because jiva and Isvara are in essence nothing but the one Self (ekatmakattvat), jahati laksana cannot be used.
Similarly, in trying to understand the significance of tat tvam asi, we see the word meanings to be the supreme Lord of the Universe, the Creator (Isvara), and the limited ego (jiva). They are different in their expressions because of the difference in their equipments, ignorance (avidya) and total vasanas (Maya).
We cannot employ jaha laksana and conclude that avidya is Maya – this is not the goal of Vedanta. To pursue such a goal would be a wasteful expenditure of human energy.
Similarly, we cannot use the ajaha laksana method by merely analyzing and concluding that avidya, conditioned Consciousness, is jiva and that Maya-conditioned Consciousness is Isvara. The student is not arriving at the direct apprehension of “I am Brahman.” Therefore, ajaha laksan is not an adequate method for apprehending the spiritual Essence.
We will have to use bhaga laksana (also called bhaga-tyaga laksana), wherein the contradictory factors, such as avidya and Maya are removed, and we understand that the Self that expresses itself through these two equipments, manifesting itself as jiva and Isvara, is one and the sme Essence.
Pure Maya is extremely sattvic. When it is disturbed by rajas and therefore muddied by tamas, it becomes avidya. At this moment, avidya is the equipment in the seeker. When he quiets the mind and eliminates the rajas that creates the misapprehensions and the tamas that creates nonapprehension. Sattva increases in his inner equipment; and when this process is continued, the mind becomes more and more quieted inits creative poise (sattva). Sattva by itself can never exist except in combination with rajas and tamas. When all rajas is removed, in that pure sattvic state, the nonapprehension created by tamas ends, and the individual goes beyond sattva to realize his own pure Self.
Text XXVIII
rasadipancikrtabhutasambhavam bhogalayam duhkhasukhadikarmanam sariramadyantavadadikarmajam mayamayam sthulamupadhimatmanah
Made up of the five gross elements, for example, the earth, a hut of all experiences, fashioned by one’s own past actions, having a beginning and an end, a product of Maya – is the gross body. This is considered to be the gross equipment of the Self.
The Self is not readily available for our recognition because at this moment it is conditioned by – is expressing or functioning through, is wrapped up in – its equipments (upadhis). In this verse and the following two, Sri Rama defines and describes the nature and function of the gross, subtle, and causal bodies, which are the three equipments enlivened by the Self. In this verse, he gives an exhaustive definition of the gross body. The material from which the gross body is made is a happy mixture of the five gross elements. The process by which the subtle elements (tanmatras) become grossified is elaborately described in our sastras. The gross material from which bodies are made, whether they belong to plants, animals, or humans, comes from the same five gross elements. However, the same material can be structured in may different ways, and the blueprint is determined by the individual’s own past actions. The past actions recorded in our personality are called vasanas; and these vasanas determine the shape of the gross body (of a plant, animal, or human): its healthy or unhealthy condition, its size and shape, its color. We have taken this present body in order to exhaust our past impressions, known collectively as prarabdha.
All bodies, all names and forms, are conditioned in time, and therefore they are perpetually in a state of change. They are finite: they have a beginning and an end.
Nonapprehension of Reality creates misapprehensions, and the three equipments, the gross, subtle, and casual, are all products of this nonapprehension, avidya. This gross body, described so eleborately, is the gross equipment in which the Atman, the Self, is conditioned to become the ego (jiva).
In these three verses, Sri Ramacandraji is trying to dissect and exposethe significance of the term “thou” (tvam) in the mahavakya. The Self (Atman) is a mere witness, itself unaffected by the equipments. But we, identifying with the equipments, express ourselves as limited entities. The gross body is not the Self. It is only an equipment through which the Self apparently expresses itself.
Text XXIX
suksmam manobuddhidasendriyairyutam pranairapancikrtabhutasambhavam bhoktuh sukhaderanusadhanam bhave- cchariramanyadviduratmano budhah
Consisting of the mind, the intellect, the ten organs (of perception and action), and the five pranas, and structured from the five subtle elements, this serves as the instruments for the jiva togather its experience of joy and sorrow – this equipment of the Self is declared by the wise as the subtle body.
The gross body is supported by the subtle body, which consists of the mind and intellect, the faculties in the five sense organs of action and perception, and the powers called pranas, which govern and control the five physio-logical systems.
These seventeen items together constitute the subtle bdoy, which once again is structured from the five subtle elements (tanmatras). The subtle body is the instrument that serves the individual in contracting the world outside and gathering experiences of joy and sorrow.
