ADVAITA SIMPLIFIED – Part III: Objects arise when names are assigned to delimited shapes.
Advaita Simplified
In progressively ascending order of Difficulty* for mind to understand.
(* – Difficulty implies that some effort is needed in re-orientating the habitual pattern of the mind to a new worldview)
Step 12: The Sensor is non-different from what is sensed.
The Sensor Itself takes the form of mental thoughts, bodily sensations and the worldly perceptions. While you are not any of the finite thought, body or the worldly objects (Step # 1), all those are You (= Consciousness) only.
Experiment 1: Being conscious: You know you are conscious. But how do you exactly know that you are conscious? Your perceptions right now are the letters on the computer screen, the pressure of the chair felt on your bottom, the sounds from the next room etc. Each of these sensations tells you that you are conscious. Without them (or a current thought about your name, parentage, job etc.) you do not know that you are. All the entities you are aware of now in a sense tell what or who you are. Expressed differently, it is your sensing capability or Consciousness which is appearing in the form of everything you are sensing. So you the Sensor and what is sensed are the same.
Experiment 2: Close your eyes. Touch your chair with your hand. Has anything come into awareness other than the “touch” sensation? Repeat the expt. and note carefully. Did you feel a “you” and a “touch” or just touching? Other than the sensation, there is no “you” there. So what you sense is the Consciousness which is you.
Step 13: The Sensor needs a mind to look at itself.
The Sensor cannot sense or see itself unless it posits a mind.
Metaphor: Eye and Mirror: If the eye has to see itself, it needs a mirror.
Step 14: The Sensor, though one, appears as many when seen through the mind.
The Sensor seems as though it has become many the moment an interface of the mind is brought to bear upon It. Hence It appears as many things, objects, people, world and so on when It looks at Itself through the mind.
I am the only Sensor that exists. Because nothing else exists, there is no other thing to see. But when I want to see (even myself), I interpose a thought in the form of a desire. This thought-form (of a desire to see or experience myself) is the mind. When seeing/sensing happens, I am in effect positing a mind in front of the Sensor. The combo of mind sense organs splits my image into many.
Metaphor 1: Prism: A prism refracts the single white light into many vibrant (VIBGYOR) colors. Likewise, the mind divides the Sensor and shows a multiplicity of things.
Metaphor 2: Drunkard: Under highly inebriated condition, a person may look at himself as two.
Step 15: The “single” Sensor visualizing Itself as many is OK. That’s fun.
The Sensor looking at Itself as multiplicity (in the refracted image) is okay. No problem there.
Witnessing your own single refracted image as many different things can even be fun.
Metaphor 1: Unevenly Polished Warped Mirror: Suppose you see your reflection in an unevenly polished mirror which is not a perfect plane and has many warps in it. You see yourself as multiple reflections in very odd and divergent forms. The odd shapes and distorted forms will in fact generate a chuckle in you.
Metaphor 2: Kaleidoscope: Watching a single bead as many in a kaleidoscope is entertaining.
Step 16: Objects as separate entities begin to arise out of the one whole image of the Sensor when a name and a finite form is assigned to each of the component images.
You see yourself as many when viewed through the mind sense organs. But all of what you see together constitute one single image only. When you identify each of the constituent parts within that whole image by giving distinct names, each of the shapes begin to stand out as separate identifiable entities.
Metaphor 1: City: Everyone knows his/her city, say New York or London or Mumbai. A mental image of the city comes up the moment it is indicated. But you will find it to be a difficult task if you have to explain it or show it to somebody else. Suppose you take the person up in the air in a helicopter. You indicate the city with your finger. The finger can only point to a building, a road or some structure. Where is the city? Can you show it?
But the understanding you had about the city can be conveyed by decomposing it into several objects of definite sizes and names like the roads, the river, buildings, bridges, markets etc. These individual separate objects were there but did not have a specific identity of their own when the city was indicated as a whole. Thus the one picture of the city got divided into several separate objects by demarcating shapes and assigning names to them.
Metaphor 2: House: You know your house. But if you point out to me, your finger will indicate only a wall or a door or a window. Where is the house? You can, however, talk about the various parts in it by defining the limits in dimensions of the parts and identifying them with a name. Otherwise it is one whole house with no parts.
Metaphor 3: Gold: Whether it exists as a nugget, as a ring, a bangle, a plate, a necklace etc., it is all basically gold. The separate objects arise when we label different shapes with distinct names.
Metaphor 4: Ocean: At the beach, you see a wave, spume, foam, mist and a sheet of water. All of that is just the ocean but for the categorization and names assigned.
Metaphor 5: Language: For most of us it is all just one thing – ice. But for an Icelander, there are over a score of varieties of ice with different names. In certain aboriginal tribal languages, blue or green is one color. They even appear to be the same to the tribal people. But the colors become two only when different names are given.
In all the metaphors above, delimiting boundaries and assigning names give raise to distinct separate objects out of one whole entity.
Video 1: V. S. Ramachandran: When you see somebody being touched, you may empathize and feel the touch. But you do not experience the touch because your skin sends a signal of ‘I-am-not-being-touched’ to your brain. If the negative feedback from your skin is stopped, you will experience the other’s touch as your own. A sense of separation between you and the other person arises because you divide and label your single experience into two: visual and tactile sensations.
http://www.ted.com/talks/vs_ramachandran_the_neurons_that_shaped_civilization.html
Video 2: Jill Bolte Taylor: It is the tendency of the left brain to classify and name things. If the left brain stops functioning, the perceived world will appear as one whole without boundaries. The boundaries of a body also get obliterated as graphically described by Dr. Taylor in her talk.
http://www.ted.com/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight.html
(To Continue: Part IV: No Physicality / Solidity In The Objects Of The World)
