ADVAITA SIMPLIFIED – Part VII: Nothing has ever happened

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 28:  I eat food, I eat food; I am food, I am food.

The Steps at 14, 24 and 25 show how the undivided, single, nameless ‘something’ appears as many through the metaphors of reflection in a warped mirror and a lake surface in agitation.  A constant energy feed is required for sustaining any movement like an agitation on the surface of a lake.

Each separate reflection within the collage (world) strives for its own survival or in other words desires the movement to continue. So it devours some of the images external to itself to draw the energy to sustain its own movement.  Thus it eats food and/or becomes food for another image. Every separate image in the world is thus food only. Hence the whole ‘world’ is nothing but food.

‘Food’ – to eat or to be eaten — is the way every one of the separate little images gets transformed and merges with another separate image.

Step 29:  The world is a transformationless transformation of my Original Self.

While the separate little images within the collage called world are undergoing constant change, the Original ‘Me’ remains changeless.

Metaphor:  The Sun:  The Sun in the sky remains unchanging and unaffected by the distortions happening in its reflected image in each of the ripples on a lake surface. If we stay focused on the panorama of the changing forms of the Sun in the multiple waves ignoring the Original Sun in the sky, we mistake that it is the Sun who is going through the changes.

By shifting our attention to the unchanging Sun in the sky, we are not any more deluded by the changes in the separate images.

“VikAra”is the Sanskrit name in Vedantic lingo for the apparent changes seen in the world.

“Brahman” is the word in Sanskrit that points to the Original “Me’, (the Sensor in Steps 4 onwards).

“Jagat” is the Sanskrit name for the total collage of all the multiple reflections (including ‘me’ and ‘not-me’ – see Step 18).

Step 30:  Whereas I am food as the world, I am Knowingness-Beingness- Infiniteness as Brahman.

Brahman points to the actual ‘Me’ and not to any of the separate little images. I have never contracted into the small size and shape of any of the small images which are just My reflections.

I am One with no name. I am not limited (by finite dimensions) nor localized (contracted in time and space). I am eternally what I am without any change whatsoever.

Let us invoke again the metaphor of the Sun and the lake surface.

Metaphor:  Sun and the Lake Surface: A quiet lake surface will reflect the Sun with a single reflected image of a round bright disc. Throw a stone into the waters and several ripples get created. The ripples in the waters will in turn create multiple images of the sun. Some of the images will be elongated streaks of light, some short, many others in different shapes and sizes.

Suppose the Sun forgets and identifies himself with one of the distorted images reflected in a ripple on the lake surface. Suppose that image-sun thinks that it is separate and independent of the lake surface.

How long can the image-sun sustain its separate entity? It can sustain its separate beingness as long as the agitation (movement) in the waters continues.

In this Model, the following equivalence may help understanding the comparison:

    Self-effulgent Brahman (= You)        –     Self-illuminating Sun

    Pure mind                                           —     Undisturbed Lake surface

    Thought-wave of I-consciousness    

    (or a separate ‘me’)                           —    Agitation in the surface of water (ripples)

    Individual body-mind                          –    Reflected image of the Sun on a single ripple

Step 31:   I am Love; I am Happiness; I am Peace.

The True “I” that I am (the subject) is pointed out by three of its natural intrinsic qualities. The three qualities are:

Beingness = Existence = Presence = Amness = Isness  …..    (1)

Consciousness = Knowingness = Awareness                   …..    (2)

Infiniteness = Happiness = Bliss                                          …..    (3)  
“I” do not have to specially “do” anything in order just to ‘be’, to be ‘aware’ or to be ‘happy’. 

[It is like saying in chemistry that gold is shiny, malleable and inert (not chemically reacting) metal. These are all its qualities and not what gold constitutes. All these characteristics point out to one and the same thing. Gold does not have to do specially anything to be shiny, malleable or chemically inert.]

When we can successfully end the separation by fulfilling a desire, we temporarily get a taste of our original Happiness which is  what we really are.

When we successfully end the separation by dissolving the distance, we temporarily get a taste of love, which is Oneness and that’s what we really are. Thus,

Lack of separating distance between entities is intimate Oneness. Such a close intimacy is Love, the feel of dissolving the imagined distance.

When I am everything, there is no other thing which I lack or have to desire. The lack of desire is Happiness.

When there is no other separate entity, there is none to be afraid of, to be agitated against. There is then no disturbance.  Absence of disturbance is Peace.

Step 32:  The remedy from misery (see Step: 22) lies in stepping back, and remembering that the real you is not any of the tiny images.

Keep remembering not to forget that what is perceived as many is, in fact, the distorted reflection of the single you shown as many in an imperfect mirror.  

A handy key to get out of the false belief is: practice not to desire or reject things; don’t be judgmental; give up all claims of ownership for possessions and doership for actions. If you see/feel/enjoy anything, you have separated yourself into an experiencer and some ‘thing’ (which is other than you) to be experienced. Immediately ‘drop’ that seeing/feeling/enjoyment.

Step 33: To abide in the unforgetfulness of what you truly are is Jivanmukti (liberation while living with the body).

Continuous remembrance that you are only seeing an image and letting everything happen all by itself with no interest in anything, performing actions as they come up without any conscious feeling of a ‘me’ is Liberation from being affected by what happens (bondage). The body (the imaginary separate entity) lives as long as it has to and it ends by itself.

Step 34:  When the looking at yourself ends, the world ends.

As long as a body exists, a mind, however tenuous it may be, exists. As long as a trace of the mind is there, the Sensor which is you sees a world. When the mind totally stops, the world is completely annihilated. Then only the Sensor remains. This is called Videhamukti (liberation without the body).

Step 35:  Everything said above is false. Nothing has ever happened.

In Truth, even the imagination of a metaphor of an uneven warped mirror and the reflection having multiple shapes in a rippling pond are incorrect. There is no one to observe anything out there (because the observer is an inseparable part of the one whole diorama). Nor anyone to question why there is something and how it has come about. What IS is all This. Spontaneously the Whole Is.

Metaphor 1:  Snake-fissure: Imagine you are on a mountain track. You find a suspiciously looking snake across the track in twilight. Suddenly you become alert and stay cautious as long as you continue to see the snake.

On bringing in a torch and focusing light on the supposed snake, you find it to be a fissure in the ground. The snake has suddenly disappeared – all at once, not gradually first the tail, then the slithering body and finally the hood etc. 

But if you “ignore” this knowledge because you forgot what you knew, you may see a snake again and get scared till you are reminded about that imagined snake being in reality a fissure.  So the origination of the snake, the sustenance of the image of the snake fuelled by your imagined fear and desire for perpetuation and the subsequent disappearance of the snake are all imaginations. Nothing ever truly happened beyond the imagination.

So the reality (fissure) stays as ever eternally without going through any change. The perceived world (snake) which has never been there really originates in imagination, thrives on fear and desire and disappears on remembrance of Truth.

Metaphor 2:  Computer Screen: The screen always stays as it is. When a document is loaded, the screen appears in the form of that document. But the screen does not disappear when the document appears. In fact the screen continues its presence permeating the entire document, all around it, in the gaps within the document and supporting the document. The color or quality or content of the document will not affect the screen or stick to it. The body, the thoughts, the identities, the world are multiple documents appearing as the screen at that moment.

The real “You” is like the screen. Nothing happens to the screen.

Metaphor 3:  Pond and eddy: Suppose there is a pond. The water is calm and maybe some ripples are there. Now an eddy develops in the pond and the water whirls through. Because of the whirling water, has the pond become something else? Has the pond stopped being the pond?

Experiment: Salt Doll: Imagine yourself to be a doll made up of salt. As a salt doll you are interested to know the mysterious depths of the ocean (from which you originated according to one concept). So go to an ocean and take a dive (no diving suits or gadgets please). Can you visualize what is happening to you as each molecule from you dissolves and disappears merging into the vast ocean leaving no identity of yours – not even as a thought? Where are you as a salt doll and where is the world separated from you, the doll? Can you succeed to retain your distinct ID as the doll? What mystery of the ocean could you ever hope to solve?

The world is all a play of words.  Nothing has ever happened.