Consciousness and the Self VI

Knowledge of the Supreme, 

Brahman and Energy

There are some natural questions that arise if try to establish that the Absolute Infinite Consciousness exists as the background to the material universe. We can prove by our own experience that consciousness exists. Our own spiritual existence is not in doubt as we can sense this at every moment. Then again, we sense something greater, the foundation of all existence. If everything is spirit, then were does matter come from? Is matter real? What is the relationship between spiritual and material reality?

A certain class of spiritual philosophy tries to establish that there is no distinction between the Soul and the Supersoul or even between matter and spirit. This school is called Advaita-vāda, where Dva means Two. Dvaita means “two-ness,” and Advaita means “oneness.” Vāda means philosophy. So Advaita-vāda means the “philosophy of oneness.”

The real pioneer of this school was Śaṅkara.

Shankara Shrine Temple

According to this view the nondifferentiated spirit called Brahman is the ground of all creation. Śaṅkara holds that there is no essential distinction or division in Brahman. Everything is one.

Brahman or spirit is free from all qualities. In this sense it is very similar to the Buddhistic void in the way that zero and infinity are similar concepts. The elimination of qualities leads us to the same conclusion, in the Buddhist case nothingness, in the case of Śaṅkara infiniteness. Infinite divided by infinite is also infinite. Zero divided by zero is also zero. Om purnam adah purnam idam. First there is a mountain then there is no mountain then there is.

There are many philsophical problems for the Śaṅkarites. One of them is the relationship between eternal spiritual reality and the phenomenal world. If reality is spiritual and eternal, then how does this temporal material world come into being and how does it reconcile with eternal spiritual reality?

Or in other words, how is it that eternal unchanging Brahman is the ground of impermanent phenomenal appearance? What is the relationship between Brahman or Spirit and the world?

The ideas forwarded by Śaṅkara resolve this paradox with the introduction of the concept of māyā, and the distinction between levels or degrees of reality. The famous aphorism by Śaṅkara is brahma-satyam jagan-mithya: Brahman is true, world is false. This world is an illusion, created by māyā. The problem with this idea is that the nature of the relationship between spirit and the phenomenal world is left unresolved. How spirit creates the material world is an unanswered question. Brahman itself is undifferentiated and has no causal properties. In fact at this highest level of reality according to Śaṅkara there is nothing else but spirit. 

Shankar Acharya

While Advaitic philosophy differentiates between Spirit and World, between the reality of spirit and the unreality of the material universe, but tries to end in oneness with no distinction. There is no duality between Spirit and the Universe, because ultimately the universe does not exist. It exists only as an illusion, but the illusion itself has no reality. Therefore there is only spirit. Duality is mere appearance; reality is nondual or one.

In this view, in the end, there is neither subject nor object. The Subject exists only as illusion, and where the subject is illusory, the object is nonexistent. Again, this mirrors Buddhistic philosophy with the important difference that eternal spiritual oneness replaces the nirvana of nothingness and the void.

Śaṅkara’s analysis of different levels of consciousness offer a valuable heirarchical treatment of different states of awareness. He ranks states of consciousness according to the subtlety of phenomenal experience, according to increasing levels of purification, from the mere awareness of food (annamaya) to survival (pranamaya), mental consciousness (manomaya), intellectual and spiritual knowledge (vijñānamaya), and spiritual realization in ananda, or ecstasy (anandamāya).

Where the Greek philosophers calculated the formulas determining the axioms of geometry, India’s greatest minds examined the inner workings of spiritual reality. Many of Śaṅkara’s ideas on Vedānta were considered revelations even for 20th Century Quantum Physicists like Erwin Schrodinger.

Śaṅkara’s views echo Buddhism to the point where his Nondualism almost reads like a kind of Buddhism in disguise. Where Buddhism resolves everything into nothingness, Śaṅkara’s version resolves into the spiritual oneness of Brahman. But where Buddha’s austere nirvana stripped away all the trappings of Vedic social life, Śaṅkara allows for a robust version of varnāśrama: the gods are an illusion anyway, why not worship them. Many feel that Śaṅkara’s single greatest achievement was to reduce the popularity of Buddhism by offering a more native version of the same thing. But where Buddhism rejects brahmanism, Śaṅkara returns the brahmanas to their place in society. Śaṅkara relies on the Vedas and Upanishads to establish his oneness theory, giving the Vedic version and its culture prominence, where Buddha had rejected it. Scant years after Śaṅkara preached his version far and wide, Buddhism disappeared from the Asian subcontinent, never to return in power.

There is little difference between the Buddhist concept of nirvana or “cessation of existence” and the views of Śaṅkara, where the individual soul loses its separate existence and “merges” into oneness.

In Tattva-Viveka, Bhaktivinoda points out:

“One might go so far as to say that the Saṅkara Advaita (Monism or Impersonalism) philosophy is really only another kind of materialistic philosophy of cessation of existence.

“In the end, the impersonalist followers of Śaṅkara really yearn to end their own individual existence and then taste the spiritual bliss of merging into impersonal Brahman. However, after nirvāna they no longer exist. If they do not exist, then they cannot experience bliss (ananda) or anything else. So, their concept of ananda-maya consciousness is ultimately flawed, since there can be no ananda or bliss in an undifferentiated world void of qualities. There may be sat, or existence and cit, or consciousness, but without love there can be no ananda, bliss. And how can love exist when both the subject and object of love are nonexistent? If subject and object are mere illusions there is no dynamic. Without dynamic, without the interplay between subject and object, there can be no love and no ecstasy.

In summary, the impersonal Advaita philosophy of Śaṅkara teaches: “Brahman is the only thing that exists. Nothing else exists. The idea that spirit, matter, and God are different things is useful only for ordinary activities. In truth Brahman is the unchanging root from which they all have grown. Brahman is eternal, changeless, formless, and qualityless. It has no characteristics. It has no power. It has no activities. Brahman never changes into anything else. All these statements are found in different places in the Vedas."

Still, these philosophers leave some doubts unanswered. One might ask, “How is it possible that the impersonal Brahman is the origin of this material world? We can see this world with our own eyes. How did it come into existence? ”These are questions which haunt the followers of Śaṅkara. If they cannot answer these questions their philosophy will not stand. In his darkest hours, thinking and thinking, Śaṅkara considered these points: “Brahman never performs any activity. How can it have created the world? How can we accept that it has the power to perform activity? If we accept that something else exists besides Brahman, then the whole Advaita (non-dual) philosophy will be broken."

Thinking and thinking in this way, they came to this conclusion: If we say that Brahman has the power to transform itself into other things, that will not destroy our Advaita philosophy. Therefore, Brahman transformed itself into the things of this world. That we can believe."

(They say) the variety-filled material world is in truth a transformation of Brahman. It is not different from Brahman.

In this way a theory of transformation became accepted. But then another impersonalist philosopher said, It is not right to say that Brahman has a defect. If Brahman becomes transformed, then it no longer remains Brahman.

“Therefore this theory of transformation should be thrown far away and in its place the theory of illusion (māyā) should be accepted. Brahman never becomes transformed into any other thing. Therefore the theory of transformation is impossible.”

“However my theory,” thought Śaṅkara, “which maintains that all that exists is in reality Brahman and Brahman alone, and the idea that a variety of things exists is really only an illusion is a beautiful theory, beautiful in every limb. When one mistakes a rope for a snake, one becomes afraid. When one mistakes the glitter in a seashell for silver, one becomes filled with hopes.

Śaṅkara thought, “Therefore if my theory of illusion is accepted, then Brahman has no defect. The material world is an illusion. Only because of ignorance does one believe it exists. In this way my therory is proved. The material world does not exist. Life does not exist. Only Brahman exists.”

Śaṅkara said, “The belief that the material world exists is only pretending on the part of Brahman. This pretending is called by the names `avidya' (ignorance), `māyā' (illusion) and other like words found in dictionaries. The pretending here does not posit the existence of something different from Brahman. Therefore Brahman is the only reality. Nothing else exists. The reality is spirit, and the the pretending, the illusion, is matter. That is now proved.”

Śaṅkara thought, “When material consciousness is defeated by spiritual truth, then the material pretending is destroyed, the true reality is revealed, and liberation is attained."

Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura points out, “The blunder is their idea that Brahman alone exists and there is nothing but it. If they do not accept that Brahman has inconceivable power, then all their ideas are worthless. Some talk of maya (illusion, other talk of avidya (ignorance), others talk of pretending, and still others talk of pretending to pretend, but if they say that Brahman has no power to do anything, then how can they establish their idea that only Brahman, and nothing else, exists?

In every one of their ideas is seen the fatal flaw that kills the impersonalist philosophy. If we accept the idea that Brahman has inconceivable power, and if we say Brahman is the only thing that exists, then Brahman has no need to take shelter of anything but itself. Then Brahman is not different from any substance or any power. Then, by Brahman's inconceivable power, change and changelessness, form and formlessness, qualities and qualitylessness, and a host of other mutually contradictory natures may simultaneously and eternally exist within Brahman without negating each other's existence.

Bhaktivinoda Thakura, author of Krishna Samhita

Even the greatest effort of human reason cannot understand Brahman's inconceivable power. Why should we not accept the truth that Brahman has inconceivable power? The glories of Brahman who has inconceivable powers is infinitely greater than the glory of the impersonal qualityless Brahman.

I glorify the Supreme Brahman, that is to say, the Godhead. The Brahman who has transcendental powers is the Supreme Brahman or Bhagavan. The Brahman without qualities or powers is called merely Brahman. That Brahman is merely a part of the Supreme Brahman, or Bhagavan. The philosophy that turns away from the Supreme Brahman and accepts only the partial Brahman is a very inferior kind of philosophy, a philosophy born of small minds. Of this there is no doubt.

Bhaktivinoda continues, “This impersonalist philosophy has no power to satisfy the questions posed by good logic. It has no power to understand the true meaning of the Vedas. It has no power to give to the individual spirit souls the greatest auspiciousness.”

Mahayogi at Vedalife Festival Discussing Subjective Evolution of Consciousness

A deeper analysis is given in the Vaiṣṇava view on Vedānta:

The Supreme Brahman or the Supreme Truth (para-tattva) has a inconceivable potencies: first there is the spiritual potency (parā-śākti). The shadow of that spiritual potency is the potency of illusion (māyā-śakti). Māyā-śakti is the mother of the material world. The great variety of qualities māyā offers are accepted by the souls residing in the material world as their own qualities.

In this way the soul's original qualities are withdrawn and the specific mixture of qualities and an identity offered by māyā are accepted by the soul. In this way the spirit soul identifies with matter.

Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam explains how the Supreme Brahman is considered by topmost learned transcendentalists:

vadanti ta tattva-vidas

tattvaà yaj jñānam advayam

brahmeti paramātmeti bhagavān iti śabdyate

Learned transcendentalists who know the Absolute Truth call the non-dual substance Brahman, Paramātmā, or Bhagavān."*

Bhagavān (the Supreme Brahman) is superior to Brahman (the impersonal divine effulgence) and Paramātmā (the all-pervading Supersoul). Still, one should not think that Brahman, Paramātmā, are two separate gods and Bhagavān is the Supreme God that dominates Them.

Here the individual spirit soul is the seer, and Bhagavān is the object seen. When he first begins his spiritual life, and he travels on the path of philosophical speculation (jñāna- mārga), the soul sees the Brahman feature of Bhagavān. When he makes some advancement on that path, the soul begins to walk on the path of yoga (yoga-mārga). When he walks on that path, the soul sees the Paramatmā feature of Bhagavān.

When by good fortune the soul walks on the path of pure devotional service (śuddha-bhakti-mārga), the soul sees Bhagavān directly.

Bhagavān brings great sweetness to the eyes. He is full of transcendental bliss. He is eternal and full of knowledge and bliss. His form is graceful. He is a very handsome and charming person. He has all opulence, all power, all fane, all handsomeness, all knowledge, and all renunciation. He has them in the best, the most sublime way. Brahman and Paramātmā are both hidden within Bhagavān. Bhagavān has all potencies. By His wish His potencies manifest His regular and occasional pastimes. He is supremely independent. He is the author of all rules and regulations. Still, He is never bound by any rules or regulations. Bhagavān has no rival. No one is equal to Him. No one is superior to Him. His spiritual potencies are multifarious. They have many different powers.

By these spiritual potencies Bhagavān's spiritual abode, spiritual pastimes, and spiritual paraphernalia are all manifested. That are all transformations of Bhagavān's spiritual potency. From His perfect spiritual potency the spiritual world is manifest. Bhagavān's potency acts in many different ways. One kind of action it performs is the manifestation of the many atoms. That is seen. Spiritual effulgence, spiritual qualities, and spiritual activities are all manifested from Bhagavān's spiritual potency. From the jīva-śakti potency the many individual spirit souls (jīvas) are manifest. The spiritual potency has a shadow. From that shadow are manifest the five gross material elements, the five sense objects, the ten senses, and the mind, intelligence, and false ego. In this way 24 material elements are manifest. 

The potency that manifests the material world is thus called the chāyā-śakti (shadow potency).

Bhagavān (the Supreme Personality of Godhead) is like the sun. The many individual souls are like particles of light that come from that Bhagavan-sun. Each individual soul has an eternal spiritual form like the form of Bhagavan. Each individual soul is by nature spiritual and blissful. His nature is to love Bhagavan. He is like a son entitled to a share in his father's (Bhagavan's) property.

Bhagavān is like the sun. The rays of light emanating from that sun are the individual spirit souls. These rays-of-light individual spirit souls have a nature like Bhagavän's. Each individual soul has an effulgent spiritual form suited to its own particular nature. Each soul's form is effulgent and spiritual. Therefore each soul is spiritual in nature. Each soul has spiritual qualities. A small particle of love is part of each soul's spiritual nature. Therefore a particle of love is the soul's nature. 

Therefore it is said, Love is the soul's nature.”

Śrīdhara Mahārāja comments on the “Potency” or “Energy” of the Supreme Brahman, Bhagavān, as follows in “Subjective Evolution” “In our conception of divinity, puruṣa/prakṛti, the masculine/feminine, are existing together. Potent and potency, substance and potency, are inconceivably interconnected.

Otherwise, if we conceive of the Supreme Soul as existing independent of any potency, that will be the brahman conception of Śaṇkarācharya: ultimate consciousness as non-differentiated oneness. So the Absolute Truth includes both potent and potency – puruṣa/prakṛti – consciousness with energy.

Actually there are three main elements to be traced within divinity: jñāna, bala, and krīya. 

The eternal aspect of the absolute whole is divided in three ways: energy, consciousness, and ecstasy. Thinking, willing and feeling. Sat, chit, ānanda. Sat, the potency for maintaining existence, is the potency of Baladeva (bala). Chit, the aspect of consciousness, is Vāsudeva (jñāna). And ānanda, ecstatic feeling, is Rādhikā (kriya). Jñāna, bala, krīya (knowledge, strength, feeling); sat, chit, ānanda (eternity, cognition, bliss); sandhīnī, samvīt, hlādinī (existence, realization, ecstasy): Baladeva, Krishna, Rādhārānī. 

These are the three phases of advaya-jñāna, or the one whole. The one whole can be thought of in its primary, evolved stage in three ways: main consciousness, main energy, and main satisfaction. In three phases we are to conceive of that ultimate reality. It is there: jñāna willing. Sat, chit, ānanda. Satyam, śivam, sundaram (eternity, auspiciousness, beauty). And these three principles are expressed through evolution and dissolution in the eternal and non-eternal.

These aspects of theism have been dealt with in a very scientific way in the Śrī Kṛṣṇa Saṁhitā of Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura. ”