Advaita

[sravna]

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There has to be a timeless entity because otherwise we have to explain "beginining" which I feel will elude any explanation. Also the implication of transcending space and time would mean that the creation of universe and therefore matter springs from it and also since the entity is timeless it is the ultimate reality and the universe created from it, is its lower or relative reality.

So we have basically what is claimed by advaita: a timeless reality which is brahman and a relative physical reality which is maya and since spacetime springs from brahman and as brahman does not have parts, brahman is also the only reality.

 

[saidevo]

We might add that the nature of this absolute, ultimate, timeless reality is consciousness, which is beyond the physical. Since this consciousness has a singular vibration AUM as the substratum, a Self-Realized soul in the moments of samAdhi finds its nature as sat-chit-Ananda--existence-knowledge-bliss.

 

[SwamiTaBra]

We might add that the nature of this absolute, ultimate, timeless reality is consciousness, which is beyond the physical. Since this consciousness has a singular vibration AUM as the substratum, a Self-Realized soul in the moments of samAdhi finds its nature as sat-chit-Ananda--existence-knowledge-bliss.

I think the departure from other philosophical schools is that explanation on seer-seen relationship.

Swami

 

[sravna]

The "seer" it seems to me, would perceive and desire what he lacks and as he evolves fully would become one with the "seen". The external world I would think, provides the seer all the complements he needs to feel complete and hence his desire of the external, and his transcending of the external would imply, that all the external things have correspondingly been internalized and he becomes complete by himself. This internal consummation happens by the natural process of learning spanning innumerable births. It seems that the objects would correspond to knowledge in the internal world. Since knowledge is internal, the seer when he has that knowledge would no longer desire any external object.

 

[sravna]

Advaita saya that maya is neither real nor unreal.It is not real in the absolute sense because it is eventually destroyed. It is not also unreal because it represents a certain reality though not an eternal one. Sankara calls the physical reality as relative reality. Also all mental cognition in the physical realm is real in that realm though not in the spiritual realm.

The physical realm is a simultaneous existence with the spiritual realm. The word "simultaneous" may be misleading as it can only apply to the physical realm, brahman being eternal. This surface physical existence covers the deep spiritual reality. What basically happens in the path to liberation is the shifting of the consciousness, of physical reality to spiritual reality due to events happening in the physical reality.

That there is only one final reality is due to the fact that all consciousness merge in the spiritual reality just like the reality of dreams finally end in the physical reality. Just as we do not take dreams seriously when we are physically awake, we do not take physical reality seriously when we are spiritually awake. This may indeed be the need for maya: to emphasize the fact that brahman is the true and only reality. Thus maya is more a teacher than anything else.