Brahma Sutras

[C RAVI]

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1. What is the relationship among adhyasa, avidya and maya?

Adhyasa + Avidya = Maya

2. Why is worldly knowledge called illusory knowledge?

Worldly knowledge revolves around the understanding of ordinary human brains, that can not understand and realize more than what humans could see, feel and experience, within the scope of illusory world of survival

Maya is all pervading and creates Illusions around and within the brain. Emotions, feelings, sufferings, pains, pleasures, understanding, misunderstanding etc are the products of deluded brain and are outcome of falsified projection of this physical world as real.

Thus what ever knowledge gained within the frame work of falsified land of survival, they are just illusory knowledge and nothing else.

3. How can illusory knowledge lead to real knowledge?

Illusory knowledge helps instigating the quest to gain understanding of the reality that exists in real, beyond illusory experiences gained in this illusory land of survival.

Illusory knowledge is the product of human's all emotions, feelings, understandings etc..etc within the scope of human's deluded brains, gained through illusory circumstances, illusory presentations & illusory realities.

When human's could attempt towards coming out of this overwhelming and burdened illusory knowledge, realizing there is nothing to be owned for ever and nothing to be lost for ever-nothing can be true and nothing can be false-nothing can be right and nothing can be wrong-nothing to be gained and nothing to be lost-nothing can be useful and nothing can be useless etc.etc, human's could attempt to explore the ultimate reality/real knowledge, taking charge of their brain and taping its full potential.

Illusory knowledge helps exhausting the illusory potentials of the brain and instigates one to explore the real knowledge.

 

[sravna]

Excellent Ravi.

Personally I think, maya first makes you to learn things which are not right. It deludes oneself into a sense of wrong infallibility. Under a different set of circumstances your set of theories are debunked and falsified and then dawns real knowledge. I personally feel that maya first makes you learn the wrong things and then makes you unlearn them. There can be no better way of imparting the right things in a permanent manner than this.

 

[sravna]

Also the experiences of two persons may be the same but what each learns from them may be totally different. For example one may view sun as a divine being whereas another may view it as just a bunch of chemical elements. The latter is what is observed or is the empirical knowledge and the former is what is intuited and in my opinion closer to the real knowledge. In my view intuited knowledge better represents reality than knowledge by observation.

Empirical knowledge inevitably give way to the real knowledge as at some point or other their reality will be contradicted by some other observation.

 

[C RAVI]

Personally I think, maya first makes you to learn things which are not right. It deludes oneself into a sense of wrong infallibility. Under a different set of circumstances your set of theories are debunked and falsified and then dawns real knowledge. I personally feel that maya first makes you learn the wrong things and then makes you unlearn them. There can be no better way of imparting the right things in a permanent manner than this.

True!!

 

[Raghy]

Dear Shri Raghy,

I am trying to making the discussion simple to follow. But I think the concepts are heavy. The real discussion starts from the adhyasa concept I recently summarized. Is there anything I need to specifically elucidate? I will try to do that and I will remember to keep the future posts really simple. Thanks for your feedback.

Dear Sri. Sravna,

This message is only my personal opinion. You are very welcome to reject it.

Let us suppose you are going to explain Brahma Sutra to your gardener, who has minimum education. How simple would you like to keep it? I am talking about that kind of simplicity.

You may anticipate certain entry knowledge for this discussion; if that is the case, I must say, I should withdraw quietly. I may not have the entry qualifications.

When I learned associate Diploma in Mechanical Engineering in Brisbane, I prepared my first ever assignment. My draft copy for my first assignment was turned down by my professor. He said it was too technical. Said I should write it simple enough for a lay person.

Is your post #45 simple enough for a lay person? Kindly ask yourself.

Why should you call worldly knowledge as illusory knowledge? Knowledge can never be an illusion. The question is " do we need it or not?"... But I would not like to start a discussion on that.

Kindly imagine I am an illiterate guy. Let us say when others studied B.Sc for three years, I studied year 10 for 3 years. Let us say I know nothing about anything in Sanskrit. If you are going to explain Brahma Sutra how would you do it?

I am not trying to ridicule here. I wish to remind you, if one can write 'Bhashyam' to Brahma Sutra, one is considered as an 'Acharyal'. As an Acharyal one would be required to explain to illiterate persons.

So, let us start the discussion at the real starting point.

If you like, you may have a separate discussion with me at my simple level. I don't want to hold the learned members in this forum from their learned discussions.

My starting point is defining Maya. My reason is simple. If you want to avoid something, you have to know what to avoid. When I was a young farmer, I learned difference between rice paddy and weed; they looked alike! I had to identify weed so that I could get rid of it. Same thing would apply here too. So, what is Maya in very simple terms, please? I have my own answer; but I like to hear the answer from Brahma Sutra, please. Thank you.

Cheers!

 

[auh]

Sravna/Ravi,

You are trying to explain the effects of Maya, but what is it? Is it just a concept, or a force, similar to the electron cloud that permeates the universe (or multiverse). Is Maya a substance, or devoid of it?

When you say maya does this, maya does that, how does it do it? does it have some kind of special intelligence not shared by us? If maya is similar to illusion, you need to elaborate here; an illusion could be of at least two types, external and internal (learned members may correct me) - external like the mirage in a desert where environmental factors play a part, or internal, akin to hallucinations which are purely based in the mind.

All said and done, I am astonished that a mind overcome by maya, tries to overcome it in return !

 

[Raghy]

Dear Auh,

All said and done, I am astonished that a mind overcome by maya, tries to overcome it in return !

No. If the mind overcame by Maya, it is screwed. There is no return. Illusion has to be identified before completely sunk in Maya.

Identifying that is the challenge.

Cheers!

 

[Vaagmi]

I believe what Sri Raghy is asking for is to first settle the context or the underlying circumstances and need for this discussion. Since Raghy’s gardener is interested in understanding Vedanta, it is worthwhile explaining to him the context. With the hope that Sravna would not object to my helping with my input at this stage so that the discussion moves ahead, I am posting this.

We have to presume a few things here. They are 1)that the gardener is a happy man with his basic needs for existence satisfied. 2)that he has an exploring mind. 3)that with that mind he has looked around and has observed a lot of things happening around him in this universe which are at times chaotic or at time very orderly and this has naturally lead him to inquire what is all this about. He is further wondering whether there is any force, which people call God, which is the cause of all this in the universe. 4) He has tried to find answers to his questions and has come across atheists who bluntly tell him that there is nothing called God, that everything is what it is without any creator behind them. They have their own logic and scientific reasoning for their point of view. The gardener has listened to them and is not convinced. So he wants to know what is God. 5)With his questions about God, as he started his inquiry, he is bewildered by the plethora of schools of religious thought offering answers which are widely different in nature and content from one another and so he is confused.

It is at this point that we invite the gardener to participate in the discussion here. Sravna tells him that there is a God. He further tells the gardener that to know more about God he has to rely on scriptures. This naturally leads to the question by the gardener as to why should scriptures be trusted and what is said in scriptures about God.

Now Sravna has to explain what is the knowledge that is contained in the scriptures. He has to explain the study or theory of the nature and grounds of valid knowledge with reference to its limits and validity. This is epistemology. Sravana thinks this is necessary because prama(Sanskrit) the valid knowledge is derived from pramana. Sravna has to step by step explain what is prama and what are the pramanas and which pramana is the reliable one for the Gardener in his inquiry and exploration. For this he will be speaking about learned Acharyas’ works. At every point the gardener will be asking questions and Sravna will have to answer so that the search moves forward and progresses. I hope Sravna will start from here as the context has been explained to the gardener and he is ready.

 

[sravna]

Dear Shri Raghy and Shri Auh,

Good questions. From my understanding of advaita, maya is the projection of brahman but itself projects the physical world. Since maya is only a projection it is not identical with brahman . But even though it is illusory because of its absence in the ultimate reality, it has the powers to create the physical world just as jivas which are illusory in nature have in their limited ways the power to create.

 

[sravna]

Dear Shri Vaagmi,

I will try. Thanks for your input.

 

[C RAVI]

Dear Shri Raghy and Shri Auh,

Good questions. From my understanding of advaita, maya is the projection of brahman but itself projects the physical world. Since maya is only a projection it is not identical with brahman . But even though it is illusory because of its absence in the ultimate reality, it has the powers to create the physical world just as jivas which are illusory in nature have in their limited ways the power to create.

I hold the same!!

Highest level of spiritual energies helps brain to overcome the influences of Maya and by that one attains the highest level of realization and get to know the absolute reality. By that time the person will be in a different state.

The soul in due course of spiritual evolution works towards attaining that highest level of realization. Until that time, the soul is bound to take "n" numbers of rebirth.

 

[tbs]

hi sravana,
avidya/adhyaaasa are more complicate subjects.....very controversial tooo..better strict ti sutras....normal meanings to understand lay

man....may be relavants from sribhashyam/madhvacharya view too..nothing wrong learning different views..

 

[sravna]

Dear Sri. Sravna,



My starting point is defining Maya. My reason is simple. If you want to avoid something, you have to know what to avoid. When I was a young farmer, I learned difference between rice paddy and weed; they looked alike! I had to identify weed so that I could get rid of it. Same thing would apply here too. So, what is Maya in very simple terms, please? I have my own answer; but I like to hear the answer from Brahma Sutra, please. Thank you.

Cheers!

Dear Shri Raghy,

To explain maya in simple terms consider you have been insulted by your colleague or by your friend. The reaction to such an event may vary from one to another. If you have the ability to not form any emotional reactions to it and in fact see it as the other man's shortcoming then you are ok. But if you get emotional reactions and want to get back at him some way then you are under the spell of what is called as maya. Maya is something that obstructs an objective reaction to a situation and makes you to be gripped with emotions and act in a prejudiced way.

Maya tempts with the false knowledge first so that you fall for it but later find out due to sufferings caused by falling for it, the real knowledge. In the above example you assume that it is correct to retort back at your colleague or friend, instead of realizing that you need to transcend such feelings.

 

[C RAVI]

Dear Shri Raghy,

To explain maya in simple terms consider you have been insulted by your colleague or by your friend. The reaction to such an event may vary from one to another. If you have the ability to not form any emotional reactions to it and in fact see it as the other man's shortcoming then you are ok. But if you get emotional reactions and want to get back at him some way then you are under the spell of what is called as maya. Maya is something that obstructs an objective reaction to a situation and makes you to be gripped with emotions and act in a prejudiced way.

Maya tempts with the false knowledge first so that you fall for it but later find out due to sufferings caused by falling for it, the real knowledge. In the above example you assume that it is correct to retort back at your colleague or friend, instead of realizing that you need to transcend such feelings.

Very well explained in a very simplistic form, Shri Sravna.

 

[Raghy]

Dear Sri. Vaagmi, Greetings.

Thank you for your input. Your belief is correct except for few little details. The gardener is not inquiring about God. The gardener is happy with the simple life he is leading already. He does notice the orderly pattern and the chaotic pattern around him and keeps himself busy just keep ahead or 'just keeping the head above water'. That gardener follows a decent life, helpful to others and keeps everything simple.

That gardener takes up an invitation to hear about Brahma Sutra.

After all, the gardener may not have the basic knowledge to understand Brahma Sutra Or the gardener may not require to understand Brahma Sutra.

But although not knowledgeable, shall we say, that gardener has some life skills.

Once again, thanks for explaining the gardener's position.

Cheers!

 

[Nara]

Very well explained in a very simplistic form, Shri Sravna.

Well explained and simplistic are kinda opposite ...

simplistic -- treating complex issues and problems as if they were much simpler than they really are. synonyms: facile, superficial, oversimple, oversimplified;

simple -- not hard to understand, readily understood

 

[Raghy]

Dear Shri Raghy,

To explain maya in simple terms consider you have been insulted by your colleague or by your friend. The reaction to such an event may vary from one to another. If you have the ability to not form any emotional reactions to it and in fact see it as the other man's shortcoming then you are ok. But if you get emotional reactions and want to get back at him some way then you are under the spell of what is called as maya. Maya is something that obstructs an objective reaction to a situation and makes you to be gripped with emotions and act in a prejudiced way.

Maya tempts with the false knowledge first so that you fall for it but later find out due to sufferings caused by falling for it, the real knowledge. In the above example you assume that it is correct to retort back at your colleague or friend, instead of realizing that you need to transcend such feelings.

Dear Sri. Sravna,

Every action has to have a reaction. You are saying the feeling or emotion to react happens due to the spell of Maya. If I stay passive, I would be extending an invitation to get abused. I have many examples for that. Staying passive is just staying passive; it is not an antidote to overcome Maya.

Once again you only showed me what you believe the effects of Maya. You have not shown me the Maya itself.

Let me go back to my farmer example. You are saying if I don't remove the weed it would take up the nutrients, reduce my crop size and eventually reduce the yield. Further you state, since I learned the effects of the weed I would be wise to remove the weed in the future. I have gone past that stage. I want to identify the weed itself. How do I identify the weed itself?

I don't have 100s of janmas for this. That belief itself is an illusion. This janma is what I have in hand. That is not an illusion. How do I identify the weed now? As I said I know the answer in my own way which does not involve Brahma sutra. I am interested to know the views from Brahma Sutra, please. Thank you.

Cheers!

 

[sravna]

Dear Shri Raghy,

As you rightly say maya causes its effects on you. It makes you feel what is false as true. Your efforts should be in discriminating the truth from the falsehood i.e., in removing the effects of maya. I do not think anyone can remove maya itself. In the example I gave you cannot prevent your friend from insulting you but can overcome the effects of the insult. btw you are not being passive. Being passive sounds like being affected by the insult. You are transcending it. That is your are not in essence affected by it even though you may have to react to it outwardly.

 

[Nara]

All this talk about maya reminded me of a story, I may have already narrated it here, I can't remember, if I had, I apologize for the repetition.

There was this vedantic scholar teaching maya to a group of eager students in a serene gurukulam in the woods. He was explaining how all the material world is illusory and the only ultimate and absolute reality is Nirguna Brahman. Suddenly there was this fearsome tiger out of nowhere rushing straight towards them. The teacher yelled out to the students, "run for your lives, climb some tree" and the obedient students complied. After some roaring the tiger got tired and went away.

The students and the teacher regrouped. One uppity student raised his hand and asked the teacher, "if all is maya, then the tiger must be maya too, why did you then ask us to run for our lives?"

The teacher got stumped, but like any other self respecting advaitin he quickly came up with an answer, "the tiger was maya, me shouting was maya, you guys climbing the tree was maya too."

So, there you have it, everything is maya, you guys arguing about what is maya is also maya, according to advaitam!!!!

 

[sravna]

Dear Shri Nara,

Unless you are fit enough to be liberated you are under the effects of maya. But the extent varies. One who is spiritual is less under the influence of maya than one who is not. It is basically a mix of real and unreal. I take the teachings of Sankara as not due to the maya but one done after being freed from it.

 

[renuka]

Renuka,

Why should maya prevent responses?!

Sravna,

Maya has a veiling capacity..right now my brains are veiled from knowing the Truth..so that is why there is no response from me.


In fact I was reading some portions of the Brahmasutra last night and I actually found it easier to understand than this thread.

I feel before most of us dive deep into the ocean of knowledge to obtain the Viveka Chudamani we need to learn to swim first.

I still feel the best time tested method is to go Sutra by Sutra and then get the whole picture of the Brahmasutra.

I have a question for you...Have you finished reading the Brahmasutra??

I have not finished reading it at all..cos it is very extensive and takes time.

May be someday I will read it fully.

 

[sravna]

Dear Renuka,

There are other people who want to participate in this thread and who require explanations in simple terms and also want to understand the basics first. that is the reason I would to try to give an idea of the basic concepts described in our scriptures and then talk about the sutras. Knowledgeable people like you can also contribute towards this.

 

[Raghy]

Dear Shri Raghy,

As you rightly say maya causes its effects on you. It makes you feel what is false as true. Your efforts should be in discriminating the truth from the falsehood i.e., in removing the effects of maya. I do not think anyone can remove maya itself. In the example I gave you cannot prevent your friend from insulting you but can overcome the effects of the insult. btw you are not being passive. Being passive sounds like being affected by the insult. You are transcending it. That is your are not in essence affected by it even though you may have to react to it outwardly.

Dear Sri. Sravna,

I beg to differ with you please. I am not saying Maya causes effects on me; I just paraphrased your words. I have no trouble identifying what is not real and what is real.

You did not respond to the comment " belief in re-incarnation itself is an illusion". Well, time would come where we may have to discuss that in detail.

If I can not prevent my friend from insulting me on the constant basis ( my inaction would only encourage others to join my 'friend' in those insulting actions), how can I overcome that? By running away from there? or by killing myself? ( mind you, suicides have taken place when a victim could not take up bullying anymore). It is meaningless to say one may not be affected by constant insulting. It is only an illusion to think of a transcending stage.

Why this conversation is getting complicated? think about it, please.

In my opinion, you are not identifying Maya. I am not talking about removing Maya altogether. But it has to be identified.

This world is real. All the people around you are real. Morning is real; night is real. Money is real; debt is real. Everything is real, real .... and real. so, where is the Maya? I am the Maya.

Cheers!

 

[renuka]

Dear Renuka,

There are other people who want to participate in this thread and who require explanations in simple terms and also want to understand the basics first. that is the reason I would to try to give an idea of the basic concepts described in our scriptures and then talk about the sutras. Knowledgeable people like you can also contribute towards this.

Dear Sravna,

Simple is going Sutra by Sutra.

The explanation in this thread is really complicated..in fact it will confuse anyone.

 

[sravna]

Dear Shri Raghy,

I did not say you should not prevent your friend from insulting you. If you read my statement carefully you would understand that I said do it only in an outward sense without really being affected by the insult.

I do not understand what you really mean by "I am the maya" and everything else is real.