SHANKARA AND RAMANA

Note: This article is meant for intellectuals only

Tomorrow Lakshman is leaving for Mumbai. Therefore I shall serve a food item, which is to his taste on this farewell day. I will serve the food item of his liking, which is prepared in a better way or in a proper way so that its original true taste is known to him and his liking for that food item will be reinforced. The food item that he likes is the philosophy of Shri Ramana Maharishi, who is considered to be the human incarnation of Lord Subrahmanya. Lord Subrahmanya is the son of Lord Shiva i.e. He is the incarnation of Shiva. Shri Ramana Maharishi was a follower of the philosophy of Shankara, who is also an incarnation of Lord Shiva. Lord Shiva is the incarnation of Lord Datta (Shiva Datta) who is the source of all the three divine forms (Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva). When Lord Datta is in My human body, how can the spiritual knowledge given by Him through My mouth contradict the philosophy of Shankara and Shri Ramana Maharishi? If it contradicts, it becomes a self-contradiction. Lord Datta in me is only clarifying the misunderstood Shankara and Ramana Maharishi. It means Lord Datta Himself has been misunderstood. The misunderstanding comes only when the total concept of Shankara and Ramana Maharishi is not conceived. Suppose a professor teaches school students for a long time during the day and handles his research students for only an hour. Based on the long time spent with school students and the work done by Him for them, can you conclude that He is merely a school teacher and neglect the one hour that He teaches research students? When the majority consists of ignorant beginners, the preacher has to spend a lot of time in preaching to their level and this does not mean that He is only a preacher of the basic standard. If you take just one incident from the life of Shankara or Ramana Maharishi, you can understand the high standard of those preachers.

Shri Ramana Maharishi prayed to Lord Shiva (Arunachaleshwara) to cure the disease of His mother and it was cured. Similarly when the body of Shankara was partially burnt, he prayed to Lord Narasimha and the burns disappeared. Now the question is why should they pray to Ishwara to cure the diseases? Their souls were Brahman and Brahman is the Creator, Ruler and Destroyer of the world. They have preached Advaita (Self is God) to a large extent through their commentaries and messages respectively. Based on the large effort that they have put on Advaita, you are concluding that Advaita is their final concept. Even though the above incidents are very small, the concept in those incidents is very powerful. A single gem is far valuable than a million gravel stones. They did not pray to themselves or simply wish to cure the diseases. They prayed to the Lord with different names. If you argue that those names of the Lord are also the alternative names of their Self, then they should have taken the name of the Self itself to cure the diseases. Only in that case could their Advaita philosophy have got direct practical proof.

Shri Ramana Maharishi used Advaita when a surgery to remove a boil on his hand was done and he did not require any sedative medicine. He confined to his self (pure awareness) detaching himself from the super impositions on the subtle and gross bodies so that the pain of the gross body was not received by the soul. The subtle body links the gross body with the soul and conveys the feelings of the pain. When the soul is detached from the gross body and when the subtle body (mind or a bundle of feelings) is destroyed, the link is cut and the feeling of pain itself gets destroyed. The soul or pure awareness becomes free from all the qualities (nirguna chit) and the ‘I’ is fixed in the pure awareness or the soul itself. This is the achievement of self-analysis by Advaita, which is called as Atma Yoga. The self could not cure the boil as Lord Arunachaleswara cured the disease of his mother. He did not pray to Lord Shiva for the cure of his boil. What is the message he conveyed by these powerful minor incidents, which are like rare diamonds? You are always pondering over the majority of gravel stones given by him to ignorant people, who are in majority. These minor incidents give a message to spiritual aspirants of high standard, who are always in a minority. The essence of these incidents is that the value of Advaita or Atma Yoga is just the price of a sedative tablet! It cannot cure the disease, which means that it cannot interfere with the cycle of deeds and fruits. When the self cannot interfere even with the implementation the constitution of cycle of deeds and fruits, can it create, rule and destroy this universe? These incidents also convey that only God other than the self can interfere in this cycle and cure the diseases and therefore such God only can be believed to be the creator, ruler and destroyer. Therefore, only God can be Brahman and not the self. If you are giving importance to the large quantity of messages and commentaries given by those preachers and if you are not worried about these minor incidents, it clearly means that you are one of the majority of school students and you are not one of the minority of research students.

God and Soul: No Comparison

God, called as Brahman so far, and to be called as Parabrahman hereafter, is unimaginable. It is essential to differentiate God from the Brahman because the word Brahman is not confined to God alone and is used for other items like the Veda, due to its root meaning of greatness. The soul, which is knowable or imaginable, can never be compared with the unimaginable God either in the qualitative sense or in the quantitative sense. Water present in two cups of equal volume is equal in both qualitative and quantitative senses. The water present in a cup and the water present in a pot are equal in the qualitative sense but differ in the quantitative sense. Qualitative comparison comes when the quality of the two items is known. When the nature or quality of God is unknown, there is no possibility of qualitative comparison. In the absence of qualitative comparison, quantitative comparison does not even arise because quantitative comparison is possible only when there are two different quantities of the same item that is qualitatively known.

The soul is a work form of inert energy and work is a form of energy. Therefore the soul is energy, which is inert in its basic form and this basic form of the soul is realized in deep sleep. The subtle body is nothing but the work form of nervous energy or pure awareness and is represented as a bundle of feelings or a bundle of various forms of kinetic energy. This means that the subtle body is also inert energy. The gross body is also inert energy because the matter of the gross body can also be converted into inert energy according to law of equivalence of mass and energy. Therefore the gross body, subtle body and causal body (self) are nothing but a quantum of inert energy in the basic sense. Similarly, the entire cosmos is also an ocean of inert energy in the basic sense. Now you, as a composite of all the three bodies are a drop of inert energy in the vast ocean of cosmic energy. Ishwara is the unimaginable God covered by this sheath of the ocean of cosmic energy. You are a drop of that ocean of cosmic energy. Now there is a qualitative similarity between you [self] and the ocean of cosmic energy because both are inert energy. But there is a quantitative difference between you and the ocean of cosmic energy. There is no question of comparison between you and the unimaginable God, either in the qualitative or quantitative sense.

When Ramanuja said that the soul is a part of Ishwara, he meant just this. Since God charges the ocean of cosmic energy, it can be treated as God under the name Ishwara. The soul is said to be a part of Ishwara and this means that the soul is a part of the ocean of cosmic energy and not a part of God. Shankara also meant the same when He was praying to Lord Jagannatha, while taking a bath in the ocean. The verse He composed says “O Lord, even though the difference between Ishwara and that soul is gone, I am in you like a wave in this ocean and You are not in me because the ocean cannot be accommodated in the wave.” Here He means that even though the qualitative difference between the wave and ocean has vanished by knowing the qualitative similarity between the wave and ocean as both being water, the quantitative difference between the ocean and wave exists. He is only comparing the soul with the covering sheath (Upadhi) of God, which is the cosmic energy. The comparison is not between God and the soul.

You are a small piece of cloth. A diamond is wrapped in a large cloth. There can be a comparison between you and the large cloth qualitatively, because both are qualitatively the same cloth. There is a quantitative difference between the piece of cloth and the large cloth. This does not mean that the piece of cloth is a small particle of the diamond. There is no comparison in any point between the cloth and diamond.

The above concept of comparison takes a completely different angle when Ishwara is compared to Krishna [human incarnation of God]. In fact Adi Shankara is no way different from Krishna. But Adi Shankara said the above verse assuming Himself to be an ordinary human being. When you compare Ishwara with Krishna, the concept is quite different. Suppose, two diamonds qualitatively as well as quantitatively similar, are wrapped by a small cloth and big cloth respectively. Krishna and Iswhara are those two similar diamonds wrapped by a small cloth and a big cloth respectively. The cloths are similar qualitatively but differ quantitatively. But the diamonds in both the cloths are similar qualitatively as well as quantitatively. Here the two cloths are the human body and the cosmos, which are small and big respectively. Both have qualitative similarity even though the quantitative difference exists. The nine items (Nava Avarnam, which are the five fundamental elements and the four antahakarnams namely ego, mind, intelligence, and storage capacity) are common to both the human body (Pindanda) and cosmos (Brahmanda). The two diamonds are the same, one unimaginable God. You should not think that there are two unimaginable Gods, similar to the two diamonds. The same unimaginable God, by His unimaginable power, can exist in both the places. There cannot be an exact simile in this world, to describe God, since the world is composed only of imaginable items. Due to this practical limitation, one should cooperate with us to understand whenever a simile is given for God.

The same above verse can be applied to the case of Adi Shankara and Ishwara also. Even though the qualitative difference is removed in the human body and the cosmos, the quantitative difference exists between the human body and the cosmos as in the case of a wave and ocean. In this second case too, there is no difference (qualitatively as well as quantitatively) between the God existing in the human body of Adi Shankara and Ishwara. Therefore, in this case the only difference between the human body and the cosmos is in the quantitative sense.

In the first case of Ishwara and an ordinary human being also, the same quantitative difference exists between the human body and the cosmos. The big iron box containing the diamond inside is Ishwara. The small iron box without a diamond is a human being. The big and the small iron boxes [representing the cosmos and the human body respectively] have qualitative similarity but differ quantitatively. As far as the diamond is concerned, there is no point of comparison because the small box is vacant. In the case of Ishwara and Adi Shankara, the small box also contains the same diamond, which is equal qualitatively and quantitatively. In this case the comparison is only between the two boxes, because there is no need of comparison as far as diamonds are concerned, since both the diamonds are one and the same. Therefore in both cases, the comparison is only between the boxes and the comparison is also one and the same, in both the cases (i.e. the small iron box and the big iron box differ quantitatively and are similar qualitatively).

By this similar comparison of the boxes and by the similar absence of comparison in diamonds (there is no need of comparison in diamonds in both the cases since in one case the diamonds are one and the same and in the other case there is no second diamond), the above verse can be equally applied to Adi Shankara and an ordinary human being.

This led to the misunderstanding that the ordinary human being is also exactly equal to Adi Shankara. Hence, when Adi Shankara stated that He is Brahman (Aham Brahma Asmi) and that He is Shiva (Shivoham), the ordinary human being also started repeating the same statements. Then Adi Shankara swallowed molten lead and this unimaginable action indicated the existence of the unimaginable God (diamond) in Adi Shankara. The ordinary human being was unable to do that which clearly established the absence of the same unimaginable God (diamond) in him. Then Shankara modified His earlier statement and said that He alone is Shiva or God (Shivah Kevaloham). The word ‘Kevala’ means ‘alone’ which was absent in the first statement.

The word Atman means the pervading item [that which pervades]. Electric current pervades the wire and can be called as Atman. In Adi Shankara and Krishna, God pervaded all over their souls. Their souls pervaded all over their bodies (as usual in the case of any human being). Since the soul pervaded the body, the soul is called as Atman and since God pervaded all over the soul, God is also called as Atman. Here both God and soul can be called as Atman. To differentiate between these two, God is called as Paramatman and the soul is called as Jeevatman. In a liberated soul as per Advaita, the jeeva (subtle body) may be destroyed and in such a case, the soul can be called as simply Atman. However, in any case, Paramatman is different from Jeevatman or Atman. Therefore, God is different from an ordinary soul as well as a liberated soul. Here a liberated soul is taken only in the sense of the Advaita philosophy, because the actual liberated soul is that which is not simply free from qualities but that which is full of divine qualities like devotion.

The king is wearing a silk cloth. A citizen is wearing a cotton cloth. Another citizen is naked and has no cloth. The king is different from both the citizens. Now let us take the case of Krishna or Adi Shankara. The Paramatman is pervading all over the Jeevatman or Atman and the Jeevatman or Atman is pervading all over the human body. The ultimate pervading item here is only Paramatman, which directly pervades Jeevatman or Atman and indirectly pervades the human body also. Therefore, the Paramatman is the ultimate Atman. The Jeevatman or Atman is pervading only the human body but is not pervading the Paramatman and hence the Jeevatman or Atman here cannot be the ultimate Atman. Therefore, when Krishna says that He is Atman (Ahamaatma—Gita), it means that Krishna is referring to Paramatman present in His human body. Since Paramatman is the basis of the entire world, He stated that His Atman is the basis of the entire world (Sarva bhutaashayasthitah…). If an ordinary human being repeats the same verse of Gita, what is the meaning of the word Atman in his case? In his case the human body is pervaded only by the Jeevatman or Atman and there is no Paramatman in his Jeevatman or Atman. Therefore in his case the word Atman means only Jeevatman or Atman, which cannot be the basis of the world, because it is a tiny particle of the world.

A king said “I am the king who rules this country”. A scientist with certain scientific equipments started analyzing the king. He found only three items in the king. The external gross body, the internal subtle body and the ultimate innermost causal body (self) are the three items. Now he started analyzing the source of the word ‘I’ in his statement. With all his logical analysis he found that the word ‘I’ means the causal body in the king. Therefore he derived the conclusion that the causal body is always the king. With the same equipment and analysis he found that the same three bodies exist in him also. He concluded that since the causal body is the king, the causal body in himself must also be the king. Therefore, he wanted to rule the country like the king. Unfortunately, he was arrested and put in jail by the king for this.

What is the point that he missed in the analysis? The only item that he missed here is the invisible kingship, which is different from the causal body. Therefore, the causal body as the source of the ‘I’ is only referred to as the king because that causal body alone is charged by the invisible ‘kingship’. Similarly, the Advaitin analyzed his preacher Adi Shankara. As in the case of his preacher, he found the same three bodies in himself too. Adi Shankara said “I am Brahman”. The student thought that the causal body (the source of ‘I’) in himself is also Brahman. Here the unimaginable Brahman exists in the causal body (self) of Shankara and the word ‘I’ indicates the unimaginable Brahman in the self and not the self alone. When you say that the live wire is electric current, the word current indicates the current flowing through the live wire; not mere metallic wire. If you misunderstand that the current indicates there mere wire, you will call any wire without current also as electric current.

The invisible kingship (and the unimaginable God) and the invisible current are misunderstood as the visible causal body and the visible wire respectively. You must differentiate between the live wire and any other [unelectrified] wire at least by knowing the property of electric current such as giving an electric shock. You must call the live wire alone as current because it gives a shock. You should not call the unelectrified wire as current because it does not give a shock. Similarly Brahman is supposed to rule the sun (Bishodeti Suryah…—Veda). Krishna and Adi Shankara could control the sun since they swallowed the forest-fire and the molten lead respectively. Thus both are live wires [God had charged their bodies]. The Advaita philosopher, who will surely die of sunstroke in the hot summer sun, should be treated as an unelectrified wire.

Confusion about the Source of 'I'

The whole tragedy is based on the investigation of the source of ‘I’. In olden days science was not developed and the subject of physiology in which neurology is a chapter, did not exist in medical science. ‘I’ is just a feeling, as good as any other feeling. All the feelings including ‘I’, constitute the subtle body, which is a bundle of feelings or information. In deep sleep all these feelings are stored in a ‘chip’ called as chittam [mental storage faculty]. The awareness-current is absent in the computer. The information is exhibited only when the computer is associated with electric current [when the computer is switched on]. In deep sleep, the current (awareness) is absent because the nervous system or battery is not functioning. The state of meditation is that of a current associated with a functioning battery but the computer is not connected and therefore the information is not exhibited. In death, the battery stops functioning permanently and no current is produced. The information chip (jeeva) also leaves the computer after death. Now the computer is just the dead gross body without the chip and without the supply of electricity. When the person awakens from deep sleep, the battery is supplying current and the information is connected so that all the information is exhibited again.

It is not necessary that everybody feels that he has slept well [One of the concepts in the analysis of the Advaita philosophy is that one wakes up from the state of deep sleep thinking “I slept well”, which indicates that deep sleep is a state characterized by great happiness or bliss, which is the nature of the Atman]. This feeling is generalized to every human being and therefore it is concluded that as soon as one awakens from deep sleep the ‘I’ [I-thought] rises in the first instance [before any other thought]. From this, it is falsely inferred that ‘I’ existed during deep sleep. You must note that several people remember very important information other than “I slept well”, as soon as they awaken from deep sleep. If a human being goes into deep sleep after suffering a tragedy, as soon as the human being awakens from deep sleep, he immediately remembers the tragedy and not the feeling of happiness after the deep sleep.

Even during the waking state, the feeling of ‘I’ does not continuously exist such as while feeling or discussing several topics [during any mental activity]. Even in the waking state, there is no continuous existence of the feeling of ‘I’. What is the use of your unnecessary effort of establishing the continuous existence of ‘I’ in deep sleep through inference? In the waking state, everything is established by direct experience and even in this state, the feeling of ‘I’ does not exist continuously. You are trying to establish the continuous existence of ‘I’ in deep sleep through inference, in which direct experience is absent! In fact the feeling of ‘I’ and other strong feelings are recorded in the chip (chittam) during deep sleep but during this state, awareness is absent. During this state of deep sleep the basis of ‘I’ and other strong feelings is only inert energy and not awareness. Hence, the source of ‘I’ and other strong feelings is only the chip (chittam) in which the information is permanently recorded. The association of electric current with the chip is not permanent and therefore the source of ‘I’ is the chip (inert energy) and not the awareness (self) or current. However, if you consider the inert energy as the basic form of awareness, you can hold on the policy [concept] of constancy of self or awareness. If you limit the self to awareness alone, the self is born daily and dies daily (Athachainam nityajatam…—Gita). But if you consider the self as the basic inert energy also, the constancy of self can be accepted because the basic primary inert energy (Mula Maya) is eternal (Ajo nityah…—Gita). If you take the self as only awareness, the constancy of the self is lost. If you take the self as permanent awareness, the permanency is lost. You cannot have the self as permanent awareness because in deep sleep, awareness is disappears due to which alone the state of deep sleep is full of ignorance.

You either have to sacrifice the single constant nature (awareness) of the self or the permanency of the self. Since you fix the nature of the self as awareness, you cannot establish the existence of the same nature in deep sleep through inference. In the absence of this knowledge of neurology in olden days, our ancestors should not be blamed as blind conservative believers. They tried their level best and made the hypothesis of the existence of the self even in deep sleep through inference. They were correct in their hypothesis because the self exists in deep sleep too, but with a different nature—of inertness instead of awareness. They could succeed partially in imagining the constancy of the self in deep sleep and they failed only in finding the alternative nature of the self, which is inertness. In the absence of science, they were unable to know the interconversion of inert energy and awareness, which was not their fault. If the same ancestors were present today, they would certainly appreciate the truth and modify their concept with an open mind.

Today you must be blamed as blind because even though science has analyzed the whole concept, you are not accepting it due to your closed conservative blind mind, clinging rigidly to their hypothesis, which was made in the absence of science. The interconversion of inert energy into awareness is well established by science because the oxygen supplied by the functioning of the respiratory system oxidizes the food digested by the digestive system and the oxidation reaction of the food releases inert energy. This inert energy, associated with the functioning nervous system, releases awareness, which is a special work-form of inert energy itself. This awareness-current associated with the chip of information stored in the functioning brain, exhibits the experience of important past information and also gives the experience of events grasped from the external world [sensory perception]. The Advaita philosophy, based on the investigations of Advaita philosophers is only a partial development of neurology, which is a part of medical science and this cannot be called as spiritual knowledge, because the unimaginable God is not at all touched anywhere. Even the concepts of the self were not completely established by them (which are now completely established by the present neurology) and such ‘self’ is misunderstood to be God, which in fact is not as clearly established by the present neurology. Therefore they have not touched even the boundaries of spiritual knowledge, because spiritual knowledge means the subject related to God.

Spiritual Chocolates

Shankara and Ramna Maharshi gave the Advaita philosophy as a chocolate to the majority of people who were at a basic level of ignorance, to attract people into the spiritual path. Shankara prepared this wonderful chocolate made up of only the truth with some intellectual flashes as tricks that are useful for people’s welfare in long run. After all, it is not impossible for a human being to become God and every human being has an equal chance to become God (human incarnation) in this very life itself. Adi Shankara Himself was a human incarnation and God can enter various human beings and many human incarnations can exist simultaneously. The only twist given in this concept is that every human being is ‘already’ a human incarnation and this cannot be ruled out fundamentally because God can enter all the human beings simultaneously and this earth can be filled with only human incarnations. After all, the possibility of such a situation cannot be ruled out from the angle of the omnipotency of God.

This twist had to be given because the atheist does not accept the concept of God other than the self in the very first instance. Slowly for practical achievement of becoming the ‘forgotten’ God existing as self, Shankara introduced a procedure to remove the practical influence of ignorance (Ajnana Vikshepa). In this, Ishwara, introduced as a practically realized soul, is to be meditated upon. Shankara left the atheist at this point by connecting the soul to God (Ishwara), who will take care of the upliftment of the soul from that point. In this twist, there is no trace of a lie because it is only the twist of the truth. When a golden wire is twisted, is there any impurity other than gold that is introduced due to the twist? Such twists are appreciable in the view of their inevitability, for the welfare of the atheist in the long run. Even the followers of Shankara were unable to understand the twist in the absence of the present advanced scientific developments in neurology. Therefore they made certain inevitable assumptions and their inevitable incapability of realization of the complete truth in its original state without twists is also justified.

But today you are not realizing the truth even though science has given you a tremendous practical analysis of this concept and therefore your position is not justified. Even though the truth is clearly exhibited, you are unable to come out of this dream due to the climax of its sweetness that you are already God, without any effort. The utility of Datta, who is the Satguru in living form, is that all your doubts are clarified and such a possibility does not exist in learning the total concept by reading Shankara and Ramana Maharishi. The same God exists in Shankara, Ramana Maharishi and the present living Satguru but the present Satguru alone can clarify your doubts and give you the total concepts in the correct direction. This is the main advantage of the Satguru who is the contemporary human incarnation, present in your generation, before your eyes.

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