Re: Up to what point is Advaita real?
namaste FlipAsso.
Since our dreams are usually incongruous in their shapes and sights and scenes, it is easy for us to understand that our dream world is mAyA--illusion; and although a dream seems very real to us when we are in it, we can easily dismiss its vyavahArika sattA--practical, relative reality, since we always return to the waking state.
The reality of the world in our waking state is not only so accurate, concrete, and elaborate, but is identical to everyone of us, which is why we find it difficult to believe that it's all the play of mAyA shakti--power of illusion, specially when the reality it gives us lasts a lifetime, unlike a magician's show.
Yet the concrete reality of waking life is constantly rejected by us, because every night we return to a better state of existence: the suShupti--deep sleep. Ironically, although we are at peace and bliss in our deep sleep state that nourishes our soul and body, we prefer the waking state, perhaps because we cannot enter the deep sleep state at will.
Suppose we have the ability to enter into and get out of the deep sleep state at will. I bet many of us would do it many times a day and charge ourselves with the Self, just as we charge our mobile phones! At least I would do it, if only to escape temporarily the hullabaloo of waking existence.
We can use our intellect and imagination to find out the illusory nature of existence of our waking life; this could be a first step to understand nature of reality of our world and waking life, and get convinced about the need to seek a better state of existence.
Let us suppose that our eyes have a powerful, microscopic as well as telescopic sight that can be adjusted to focus different objects and their layers. This power at once changes the world around me! Instead of the computer screen and the keyboard, I see only kaleidoscopic patterns of particles and pulses and vibrations. I can see through walls and doors as well as of inside of every thing and person and being and yet focus at will to retain the shapes and sights and sounds of my waking life world.
What could be our experience with such a power of vision? That power surely lets us see the different levels of inner, physical reality of the objective world we live in, in our waking state, but how much would that reality appeal to us?
The first victim of such a power would be our sense of doership. Being only a swimmer in the vast waters of energy and microscopic matter around us, we can only cause some commotion, not influence or change the existing course or order, which would quickly re-establish itself.
The second, simultaneous victim would be the 'I', the sense of ego and personality. At the microscopic level of physical reality, I would find with my power of vision, that the I as I know of myself no longer exists--no body, brain or mind. I would still have my individuality in tact, because I am the observer, but then that I would be far removed from my ego and personality.
Since we can do nothing in that state, we can only watch, observe and wonder at the dance of matter and energy around us. As we do watch more and more, we would be drawn into it, and the observer would merge in the observed at the subtler levels, even as he/she was merged at the physical level.
If our intellect and imagination can give us so much of knowledge, which we know is the ultimate physical reality in the backdrop of the Science we are familiar with, what truer knowledge at the trans-physical and metaphysical levels can be obtained, by training our mind to use the inner eye?
रत्नाकरधौतपदां हिमालयकिरीटिनीम् ।
ब्रह्मराजर्षिररत्नाढ्यां वन्दे भारतमातरम् ॥
To her whose feet are washed by the ocean, who wears the Himalayas as her crown, and is adorned with the gems of rishis and kings, to Mother India, do I bow down in respect.
--viShNu purANam
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