[Advaita-l] Vedastuti part 9

[Jaldhar H. Vyas]

sadiva manastrivR^ittvayi vibhAtyasadAmanujAt
sadabhimR^ishantyasheShamidamAtmavida.h |
nahi vikR^itiM tyajanti kanakasya tadAtmatayA
svakR^itamanupraviShTamidamAtmatayA.avasitam || 26 ||

"By play of the mind is this world composed of the three gunas upto 
mankind is seen as real though unreal because You are its support.  Yet 
the knowers of the Atma do not reject the world [as false] just as gold 
made into different forms is not rejected because they understand it as a 
non-different transformation of Your divine Self Who created it and 
entered into it."

This is a rebuke to the Buddhists and other nastikas who like the 
Vedantins understand that this phenomenal world is of a lower grade of 
reality but erroneously conclude that all is impermanant and nothing is 
real.  But the wise know that Brahman is the underlying reality and the 
names and forms are just transformations of Brahma from the standpoint of 
the deluded jiva.  Shridharacharya quotes shruti here:

asato.adhimano.asR^ijata | mana.h prajApatimasR^ijata | prajApati.h prajA 
asR^ijat | tadvaiyadvaidaM manasyeva paramaM pratiShTita yadidaM ki~ncha |

"Mind was created from the unreal.  From Mind Prajapati was created. 
Then Prajapati created the beings. Thus all that there is here or there is 
founded upon Mind." (Taittireya Brahmana 2.2.9.10)

A sadhaka should seek to discipline and control his mind if he wishes to 
transcend the unreal.

But as this shloka says, there is something beyond the objects created by 
Mind.  An analogy is given to gold.  When raw gold is made into say an 
earring its form (rupa) changes.  And its name (nama) changes, it is now 
referred to as "earring" instead of "gold".  But it is still gold.  Even 
that unreal Mind and its objects came from is Brahman only in a form that 
is hard to recognize.

-- 
Jaldhar H. Vyas <jaldhar at braincells.com>