A question on manifestation of maya

swamy swarna swamyswarna at YAHOO.COM
Thu Apr 4 10:53:02 CST 2002


dear friends,

i would like to approach this question from a little
different point of view. The sky as we see it from
earth appears to be blue to almost all the humans,
since the air scatters blue part of the white light
much more than the other wavelengths and since almost
all human eyes have a similar sensitivity to different
colors. so using a situation from a world which can be
explained by laws of physics to dicuss whether the
whole world is real or not does not appear to be
logically rigorous. What Advaita meant when it is
postulated that the physical world is unreal (and
appears real because of maya) is probably that what
had a birth has to have end and thus the Pancha Bhutas
(Space/Sky, Air, Fire, Water and Earth) also have an
end and so are not real or permanent. In the big bang
theory of the formation of the universe, our earth was
formed much later and the sky as we see it now came
still later! But the Viswatma, Parmatma or Para
Brahman existed even before the big bang. It is said
that all the visible universe is just one fourth of
His manifestation!

While almost all humans do see the sky as blue, a few
are color blind and may be not all animals or birds or
insects see the sky as blue! And on moon, we won't see
the sky at all, since there is no air on moon! And on
Venus, the sky would appear totally opaque as a solid
white shet because of the carbon dioxide clouds! So
the cocept of a blue sky is not real!

If I have made any mistake in the above, pl. correct
me.

Thanks.

Swamy SV


--- hbdave <hbd at DDIT.ERNET.IN> wrote:
>Swaminarayan T wrote:

  Swaminarayan T <tvswaminarayan at YAHOO.COM> wrote:

  "Jaldhar H. Vyas" <jaldhar at BRAINCELLS.COM> wrote:
Why does every member of this list see
the sky as blue? if it is just our imagination than
you should see it as
pink, I as green etc. But there seems to be something
out there which
we all perceive as the same in its' major details
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


This brings us to a very interesting observation that:


In the Vyavahaarika State every body sees the things
around them very much in the same way without
exception unless there is some defect in their
instrument of cognition.

In Dream state however, each member  i.e. Jiva  sees
different things differently and no two jivas dream up
the same thing atall in their respective dreams!!

In this context, a few days back, I had the
opportunity to have satsang with a shastriji who
follows the tradition of Shankara and when I posed
this point to him, he responded with a question to me
and asked me to do vichara on the same.


An independent proof of existence  of the World as
seen is not available.
Suppose in dream state you ask your dream-friends "do
you see the sky?"
They will say "yes" ."What is the colour?" "Blue."  So
you are satisfied
in the dream-world.

Then you go to sleep in that dream and wake up and see
the same
dream-world and dream- people. SO you conclude that
this dream-world
is permanent.

When dream ends, everything gets absorbed in yourself.


So, the testimony of others in this, jagrata, state is
not usuable, in the same
way that  the testimony in dream state is not usable
on waking.

May be this helps?
-- Himanshu





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>From  Thu Apr  4 09:15:02 2002
Message-Id: <THU.4.APR.2002.091502.0800.>
Date: Thu, 4 Apr 2002 09:15:02 -0800
Reply-To: venky at oreka.com
To: List for advaita vedanta as taught by Shri Shankara
        <ADVAITA-L at LISTS.ADVAITA-VEDANTA.ORG>
From: "Venkatesh ." <venky at OREKA.COM>
Subject: Weekly page from Hindu Dharma: Foot for the Vedas -  Nose for the
        Mantras

This week's page from Hindu Dharma (see note at bottom) is "Foot for the Vedas -  Nose for the Mantras" from "Chandas". The original page can be found at http://www.kamakoti.org/hindudharma/part8/chap7.htm.

Next week, you will be emailed "Ear of the Vedapurusa" (from "Nirukta")

Best regards
for kamakoti.org


Venkatesh
(this email is being sent on an automated basis)

Foot for the Vedas -  Nose for the Mantras
from Chandas, Hindu Dharma

      Each mantra has a deity (the deity it invokes), its own metre and its own seer (the seer who revealed it to the world). Mentioning the name of the rsi and touching our head with our hand have their own significance, that of holding his feet with our head. We first pay obeisance to the sages because it is from them that we received the mantras. We then mention the chandas or metre of the hymn and touch our nose with our hand. Chandas protects the sound of a mantra and is like its vital breath. So we place our hand on that part of our body with which we breathe. Without breath there is no life. While for all the Vedas taken as a whole Siksa is the nose and Chandas the foot, for the mantras proper Chandas is the nose.

 When we commence to chant a mantra we must meditate on its adhidevata, or presiding deity, and feel his presence in our hearts. This is the reason why we touch our hearts as we mention the name of the deity.

 The Vedapurusa stands on Chandas. " Chandah pado Vedasya": the Vedic mantras are supported by Chandas.





Note:
Hindu Dharma is a translation of two volumes of the well known Tamil Book "Deivatthin Kural", which, in turn, is a book of 6 volumes that contains talks of His Holiness Sri Chandrasekharendra Saraswathi Mahaswamiji of Kanchipuram. The entire book is available online at http://www.kamakoti.org/ .



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