Atma Bodha - Post 73

Verse 63

जगद्विलक्षणं ब्रह्म ब्रह्मणोऽन्यन्न किंचन ।

ब्रह्मान्यद्भाति चेन्मिथ्या यथा मरुमरीचिका ॥ ६३॥

JAGAT VILAKSHANAM BRAHMA

BRAHMANA ANYAT NA KINCHANA.

BRAHMA ANYAT BHAATI CENMITHYAA

YATHAA MARUMARIICHIKAA

[Brahman is other than this, the universe. There exists nothing that is not Brahman. If any object other than Brahman appears to exist, it is unreal like the mirage.]

In the previous slokas, Acharya explained that Brahman is the substratum of the entire creation, here in this verse, we learn that the Brahman is ever uncontaminated by the world as the world is illusory and Brahman is ever existent.

Acharya here is explaining that Brahman is that which is different from this word, but it is not to be taken that the world and Brahman exist differently, Difference is pointed out only w.r.t. their existence, i.e. world is unreal and Brahman is real, hence Brahman is different from the illusory world; it is its very substratum.

Hence Acharya immediately follows that whatever exists is but Brahman alone and there is nothing apart from Brahman. Thus the world that is perceived has to be illusory, like a mirage in desert.

The absoluteness of Brahman is explained in shruti is different ways. As Chandogya Upanishad explains this in 6th chapter as:

SADEVA SOMYEDAMAGRA AASIIDEKAMEVAADVITIIYAM.H

TADDHAIKA  AAHURASADEVEDAMAGRA AASIIDEKAMEVAADVITIIYAM

TASMAADASATAH SAJJAAYATA

‘In the beginning, dear boy, this was Being alone, one only, without a second. Some say that, in the beginning, this was Non-being alone, one only, without a second. From that Non-being arose Being.’

Brihadaranyaka Upaniahad also explains this in 4.3.23 as:

YAD VAI TAN NA PAŚYATI, PAŚYAN VAI TAN NA PAŚYATI  NA HI DRA..UR D...ER VIPARILOPO

VIDYATE, AVIN.ŚITV.T; NA TU TAD DVITIYAM ASTI, TATO’NYAD VIBHAKTAM YAT PAŚYET.

That it does not see in that state is because, though seeing then, it does not see; for the vision of the witness can never be lost, because it is imperishable. But there is not that second thing separate from it which it can see.

Marumrichika- The Mirage simile

In the mirage which appears while one walks in a desert on a hot day, actually only desert exists. The ignorant sees the water pools in a desert, known as the mirage.

Once a deluded mind has seen the mirage, it can multiply its mis apprehension and see the mirage having the waves and even the sun reflecting on the water surface and so on.

The mirage is different from the desert and yet, without the desert, the mirage cannot exist. And the mirage water cannot wet even an iota of the desert land.

Just as how the waters of mirage do not wet the sands of desert, similarly, the world of duality consisting of various names and forms can never affect or change the absolute consciousness.

It is only the ignorant who mistake the water and assume it to really exist while the wise ones know only the substratum as real and all the duality as only an illusion. A deluded mind alone sees the waters in a desert and apprehends them to be real, similarly it is only due to the ignorance that one sees the duality in the ever existent Self.

Let us recapitulate the simile once again.

Ø The desert is sand, and the mirage is water.

Ø We know that in a desert there is nothing but sand alone.

Ø If you see anything else in a desert besides sand, it has to be false, it simply cannot be true.

Now let us apply this lovely simile to the desert of the Vedantic world:

Ø The desert sands stand for Brahman. The world of objects is the mirage that appears as ‘water’.

Ø The preceptor tells us that Brahman alone is real. Nothing else is real. This is exactly the case with the desert sands.

  

Ø  If we see the ‘water’ of worldliness then that can only mean one thing. We have accepted as real something which is unreal, which only appears to be real.

 

Acharya Sankara has chosen this simile and explained in a way that this revelation can never be argued / can never be unaccepted by any school of thought. Glory to Sankara!

This is what Vedanta says about this world of names and forms. It does not say that they do not exist, but it says that their existence is temporary, until knowledge dawns and then it is seen clearly that Brahman alone exists.

Thus all duality perceived has to be known as an illusion alone. This sloka can be beautifully summarized by Acharya Gaudapada’s Mandukaya Karaika’s sloka 1.17 as:

PRAPAJNCHO YADI VIDYETA NIVARTETA NA SA.NSHAYAH

MAAYAAMAATRAMIDAM DVAITAMADVAITAM PARAMAARTHATAH

If a phenomenal world were to exist, it should, no doubt, cease to be. This duality is but an illusion; in reality it is non-dual.

Love.