(Mind14)-It is just a grand illusion!

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Buddhism that started with its anicca or impermanence theory, gradually developed into many more forms. 

First, they said that both the body and the mind appear and disappear in quick succession, both being impermanent. Then some of them came up with the theory that bodies don’t exist at all, and ‘it is all in the mind’ as we discussed in the previous episode.

They went further and denied the existence of the Mind as well, by saying that there is ‘nothing’ or Shoonya in reality – not even the mind exists! These later Buddhists were called Shoonya vadis.


Their Vedic counterparts like Gaud pada ridiculed these theories. Gaud pada said that while he agreed that the world as we see does not exist, it is not as if there is nothing that exists.

In fact, he said that there exists a single entity which he refers to as Brahma, that ‘appears’ as the world as well as the individual Minds as well as multiplicity of souls. And this entity, he says is beyond words and indescribable.


One says that there is nothing. And the other says that everything is one!

That reminds me of the simile of a glass half filled. One claims that the glass is half empty. The other counters by saying that the glass is in fact half full!

Are they saying different things or same thing in different words 😉?


Let us look at the way Gaud pada argues his case.

Mind you, I am over simplifying the tricky and lengthy arguments Gaud pada puts forth.

Let us say that you are asleep and dreaming. You see many things in the dream. You interact with many people. You go to many places. Are any of these things real?

They are real only as long as you are asleep. The moment you wake up from your sleep, the entire dream world just vanishes. That does not mean that the dream world gets destroyed. It was never created in the first place so the question of it getting destroyed does not arise.

The dream world was just the figment conceived by your mind in the state of sleep. So, when you come out of the sleep, that world just vanishes.


When we are awake, we see many things around us. We interact, perform actions, experience pleasure and pain, and so. As far as we are concerned, the world exists as we perceive it through our senses. And it is real.


Now consider a serious meditator who meditates and enters the ultimate Samadhi state. In that state, his mind almost stops functioning. What does he experience in that state is a mute question since there is no mind to ‘experience’. But still, when he comes back from the Samadhi to his normal wakeful state, he feels that he was in a state where he had universal identity.

In that state, he did not exist as a separate entity. He was everything, with no boundaries. There was nothing other than himself. The ‘subject’ – ‘object’ divide that was so glaring in his ‘normal’ wakeful state, had just vanished!

Gaud pada says that that state is the ultimate reality. The so called ‘normal’ wakeful state is just like a dream where you see lot of things, do lot of things, only as long as you are asleep. So also, the wakeful state, before you enter your Samadhi state.

Once you reach the Samadhi state, your wakeful state is no different from your dream! So, it is also an illusion. That means that our wakeful experiences, however real they may appear to be, are as illusive as the world we perceive in our dreams!

Why does the world appear to exist when we are in wakeful state?

Gaud pada says that the very same reason that made the appearance of the dream world as real is also the reason why the wakeful world appears to be real.

You see dreams because, when you are asleep your mind ‘vibrates’ in a specific way. These vibrations give rise to the dream world though they really don’t exist. It is just an appearance.

In the same way, when there are vibrations in the ‘universal Mind’ or the Brahma, the world we perceive in our wakeful state appears. This world is as unreal as the world in our dreams. In reality only the Brahma exists. Rest are all appearances which are illusive.


Gaud pada gives the simile of a burning torch which produces the illusion of a fiery circle when the torch is rotated in a circular fashion. The fiery circle is just an illusion created by the motion of the torch. In reality, there was only the burning fire that has no specific shape. The appearance of a shape is an illusion caused by the motion!

Gaud pada concludes that there is no object and subject. There is no separation between knowledge, knower and the object of knowledge. All three are one. There exists Brahma and Brahma alone in the ultimate sense!


Gaud pada is a highly acclaimed Vedic scholar and I dare not say that he was wrong. But there are many doubts that arise when one analyzes his reasoning. One simple glaring loophole is that while the dream world completely vanishes when we wake up, the wakeful world reappears when we get back to our wakeful state from Samadhi state. It does not vanish like our dream world. So, the simile is not quite apt.

Let me discuss the Vedic source based on which Gaud Pada says he has come up with his theory in the next episode.

 

A series revolving around Mind – Science of Mind, Philosophy of Mind, Notions of reality, Mind modulation, Domains beyond Mind, and so on. © Dr. King 2019