I had a friend who believed firmly in the theory of Maya talked about by modern Advaitis. This elderly gentleman used to drive a long distance just to meet me and engage me in a lively debate. He somehow wanted to convince me that this world is an illusion and all that exists is just Atma and nothing else!
I fully agreed with him on the second part of his claim. But the illusion part of it is something not acceptable to me; not just because it did not gel with my way of thinking but more because it is not in accordance with the Upanishads from which the theory of Advaita is derived. Instead of arguing with him I just used to ask him a simple question - If this world were an illusion, then my existence is also an illusion. In that case why does he have to drive all the way to come and meet me? What is the point in discussing anything since he alone exists!
Obviously, like all modern Advaitis my friend does not have a logical answer to this simple question except some evasive replies.
There is a highly popular Advaiti Swami with a large following on the YouTube. He lectures hours and hours to drive home his theory of Advaita which assumes Maya or illusion. Why does he spend so much of his time if this world were an illusion? Why does he keep publishing a new video almost every week? 😉 I am sure he would say that his lecturing, his videos are all part of the grand illusion 😉
This Swami even goes into hairsplitting, by talking about a hierarchy of ‘realities’ – relative reality, transactional reality, absolute reality… and so on. And says that at the absolute reality level, the world is an illusion. Who is he telling this to? To an unreal listener? To someone who does not even exist? Is he saying this by being a part of the illusion or outside of it ???
This is the way most modern Advaitis talk. They even claim that Buddha fell silent when he attained his ultimate realization. He never preached anything after that! They say that it is futile to preach anything in an illusive world! But what was Buddha? Did he exist? Or was he also part of the illusion? 😉
In his commentary on the Brahma sutra, the great Advaita philosopher Sankara ridicules his Jain opponents when they argue that truth is multifaceted and all its facets, however contradictory, can all be valid. These Jains believe that something can be true as well as false at the same time! Sankara argues that if that were the case, whatever their teachers have taught them can also be false. So, what are they arguing about? He points to contradictions in their statements. Sankara even ridicules their arguments as the blabbering of insane people or ones who are drunk!
Can such a Sankara talk about this world as an illusion? There are even sentences attributed to Sankara where he is supposed have said that even the Upanishads are part of illusion! I don’t know what Sankara actually meant when he said that this world is an illusion! Or I wonder whether he ever said that!?
There are many temples supposedly setup by Sankara all over India. Some of the highly devotional Sanskrit compositions are attributed to Sankara. Why did Sankara do all that if he believed that this world is just an illusion? Why please a non-existing God in a non-existing world?
But Advaitis, as always, have clever answers to all these questions. They say that Sankara never talked about illusion! They divide reality into ‘dependent reality’ and ‘independent reality’. They say that the world is real but is not an independent reality. It depends on the Atma for its existence. So, it is not real in the ultimate sense!
That is just an explanation which is not very convincing. What were Sankara’s similes such as rope and snake, nacre and the shell, and so on are supposed to convey? Sankara used to give the first simile to illustrate how someone mistakes a rope to be a snake in a dark place. He also talks about how the reality of the rope becomes clear when there is light. Was he not talking about illusion?
Sankara even talked about ignorance, and enlightenment undergone by the individual in the process of mistaking a rope to be a snake and then coming out of this misconception. He was never talking about any gradation between realities. Rope was always a rope, with or without light. It was only perceived wrongly due to ignorance. So, the world is perceived wrongly by an ignorant person. That is what Sankara really meant. But the question remains - who is this ignorant person?
Why was Sankara so reluctant to accept the obvious explanation given in the Upanishads about how Atma took several forms. If he had taken that as truth, as I did in my explanations throughout, all these contradictions would not have arisen. Sankara could have very well accepted the existence of forms taken by the Atma and that it is these forms that undergo illusion. A form can be ignorant. It could undergo illusion. That does not question the omniscience of the Atma. But he chose to invent the concept of Maya or illusion, which has no correspondence with any Upanishadic words.
Was there some reason why Sankara chose to argue the way he did? Was it the influence of Buddhist way of thinking as many of Sankara’s opponents allege? Or was Sankara misunderstood by his successors, the way Buddha was, by his successors?
No matter what the truth is, I feel that we should accept something which has practical value. Otherwise, the entire exercise becomes completely futile, leading us nowhere except giving some intellectual satisfaction by scoring a point over the opponents. We will discuss more on these lines in the next episode.
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