The Mahavakyas: the Essence of Advaita

(Question session with an Advaitin)

Q: My first question. Why is the system called advaita? Is it not negativistic?

Advaitin: Firstly, it is not a system, yes, it is included in the six systems of Indian philosophy,Vedanta. Advaita aims, indeed its sole aim is, to help you break out 0f every system. Advaita is not a system, but a state. It is the state of liberation, true, total freedom. The upanishads teach this ultimate liberation. It is the essence of their teaching. The teachers of Upanishads are called seers (drashta-s) and the texts are referred to as “what is heard” (Sruti). But what they teach is the state which cannot be ‘seen’ (darshana) or ‘heard’ (Sruti). It is a state indeed beyond the reach of all senses. The Upanishads speak of the unspeakable. And so, we have to encounter the difficulty of the limitations of language in our study of the advaitic texts. In the quest for truth, words fail, shut up and turn back along with the dear companion, mind, which spins and spins thoughts furiously and comes to a grinding halt.హాయ్ 

Now, I shall come to your question. ‘Why is it called advaita?’ Because there is no second.

Q: Then you can call it ‘one’.

A: ‘One’ has meaning when it is preceded by zero and followed by two. There never was a zero, nothingness. And nothing follows it, it is without a second. Non-dual. It is therefore not ‘one’, or monist. Advaita is not monism. However, it does not mean that Brahman is not referred to as one. ’Ekam Sat’, ‘Ekamevadvitiyam’

Q: advaita is a vast subject. It requires a long and hard study. Are there any short approaches to Bit?

A: Yes, indeed. There are four great gateways leading directly to the shrine of truth.

Q: The shrine of Truth?

A: I’m sorry. (Laughs) It is just a way of speaking. Truth does not need a shrine. If at all, the shrine is within you. But it is a long pilgrimage to reach the shrine within you. After the longest and the hardest of the pilgrimages, you find you are back home, and know it as home for the first time. But this is digression. Let us come to the question. The short approaches to advaita.

There are four statements about the one truth. They are called mahavakyas, one from each of the four Vedas. All the four speak the same truth. They are not different statements. They are different ways of approaching the one truth... And these are:

1. ‘prajnanam brahma’ (RgVeda: Aitareya Upanishad 3.1.3.)
2. ‘aham brahmasmi’ (YajurVeda: Brihadaranyaka upanishad 1.4.10.)
3. ‘tattwamasi’ (SamaVeda:Chandogya Upanishad 6.8.7.)
4. ‘ayamatma brahma (Atharvana Veda: Mandukya Upanishad 2.)

Q: Do these mahavakyas appear in other places, in other Upanishads too?

A: They do. But those are not their places of birth.

Q: And the order, in which these are supposed to be taught, is the order inviolable?

A: Not really, not now, at least. The order was once determined by the branch of the Veda one followed. Those who followed RgVeda started with the RgVeda mahavakya. And those who adhere to YajurVeda start with ‘aham brahmasmi’. And so on. But wherever we start, whichever gate we choose to enter from, we reach the shrine. The same shrine .Shall we begin with ‘prajnanam brahma’?

Q: Sure. Although I don’t go by Rg or any other Veda. It makes no difference to me personally. Nor should it to most students of advaita today.

A: Well. ‘prajnanam brahma’ shall be our first gate of preference. And we shall certainly come back to the other gates too. For, we then get to know the truth from several approaches. Truth is one. The sages speak of it in different words and ways.

Q: But why the prefix ‘pra’? ‘jnanam’ would do. And jnanam does refer to brahman in many statements, as in ‘Satyam jnanam anantam brahma’ (Tai.up.2-1-1).

A: That is true. But then ‘prajnanam’ is also used in other senses. In fact it appears in the mantra immediately preceding this ‘Samjnanamajnanam vijnanam prajnanam’. And here it means not brahman but prajnapti, prajnata, the alert intellect. So, a term’s meaning depends on its context. Here in ‘prajnanam brahma’ the prefix ‘pra’ is necessary to distinguish it from jnanam.

Q: And what then is jnanam?

A: Jnanam refers to the knowledge of the individual self. Prajnanam refers to the consciousness that makes that knowledge possible.

And here we shall go back in the Aitareya Upanishad where the mahavakya ‘prajnanam brahma’ occurs. The Upanishad gives an account of creation.

Q: So advaita professes creationism?

A: It does. And it doesn’t. We shall come to this a little later. But let us consider the account of creation in the Upanishad.

‘In the beginning, really, there was only this Atma. Nothing else for a rival. He (Atma) thought’ let me create the worlds. And he created the worlds’.

Q:’ In the beginning?’ When did all this begin?

A: I know you were going to ask that question. We shall come back to it. And to your earlier question too, about creationism. But let us proceed with the mantra. And also, there was no space, no water, and no fire.

Q: Oh! How horrible!

A: Yes. But there was also no one to complain. (‘There’s no water, no power’). You were not there. I was not there. No one was there to complain. Not a creature. And no one to protest, (na anyat kinchana mishat). The atma felt lonely. It got bored. (It would be safer to refer to atma as ‘it’. That wouldn’t offend gender sensitivities). The Upanishads are not very consistent. They sometimes refer to brahman as ‘it’, and sometimes as ‘he’. The primal power needed for the brahman to create the world is ‘she’. But the powerful person and their power cannot be two different persons, let alone sex or gender. The self yearned for a challenge, a thing to drive away depression, something to play with. It yearned for a ‘second’. And he said, of course to himself, :‘Let me create the worlds’. And he did instantly, all the four worlds. The creation comprised four planes - ambhas (celestial waters), marici (the intermediate space through which light passes), maram (the world of mortals), and apah (the nether worlds). All the four planes of creation from the top ambhas to the bottom apah are thus enveloped in a vast protective globe of water, very much like amnionic fluid in the mother’s womb, where the foetus develops and forms various organs and senses. Then the self thought these worlds must have governors or guardians. And he brought forth a purusha out of this vast expanse of waters, very much like an egg. The self brooded over this cosmic egg, (abhyatapat) and the cosmic purusha, virat was born.This is brahma , the creator who may be said to be the first creature . Then followed the other devatas, guardians. First, the mouth emerged and fire (agni) from it. Then the nose and the air from it. Thus all the infrastructural provisions, basic necessities for the worlds have been created. And at the same time the governors. The self also created within the cosmic purusha. And the governors were asked to take their respective positions in the human body. It is through the human body that these devathas derive their nourishment. It is because of these presiding deities that the body functions and survives and the devathas survive through man’s body. Agni took charge of the tongue speech , vayu of the nose , the sun of the eye etc. After creating the worlds their guardians , and assigning their duties , and when they have taken charge of their positions in the human body , the self thought ‘how can this purusha be without me? ‘And the self drilled the purusha’ s head and entered his body through the bore. Here the Upanishad is saying that the self entered purusha through the head (seemanam vidarya) .But earlier in the Aranyaka portion of the same Aitereya, it was said that ,the self, the real self? Is it the one that entered through the feet of man , or ,taking the royal route to enter and the other taking the rear door? And if there are indeed two atmas which one is to be worshipped? The up.s speak in metaphors. We have to get behind these metaphoric accounts and see what they are driving us at? Let us leave these metaphors of the tip and toe for a while.

Let us ask: how do we get what we call our knowledge? The eyes see, the ears hear, the tongue speak and so on, and the mind thinks, and we know thoughts. But we also know that the eyes do not see, the ears do not hear, or the tongue speaks. A blind person also has eyes. A deaf person also has ears .The dumb has a tongue. But they do not see or hear speak. This is too obvious. These sense organs cannot by themselves know things. There is some power that enables them to see and hear. There is a central power which empowers these sense organs to gather knowledge. And it is because of this power that the eyes see the ears hear, the mind thinks and so on.

Let us make use of a simile. A pot has apertures and there is a lamp inside the pot. The lot peeps through the apertures and illumines the objects outside it. All the objects around the pot are illuminated and are ‘known’. The human body has apertures too – eyes, ears and so on. (And the human body is referred to, in Sanskrit, as ‘ghata’, a pot.) And the light within the body peeps out of these apertures and ‘grasps’ the objects around. And so it is the light within that is the source of what we call our knowledge. Without this inner light, no knowledge is possible. So what should we consider to be the knowledge the bringers of knowledge or the source that enables these Vehicles to gather knowledge? Surely, it is the source that makes knowledge possible.

So what we call knowledge is jnanam. And what makes this knowledge possible is Prajnanam.

We should now take a step further. What is jnanam or knowledge? When the light within us peeps out, it sees a world of objects, and hears a world of sounds. Do these objects really exist? What is the nature of the existence of these objects of the outside world (jagat)? I see men and women, roads and buildings, trees, rivers and hills. And a whole world of varied things. They look varied. Nothing in common. And not of the same substance. A tree is different stuff from a hill and both are different from an animal. But are they really so varied in substance? Let us take another example. A potter makes pots, plates, lids, tubs – all out of clay. What makes his creation so varied? One is called or ‘named’, a pot, the other a plate. They have different shapes, or forms. Take away their names and their forms. What are these? Nothing but clay. Similarly there are bracelets, necklaces, rings, made of gold. Take away the names and forms of these. What are these ornaments? Nothing but gold, in and out. The particulars have no separate existence apart from what they are made of. All the particulars may be destroyed, common substance remains. It alone is. The various particulars are only names and forms. Giving a name is what makes up knowledge. You name it and it is there. So everything, every ‘thing’, ‘is’ only because it is given a ‘name’ and is ‘known’. Apart from ‘knowledge’, - call it consciousness, call it awareness – there is nothing. The riddle of the world (jagat) is resolved. The world (jagat) is only in name, and is really unreal. Everything that is, is knowledge, and is brahman. So, ‘prajnanam brahma’. The whole world subsists in knowledge. To know (‘chit’) is to be (‘sat’). ‘Sat’ is ‘chit’.

Q: But the question of prefix ‘pra’ has not been addressed. And the riddle of the two ‘brahmans’ .

A: There cannot be two ‘brahmans’. Brahman descended in to the purusha’s body through the bore he made in his head. Once he got in he has forgotten the way he came in. He thought he came in through the feet. Not the route alone. He forgot his identity. Before he entered the human body he was paramatma. Once he is trapped inside the human body, he is jivatma. And his place is at the feet, not the head. So there are no two Brahmans. No two lights inside the pot. But the light is trapped inside. It is the same light as the light outside the pot. It is the light that illumines the entire space, the whole creation. But the illumination is coloured because of the condition of the apertures. If there is a thin red film covering the apertures you see everything red. According to the colour and condition of the apertures, you see red or blue, big or small, straight or crooked. In man, the apertures are not merely the external sense organs. The internal senses are in fact the really coloured and conditioned. The conditions of my individual self condition knowledge. If the colour of my skin is black, I see in terms of black. If I am American, I see things in American light. If I am a woman, I think feminine. If I am a mother, I think like a mother. If I am a mother in law, I think like one. My knowledge is not your knowledge, although the light of consciousness in me is the same as in you. It is the same light that illumines all things and events and incidents. But they are seen in a ‘different’ light. The difference is in fact not in the light, but in the individual conditions. The knowledge of the individual is thus conditioned, and so not indivisible, infinite, and impartite. It is this partite, partial and finite knowledge that the individuated self knows. It is when the conditions are eliminated, when the pot is broken, the light within is realized the same as the light without, the light within every creature, the one light in all. And this realization is what liberation is. It is liberation from the limitations of the conditioned knowledge.

(And the pot need not be broken literally. It is possible even before the pot breaks, before the human body dies, to be liberated from the conditions of the human frame.) The one thing to die is one’s identity with the body. So prajnanam is moving from the jnana, knowledge, to the knowledge that is unconditioned, impartite, indivisible and infinite. This impartite knowledge is not the sum total of all partitives. It is knowledge liberated from all its limitations, when the one light sees itself all around, in every object, living and non living, moving and non- moving, in the lowest to the highest creature. For, in fact there is ‘nothing’ but the self, atma that finds itself all around.

‘This (self, that is of the form of knowledge) is brahma (creator).’ This is Indra. This is Prajapati, (the prime progenitor). This is all the gods. This is all the five great elements This is all the elements – earth, air, space, water and fire. This is all the creatures, low and high, moving and non-moving. All these are but forms of knowledge. They arise in knowledge. They subsist in knowledge. They merge in knowledge. And so ‘knowledge is brahman’, (prajnanam brahma). But this prajnanam does not arise automatically. In fact, the self, once it enters the body of the purusha, out of love for the insentient cosmos and in order to activate what he had created – once this self finds itself inside it begins to see ‘things’ to see the world, other than itself, the non- self. It knows brahma, it knows prajapati, it knows Indra, it knows all the gods, all the creatures, high and low, moving and non-moving. The self is a chick that sticks out its neck, looks about, and says to itself, ‘wow, what a vast wonderful world!’ The chick is unaware that all this is its own self. This awareness happens only on the awakening triggered by the grace of a guru. (Airareya up. 3.1.3).

Then all this is prajnanam, deconditioned knowledge. And prajnanam is brahman. So ‘prajnanam brahma’ is the same as ‘sarvam khalvidam brahma’. All the ‘known’ (jneya) world (jagat) is dissolved. And the riddle of the knower (jiva) is, along with the known, resolved too. With jiva and jagat, both dissolved, there is only the knowledge. And whatever is ,is knowledge. ‘Sarvam khalvidam prajnanam’ would be equally valid as ‘sarvam khalvidam brahma’. For, brahma has for its essence knowledge and nothing but knowledge.

Q: There remain the two issues – ‘creation’ ‘in the beginning’.

A: Let us begin with the question of the beginning. Beginning has meaning only in a linear concept. It is only a straight line that has a beginning and an end. In a cycle the beginning is in the end. And it ends in the beginning. Thus the creation began not once, but several times, endlessly. There were many rounds of creation, and there will be.

And so there was creation which is the creation of illusion of creation. We shall deal with this illusion. And go to the next mahavakya, aham brahmasmi. Now a short break.

----: SRK Moorthy