Moment to Speak

Avidya , or ignorance and illusion, is to live with desires and dualities. The mind is a thought-manufacturing machine that manufactures thoughts to intensify desires through sensual pleasures to an insatiable level. Avidya generates states of opposites—happiness and distress, hot and cold, light and darkness, prosperity and poverty, etc.—and never lands in a state of unity. Vidya is the knowledge of unity through the extirpation of desires and dualities, affirms Yoga-Vasistha (Ch. CXIII). In the Srimad Bhagavad Gita (14.5-14.27), Avidya refers to a state of ignorance or nescience that leads to attachment, illusion, and the cycle of birth and death. The Bhagavad Gita describes Avidya as the root cause of suffering and bondage, contrasting with Vidya , or knowledge. Avidya obscures our true nature and the nature of reality, leading to a false sense of self and an attachment to the material world. Ignorance (Tamas) is a state of delusion and a primary impediment to spiritual adv...

Desire exists when there is a subject and an object, i.e., duality. When all is One Existence only, there is no desire. Desire is a conative tendency of mental processes of attempted action or change. It encompasses impulse, volition, and the effort to enjoy objects in the phenomenal world through sensory perceptions and organs. Desire, according to Swami Sivananda , is an earnest longing for attaining some object or goal. It is a wish or an urge to enjoy an object or attain something. He explains that the desire to see is of the eyes; to hear is of the ears; to taste is of the tongue; to smell is of the nose; to touch is of the skin; to work is of the hand; to speak has become of the organ of speech; to walk has become of the feet; and to copulate has become of the organ of reproduction. Desire, Swami Sivananda maintains, is the root cause for this mundane life in the Samsara chakra (wheel of birth and death). Desire, sage philosopher Swami Krishnananda explains, is a concentration...

The universe is not just conscious ; it is consciousness, and this consciousness is Brahman . Ignorance veils the Consciousness to realise the supreme consciousness through self-realisation , or the realisation of the self , or the realisation of the true nature of being. The self is the atman (inner self or inner spirit) within every being, not the objects outside. The purpose of the perceiver is to perceive the atman . The inner spirit is eternal, invisible, imperishable, and unchanging. It exists beyond the grasp of our ordinary senses and can only be perceived by a true perceiver. Self-realised beings, with their senses turned away from sense objects, see the atman within. There are limitations to knowledge pursuit through sensory application based on the body-mind-intellect complex. "Knowledge," or Jñāna is to remove the veil of ignorance, thus unravelling the Truth. This has been brusquely stated in various scriptures and Mahavakyas (Great Sayings) of Sana...

The drama of life is central to the unfolding processes of the Samsāra Chakra (wheel of birth and death). Samsāra , itself, is an expansion of Māyā , the illusory power of Brahmān , the Supreme Being, or the Cosmic Self. The drama of life is found in the encirclement of Māyā . Since it is a drama, and it is neither real nor unreal. The Jiva , the living substance of a living being, unfolds its journey from inward, or subject, to outward, or object, depending on its elevatory priority fixation. The Jiva is only relatively real. Its individuality lasts only so long as it is subject to unreal Upadhis or limiting conditions due to Avidya . When Avidya , or ignorance, deludes it, the Jiva identifies itself with the body, mind, and senses. Avidya causes the Jiva to think, act, and enjoy itself. In reality it is not different from Brahmān or the Absolute. The Upanishads declare emphatically, " Tat Tvam Asi ," or That Thou Art ( Chandogya Upanishad , 6.8.7). The finest and s...

The human being, a form in space and time, is in an existential battle of succession. This battle of succession has been ongoing since time immemorial. Nobody knows how long this will continue. But it is there and will go on. The human being is encapsulated in a body-mind-intellect system. He is forgetful of his sentient nature, or inner self, and moves outward towards the insentient world to realise his psychophysical nature. It is because humans never feel secure in their existing state of nature. They feel insecure about the changing spectrum of the world that may manifest at any moment and in any time space before them. Latency and a sense of insecurity are the pervasive dimensions of death. The fear of death remains a subliminal level for every being and creature. It does not matter whether he is the weakest of the weak or the mightiest of the might. No amount of physical fortification can do away with the call or force of death. It is so; we are in a samsara of birth and death...

The Ultimate Reality is Brahman , or Cosmic Self, but the perceived world is Mithya , or an illusion, avows Adi Shankaracharya. It does not have any independent existence, other than as a Maya , or illusion of Brahman, or Ultimate Reality ( Brahma Jnanavali Mala , (20), Adi Shankaracharya). Maya (illusion) plays with Avidya , or ignorance, by blurring the subject with objects, or Atman with the phenomenal world. Duality, according to Swami Sivananda , consisting of subject and object, is a creation of the mind and the sensual nerve senses. In deep sleep, one has no experience with the world because there is no mind. This clearly shows that there will be a world only if there is a mind and that the mind alone creates this world. This world, he says, is a play of colours and sounds. This sensory universe is a complex interaction of Maya , or illusion, the mind, and the nervous system. Their jugglery keeps the false show going. One enjoys swimming in the transience as long as the sensua...