AVALOKITESVARA

In Mahayana Buddhism, bodhisattvas are beings who have made a vow many existences ago to become Buddhas, and who have acquired along the way vast stores of merit.  This merit is so great that they could easily achieve the full status of Buddhas and pass into nirvana, but, out of compassion, love, and pity for suffering humanity, they have postponed their departure.  Instead, they transfer their merit, as need arises, to all those who call upon them in prayer or give devotional thought to them.

Avalokitesvara, or Lord Avalokita, is the most popular bodhisattva of them all.  As his name implies, he is the "Lord Who Appears to This Age," which is to say, he is the eternal contemporary of each and every generation.  As the personification of divine compassion, he watches over everyone in the world, and is said to have come to the earth over three hundred times in human form in order to save those in peril who have called upon him.

His image typically has him in the garb of a great prince, with high headdress.  In his left hand is a red lotus, while his right hand is raised in a gracious gesture.  Sometimes he is given four, or many more, arms, all laden with gifts to humanity.

In Tibet, Avalokitesvara is accompanied by a spouse, while in China, by a metamorphosis whose history is obscure, he changed his gender and became the enormously popular Kwan Yin, the Goddess of Mercy.  Her place in the esteem of the Chinese and Japanese is analogous to that of the Virgin Mary in Roman Catholicism.  Her attitudes are exactly those of Avalokitesvara in India, with the addition of a madonna-like maternal feeling.

HEART SUTRA

The Heart Sutra is a member of the Perfection of Wisdom (Prajnaparamita) group of Mahayana Buddhist literature.  Its Sanskrit name "Prajnaparamita Hrdaya" literally translates to "Heart of the Perfection of Transcendent Wisdom."   Along with the Diamond Sutra, it is perhaps the most prominent representative of the genre, and is the most popular and best known of all Buddhist scriptures.

The sutra's date of origin is thought to be 350 AD, although some scholars believe it to be two centuries older than this.  There are versions of it in both Sanskrit and Chinese.

The Chinese version is frequently chanted by the Chan, Zen, Seon, and Thien sects in China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam respectively. It is significant as well to the Shingon Buddhist school in Japan, whose founder Kūkai wrote a commentary on it, and to the various Tibetan Buddhist schools, where it is studied extensively.

The sutra is about the liberation of Avalokitesvara, the bodhisattva of compassion.  This liberation comes while Avalokitesvara is meditating on prajna (wisdom).  Revealed in the meditation is the fundamental emptiness of all phenomena, including the five aggregates (skandhas) of human existence:  form (rupa), feeling (vedana), volitions (samskara), perceptions (samjna), and consciousness (vijnana).

Avalokitesvara goes through the most fundamental Buddhist teachings, such as the Four Noble Truths, and explains that in emptiness none of these notions apply. This is interpreted to mean that insofar as the teachings of Buddhism are merely about  reality and not reality itself, they represent conventional truth only.  They are not ultimate truth, which by definition is beyond everyday comprehension. Thus the Perfection of Transcendent Wisdom which perceives reality directly without conceptual attachment.

It is unusual for Avalokitesvara to be in the central role in a Prajnaparamita text. Early Prajnaparamita texts, such as the Diamond Sutra, involve the Buddha and his disciple Subhuti.  This is possible evidence that the text is Chinese in origin.

WHO ARE YOU REALLY?

You are not all the things transient about you, your body, your egoic self, your fleeting thoughts, etc.  You are the constant, unchanging “witness” that is the Atman.

UNITARY CONSCIOUSNESS

Unitary consciousness occurs when there ceases to be subject-object awareness.  "I" see "it," subject, predicate, object.  For us humans, it is the usual state of mind.  Unitary consciousness is the opposite of subject-object awareness.  In unitary consciousness, all is "one."

Vedanta terms this the untying of the three knots of knowledge:  the knower, the knowing, and the known.  The resultant "one" is Brahman.

WHERE IS GOD?

Vedanta teaches that God is not "out there" somewhere, but rather, as Jesus said, "The Kingdom of God is within."  In the words of Swami Prabhavananda, "Never for one moment are we separated from God.  God is within us always." 

The task of the spiritual aspirant is to awaken to God.  By way of spiritual practice (sadhana), to include meditation and devotion, an atmosphere is created whereby, as it is described, the Atman can awaken to Brahman.  What makes it a profound experience is that the Atman IS Brahman, or as Jesus said, "I and my Father are one."

KRIPA

Kripa is the concept of divine grace in Hinduism.  It is the central tenet of Bhakti or devotional Yoga. 

Kripa is akin to similar beliefs found in the mysticism of all traditions.

In Hinduism, divine grace can catapult a devotee into a period of intense personal transformation, it is believed, which in turn can lead to his or her moksha, or liberation.

Bhakti literature is replete with references to kripa, seeing it as the ultimate key to self-realization.  In fact, some, like the ancient sage Vasistha, in his classical work Yoga Vasistha, considered it the only way to transcend the bondage of lifetimes of karma. He states that divine grace is the sole way of moving beyond the effects of Prarabdha karma, past karmas that are carried by each person and which are ready to be experienced through the present body.

The Hindu philosopher Madhvacharya believed that grace was not a gift from God but something that must be earned.

The Buddha, by contrast, did not speak of divine grace, but then neither did he speak of God.  What he taught, however, is not considered incompatible with the idea of divine grace.

ONE ATMAN

In his discussion of Shankara's Crest Jewel of Discrimination, Swami Prabhavananda states, "The Atman that is in me and that is in you, and that is in all things, is not many Atmans but one Atman."  This is in the sense that the Atman is the same as Brahman; it is the subjective aspect of Brahman.  And there is only one Brahman.  He goes on to explain, "Jesus said, 'Love thy neighbor as thyself,' because your neighbor IS yourself," is Atman/Brahman.  Everyone and everything is Atman/Brahman.

DIAMOND SUTRA

Like many Buddhist sutras, the Diamond Sutra (Sanskrit: Vajracchedika Prajnaparamita Sutra) begins with the famous phrase "Thus have I heard."  Incidentally, the title properly translated is the Diamond Cutter of Perfect Wisdom, but it is popularly referred to as the Diamond Sūtra.

The history of the teaching is not fully known, but scholars generally consider it to be from a very early date in the development of Prajñāpāramitā literature.  A translation of it from Sanskrit into Chinese appeared in the 4th Century A.D. and is said to have inspired the enlightenment of Hui-neng, who went on to become the Sixth Patriarch of Ch'an (Zen in Japanese) Buddhism.

In the sūtra, the Buddha has finished his daily walk with the monks to gather offerings of food, following which he sits down to rest. Elder Subhūti steps forward and asks the Buddha a question having to do with the nature of perception.  In the dialogue that follows, the Buddha attempts to help Subhuti unlearn his preconceived, limited notions of the nature of reality and enlightenment.  The Buddha often uses paradoxical phrases such as, "What is called the highest teaching is not the highest teaching."  He uses metaphors to describe impermanence, as in a well-known four-line verse at the end of the text:

All conditioned phenomena
Are like dreams, illusions, bubbles, or shadows;
Like drops of dew, or flashes of lightning;
Thusly should they be contemplated.

The Diamond Sūtra can be read in 40 to 50 minutes and therefore is often memorized and chanted in Buddhist monasteries. This sūtra has retained significant popularity in the Mahāyāna Buddhist tradition for over a thousand years.

ILLUSION OF SEPARATENESS

We are here to awaken from the illusion of our separateness.
                                                                      --Thich Nhat Hahn

TOLLE'S INNER TRANSFORMATION

The spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle described his inner transformation, so-called.  It has a familiar ring to it:

"I couldn’t live with myself any longer. And in this, a question arose without an answer: who is the ‘I’ that cannot live with the self? What is the self? I felt drawn into a void. I didn’t know at the time that what really happened was the mind-made self, with its heaviness, its problems, that lives between the unsatisfying past and the fearful future, collapsed. It dissolved. The next morning I woke up and everything was so peaceful. The peace was there because there was no self. Just a sense of presence or 'beingness,' just observing and watching."

DOES GOD SLEEP?

To the question does God sleep, Sri Ramakrishna said, "If God slept, all of existence would sleep."

ON LEARNING VEDANTA FROM BOOKS

Books, words, are only pointers.  As the analogy goes, reading a book about a place is not the same as the place itself.

ALL-KNOWING BRAHMAN

Brahman is aware of every leaf falling from every tree, because it is the leaf, it is the tree, and it is the falling.

CONSCIOUSNESS AWARE OF ITSELF

The founder of Classical Positivism, Auguste Comte (1798-1857), asked how it was possible for human consciousness to be aware of itself.  Indeed, this has been a puzzle for all western philosophers, and so far it remains a mystery.

Philosophers of Vedanta, however, stated their view of it centuries ago.  The consciousness that is aware of itself in humans, they said, is the Atman, which is the subjective aspect of Brahman, or God.  The Atman, like Brahman, is pure consciousness.  As the epithet sat-chit-ananda puts it, the Brahman, and therefore also the Atman, is absolute Existence, absolute Consciousness, and absolute Bliss.

The Buddha's position on this, by contrast, is found in his doctrine of Anatman.  This states that there is not such thing as the Atman.  In the Buddha's view, the ability of human consciousness to be aware of itself is simply the nature of this consciousness.  It is tathata or suchness.  It is a peculiarity of humans, in other words, a phenomenon that has evolved from the earliest times of humans.  This consciousness, the Buddha went on to say, is one of the five skandhas, so called, that aggregation of elements constituting an individual.  When a person dies, this collection, including consciousness, disperses, disappears.  In Vedanta, the consciousness of the Atman is immortal, conversely.

SANNYASIN

In Vedanta, a sannyasin or sannyasi is one who has renounced his life as an ordinary citizen, as a householder most often.  This break with everyday ties brings a freedom impossible to experience otherwise.  The sannyasin is "the liberated man" in this way, the Renouncer par excellence.  He is the holy wanderer with no goal or obligation other than seeking eternal salvation. 

In Indian life, the Renouncer is not an outcast or oddity, but an exemplar of society, a person more often admired and envied than wondered at.  Though he may be of a lower caste originally, the sannyasin is now above the Brahmin, or priestly caste, in his new role.

Some sannyasins function individually, while others join various orders.  A rite of passage, simplified in modern times, is sometimes entered upon, in which, with appropriate ceremonies, the future sannyasin retreats into a cave or hut, undergoes purification rituals, and is reborn into his new status.  The ritual may involve an imitation of the fetal position, with a ceremonial expulsion from the womb at the finish.

The sannyasin is freed from the necessity of earning a living or of any kind of self-support, and is dependent now upon society for food, shelter, and other sustenance.  In return, society depends upon the spiritual benefits gained by its sannyasins. 

Some sannyasins wander from village to village, or through forests and jungles and along rivers, stopping at sacred sites they may come to along the way.  Others may withdraw completely, either alone or in the company of others, into jungle or mountain hermitages.

SAT-CHIT-ANANDA

In Vedanta, Sat-chit-ananda represents the three fundamental attributes of Brahman and is translated as absolute Existence, absolute Consciousness, absolute Bliss.  It describes the nature of Brahman as experienced by a fully-liberated yogi or saint.

ZERO TO A MILLION

It is said in Vedanta that accumulating worldly knowledge is like adding zeros to a long line of zeros. When, however, a person gains transcendental knowledge, it is like putting the number "one" in front of the zeros.

RECOLLECTION

Vedanta has its rituals.  There is prayer, japam, puja, prasad, and all the rest.  These, however, are not meant to curry favorite with God, Swami Prabhavananda emphasizes; one is not asking anything of God.  Rather is it "recollection," a recalling of God, as indeed is any form of thinking of God throughout the day.  Such recollections create an environment for God's grace.

WHO AM I?

Sri Ramana Maharshi held that everyone needs to ask himself or herself, "Who am I?"  "Who am I really," in other words. 

In his lecture on The Crest Jewel of Discrimination, Swami Prabhavananda gets to the heart of this.  He explains that the "I" referred to here is not the physical body, not the emotions, not the egoic self, indeed, is nothing that is in flux, is transient, is changing.  Things that change exist in relative reality only.  Things that do not change exist in ultimate reality.  The Atman is the subjective aspect of Brahman and does not change.  This is the real "I" in the question "Who am I?"

Swami Vivekananda, a direct disciple of Sri Ramakrishna, used to say that when he spoke the word "I" he was referring to his Atman.  He always spoke as his Atman.

Prabhavananda added that when Jesus said, "I and my father are one," he was referring to this same Atman/Brahman phenomenon, only in different terms.