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.

DIAMOND SUTRA

Like many Buddhist sutras the Diamond Sutra, Vajracchedika Prajnaparamita Sutra in Sanskrit, 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 Sutra.

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 Prajnaparamita 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 sutra, the Buddha has finished his daily walk with the monks to gather offerings of food, following which he sits down to rest.  The monk Subhuti 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 Sutra can be read in 40 to 50 minutes and therefore is often memorized and chanted in Buddhist monasteries.  This sutra has retained significant popularity in the Mahayana Buddhist tradition for over a thousand years.

HEART SUTRA

The Heart Sutra is in the Perfection of Wisdom, or Prajnaparamita, group of Mahayana Buddhist literature.  Its Sanskrit name Prajnaparamita Hrdaya literally translates as 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 Kukai 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, namely 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 relative 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 the central figure 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.

AVALOKITESVARA

In Mahayana Buddhism, boisattvas 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.  In China and Japan she is analogous to the Virgin Mary in Roman Catholicism.  Her attitudes are exactly those of Avalokitesvara in India, with the addition of a madonna-like maternal feeling.

PUJA

In his book My Guru and His Disciple, writer Christopher Isherwood details his experiences as an initiate in the Vedanta Society of Southern California.  Much of the book describes the routine at the Society's residence and temple in Hollywood.  He talks about puja as part of the ritual worship there.

Puja is designed to concentrate the mind on God, or Brahman, and thus to heighten devotion.  It is offered to any one of the many aspects of God, often to one of His divine forms such as Kali or Shiva, or to such incarnations as Rama or Krishna.  The deity may be represented by an image, photograph, or other symbol. 

Worship may be performed with sandalpaste and flowers.  It may also be performed with as many as five items, such as, again, sandalpaste, a flower, a stick of incense, a light, and food, or even with the addition of ten more items.  In most centers of the Ramakrishna Order a ten-item worship is performed daily for benefit of the whole religious community, along with a food offering distributed afterwards.  A sixteen-item worship is offered on special days, such as Kali puja and the birthday of Sri Ramakrishna, to name just two. 

In some Ramakrishna monasteries, Jesus is honored with a Hindu ritual worship, especially at Christmastime.  Each gesture or action during a puja must be done with the worshiper's mind concentrated on its symbolic significance, which serves to remind him or her that deity, offerings, utensils, and the devotee are all Brahman.  The ritual worship is therefore nondualistic. 

The meditations accompanying it embrace Vedanta philosophy, metaphysics, and mythology, and are concretized in the accessories used.  Puja reconciles the path of devotion with the path of knowledge, ranging, as it does, from the devotee's meditation on his or her identity with Brahman, to worship of the deity as an honored guest.

CREST JEWEL OF DISCRIMINATION

The Crest Jewel of Discrimination, or Vivekachudamani, is a famous work by Adi Shankara that expounds Advaita Vedanta philosophy.  It describes developing "viveka," that is, the faculty of discrimination, explaining that it is essential to the spiritual life.  It calls it the "crown jewel" among the essentials for moksha, liberation.

The word "viveka" means discrimination, "chuda" is crest, and "mani" means jewel.  Hence, Crest Jewel of Discrimination.

While Shankara wrote commentaries on the Brahma Sutras, the Bhagavad Gita and the Upanishads, his principal work is the Vivekachudamani.

It consists of 580 verses in Sanskrit and is in the form of a dialogue between the master and the disciple.  The master explains to the disciple the nature of the Atman and the ways to research and know the Atman.  The book instructs the disciple step by step how to reach the ultimate, Brahman, through the Atman.

The text begins with Shankara's salutations to Govinda, whom some interpret as God and others as Shankara's guru Sri Govinda Bhagavatpada.  It then teaches the disciple the ways to attain self realization, methods of meditation (dhyana), and how to know the Atman.  A description of an enlightened man (Jivanmukta), and a man of steady wisdom (Sthitaprajna) complete the work.

The Crest Jewel of Discrimination has been translated into various languages, often accompanied by a commentary in the same language.  English translations and commentaries include those by Swami Prabhavananda and Christopher Isherwood, Swami Madhavananda, and Swami Chinmayananda.  Tamil translations and commentaries include those by Ramana Maharshi. 

An English translation of the full text is available for free on the Internet at www.realization.org/page/namedoc0/vc/vc_0.htm, while a 56-part lecture, as audio files, can be found at Vedanta.com.  Click on "Browse Catalogue," and then click on the picture of Swami Prabhavananda, the lecturer.

ODD

It seems odd that there is anything at all--philosopher Alan Watts.

BRAHMA SUTRAS

The word "sutra" literally means a thread or line that holds things together and is derived from the verbal root siv-, meaning to sew.  A related medical term is "suture."

The Brahma Sutras, also known as the Vedanta Sutras, consist of 555 aphorisms in four chapters.  Each chapter is divided into four quarters, each quarter consisting of several topical sections.

The first chapter states that all Vedanta texts speak of Brahman, the ultimate reality.  The realization of Brahman by way of the Atman, the subjective aspect of Brahman, is the goal of life.

The second chapter discusses and refutes the possible objections to this philosophy.

The third chapter explains the process by which ultimate emancipation (moksha) can be achieved.

The fourth chapter describes the state that is achieved in final liberation, moksha.

Many commentaries have been written on the Brahma Sutras, the earliest extant being by Sri Adi Shankara. His commentary set forth the non-dualistic (Advaita) interpretation of the Vedanta philosophy. 

Shankara’s interpretation was commented upon subsequently by Vācaspati and by Padmapāda. These sub-commentaries, in turn, inspired other derivative texts in the Advaita school.

TURIYA

Turiya is not a state of consciousness but consciousness itself.  It is the consciousness of the Atman.  It is a witnessing consciousness of which the individual is normally not aware.

The three usual states of consciousness, the state of waking (jagrata), the state of dreaming (svapna), and the state of dreamless sleep (susupti) have turiya underlying and transcending them.

AN AVATAR REVISITED

In Hinduism, an avatar is an incarnation of God.  Avatars have appeared on earth many times in different ages, and in different forms, for the purpose of reestablishing the forgotten truths of religion.

Unlike embodied souls, the avatar is not born as a result of past deeds and tendencies, karma.  His birth is the result of choice.  He is conscious of his divine mission throughout his life, and is able to transmit divine knowledge by his mere touch, look, or wish.

The body or shape of an avatar is not earthly stuff, so to speak, but is composed of heavenly matter, called suddha sattva in Hinduism, and is a temporary manifestation only.

Avatars are countless.  Besides the popularly known figures, such as, for example, the Buddha and Sri Ramakrishna, any spiritual teacher is an avatar to some degree, being at least in part if not fully an embodiment of the divine.

The Hindu can accept Christ as an avatar, but according to Christian theologians familiar with the doctrine, Christ, "the Word made flesh," cannot in Christian teaching be considered an avatar.  Christ, they point out, was both human and divine, while an avatar is not human.

The avatar doctrine reached its fullest development during the Puranic period (A.D. 300-1200).  However, it is still found in modern times, as, for example, Mohandas Gandhi (1869-1948) is, in some circles, considered an avatar.

SIXTH PATRIARCH

The Intuitive Sects of Mahayana Buddhism are Ch'an in China and, later, Zen in Japan.  In their view, scholarly research, the reading of books, the doing of good works, the performance of rituals, and so on, are not only of little merit, but often a hindrance to true insight.  To illustrate this, there is the story of Hui-neng, an illiterate country boy, who went on to become the Sixth Patriarch of Ch'an Buddhism.

Hui-neng's first "conversion" took place while he was still a youth.  One day while he was selling firewood in the market, he heard a man reading a Sutra, a Buddhist lesson.  No sooner had he heard the text of the Sutra than he became enlightened.  Traveling to the Tung-tsen monastery, he was received by the Fifth Patriarch who asked him where he came from and what he expected to get from him.  Hui-neng replied that he was a commoner from Sun-chow and said that he asked for nothing but Buddhahood.

The boy was then sent to the granary of the monastery, where for many months he worked as a laborer hulling rice.  One day the Patriarch assembled his monks and, after reminding them of the uselessness of merit as compared to liberation, told them to go and "seek the transcendental wisdom within your minds and write me a stanza about it.  He who gets the clearest idea of what Mind-Essence is, will receive the insignia and become the Sixth Patriarch."

Only one of the monks wrote a poem on the wall for the poems.  It stated:

The body is a Bodhi tree,
The mind a standing mirror bright.
At all times polish it diligently,
And let no dust alight.

After an attendant read this  poem aloud to him, Hui-neng asked him to write another poem on the wall next to the other one.  It stated:

Bodhi is originally without any tree;
The bright mirror is also not a stand.
Originally there is not a single thing;
Where could any dust be attracted?

When the Fifth Patriarch read this second poem, knowing it was by Hui-neng, he passed the robe and begging bowl , symbols of the Dharma Seal of Enlightenment, to him and  Hui-neng became the Sixth Patriarch. 

THE YOGACARA OR IDEALIST SCHOOL

The Yogacara or Idealist School of Buddhism was founded in India in the 5th century A.D. by the brothers Asanga and Vasubandhu.  It proceeded from where the Intermediate School of Nagarjuna left off in the 2nd century.

Nagarjuna held that anything whatsoever was in fact merely a loose collection of pulsating, transitory "elements."  These elements when closely examined were no more than mental phenomena or phantasms.  The Idealist School proposed similarly that only mind existed, and that the objects of its thoughts were ideas only.

But how then did the mind always perceive what other minds did and not just what it was inclined to perceive?  The answer was simply that there was a reservoir or store of perceptions on which all minds drew, namely the "consciousness that holds all" or the "receptacle of consciousness," Alaya-vijnana.  This was the cosmic all-mind.  To identify with it was to be in Nirvana.  This was destined to have great influence on later Buddhist thought.

NAGARJUNA AND THE INTERMEDIATE SCHOOL

In the 2nd century A.D., Nagarjuna organized in India what came to be called the Madhyamika or Intermediate School, so called because it was intermediate between the realism of early Buddhism and the idealism of the later Yogacara School. 

The Buddha taught that there was no such thing as a soul, the doctrine of anatta, but rather a loose grouping of ever-changing skandhas or personality elements.  Nagarjuna went further by saying that anything at all, objects or existents of any kind, were in a similar way "a loose collection of pulsating, transitory elements."  These elements when closely examined, according to Nagarjuna, were no more than mental phenomena or phantasms.  They were "empty."

In this way, the substantiality of the external world was denied.  Everything was void, sunya, i.e. things were not what they seemed to be.  In reality, they lacked the characteristics assigned to them.

The early Buddhists, being Indians, found less difficulty than others perhaps in accepting the world as a kind of magical show in which what was seen was both true and not true.  This was not, they said, to argue that what was seen was non-existent but only that we took it for what it essentially was not. 

However, there was an inherent qualification in this view.  Implied was the idea of transcendental truth.  Only minds that had shed "ignorance" could apprehend it, which was to say that so long as minds and consciousnesses continued in the ordinary or usual way, they experienced only everyday or relative truth.

MEHER BABA

To the 1960's generation in the West, Meher Baba is best known as the guru of Pete Townshend, guitarist/songwriter of the rock band The Who.  In India, however, Meher Baba is best known as the Silent Avatar.

Baba was born Merwan Sheriar Irani on February 25, 1894.  He led a normal childhood, showing no strong inclination toward spiritual matters.  When he was 19 years old, though, he had a brief contact with the Muslim holy woman Hazrat Babajan which resulted in a spiritual transformation in him lasting seven years.  

During this time, he contacted four additional spiritual figures whom, along with Babajan, he called the five Perfect Masters.  One of the masters, Upasni Maharaj, was with him the whole time, until Baba began his public work.  The name Meher Baba means Compassionate Father in Persian, the name given to him by his first followers.

From July 10, 1925 until the end of his life, Baba maintained silence, communicating by pointing at letters on an alphabet board, or by unique hand gestures.  With his circle of disciples, called mandali, he spent long periods in seclusion, during which he often fasted.  At other times, he conducted wide-ranging travels, public gatherings, and works of charity, including working with lepers, the poor, and the mentally ill.

Baba's many visits to the West began in 1931, during which he attracted many followers.  Throughout most of the 1940s, he worked with a category of spiritual aspirant called masts.  These were people he said were entranced or spellbound by internal spiritual experiences. 

Beginning in 1949, he traveled incognito throughout India in what he called The New Life.  Then on February 10, 1954, he declared that he was the Avatar (an incarnation of God) of the age.  On July 10, 1958, he released what he called his Universal Message.

After being injured as a passenger in two automobile accidents, one in the United States in 1952 and one in India in 1956, his capacity to walk became seriously limited.  Six years later, in 1962, he invited his Western followers to India for a mass darshan. a form of Hindu worship, that he called The East-West Gathering.

Concerned by the increasing use of LSD and other psychedelic drugs around the world, Baba wrote in 1966 that such things did not convey real benefits to the individual.  This was what drew Pete Townshend to him, who admitted to him that The Who used drugs. 

Despite deteriorating health, Baba maintained what he called his Universal Work, which included fasting and seclusion, until his death on January 31, 1969. His tomb-shrine in Meherabad, India has become a place of international pilgrimage.

AN AVATAR

On February 10, 1954, the Indian mystic and spiritual master Meher Baba declared that he was an avatar.  But what exactly is an avatar?

In Hinduism, an avatar is an incarnation of God.  God, or Brahman, is made flesh many times in different ages and in different forms, even other than human, the purpose of which is to protect and save all of creation through His earthly role.  The "body" or shape of an avatar is not human stuff, so to speak, but is composed of heavenly matter, called suddha sattva, and is a temporary manifestation only.  

The Hindu, incidentally, can accept Christ as an avatar, but according to Christian theologians familiar with the doctrine, Christ, "the Word made flesh," both human and divine, cannot be considered an avatar in Christian teaching.  Avatars are countless, according to Hinduism, for besides the popularly known figures, such as for example the Buddha and Sri Ramakrishna, any spiritual teacher is an avatar to some degree, being at least in part if not fully an embodiment of the Divine.

Christopher Isherwood has a strict view of the avatar, which he discusses in his book Ramakrishna and his Disciples.  He states that what a Hindu means by the term is something quite precise and not merely a vague expression of reverence.  

There is a difference, according to Isherwood, between an avatar and a man who, in the highest form of samadhi, realizes union with Brahman.  The man who realizes the Godhead does so as a result of many human births.  His karma from past lives, growing ever better, has impelled him through countless births, deaths, and rebirths to this moment of realization.  It is, as it were, the apex of a huge karmic pyramid. 

But this person, termed a saint, is still a human being, while an avatar is not.  An avatar is other than a saint.  An avatar has no past in this sense, for he has no karma.  He is not driven by his karma to be born.  He takes human form as an act of pure grace, for the good of humanity.  Though he voluntarily enters the world of time and space, he remains eternal.  He is not bound by time and is not subject to Maya, the illusion of earthly existence.

CATEGORIES OF CREATION

The term "creatio ex nihilo" refers to God creating everything from nothing.  In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth (Genesis 1:1).  Prior to that moment there was nothing.  God, therefore, did not, as some have argued, produce the universe from preexisting building blocks but rather from scratch.

Just to clarify, the Bible never expressly states that God made everything from nothing, but it is implied.  In Hebrews 11:3 it states, “By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.”  Scholars interpret this to mean that the universe came into existence by divine command only, with nothing pre-existing.

This is difficult to comprehend.  The “first law of science” states that matter (the stuff the universe is made of) is neither created nor destroyed.  Matter can be converted from solid to liquid to gas to plasma and back again.   Atoms can be combined into molecules and split into their component parts, but matter cannot be created from nothing or be completely destroyed.  And so this idea that God created everything from nothing is not natural to us.  Creation was supernatural is why.   Judeo/Christian denominations, most of them, hold this view.

The next category, accordingly, is "creatio ex materia."  This is creation out of some pre-existent eternal matter, which is the belief of the Mormon church.

"Creatio ex deo" is creation out of the being of God and is where Vedanta is found.  Here, God IS creation.  God, in this viewpoint, literally shares in the existence of everything created through everything’s experience of it.  And as everything grows and develops so does God.

A fourth category of creation is no creation.  The universe, in this instance, had no beginning and will never end.  One model of this is an endless series of Big Bangs and Big Crunches lasting trillions of years, with God present the whole time.   God, here, is either a separate phenomenon, an interpenetrating entity, or existence itself.   God is not the creator, though. 

The fifth possibility is also no creation, but this time there is no God present at all.   The universe is merely a phenomenon that always was and always will be.   Again, it might go through phases, such as a chain of Big Bangs and Big Crunches, but no God is involved with it.   This category is where Buddhism would be, since it does not accept that God ever existed, much less a creator-God.

DEPENDENT ORIGINATION

The Buddhist principle of Dependent Origination states that what is, is dependent upon something else, the law of cause and effect.  If this is, that comes to be; from the arising of this, that arises; if this is not, that does not come to be; from the stopping of this, that stops.  (Majjhima-Nikaya II.32).

The skillful man asks what are the consequences of my actions?  Will it lead to hurt of self, of others, or of both?  What will happen if I stop, or do nothing?  (Majjhima-Nikaya I.416).  It is like a clock where if one wheel turns, all the wheels turn.  Everything changes with one change, or not.

The causes and effects proceed automatically in an impersonal law-like manner.  The implication of this is that an intelligent agent, like a Creator, is not necessary.  In fact it is impossible for such an uncaused principle as a Creator to interact with our universe which runs on causal dependence.

Due to the law-like behavior of Dependent Origination, it gives rise to every other doctrine in Buddhism including rebirth, samsara (cycle of life and death), dukkha (suffering), and sunyata (emptiness of self). 

According to Dependent Origination, sentient beings are mere conceptual constructs, the result of bundles of causes and effects.