Introduction to Vedanta -Drig Drisya Viveka - Swami Sarvapriyanandaji's lecture in Vedanta society of southern California part 8

Swami Sarvapriyanandaji's lectures are available on youtube. These are just the my personal interpretations and transcriptions of his explanation of the text of Drig Drisya Viveka. Actual Copyright of the lecture belongs to Vedanta Society of Southern California.

Drig Drisya Viveka is a Vedantic test written by Vidyaranya Swami in 14th century AD. Its an introductory text on Vedanta.

The veiling power of Maya separates the witness from the mind body internally to let us think that we are mind body, whereas in reality we are mind-body-witness. The veiling power separates Brahman from the external universe. So all names and forms appear as distinct from Sachidananda and the witness appears as separate from the individual. In reality witness and individual are the same as Brahman and visible universe. In reality the rope is still the rope, we perceive it as the snake in the darkness out of ignorance. There is an interesting conversation between Sri Ramakrishna and Hari (Later Swami Turiyanandaji) in the Gospel. Hari complains about miseries and Sri Ramakrishna says that it is all Lord's play. Hari says, "it may be sports for Him but it is death to us." And Sri Ramakrishna says, "But who are You?" The underlying statement is, God Himself has become everything, so it is He who is inflicting miseries and He who is suffering. The jiva or the individual soul comes back again and again to the world driven by Karma. Any small action will leave a ripple. The desires force us to act and selfish action binds us to the wheels of the world, by the ripples or the impacts. The impacts also create impressions which become the source of future desires and thus action. To experience the effect the jiva will have to come back again and again as a bhokta or experiencing agent by assuming a gross body. This is a vicious cycle.  The desires arise because the jiva perceives itself to be limited, conditioned by time space and causation. Moment it realizes its true infinite nature all desires vanish and there is no need for any action any more. Only prabdha remains like the momentum of a wheel. The body lasts as long as the last vestige of prarabdha remains.

The veiling power creates a sense of separateness, that the individual is separate from the world at large. Thus we have individuality, which goes only when we realize the Oneness.

The projection power of Maya projects the gross as well as the subtle body. The subtle body is mind, intellect, prana or the vital force. The gross external outside universe derives its existence from Brahman just as gold necklace derives its existence from gold.The subtle projection of Maya - mind etc. derives existence AND consciousness from Brahman. That's why we feel conscious. This is the reflected consciousness. The external universe of names and forms is Brahman & external universe. We cannot distinguish Brahman from names and forms superimposed on it because of the veiling power of Maya. Similarly in our internal world the mind and witness consciousness is Brahman and we cannot distinctly separate witness consciousness, the sakshi from mind because of the obscuring power of Maya. The internal universe of names and forms is known by us. The knower is called Pramata and the known is called Prameya. Our mind as pramata knows the external universe of names and forms which is prameya. Witness consciousness is the pramata of the mind but we cannot separate it from the mind. We think that the witness consciousness is mind as we cannot separate the witness consciousness from the mind because of ignorance. The rope shares some attributes with the snake, like the size and shape, so we make the mistake in darkness. Similarly the external world of names of forms exists (Brahman is existence, therefore this is borrowed from Brahman) and the mind or the subtle world is conscious (Brahman is consciousness, therefore consciousness is borrowed from Brahman). When we realize that Brahman is behind every existence and consciousness then the world of misery and suffering becomes a world of joy. We are no longer beguiled by the veiling power of Maya. The rope still shares the attributes of snake but we Know the rope to be a rope only and thus become fearless and free. The projection of Brahman as names and forms and subtle world still remains but we are no longer driven by ignorance, so veiling power is gone for ever.