Vivekachudamani

The causal body

  Maya is unmanifest (avyaktam). It cannot be known through the sense-organs because it has no quality like colour, etc. It is the power of the supreme Being. If such a power is not accepted, the creation of the universe cannot be explained, since Brahman by itself is devoid of any activity. It is beginningless nescience. It is constituted of the three gunas, sattva, rajas and tamas. It can only be inferred from its effects by the wise who follow the sruti. Maya is neither real nor unreal, nor both. An unreal thing is some thing that is never experienced, such as the horn of a hare. Since the universe, the effect of Maya, is actually experienced, its cause cannot be unreal like the horn of a hare. At the same time, it cannot be real because it is sublated on the attainment of self-realization. It cannot be both real and unreal, because these contradictory qualities cannot exist in the same substance at the same time. It is therefore indescribable (anirvachaniya). It is neither different nor non-different from Brahman, nor both. It is neither composed of parts nor without parts, nor both. If it has parts then it must have an origin, but it is without a beginning. If it has no parts then it cannot become modified as the universe. It is most wonderful.

   Maya will cease to exist for a particular individual when he realizes the pure non-dual Brahman, just as the illusory snake disappears when its substratum, rope, is known.

    Maya is made up of the three gunas, sattva, rajas and tamas. There are three powers in Maya: the power of concealing the reality (avaranasakti), the power of projecting what is not real (vikshepasakti), and the power of jnana (jnanasakti). The first two are the causes of bondage; the third leads to liberation. The first is the result of the tamas part of Maya, the second is due to the rajas part and the third is due to the sattva part. Isvara�s Maya is predominantly sattvic and it is under His control. So there is no bondage for Him. The jiva�s Maya is constituted of all the three gunas in different proportions and so he suffers bondage. The rajoguna is the cause of attachment, aversion, etc., in the jiva. All qualities such as desire, doubt, fear, courage, resolve, faith, lack of faith, anger, avarice, pride, jealousy etc., (both good and bad qualities) relate only to the mind and not to the atma. They are superimposed on the atma because of lack of discrimination between the mind and the atma due to ignorance. These qualities of the mind are the cause of all the activities of the jiva.    

   The veiling power of Maya belongs to its tamasic aspect. It is only because the reality, Brahman, is concealed by it that the projecting power of Maya is able to function and project the world and make it appear real. Thus the veiling power of Maya is the root cause of the jiva�s bondage and transmigration. Sri Chandrasekhara Bharati Swami says in his commentary that even in the case of a realized person the projecting power (vikshepasakti) continues to operate as a result of praarabdha karma. Therefore he also sees the world as ordinary persons do, but he is not affected by any happenings, good or bad, because his knowledge of Brahman is not veiled and so he looks upon everything as Brahman. An example may be given to illustrate this. A child looks at a lion made of stone and runs away screaming in fear. An adult also sees it as a lion, but is not frightened because he knows that it is only stone. So it is the veiling power of Maya that is the cause of all misery.

   Even a person who is learned in the scriptures does not realize the nature of the self if he is overpowered by tamoguna. He considers the world, which is only a superimposition on the self due to beginningless nescience, as real. This delusion leads to sorrow. The power of Maya to delude has been described by Sri Sankara thus in his Bhashya on Kathopanishad, 1.3.12:- �Alas, how unfathomable, inscrutable and variegated is this power of Maya, that every human being, though in reality identical with the supreme Brahman, and is told this again and again by the upanishads, does not realize that truth, but considers himself as the body, mind and senses, even though he is not told so by any one�. 

   The veiling power of Maya produces four obstacles to knowledge in the mind of man. These are, (1) the notion that the identity of jiva and Brahman and the illusoriness of the world propounded in the upanishads cannot be correct (known as abhaavanaa), (2) the idea that the body itself is the self (viparitabhaavanaa), (3) notions contrary to the teachings (vipratipattih), and (4) doubt (asambhavana). The vikshepasakti of Maya which projects the world as a reality keeps the man in bondage.

   Ignorance, laziness, lack of discrimination, torpor, indifference, delusion, and similar negative qualities are the result of tamoguna. A person subject to these does not make any effort to uplift himself.

   Sattvaguna is very pure. But because of admixture with rajas and tamas transmigration results. When a person is predominantly sattvic, with only a tinge of rajas and no tamas, he is free from pride, and practises the disciplines such as yama and niyama. Such a person has faith, devotion, yearning for liberation, and divine qualities. He withdraws from the  pursuit of worldly pleasures. �Yama� has five components: non-injury, truthfulness, not coveting other�s possessions, continence, and non-acceptance of gifts. �Niyama� also has five components: purity of body and mind, contentment, austerity, study of the scriptures, and dedication of all actions to God.

   When sattvaguna is uncontaminated by rajas and tamas the results are alertness of mind, experience of the self, supreme calmness, contentment, bliss, and remaining established in the supreme bliss because of which there is everlasting bliss.

   The causal body made up of the three gunas is unmanifest. Dreamless sleep is its distinctive state. In this state the organs and the mind do not function. The mind remains in seed form in this state. The absence of knowledge of any kind in this state is evident from the fact that a person who wakes up from sleep says that he did not know anything.  

   The not-self

   The physical body, the sense organs, the vital air, the mind, the ego-sense, all functions of these, all the sense-objects, pleasure, pain, etc., the five elements, the entire universe upto the unmanifested (Prakriti)�all these constitute the not-self. All this is mithya, what cannot be described as either real or unreal. These are all the effects of Maya. On the realization of Brahman these will be found to have no reality. 

   In Panchadasi, 6.130 Swami Vidyaranya says:-- From the standpoint of the ordinary worldly man, Maya is real. From the standpoint of the man of realization, Maya has no existence at all. For those who try to understand it through reasoning, Maya cannot be determined as either real or unreal; it is anirvachaniya .

Sri Sankara says in Maayaapanchakam that Maya has the capacity to make the impossible happen. It imposes on Brahman, which is eternal and devoid of parts and which is pure Consciousness, the false distinctions as the world, individual souls and God. It makes even those who have mastered all the scriptures no different from animals by tempting them with wealth and the like. It makes Brahman which is infinite bliss, pure Consciousness and non-dual, struggle in the ocean of samsaara by associating it with the body made up of the five elements. It imposes on Brahman which is devoid of qualities the distinctions of colour, caste, etc, and attachment to wife, son, possessions and the like. It creates even in non-dual Brahman distinctions such as Brahmaa, Vishnu and Siva and deludes even the learned into thinking that they are different from one another.

   The question �What is the supreme Self� will be taken up in the next article.

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