ATMA BODHAM : 9 - (68 verses, 9 Chapters) - “KNOWLEDGE of the SELF”

04/01/2019
Chapter 3 :
Verses 6-9 (4 no.) :
“The Nature of the WORLD” :
Verse -6. As a Dream Only!

"Samsaarah svapna-tulyah hi raga-dvesha-aadi sankulah;
 swakaale satya-vat bhaati prabodhe sati asat bhavet."

1 Samsaarah svapna-tulyah hi  = The world is truly like a dream only:
2 raga-dvesha-aadi sankulah;   = full of its attachment and aversions, and so on.
3 swakaale satya-vat bhaati      = While the dream continues, it appears to be real;
4 prabodhe sati asat bhavet.    = when we awaken, its unreality is seen.

From verse 6 – 9, we shift our attention from the Self and Self-knowledge to the world of appearance of names and forms.

1 Samsara here means the world of transmigration, the world of births and deaths in an endless cycle, which can only be escaped through knowledge of the Self. The characteristic feature of this Samsara is that “it is the realm where one thought is not like the next thought, and thoughts change so rapidly from one to the next. That is the nature of Samsaric life.

Samsara means “that which is ever-changing”, and that is why it is such an appropriate word to describe this world – which is a play, changing every moment. A thought does not stay for long in the mind; it changes moment to moment. The message of this verse is to show how unreal this world is. It does that through a beautiful simile…

“Swapna –Tulyo” Nyaya or Analogy :

The world of objects, existing in time and space, is compared to a dream as it is viewed from the waking state.

A little background here will help. We have already known of the three Grades of Reality, namely, Pratibhashika, Vyavaharika and Paramarthika. Dream experiences are Pratibhashika, the external world is in Vyvaharika, and the Self or Brahman is Paramarthika. The first is destroyed by the second and the second is destroyed by the third. In this verse, the Vyavaharika reality’s relationship to the Paramarthika Reality is compared to the Pratibhashika reality’s relationship with the Vyavaharika reality. In other words, the Vyavaharika reality of this world is seen as if it is a dream which is viewed in retrospect during the waking state. We laugh at ourselves when we realize how foolishly we behaved in dream. The same thing happens when a man awakens into the state of realization, that is, when he shifts from the Vyavaharika to the Paramarthika Reality. Such a man of realization recognizes the experience in this world as “a dream” wherein he experiences this world as a realm of objects, time and space. Just as dream is so distinctly different from the waking state, so also the waking state is distinctly different from the state of God-realisation.

This is the appropriateness of the analogy.

2 Raga Dwesha Aadi: The word Aadi after Raga-Dwesha indicates “etc”. It refers to the whole chain of qualities of which Raga and Dwesha are the first two. The others are Lobha, Moha, Mada and Matsarya. Translated into English the six negative qualities are likes, dislikes, greed, delusion, pride and jealousy. By keeping these alive it is like stabbing ourselves daily with six daggers!

3 Swa-Kaale: In this whole world, people are on the move day and night because of  any one of these 6 qualities. It keeps the whole dream-play going on endlessly. Swa-Kaale is
used referring to this ‘time-bound’ drama. It means “as long as the dream continues”.

4 When one has awoken from this dream through knowledge, it no longer exists. It vanishes exactly like the way a dream vanishes.

NEXT : VERSE 7: As Mother-of-Pearl Appears Silver

To be continued ..