Vivekachudamani 21 Recap of Previous Classes and Verses - By Swami Tattwamayananda

Title: Recap of Previous Classes and VersesVivekachudamani is one of the introductory texts on Vedanta – it focuses on the natural urge of any human being in search of the truth. It has 584 verses. Its author is Shankaracharya.The entire text is built around answering seven questions from the student in the 51st verse. The seven questions are: (1) What is this bondage? (2) How does it come about? (3) How does it exist and what sustains it? (4) How do we come out of it? (5) What is anatman? (6) What is the supreme Atman? (7) How do we differentiate between atman and anatman?The teacher starts by answering the 5th question first: “What is anatman?” The Absolute Reality cannot be defined. If we can understand and remove all that is not the Absolute Reality, what remains is the Absolute Reality. This is why the 5th question is addressed first.The teacher addresses this question by discussing different sarira (body). There are three sariras: Sthula sarira (gross body), sukhshma sarira (subtle body, the personality behind the gross body) and karana sarira (lack of understanding of our true nature). All of these are non-eternal – they come and go.Karana-sarira is the actual cause of bondage. We forget our true nature (ignorant) and mistakenly identify ourselves with the physical body. It is called Avidya or Maya.110th verse describes Maya. We feel it to be real when we are within it. We understand that it is not the Absolute Reality, when we go beyond it.In the statement “Brahma Satyam, Jagad Mitha”, the first part (Brahma Satyam ) describes the highest idea of God. The second part describes the world. It is neither absolutely real, nor is it absolutely unreal. It is only relatively real. This world of name and form is the creation of Maya.111th verse:  Maya is not “sat” not “asat” nor a combination of sat and asat. Maya is neither different from Brahman, nor non-different from Brahman, nor a combination of difference and non-difference.Maya is neither endowed with parts nor devoid of parts, nor a combination of the two. All of us experience Maya in our everyday life. It is beyond logical comprehension, cannot be explained in words or cognized with the mind, and is a great wonder.113th verse: Maya functions at the level of three gunas: Sattva guna, Rajo guna and Tamo guna. Tamo guna functions as Avarana or concealment. Rajo guna functions as Vikshepa or false projection. Sattva guna functions in the form of our natural interest to explore higher truth.Sri Ramakrishna describes the three gunas with the story of three thieves. Three thieves ambush a traveler in a forest. The thief representing Tamo guna says: “Let’s kill him and take all his belongings.” The second thief representing Rajo guna says: “Let’s give him some blows and bind him to a tree.” The thief representing Sattva guna takes the traveler to the road and shows him the way to the village.The sattvic aspect of Maya is called Jnana-shakti. It helps us take us beyond Maya.114th and 115th verses: Maya operates with two powers: Avarana-shakti, which conceals the reality and Vikshepa-shakti, which projects something false. Avarana-shakti  is the cause of Vikshepa-shakti . These two together keep us bound to the world. The 115th verse describes concealment and the 114th verse describes false projection.116th verse: “Even one who is intellectually advanced, who knows scriptures, who understands the subtle truths and who is convinced of his learning – even such a person is caught by the crocodile of Maya and looks upon the unreal as the real and the real and unreal.”