Pranamas. Is Atma assuming virat, hiranyagarbha, Isvara? Or is jiva in waking, dreaming, deep sleep states get expanded to those above?
Sundari: I am not sure what your doubt is here, or whether you are just trying to clarify some technical terms in the scripture. However, I will unpick your statement and hopefully it will help your inquiry.
Firstly, as you should be aware, Atman does not ‘assume’ anything because it is an unlimited, partless, unchanging whole. It never modifies to anything because there is only itself. The creation exists because of the presence of Atman, but Atman is never ‘in’ the creation. If it did change and became part of the creation, there would be no escape from duality. Atman exists with or without the creation.
Because Atman is a perfect unlimited whole it contains all powers. Maya, the power to delude, is a power ‘in’ Awareness. I use the word ‘in Awareness’ here for teaching purposes but as Awareness is a partless whole there is nothing in or out of it. When Maya appears, Atman in association with Maya, i.e., Isvara, ‘creates’ the apparent reality. The apparent reality consists of the totality of Gross bodies (Virat), the totality of Subtle bodies or upadhis (Hiranyagarba), and the totality of microcosmic causal bodies or personal unconscious (Isvara), also called the Macrocosmic Causal body or the Macrocosmic Unconscious. The Causal Body is the seed state or repository of all vasanas, i.e., all jiva blueprints.
Atman is not a creator because it is not a doer. The creation is an apparent creation, not a real one. In the apparent reality, Atman appearing as the Jiva is seemingly under the spell of ignorance from the jiva’s point of view. But as Maya is not real it does not affect Atman one bit. Maya like the individual, non-eternal or conceptual jiva are objects appearing in Awareness. There is no Maya for the Self, but there is personal ignorance, avidya, for the individual or personal jiva.
Secondly, how can jiva get ‘expanded’ into anything? The jiva is not real. There is only the Self, and it does not expand or contract. The Eternal or Universal Jiva is Awareness, Jivatman, it is therefore unchanging. Both Maya and the eternal Universal Jiva resolve into Awareness upon investigation because they are one and the same. However, Maya is the reflecting medium in which the ever-changing individual jiva (Subtle body/reflection) appears.
The non-eternal individual jiva is a dream jiva, with only three states of (apparent) consciousness available to it: waking, dream and deep sleep. However, when we investigate all three states, we can negate all of them as not real because they are always changing and not always present, they are the variable factors. We are left once again with only one invariable factor: the unchanging ever-present Atman, the Self.
The Three Bodies and Three States are: (1) Gross Body-Viswa-Virat and the Waking State, (2) Subtle Body-Taijasa-Hiranyagarbha and the Dream State, (3) Causal Body-Prajna-Isvara and the Deep Sleep State.
These sets of terms are all technical names that point to and dissolve on inquiry into the nondual Self, the one and only non-negatable factor beyond all names forms and states.
1. Waking State: Viswa – waking state entity / Virat = totality of the external universe, i.e., Gross bodies.
2, Dream State: Taijasa (the Shining One) or dream state entity / Hiranyagarbha = the totality of Subtle bodies (uphadi’s), also called the Golden Egg.
Note: The dream state has two aspects: waking dream and sleep dream. The waking dream state is called the pratibasika state, the subjective state of reality. It is jiva’s creation (sristi). It is an individual jiva’s interpretation of reality. In the waking dream or dream state (whether the jiva is awake or asleep) vasanas influence how reality is interpreted by the jiva. Isvara provides the raw material for the interpretation, but not the interpretation itself. Ultimately it is all Isvara, but to get to that understanding (which is tantamount to moksa) the jiva must understand its oneness with Isvara and its difference from Isvara so that it can be free of both itself and Isvara.
3. Deep Sleep State: Prajna – Ishvara = the Total Mind or Creator, the Macrocosmic Unconscious.
We equate Isvara with the Macrocosmic Causal Body, the total of all microcosmic causal bodies, because of the distinction Vedanta makes between Isvara and prajna. Atma in its association with the jiva is referred to as prajna, whereas in its association with the Total Mind it is referred to as Isvara. Simply put, Isvara as the creator is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent and, thus, by definition must be the cosmic source of everything in existence. But as both Isvara and Jiva have the same identity as the Self, there is essentially no difference between them except in their capacity to create.
Isvara creates the objective world and Jiva creates its subjective world, its world of thoughts and feelings—which also come from Isvara, the gunas. Isvara creates all objects, subtle and gross and the jiva only knows the objects it has contact with. It cannot create a flower, the sun, the moon, and the stars. Isvara is conscious because it is the Self plus Maya, the creator of jiva. The jiva appears to be conscious because Consciousness shines on the Subtle body.
Isvara is not a person with likes and dislikes like the Jiva. And neither Isvara’s creation nor jiva’s creation hides the Self. It is always present prior to the creation and prior to the birth of individuals. You can’t have a macrocosmic creation without Awareness. Something had to exist before Isvara could ‘bang’ the creation into existence. That something we call Paramatma, ‘Pure Awareness’, free of both Isvara and jiva. If this is true, which we know it is, then we can eliminate both jiva and Isvara as real and take ourselves to be the Self. As the Self I am never affected by Isvara’s creation or by jiva’s creation. I am the knower of both.
The saying ‘the world is there because I see it” is true from the point of view of the Self, not the jiva. The jiva, which is actually Atman, the Self, can’t perceive a world unless Isvara has already done its job as a creator. The jiva is seemingly responsible for its external creation as far as it doesn’t exist (for it) unless it perceives it. However, it should be clear from the example of deep sleep that the jiva doesn’t create the world because there is no world for it when it is asleep. Yet the world is there for other waking jivas. That shows that some other factor, and we call it Isvara, is the creator.
If you had an actual doubt, I hope this helps. If you didn’t, I hope it helps anyway.
Om
Sundari
