Ashish: In Advaita Vedanta teaching, consciousness is alone is reality. There is no other things apart from the pure consciousness. Then my questions:
Why is it that each of our minds (for example: what I think, senses, my knowledge, etc.) is different from anyone? Please, respond as soon as possible.
Sundari: We are asked this many times, and the answer to your question is on our website. Here it is again.
Although there is only one eternal jiva, Maya makes it look like there are many individual jivas by giving sentient beings a seemingly unique uphadi, which is their vasana load, the subtle body, or personal ignorance (avidya). A uphadi is a limiting adjunct – that which makes something appear to be something other than it is. For instance, if I have a red rose behind a clear crystal, the clear crystal will appear to be red even though it is clear. Put it this way: the uphadi for the Self/awareness (or what we can also call perception) is the person – the individual, or self under the spell of ignorance, and it makes the Self look like it is a jiva. However, what belongs to the person does not belong to the Self, because the person and awareness do not exist in the same order of reality. The two orders of reality, that which is real (satya) and that which is apparently real (mithya), never meet.
The Self, the subject, is what is real, and the object, the person, is what is apparently real. The definition of “real” is “that which is always present and never changes,” which only applies to the Self. The perceiver only looks different in accordance with the uphadi in association to it; the difference belongs to the uphadi, and not to the subject (the Self). It is just an appearance in awareness causing a sense of difference where there is no difference. Maya is a very clever trickster – ignorance is very intelligent. Maya is Isvara’s (apparent) uphadi.
Your confusion is in what belongs to the person and what belongs to the Self: you think that what applies to the person also applies to the Self. As stated above, the person and the Self are not the same, because of the different uphadis. What belongs to the person cannot belong to the Self, because the Self is a partless whole. So the Self cannot be a jiva, but the jiva is the Self. Understand? Like the wave is the ocean, but the ocean is not the wave; the pot is clay, but the clay is not the pot; the ring is gold, but gold is not a ring, that kind of thing. These are only apparent contradictions that resolve when the logic of Vedanta is applied to them.
Remember that the Self is not an experiencing entity. It is the witness (sakshi) of the experiencing entity. The experience of the “experiencing you” is limited by the upadhi through which you experience, i.e. Ashish. Therefore you only know the objects you have contact with. You cannot know what another mind is thinking or feeling, except by inference. As long as you are identified with Ashish, you are limited and bound by “his” ignorance. You are the only one with an Ashish upadhi. I have a “Sundari” upadhi, so I can’t know what you are experiencing, but because my personal ignorance has been removed by Self-knowledge, I do know we are non-different because we are both the Self, which is all there is.
The two orders of reality, the real and the apparently real, duality and non-duality, are not in opposition to each other and do not contradict each other, even though duality is not real and is superimposed onto non-duality. As long as the so-called individual mind is under the spell of ignorance, it thinks it is separate and chases objects to complete itself. When ignorance is removed, although you are still limited by your uphadi and cannot know anyone else’s thoughts, because moksa does not confer omniscience (which only belongs to Isvara). You no longer see others as separate from you, because you know that the essence of all life is the Self, you. The wave dissolves into the ocean, the pot into the clay, the ring into the gold. You no longer chase objects to complete you.
~ Love, Sundari
