GS: I read in one of your satsangs that Discrimination between Satya and mithya is one thing. And knowing mithya is satya is completion of understanding. I was startled by the second statement. Kindly clarify it.
Sundari: Satya – mithya discrimination is the cause and effect teaching, which is necessary to understand and discriminate between the two orders of reality, the unchanging (satya) and the changing (mithya). For moksa to obtain, the next stage of the teaching, the non-origination teaching, needs to be unfolded and assimilated.
Contemplate this Mahavakya:
Brahma Satyam Jagan Mithya Jivo Bramaiva Na Parah.
Limitless Consciousness is real and Jiva is non-different.
Reality is nondual, which means there is only Consciousness. What this statement means is: Brahman/Non-dual Consciousness, that which is always present and unchanging (satyam) is all there is, and mithya (Jiva – reflected consciousness), that which is not always present and unchanging, is not me but cannot be different from me, Consciousness.
When duality is removed from the mind by Self-knowledge, satya and mithya are no more because there is no mithya for the Self. The two orders of reality are just principles to illustrate that what is not different but not the same. For moksa to attain, duality must be negated entirely, and to do so we must understand what it is, there is no other way to establish your identity as Existence (capital E). Only then can assimilation of the non-origination teaching take place, without which Self-realization remains an intellectual understanding, it is not actualized. Moksa does not obtain. Many inquirers understand both the cause and effect and non-origination teachings quite well. But there is somehow a disconnect in their discrimination of the difference between them, usually because something has not been assimilated, or there is still some jiva purification in the way.
It helps to think of the cause and effect teaching not as a means to explain the cause or the creation (though it does do both) but as a mechanism to negate duality (the doer) by removing the non-essential variables. These are anything other than you, the Self. Here is a recap.
As I am the Self, I am non-dual, limitless. whole and complete, without parts, without beginning or end. Anything other than me is impossible because non-dual means just that: nothing other than, no divisions, no parts. But as I am limitless, I contain all powers, even the power to apparently limit myself: Maya – beginningless ignorance—the cause, which makes me, the causeless changeless ever-present non-dual Self, appear to cause, to change, and to be many. I.e., it makes the impossible possible and seems to make me ‘become’ the effects of ignorance, Maya.
This is not an actual change like milk becoming cheese, which is irreversible. It is an apparent change because I, the Self, cannot cause or become anything being a partless, changeless whole. To do so would mean I have to become something other than me, which is impossible. There is only me. So, I never enter into the apparent creation, the effects, even though the apparent creation only exists because of me.
Think of it like this: Just like a movie director/producer and cast do not enter into a movie onscreen, even though the movie exists because it was produced/directed and acted by them: they ‘caused’ the movie, the ‘effect’. But the movie is not real; it is just a projection, a trick of light on a screen. It cannot affect (modify) anyone other than psychologically. It’s all in the mind, as the saying and the teaching goes, which of course, is where everything ‘happens’!
I, the Self, am not your mind or in it, which, like all effects, is an object known to me. Nothing affects or modifies me. So, though the Maya movie is me, I am the producer/director/actor, the apparent indirect ‘cause’ of it, but I am not it. Confusingly, unlike the producer/cast of the movie, I am not the actual cause of it. There is no cause in me because there is nothing other than me.
You can’t get something out of something that is incapable of modification–this is how the logic of the non-origination teaching destroys duality (assuming qualifications and assimilation). It answers the logical question:
How can Sat, Consciousness, be the basis of the material creation if it is non-dual Consciousness? The material creation is not material. It has no actual substance; it is a mirage. The deeper you delve into it, the further it recedes. Just like a movie, the creation is a projection caused by Maya, which is not the same OR not different from Sat, Existence/Awareness. Very important distinction, not the same and not different, essential to nondual vision, i.e., discriminating Satya from mithya.
Who then, is the witness, the knower of the creation, you may ask? I, the Self, am also called the non-experiencing witness or knower of the effects of Maya (ignorance): the Subtle body, or jiva/experiencing entity and all objects. But in truth, I am not a witness to anything as there is only me to ‘witness’ me. I am only a witness with reference to the witnessed when Maya is operating. When Self-knowledge removes ignorance of me from the Subtle Body (mind), there is no Maya in the mind anymore. Non-dual vision is permanent. Self-knowledge is not an object to obtain, it is who I am, so once moksa obtains, both ignorance and knowledge are then just objects known to me.
Cause and effect are, therefore, words to describe Isvara (me plus Maya), and the doer, the effect (me apparently under the spell of ignorance…note apparently). Both Isvara and Jiva share their identity with me, which is real, but neither the Isvara nor Jiva construct is real, though as stated the cause/creation appears to exist just like the movie onscreen.
When Self-Realization is not indirect intellectual knowledge but a direct experience of Existence As Your Identity, Self-actualization obtains and you see everything as just ISNESS, the Self. You. There is no longer the need to take a stand in Awareness because you are Awareness, there is no ‘stander’ left. The reality of Maya, ignorance/duality, is no more, though duality still apparently exists, and you can enjoy it for what it is, it is as good as non-existent. As Maya no longer deludes, you never confuse ignorance with knowledge again, confusion and suffering for you are over. Mithya ‘becomes’ satya because there is no other option.
Much love
Sundari
