Dear Sundari
I just read with interested your satsang on the ‘third classification’, which you call ‘vyvaharika”. I am fairly new to Vedanta and am trying to get my head around all the different terms as I understand how important that is. Could you explain what the three classifications you refer to are, and why it matters to understand them?
Sundari: Thank you for your inquiry, I am glad you asked this question as it does require further unfolding for those new to Vedanta. Certainly understanding what the terms mean is important to your progress as an inquirer, assuming freedom from ignorance of your true nature is your main motivation.
The scriptures show that there are two classifications in the apparent reality, the empirical reality (vyavaharika), the world of form we can all agree on, and the subjective reality (pratibasika), our inner experience of the world of form, whether subtle or material. Both of them resolve in the third classification– which is not a classification but the true nature of reality, nonduality (paramarthika), or Awareness.
As I explained in the satsang you refer to, the apparent reality (also called duality or mithya) is not real because it is always changing and not always present, so nothing appearing in it in form has any actual substance. Science bears this out if we look at objects through the lens of quantum physics. What seems solid and substantial is just a moving field of atoms made of subatomic particles dancing in a field of energy which has no real location. An object appears to acquire substance and locality at the time it is observed, and otherwise exists as a probability. Which concurs with what Vedanta tells us – ‘the world is there because I (the Self) see it’. Not the other way around, which is the hypnosis of duality – ‘I see the world because it is there’. There is no ‘there’ there. There is only you, nondual Awareness, the witness or knower of the apparent reality.
When we understand this reasoning, we can drop the empirical reality (vyavaharika) on the basis that nothing qualifies as real according to the only definition that makes sense: always present and never changing. The only ‘thing’ that fits that definition and can never be negated in any frame of time, place or circumstance, is the knower or witness, Awareness – paramarthika, also called satya. When we can discriminate between the two orders of reality, satya and mithya, automatically and permanently, that is called moksa, freedom from the bondage or hypnosis of duality. Which means, freedom from the identification with yourself as a created being, and a doer.
Nonetheless, when that has taken place, the second classification, your subjective reality or pratibasika, will still continue because as a created being we can only experience life (objects/experiences) through the five senses. While we can all agree on what constitutes an empirical object like a chair, a mountain, or your body, if moksa has obtained, you know that no objects are real and therefore, you are no longer deluded by your subjective reality. You know it is just the way the mind works and you don’t give it any credibility – though of course, you still respond and take appropriate action. The created being and the world do not disappear when we know they are not real.
The world of objects (for clarity, an object is anything known to you, subtle or material) has no power to delude the mind anymore. Therefore you can drop both classifications – vyvaharika and pratibasika, and just take your identity to be the Self, paramarthika, knowing that the world continues ‘as before’, and objects will still appear in form. But they appear in you, the Self. You are free of the objects though they depend on you to exist.
I hope this helps
Sundari
