Which is a more reasonable and useful explanation: dṛṣṭi-sṛṣṭi-vāda or sṛṣṭi-dṛṣṭi-vāda?

In a series of two comments on one of my recent articles, Everything depends for its seeming existence on the seeming existence of ourself as ego, a friend called ‘Unknown’ referred to the twelfth section of it, Ego projects and simultaneously perceives itself as all forms or phenomena, and quoted the following two paragraphs from it:

The philosophy of advaita is interpreted by people in various ways according to the purity of their minds, so there are many people who consider themselves to be advaitins yet who do not accept dṛṣṭi-sṛṣṭi-vāda [the contention (vāda) that perception (dṛṣṭi) is causally antecedent to creation (sṛṣṭi), or in other words that we create phenomena only by perceiving them, just as we do in dream], because for them it seems to be too radical an interpretation of advaita, so they interpret the ancient texts of advaita according to sṛṣṭi-dṛṣṭi-vāda, the contention that creation is causally antecedent to perception, and that the world therefore exists prior to and independent of our perception of it. Those who interpret advaita in this way do not accept ēka-jīva-vāda, the contention that there is only one jīva, ego or perceiver (which is one of the basic implications of dṛṣṭi-sṛṣṭi-vāda), and since they believe that phenomena exist independent of ego’s perception of them, they do not accept that ego alone is what projects all phenomena, and hence they interpret ancient texts to mean that what projects everything is not ego or mind but only brahman (or brahman as īśvara, God, rather than brahman as ego).

We should ignore all thoughts or mental activity and attend only to ourself, the fundamental awareness ‘I am’

In the third section of my previous article, Why is self-investigation the only means to eradicate ego but not the only means to achieve citta-śuddhi?, I wrote:

If we mistake a rope to be a dangerous snake, we cannot kill that snake by beating it but only by looking at it very carefully, because if we look at it carefully enough we will see that it is only a harmless rope and was therefore never the snake that it seemed to be. Likewise, since we now mistake ourself to be ego, the false awareness ‘I am this body’, we cannot kill this ego by any means other than by looking at it very carefully, because if we look at it carefully enough we will see that it is only pure and infinite awareness and was therefore never the body-mixed and hence limited awareness that it seemed to be.

Why is self-investigation the only means to eradicate ego but not the only means to achieve citta-śuddhi?

In a recent comment on my previous article I wrote:

Today a friend wrote to me:

I noticed today in GVK verse 622, Bhagavan is recorded as saying: “When rightly considered, nothing will be more wonderful and laughable than one’s toiling very much through some sadhana to attain Self in the same manner as one toils to attain other objects, even though one really ever remains as the non-dual Self.”

Everything depends for its seeming existence on the seeming existence of ourself as ego

In the comments on one of my recent articles, Like everything else, karma is created solely by ego’s misuse of its will (cittam), so what needs to be rectified is its will, there was a discussion about the nature of ego and whether or not it is antecedent to the appearance of all phenomena, so this article is written in an attempt to clarify what Bhagavan taught us in this regard.

When Bhagavan says that we must look within, what does he mean by ‘within’?

Last month a friend wrote me an email in which he asked me to clarify certain aspects of Bhagavan’s teachings, including what he means by ‘within’ when he says that we must look within, and whether the source of the individual self can be within that same individual self, so this article is adapted from the reply I wrote to him.

Must we purify our mind by other means before we can practise ātma-vicāra?

This article is adapted from a series of messages that I exchanged with a friend via WhatsApp.

Like everything else, karma is created solely by ego’s misuse of its will (cittam), so what needs to be rectified is its will

In the comments on my previous three articles there was an ongoing discussion about the role of free will and the law of karma in general, and various friends have expressed differing views about this matter, so this article was originally intended to be a reply to some of those views but it has developed into a broad and detailed discussion about the key role of our will and the paramount need for us to rectify or purify it.

The ego is the sole cause, creator, source, substance and foundation of all other things

In a comment on one of my recent articles, The ego does not actually exist, but it seems to exist, and only so long as it seems to exist do all other things seem to exist, a friend called Salazar wrote, ‘Did anybody on this blog wonder who is perceiving the thoughts which come into awareness? That what is aware of thoughts cannot be the creator of these thoughts, because a thought is an object apart from that “observer”’. This article is written in reply to this comment and another one written by him.

The ego seems to exist only because we have not looked at it carefully enough to see that there is no such thing

For a few days last week I was in a place where I did not have any internet connection except on my phone, but on and off during that time I had a conversation via WhatsApp with a friend called Frank about Bhagavan’s teachings, philosophy, ego and other related matters. The first fifteen sections of this article are compiled from edited extracts of our conversation, and the final section is a reply that I subsequently wrote to him by email (as also are the five paragraphs in earlier sections that I have enclosed in square brackets).

The ego does not actually exist, but it seems to exist, and only so long as it seems to exist do all other things seem to exist

A friend recently wrote a series of emails expressing his views and asking questions about the ego and other related matters, so this article is adapted from the replies I wrote to him.

If we investigate the ego closely enough we will see that it is only brahman, but however closely we investigate the world we can never thereby see that it is brahman

After telling me that he is now reading Ramana Maharshi: The Crown Jewel of Advaita by John Grimes, a friend sent me two WhatsApp messages saying:

I am ‘excited’. For the first time I read about or understood the distinction between the illusory nature of the world and that of the individual — John Grimes’ book p. 147 and 148. Seeing the rope as snake and seeing the white conch shell as yellow conch shell due to the unseen or unrecognized yellow glass. Wonderful explanation that struck me.

Brahman manifesting as world, but seeing only the world as real is illusion like seeing the rope as snake. The individual though only brahman, and also felt as I, but due to ego (yellow glass), mistaking I as me or mine.

Thus while both are illusions, the second one is that in aspect or nature of ‘I’, although I is seen or experienced. When the ignorance is removed, it will be known that it is brahman that was being all the while experienced hitherto also as ‘I’ — that is there are not two ‘I’s.

The following is adapted from the reply I wrote to him:

Our existence is self-evident, because we shine by our own light of pure self-awareness

In a comment on one of my recent articles, Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu: Tamil text, transliteration and translation, a friend called Sanjay wrote:

Michael once wrote to me (in reply to one of my emails):

The mind knows that the chair is a chair, an object of wood, etc., but this is not what the chair actually is. If we analyse a little deeper, both the chair and the wood are ideas in our mind, and we have no way of proving to ourself that any chair or wood actually exists independent of our ideas of them. Hence Bhagavan says that the whole world is nothing but ideas or thoughts, as for example in the fourth and fourteenth paragraphs of Nan Yar?:

Except thoughts [or ideas], there is separately no such thing as ‘world’.

What is called the world is only thought.

Referring to this, another friend using the pseudonym ‘ādhāra’ wrote a comment saying:

However, Bhagavan did not say that we as an ego are excluded from the “world”. On the contrary it is said that we are part of the world in waking and dreaming. So we can conclude that we too are only an idea or a thought or a projection.

We definitely do not even have proof/evidence that we exist independent of our idea of that. Therefore we cannot reasonable/well-founded have to presume that we are more than an idea. There is no evidence to support this thesis.

Nevertheless we can put our trust in Bhagavan Ramana because he inspires confidence and looks trustworthy. To follow Bhagavan’s teaching is even urgently necessary.

The following is my reply to this:

Why do viṣaya-vāsanās sprout as thoughts, and how to eradicate them?

A friend wrote to me recently:

Through self-inquiry every vasana comes up to the surface. Sometimes I am really lost, sometimes I am cool.

I try to practise self-inquiry with every thought that comes up in my mind, but they are getting more and more.

Is it true that vasanas want to go, when they are on the surface?

The best thing is, I will not give up to practise, but I want to do it in the best way.

The following is adapted from the reply I wrote to him:

In what sense does Bhagavan generally use the terms பொருள் (poruḷ) and வஸ்து (vastu)?

In my previous article, Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu first maṅgalam verse: what exists is only thought-free awareness, which is called ‘heart’, so being as it is is alone meditating on it, I translated the term ‘உள்ளபொருள்’ (uḷḷa-poruḷ), which Bhagavan uses in the first and third lines of the first maṅgalam verse of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu, as ‘the existing substance’, ‘actual substance’ or ‘real substance’, and I explained that உள்ள (uḷḷa) is a relative or adjectival participle that means ‘existing’, ‘actual’ or ‘real’, and பொருள் (poruḷ) is a noun that has a range of meanings, including thing (any thing, but particularly a thing that really exists or a thing of value), meaning, subject-matter, substance, essence, reality or wealth, but in this context means ‘substance’ or ‘reality’.

In a comment on that article a friend called Mouna asked me why I chose to translate பொருள் (poruḷ) as ‘substance’ rather than ‘reality’:

Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu first maṅgalam verse: what exists is only thought-free awareness, which is called ‘heart’, so being as it is is alone meditating on it

As I explained in my previous article, Upadēśa Kaliveṇbā: the extended version of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu, over the coming months (or perhaps years, if other work gets in my way) I hope to be able to publish a series of forty-two articles each of which will be a detailed explanation of one of the verses of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu along with its kaliveṇbā extension or extensions, so this article is the first in this series.

No commentary on the verses of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu can be considered complete or entirely comprehensive, because however much one may explain and discuss them there will always be room for further explanations and discussions from different perspectives, so the explanations I will be giving in this series of articles will be far from complete. However my aim is to give at least a basic explanation of each verse, enough to make its profound and rich meaning clear and to enable each reader to do their own reflection (manana) on it.