Picturing Vidyaranya

In Pancadasi 6, Vidyaranya pictures this analogy of a painting in which the canvas is the substrate, brahman.

The canvas is conditioned with starch. This is the unmanifested maya. Between brahman and maya is isvara—absolute brahman is not even touched by maya.

Outlines of forms are drawn. This second conditioning is still the unmanifest, the totality of subtle bodies called hiranyagarbha.

The physical world of variety and color is the last superimposition. A subtle body identifing with a form is called the jiva, living and dying within this avidya.

footnotes

1. hiranyagarbha is the golden egg, the cosmic self, the seed of the universe, the sutratman, the totality of subtle bodies or the single jiva (eka-jiva-vada says there's one jiva and one material body with one consciousness and all other individuals are semblances in dream bondage.)

2. eka-jiva-vada is one atman, one maya, one jiva, one dreamer.

in advaita, eka-jiva-vada is the bad kid.

but it's not solipsistic. it only appears that way. it's not extreme ego, but xtreme universality.

you don't treat others as if they are yourself—they ~are~ yourself.

love your neighbor AS yourself. matthew 22:39.

"Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.

This is the first and great commandment.

And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."

~Matthew 22:37-40 (kjv)

this is the real jesus in a nutshell.

love the i-am with all your heart and love others as oneself.

3. i'm not a fan of the transmigratory jiva. for me, it stinks of the religious.

it's just not my cup of mythology.

and that's all it is. do not believe nonduality even if it's called advaita.

don't get me wrong. it's a perfectly good religious myth, encouraging self-realization within a social religious structure.

this is why ramana is such a threat to vedanta. eka-jiva-vada abandons the socially useful concept of transmigration.

it's neither direct nor indirect. it's as it is.

when another asked ramana about their own individual experience as counter to his eka-jiva one, he'd reply, you are that.

n was adamant maurice's translation of the dialogues was to be titled, i am that.

this is also the direct knowledge of advaita vedanta, the indirect knowledge being brahman is and the jiva transmigrates.

eka-jiva-vada bypasses the indirect knowledge of transmigration with the direct knowledge of brahman, maya, eka-jiva, dreamstate.

brahman-maya-ekajiva-avidya.