Sri Karapatra Swami
ON SUPERIMPOSITION (23.33)
ADVAITA BODHA DEEPIKA: LAMP OF NON-DUAL KNOWLEDGE
Sri Ramanasramam Tiruvannamalai 2002
In the Supreme Self of Being-Knowledge-Bliss who can be the transmigrating being?
How can this samsara be?
What could have given rise to it?
And how and whence can it arise itself?
Being the non-dual Reality, how can you be deluded?
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How can you, the changeless, formless, Supreme, Blissful Self shout forth “I transmigrate — I am miserable!” and so on?
Truly there is neither birth nor death; no one to be born or to die; nothing of the kind!
What does exist then?
There exists only the beginningless, endless, non-dual, never bound, ever free, pure, aware, single, Supreme, Bliss Knowledge.
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In the body appears a phantom, the ‘false-I’, to claim the body for itself and it is called jiva.
This jiva always outward bent, taking the world to be real and himself to be the doer and experiencer of pleasures and pains, desirous of this and that, undiscriminating, not once remembering his true nature, nor enquiring “Who am I?, What is this world?”, is but wandering in the samsara (ordinary life) without knowing himself.
Such forgetfulness of the (One)-Self is Ignorance.
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This Ignorance is called by different names such as Maya, Pradhana, Avyakta (the unmanifest), Avidya, Nature, Darkness and so on. Therefore the samsara (ordinary life) is but the result of Ignorance.
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How does this ignorance project the samsara?
Ignorance has two aspects: Veiling and Projection (Avarana—Vikshepa).
From these arises the samsara (ordinary life).
Veiling functions in two ways.
In the one we say “It is not” and in the other “It does not shine forth.”
In a discourse between a master and a student, although the sage teaches that there is only the non-dual Reality the ignorant man thinks “What can be non-dual Reality? No. It cannot be.”
As a result of beginningless veiling, though taught, the teaching is disregarded and the old ideas persist.
Such indifference is the first aspect of veiling.
Next, with the help of sacred books and gracious masters he unaccountably but sincerely believes in the nondual Real, yet he cannot probe deep but remains superficial and says “The Reality does not shine forth.”
Here is knowledge knowing that It does not shine forth yet the illusion of ignorance persists.
This illusion that It does not shine forth, is the second aspect of veiling.
What is Projection?
Though he is the unchanging, formless, supreme, blissful, non-dual (One)-Self, the man thinks of himself as the body with hands and legs, the doer and experiencer; objectively sees this man and that man, this thing and that thing, and is deluded.
This delusion of perceiving the external universe on the non-dual Reality enveloped by it, is Projection.
This is Superimposition.
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What is Superimposition?
To mistake something which is, for something which is not — like a rope for a snake, a post for a thief, and mirage for water.
The appearance of a false thing on a real is superimposition.