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Truth and untruth must be kept apart by means of the sharp sword of Jnana. It keeps the world afar and bring the Residence of the Lord within reach. That Residence is Nithyananda, Eternal Bliss, Paramananda, the highest Bliss; the Bliss of Brahmam: Maya, by means of its power of (1) hiding the real nature and (2) imposing the unreal over the real, makes the one and only Brahmam appear as Jiva, Eswara and Jagath, three entities where there is only one! The Maya faculty is latent, but when it becomes patent, it takes the form of the mind. It is then that the seedling of the huge tree (which is the Jagath) starts sprouting, putting forth the leaves of mental impulses or Vasanas, and mental conclusions or Sankalpas. So all this objective world is but the proliferation or Vilasa of the mind. Jiva and Eswara are caught up in this proliferation and they are inseparably intertwined in the Jagath and so they too are creations of mental process like things appearing in the dream-world. Imagine Jiva, Eswara and Jagath as having been painted; the pictorial Jagath has both Jiva and Eswara incorporated in it and all three appear as different entities though created by the same paint. So also the same mental process creates the appearance of Jiva and Eswara as pervading and immanent, in the background of Jagath. It is Maya that produces the illusion of Jiva and Eswara and Jagath:
this is declared by the Sruthis. The Vasishtasmrithi made clear that mental
processes were responsible for the magic dance of He and I, This and That
and Mine and His. The expression "Sohamidam" found in that text indicates
Jiva, Eswara and Jagath. "Sah" means He, the Unmanifested, the Supersoul,
the Power beyond and Above, the Easwara. "Aham" means "I", the entity
enveloped by the consciousness of doer etc. "Idam" means this objective
world, the perceivable sense world. So it is clear that these three are
the products of mental process only and they do not have any absolute
value; their value is only relative. |