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It
remains difficult to conceptualize how action and time
interrelate from examples given which are beyond the
ken of the moment-to-moment actions in the daily life
and in the surrounding world with which we are so
directly familiar. Thus we may take one
origination of action as the source for all action in
the physical world and learn from it conceptually, but
how does that give us the reasoning process to then
perceive time in the daily life according to the truth
just drawn from the more cosmic, or the absolute
picture? That is, for the purpose of answering
the inquiry after the source of action, there is the
root concept that the primordial action would
have been the creation of the world. Therefore,
this creation would mark the beginning of time.
From that beginning of time would be the cause of
action; from that gathering up of matter, which can
only be an action, would be found somehow the beginning or
cause of time. Yet when we review the
transcending of time available to an individual which
is known to come about at final exitus from samsara
when moksha is realized for that jiva,
the timelessness of the atma is demonstrating
how actions draw from time; for in the opportunity to
realize the fruits of actions from lifetime to
lifetime, from incarnation to incarnation, like
stepping stones in a river of seemingly eternal
passage, actions can be addressed in a karmic
sense, their fruits exhausted, and time
conquered insofar as moksha is accomplished.
Time and action do
interrelate whether action is
drawn from time, or time is born of action. In
the manifest world where there is action there is
time.
karma
brahmod bhavam viddhi brahmaakshara samudbhavam
tasmat
sarvagatam brahma nityam yagne pratishthitam.
This, the fifteenth verse of the Third Discourse of
the Bhagavad Gita, translates
accordingly:
Know that
action has arisen from brahman, and brahman
from that which is imperishable;
therefore,
the all-pervasive brahman is ever
established in sacrifice. ///
By 'ever established in sacrifice' is meant that all
actions when viewed as of the power or cause of
Lord brahman are through
that power born of the timeless nature of brahman.
That is why the term Ishvara is used
to include the concept of cause or maya directly
and yet diffusely in the creation; and this
inclusion of maya distinguishes Ishvara
from brahaman. nityam
means literally that which is the same in all three
periods of time. The key concept in
understanding the nature of sacrifice, yagna,
is that brahman is the ulterior source
of sacrifice, which is action relegated to the shakti,
power, of the creation, wherein establishment of brahman
in sacrifice makes brahman distinct then
again from the changes, the timebound nature of the
exact actions which comprise any sacrifice. Since
that is so, then sacrifice is born of action, which
means that the significance of any action is not so
much physical as it is spiritual. This points
up the importance of understanding how karma
"runs things" from a non-causal basis.
However, this argument may be understood, and still
the actions in daily life remain bound up in the
question of the power and nature of time.
Still, the individual running out of the door to
begin the day in a panic state, is the same
individual considering perhaps even skillfully, the
same concepts being discussed here. This
yogic science is pursued because of the results it
effects in those who integrate its long-established
truths in their lives, and by lives is
meant daily lives, not karma forthwith. Therefore,
the question will be posed by the one who panics
under deadlines and narrowly escapes disaster each
day in traffic due to the pressure of time, as to
the true nature of time. Is that time across
which karmic law is written and postulated by
actions due to their sacrificial nature, the exact,
same and precisely equal time which sweeps into the
mind in the morning rush hour? Is that boy
bouncing a ball and measuring its activities by
accurate prediction, accomplishing his accuracy in
the rebound catch, through the same rule of time
which mediates in the spiritual journey of the jiva?
What is this 'time'? Can one really befriend
time? These are the most vital questions to a
metaphysical inquirer, for if answered well and
completely, a deeper realization of the Self is
born. An evenness of mind and a happiness will
be found, and that in the daily life. A
greater preparedness for the great challenges of
life will be found through such working knowledge of
the true meaning of time as it relates to causality,
and to actions also in the sense of karma
and its laws.
tattvavittu
mahabaho guna karma vibhagayoh
guna guneshu
vartanta iti matva na sajjate
This is the Twenty-eighth verse of the Third Discourse
of the bhagavad gita, which is translated
as follows:
But he who
is a knower of the Truth, Oh mighty-armed one, of
the divisions of the gunas and
actions,
As such
that the gunas remain in the midst
(effects) of those gunas, he is not
attached (to actions).
That is a critical verse to parse for its meaning.
For by saying that the three gunas remain
in the effects of gunas is to say that
there is no direct cause between the objects, say,
of the senses, as they are affected by the gunas.
The gunas are conceptually in the
mysterious domain of maya, which is the karana-sharira
in the big picture. And the 'big picture'
here reviews the question of the absolute as it
pertains to the relative realm. If those gunas
from the unmanifest realm of maya are
understood to bring about definite effects in
the relative and manifest realm due to the
causal nature of maya, and those gunas
remain yet in the manifest realm, then the
nature of the causality of maya has at
least been characterized. How has it been
characterized?
The word in Sanskrit is anirvacaniya, or
that which by essential nature cannot be
categorically ordinated, and therefore cannot be
reasoned after by any belonging to a certain
group or collective identity. In this example,
the cause of maya in her three gunas carries
over into the effectual side of the question from
the absolute to the relative, in the stead of
the gunas subsequently seen as effect
in the manifest world, and they remain there. In
order to understand the meaning of this residual
carry-over of the three gunas from maya
as cause to maya as effect, consider an
example of a case in the relative realm which should
illustrate the opposite situation, and a
situation in which the categories are comparable and
therefore can accommodate reasoned logic of a direct
kind. Imagine a person pushing a cup
across the tabletop. The hand imparts the
motive force, and is obviously connected to the
moving object as a causal force. Unless
the surface is largely free of friction, the
cup will stop moving when the hand is withdrawn, or
when the hand stops the pushing force onto the cup.
The hand is the visible cause of the moving cup.
The force exerted by the hand upon the cup remains
with the cup as the cup moves, and even a child will
perceive the causal nature of the event. In
the event of moving the same cup across a slippery
tabletop which is covered with spilled cooking oil,
the hand may let go of the cup, and yet the cup will
keep moving for a given, perhaps small distance.
So we may perceive by inference in this world a
causal carryover in a mechanistic frame of
reference, which relegates a cause to an event even
when the causal or motive force is not directly
attached, visible, or in some cases, even obvious.
And we will generally measure that causality in the
continuum of time, such as counting the number of
seconds it takes to use an electronic gadget to open
a garage door instead of leaving the car on foot in
order to open it. In the case of maya the
gunas remaining attached to the objects of the sense
perceptions now in the relative realm, from the
dominion of maya in the unmanifest,
absolute dominion wherein the three gunas are
said to inhere, refutes a direct causal attachment.
From the grossest relative, physical, to the more
subtle physical yet still relative, to the
absolute frame of reference, we must reason : the
causality is respectively visually apparent and
straightforward, as in the hand moving the cup on a
friction-filled table; next the causality seems to
be more subtely connected when the cup and hand
part ways on the greasy surface, yet the cup keeps
moving--it slides, it keeps a momentum past the
motive force of the hand as instantaneous cause
of its motion; now one would expect in considering
causality from the unmanifest and absolute realm of maya
to the physical plane, that by all means, the
remarkable presence of shakti, the
event of God immeasurable, would certainly allow
that with the effect no trace of cause would be found.
That case would be expected where guna as
cause would translate to guna now gone,
removed, nowhere to be seen or inferred, since the
power of Ishvara so effected upon this
world is most probably beyond belief, match,
comprehension, measure or extended belief. To
say that the three gunas of maya
remain in their translation into the relative
realm, even if this is by inference, and since it is
known as effect, is to simplify causality into a
sense wherein it is hardly causal, given the
parameters as transitional from absolute to
relative. In the gross level of reality we can
understand the departing hand from the cup on a
greasy surface. As we approach technological
conveniences, we envision a type of magic. wherein
no visible physical connection even exists to our
eyes, yet we move objects and change television
stations with flick of a button. Now in the
ethereal mode of action as relates to
metaphysical inquiry after theTruth of the
nature of action as it regards time, it is as
if the hand which never left the cup on the
friction-filled tabletop would be the least
expected connection of all. Yet the gunas remain,
even despite the categorical separateness of the karma
and the gunas, in the field of the sense
perceptions where these gunas are seen as
effect : this remaining hand on the cup is the hand
of ishvara.
This concept should now be ripe for the giving, and
that is the concept that guna guneshu
vartante constitutes a non-dualistic
provision in the reality precept lent the
Vedantic thinking through these words from the
Bhagavad Gita. For in the matching of the
gunas through the majesty of maya
from her unmanifest to her manifest form in
this world, all action is seen as resting upon
knowledge of ishvara if one knows the Truth
of these gunas accordingly. By unifying
karma from its division from the gunas
through the carryover of the gunas from
cause to effect, wherein they remain as in effect,
the very power of God is made inferentially present
in the dualized relative world of opposites.
How dualized is that world to the one who can trace
across non-comparative categories the nature of
action, such as are those non-comparative
categories of the absolute to the relative, and vice
versa ? By ever invoking the knowledge of
the shakti in this creation, ishvara
takes charge in the question of the causality of
time, in the question of time as being cause of
action right from the primordial vantage point; and
what remains is detachment from action. That
detachment becomes expressed as sattva.
In such a state of awareness of the true nature of the
reality of this creation, one becomes endowed with
the balance that is sattva, in mind
and in deed, or action.
Did you ever happen to think that maya is
the upadhi of atma? Consider
any upadhi as, "That which throws it
attributes upon another thing which is in its
proximity," in the words of Swami Dayananda.
upa means 'near', and adhi means
'over' or 'above' or 'on'; thus upadhi
signifies the importance of placement, and of
proximity, in the adaptation of attributes, whose
adaptation is described as a throwing since the
giver of attributes is positioned also above or over
its recipient. Thus upadhi
constitutes an adjunct entity or presence. Review
the description of maya as non-categorical,
or anirvacaniya. This means that maya
cannot be discerned as belonging to one or the other
of these categories: existence/non-existence,
or totality/partial. Now consider that as the upadhi
of atma, maya fulfills its
status in regards to its non-status
categorically, as anirvacaniya, since maya
connects the jivanmukta as a go-between, or
a double agent, to the non-causal brahman.
This will puzzle some, whose reasoning will follow
from the idea that in all the spheres of thinking
that exist, the one sphere where 'what is' should be
definite and undoubtable, is that of metaphysics.
Now in metaphysics there is an explanation for
causality which involves a non-categorizing excuse
for 'what is' from the middle ground not of
'what is' versus 'what is not' as a platform,
but of what neither is nor is not, and as from more
of a logically-based fulcrum.
In order to delve further into this topic, let us
begin with the concept of equal. If the
absolute brahman, which is nirguna,
or absent of any attributes, is total, the whole,
then it should be equal to the relative world, the
creation with its causal nature, maya.
Certainly one can say that brahman is equal to
the relative, physical world, in the sense that the
relative world can never be greater than the
totality of brahman. Yet, the srshti,
or creation of cause, cannot be equal to the
totality of brahman, for srshti
becomes the relative world invested of the
limits which accompany time and change. maya
stands between these two categories of whole and
part of the whole, belonging to neither.
Then if equality does not solve this relation
between the absolute and the relative, between brahman
and ishvara, and which equality
concerns itself with the logic of identity, then
there must be another logic to consider in answer to
the puzzle of where fits maya in the big
picture of things. The identity cited in the
preceding case is of course the identity of oneness,
as in mathematics where a theorem may be proved by
identity, or any quantity divided by itself is equal
to one. Can there be a higher order logic
which could house maya ? There is a
further mathematical relationship avalaible for use,
and that involves the function of variables, how
variables depend or do not depend upon one another
in a relation. In such consideration as
allowed by a relation, there can be a dependent
variable and an independent variable. In the
case of brahman there is nothing upon which
brahman depends whatsoever. The
relative world, srshti, depends then
again on brahman. There is not equal
logic back and forth between the absolute and
relative, as between the relative and absolute.
In other words, the absolute and relative are not
interdependent.
Where does maya stand in this? maya
depends upon, or is a function of, brahman,
since it cannot exist without brahman, the
changeless totality. Yet it cannot exist with
brahman, either. maya
governs over change from an astute vantage, like an
absentee landlord who occupies the residence
simultaneously, defining maya as more of a
double agent than a persona. maya
cannot be traced logically except by inference for
its effect, so that cause is once removed and
therefore only direct if viewed from the
theological haven of the moving hand of ishvara
as the ultimate mover of all, the most real cause of
all.
The
fundamental problem in reasoning through comparative
likenesses between the relative and the absolute, or
between brahman and maya as maya
relates to the jagat, lies in their
profound non-comparative attributes. maya is
like a clearinghouse for categorical clashes
metaphysically, which clashes are in the sense of prakrti, or
nature, supposed to harmonize perfectly and
answer like a melody all of the logical attributes
of the manifest world about us. And this is
further supposed to place our quest for the love of
God, of Self and of destiny, in the safe haven of Truth
construed so elegantly unto the universal level.
The only mathematical concept which can begin to
answer directly these paradoxical quandaries, relies
upon the transcendence of oneness, of unity, so that
maya unifies action and time. maya
as mithya can be used as example to teach
the nature of universal Truth, or satyam.
satyam may underlie substance, but the
form of the pot is necessary to existence made of
clay, which clay is the satyam of the
couplet. Clay needs no form. Further,
clay needs no form even though it may occupy space.
If a particularly beautiful pot is viewed, the owner
will proudly proclaim that the beauty of the pot is
born of the superior kind of clay which had been
refined and used for its creation. In
that case the attributes of the clay tell the story
of how satyam is typically mistaken for mithya
in everyday life. Beauty is an attribute of
God, and where an unrivalled pot presents for
scrutiny in its beauty, instead of praising form and
color, the admirer gets carried away in the argument
for this unique quality in the renowned pot, and
declares it to be made of an unmatched substance,
a rare clay that nobody else is ever likely to
even find. Therefore, no matter how
superior the pot maker or sculptor, or artist for painting
the beautiful pot, without the greater quality
clay the match will never be made. Reality
is hardwon when it is so far removed from
likelihood, from access in the competition. mithya
is subordinate to satyam as we have
seen, since it depends upon satyam.
Ordinary pots can compete with those of the rarer
quality clays, only if beauty is in the eye of
the beholder, as an old adage says. Yet there
will always be that one knower who arrives and
proves that material in the skilled hands of
one who sees beyond sheer matter, can overcome a
false claim of superior clay as reason for a
superior pot. This Truth of satyam/mithya
is what clarifies the mind for the acute perceptive
abilities which are native to the individual who
excels, prospers and by example leads others
through that Truth. Thus although cause is a
captivating inquiry in the world of physical matter
and moving objects and how we as individuals relate
to that world, to discern the reality of
transcendental oneness as in and through everything
and every jivanmukta, as present in the
story of the pot and clay dichotomy, of satyam and
mithya, is an answer indeed to be sought
after tirelessly.
Marilynn
Stark~~ ~~January 2, 2002~~ ~~
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