TROTA | CHAPTER 2 | SEL0160 | SWAMI KRISHNANANDA

|| 2.03 | THE WORLD AS COSMIC THOUGHT ||

We are led to conclude that the ideas of space and time , form and name are the contents of the cosmic creative Consciousness .

There is objectively nothing but luminous Consciousness which appears to be split up into the diversity of a world due to the fluctuations in the knowing process .

The process of objective knowledge has the ability to divest the Absolute , as it were , of the revelation of its essential nature , and give a presentation of a multitudinous variety , even as a prism has the property of diffusing the one mass of light into heterogeneous rays .

TROTA | CHAPTER 2 | SEL0161 | SWAMI KRISHNANANDA

We cannot say whether there is any objective world independent of the knowledge of which it is the object .

It cannot even be said whether any world exists when duality is transcended in knowledge .

TROTA | CHAPTER 2 | SEL0162 | SWAMI KRISHNANANDA

What is the proof for the existence of the world when it is not known ?

How can we say that there is any world at all beyond the activity of cosmic thought ?

TROTA | CHAPTER 2 | SEL0163 | SWAMI KRISHNANANDA

We cannot see and sense the world and its contents in the same form when the organs of sense and the mind are differently constituted .

The world exists because the mind functions on a dualistic basis .

There is sound because there is the ear and there is colour because there is the eye .

The individual exists as such because it thinks .

TROTA | CHAPTER 2 | SEL0164 | SWAMI KRISHNANANDA

The one universal vibration is received by the senses in the different forms in which alone they are capable of receiving it on account of their specific constitutions .

Substance , quality and relation ; name , form and action , endlessly dissipate themselves .

All forms are hanging on one another without any basic intelligibility in their relations .

No form is self-existent .

TROTA | CHAPTER 2 | SEL0165 | SWAMI KRISHNANANDA

One form cannot be distinguished from the other except in an artificial and unintelligible way .

The connections of causes and effects and forms of existence are based on a temporary faith and not on true understanding .

TROTA | CHAPTER 2 | SEL0166 | SWAMI KRISHNANANDA

Transcendence of thinking annihilates the individual , which , then , rests as the Absolute , and together with it the vast world is exalted to Pure Being .

TROTA | CHAPTER 2 | SEL0167 | SWAMI KRISHNANANDA

When water is disturbed , the sun seems to shake ; when the consciousness that is objectified fluctuates , the One appears as the many .

The dance of ideas is the world of experience .

These ideas are the phases of the cosmic creative force .

TROTA | CHAPTER 2 | SEL0168 | SWAMI KRISHNANANDA

Space is a special mode of particularisation and is within the constructive consciousness .

The whole phenomenal world is a particularisation by the apparently active and perceiving universal consciousness .

TROTA | CHAPTER 2 | SEL0169 | SWAMI KRISHNANANDA

Since the subject is the correlate of the object , and vice versa , neither of them can be said to be more real than the other .

And , as they are divided , they are not the Reality which is by nature differenceless .

The validity of the double existence of the subject and the object , thus , automatically gets cancelled in being qua being .

This does not lead to nihilism.

TROTA | CHAPTER 2 | SEL0170 | SWAMI KRISHNANANDA

Though no thing exists , it is not true that nothing exists , for consciousness exists .

Consciousness cannot cease to be .

Even the denial of everything allows the consciousness of existence of the one that denies .

Consciousness of existence persists even if we think we are dead .

This existence is the unlimited Absolute .

TROTA | CHAPTER 2 | SEL0171 | SWAMI KRISHNANANDA

" Modification is merely a name , a distinction of speech . "
— Chh. Up. VI. 1. 4.

It is asserted that the underlying substance alone is real and various methods are employed to prove the invalidness of the form of the world of diversity ( Chh. Up., VI. 1. 4-6 ) .

Being alone exists ( Ibid VI. 2. 1 ) .

TROTA | CHAPTER 2 | SEL0172 | SWAMI KRISHNANANDA

A thoroughgoing non-dualism is propounded by Uddalaka , Sanatkumara and Yajnavalkya .

The Supreme Brahman is matchless and secondless .

Aught else than the Absolute is a mere tinsel show .

TROTA | CHAPTER 2 | SEL0173 | SWAMI KRISHNANANDA

" Everything, except That ( the Atman ) , is wretched . "
— Brih. Up. III. 4. 2.

" There is nothing second to it . "
— Brih. Up. IV. 3. 23.

" When one creates a difference , there is fear for one .
— Taitt. Up. II. 7.

TROTA | CHAPTER 2 | SEL0174 | SWAMI KRISHNANANDA

There is no duality.

All modification is illusory .

Differentiation cannot be established .

Where there is no duality there is no death .

TROTA | CHAPTER 2 | SEL0175 | SWAMI KRISHNANANDA

That which did not exist in the beginning ( Ait. Up. I. 1. ) and does not exist in the end ( Brih. Up. II. 4. 14. | Chh. Up. VII. 24 ) , cannot exist in the present ( Katha Up. IV. 11 ) .

Since Brahman does not create a world second to it , the world loses its reality .

TROTA | CHAPTER 2 | SEL0176 | SWAMI KRISHNANANDA

The central tone of the Upanishads reveals everywhere a disbelief in the world of forms ever since the Rigveda declared that the sages give many names to that which is essentially One ( Rigveda I. 164. 46 ) .

This leads further to the conception that plurality is only an idea and that Unity alone is real .

TROTA | CHAPTER 2 | SEL0177 | SWAMI KRISHNANANDA

" The One, other than which there is none . "
( Rigveda X. 129. 2. )

" The Immortal is concealed by ( empirical ) reality . "
( Brih Up. I. 6. 3. )

" As it were one moves " , " as it were another exists " , " one goes to death after death who perceives here plurality as it were " .
( Brih. Up. IV. 3. 7 | IV. 3. 31 | IV. 4. 19. )

TROTA | CHAPTER 2 | SEL0178 | SWAMI KRISHNANANDA

" With the knowledge of the Atman everything becomes known . "
( Brih. Up. II. 4. 5. )

" One should know that prakriti is illusion . "
( Svet. Up. IV. 10. )

" The Atman is where the world is effaced out . "
( Mand. Up. 7. )

TROTA | CHAPTER 2 | SEL0179 | SWAMI KRISHNANANDA

It follows that there can never be a reality outside the Eternal Self .

This seems to be the end of philosophical thinking , beyond which there can be no further progress .

TROTA | CHAPTER 2 | SEL0180 | SWAMI KRISHNANANDA

The Upanishads assert as their main declaration of truth that the Atman or the Brahman is the sole reality , that with its knowledge all becomes known , and that there is no plurality whatsoever .

The form of the world of plurality is an illusion , though the ultimate essence of the world is real .

Even transmigration is a dream of consciousness .

The world is not a creation of or an emanation from Brahman , nor is it pervaded by Brahman as by something which is not itself , but here and now , everything is Brahman .

" Verily , all this is Brahman . " ( Chh. Up. III. 14. 1. )