John wrote: >...the phenomenal world is based on consciousness, > as Patanjali has discussed in his yoga sutras. > According to Patanjali, (circa 200 B.C.) the phenomenal world is based on three constituents, three gunas born of nature, which make up the field relative field of prakriti. Totally separate from this is the Purusha, the Absolute field. According to Patanjali, the process of Yoga isolates the Purusha from the prakriti, using the Eightfold Path.
The notion that conciousness is the basis of reality came much later with the 'Conciousness Only' school of the Vijnanavadins such as Vasabandhu, Asanga, and Shankara the Adwaitin and his teacher Guadapadacharya, the first systematic commnentator on Vedanta. According to Shankara, the phenomenal world is based on Maya, a category which causes us to see the phenomnal world as real, when in fact, it is covered by ignorance - we do not see the real, but only a representation of the real, which is not unreal, because it is presented to us, yet neither is it real in the absolute sense. > Although not mentioned in his sutras, I believe > some of his experiences of the siddhis pertain > exclusively to the dream consciousness. > The notion of the dream conciousness, John, did not occur in Indian philosophy until the time of Gaudapada who composed the Mandukhya Karika on Mandukya Upanishad. Shankara commented on Mandukya and took this notion to a higher level by introducing the idea of Maya. > Specifically, through the use of the basic TM > technique, I have personally experienced the > siddhis of being as small as an atom, being < as tall as a mountain and flying in the air. > I have even seen the ethereal kundalini in > the base chakra. All of these I have seen > in my dream experiences, either soon after > meditation or during the sleeping hours. > Maybe so, but what you see in the dream state is similar to what you see in the waking state. All experiences of phenomena are conditioned by the senses, whither you are awake or asleep. For example, you might see a theif in the night, but at dawn you realize what you saw was a fence post. The senses are not able to percieve the real because of ignorance, like a viel, which covers over our perceptions. > MMY, however, is taking the sutras to another > level by showing that the flying siddhi can be > experienced during the waking consciousness. > > Ultimately, Patanjali (as well as MMY) is trying > to say that the so called reality or phenomenal > existence is really like the dream experience. > Although MMY wants to be in the tradition of Shankara and Adwaita, MMY does not emphasize the idea of Maya very much. Being of the Yogic tradition, MMY is more likley to support the dualistic notion of the separateness of prakriti and Purusha, and the idea of the gunas born of nature, as well as the Sankhya idea of the thirty-two evolutes or tatvas. > In this scenario, it is highly likely that whatever > we desire in the waking consciousness will come > true as they magically manifest in our dreams. > Patanjali agrees with Shakya the Muni that desire is an impediment to realization. In order to know the Absolute we must avoid striving. Desire and goal-driven activities are counter-productive on the Eightfold Path. In the Bhagavad Gita you will read that we have a right to take actions, but we do not have the right to the fruits of our actions. Actions, is all cases, are the result of the play of the gunas. Karma is the driving force which propels us to act due to past actions - but we are not really the author of our actions, they are determined by the forces of nature. > Which brings us to the final question: what is > reality? > According to Shankara, the real is Brahman, which created the manifest nature, and infused it with the contituents of motion called gunas. Everything else is Maya, like a dream, in which we see relative phenonena and mistake it for the real. Just like we see a snake on the ground at night, but when day breaks we realize that the snake is but a coiled up piece of rope. We often do this because the senses are not able to actually percieve the real directly. Brahman however, is not an object of cognition. We need a special sense to realize Brahman - that special sense is conciousness. Guadapada on Mandukya Upanishad: 17. Just as in the dark a rope whose nature has not been fully ascertained is imagined to be various different things such as a snake, a line of water and so forth; in exactly the same way the Self is imagined in various different ways. http://www.advaita-vedanta.org/avhp/gaudapada.html
