It might seem like the TV appeared on the face of this earth only a few decades ago. Not quite. The TV has been here for as long as the “here” has been here. Clearly, I am not speaking about the tiny box (not so tiny these days) in most urban households the world over. I am referring to the huge box spanning our mind and the senses. It is so huge that not only can we not think outside the box, but we cannot even see beyond it.
It is helpful to look at the world as a giant TV screen. An HD TV, no less, with 3D capability. Like any TV watching, so long as we see it from a distance, it is possible to enjoy it, or hate it, or be horrified by it, or at times get bored by it. If we go too close to the screen, we can no longer see the unceasing dance of color and form and ideas. We only see pixels which convey no meaning, no color, no significance. When we switch off the TV, we see the screen. The only thing that remains unchanged while we sit before the TV is the screen. In fact, we really have been seeing only the screen but “covered” by the constantly changing colors and forms and sounds and ideas.
Isn’t the situation with our world similar? So long as we see it from a distance, so long as the world appears to be “out there,” we are watching the cosmic TV soap opera, which spans not years but lifetimes. We get so absorbed into it that we forget that we are only watching it. It’s a small leap from being an observer to being a participator. Why be a part of an audience when it is possible to go and act and be a star? In the process, we forget how to switch the TV off. We forget even where the switch is.
But those who try to take a close look at the giant TV screen of the world suddenly find the forms and names disappearing into pixels that convey no logical meaning or significance or purpose. They try spiritual disciplines, which is like searching for the switch to turn the TV off. When the cosmic TV is finally turned off in the state of samādhi, the unchanging reality behind it is revealed.
We were really seeing God all the time! But God was covered by “name and form” (nāma-rūpa), so we saw this covering and took it to be the real thing. Once the covering is off, God stands revealed.
When the Īśāvāsya Upaniṣad says that we must cover everything with God (īśāvāsyam idam sarvam), what it really means is that we must “uncover” God from everything else.
7 comments:
If "covering" everything with God really means "uncovering", why does the Īśāvāsya Upaniṣad not say so?
Rana, that's a good question. Language is used both literally and metaphorically. Especially in scriptures (but also in daily conversations), there are layers of meanings involved in how deeply we wish to understand a statement. So "covering everything with God" can be understood literally and would make sense, but when we look at the statement in a philosophically rigorous way, "uncovering" makes better sense. So both the literal and figurative meanings are valid and make sense in different contexts.
Thank you very much, your entries are very inspiring!
After posting the question, it came to my mind that "covering" might be a metaphor for attributing everything to God. Just as one can - and most of the time does - cover everything one experiences with "I" (it then becomes at least potentially "mine" or relevant to ME), it might be possible to cover everything with God/You. That also seems to tally with Sri Ramakrishna's experience that when looking for the "I"/self, one only finds "You".
What scriptural passages actually explain this idea of the screen?
Rana, I don't know of any specific scriptural passage that refers to the screen. It's unlikely that any does, since a movie-screen or a TV screen are gifts of contemporary technology, which is so recent and the traditional scriptures of Vedanta are so ancient!
I think I have roughly understood this great simile by now - at least in theory. After switching off the TV, one stops staring at the blank screen and notices (again) the people one is living with. They are more real than the TV actors and it is only the practical experience of interacting with them that confers reality/meaning to the TV figures seen on the screen. Likewise, a spiritual aspirant with a highly trained mind might be able to switch off the sensory world completely and then perceive a (more) real Being with "divine eyes".
Although I am quite convinced that it is possible to get this full experience, I am a little bit doubtful about the suggested method of playing the role of the pure, inactive observer. Sri Ramakrishna said several times that it is hardly possible to deny one's physical existence altogether in the Kaliyuga because one depends on food. There might have been a time when spiritual aspirants could live without taking any food (physical as well as mental, i.e. human warmth and social esteem) or had such a safe supply (from people who were happily giving physical and "mental" food without expecting them to engage in any activity other than "witnessing") that their minds were not distracted by thoughts about it. But nowadays I do not see how/where it could be possible to put this method into practice...
Clearly, there is no one method suitable to all. "Being a witness" may suit spiritual seekers of one kind of temperament and capacity, and not others. There are other equally effective and powerful practices which may be suitable to people of diverse temperaments and capacities.
Thank you so much Swami Ji for such a nice post.
Such thoughts of divine spirituality in association with the present world and such examples are my favorite spiritual food.
Thank you so much
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