Mandukya Upanishad

With an Advaita Commentary from our Understanding

by Kenneth Jaques | 31,733 words

The Mandukya Upanishad is a short, just twelve verses, description of the material manifestation and the eventual return to unmanifest form of the Universe....

Verse 37

37. Owing to the apprehension of objects in dream, being similar to that in the waking state, dream is fancied to have that waking state as its cause. And owing to dream having that waking state as the cause, the waking state is fancied to be real for him that is, the dreamer alone.

A person, a sentient being in consciousness is aware of the apparent changing states of "his" consciousness. This sentient being after dreaming of his house awakens in the same house and assumes the house perceived in the waking state to be real and the dream house to be an unreal copy or memory or replay caused by his experience in the waking state.
This verse now introduces an important observation. This awareness of a real house and an unreal house is only the awareness of that sentient being. That is this whole sequence of conscious awareness and perception is experienced by this one sentient being, there is no direct corroboration or sharing of perception with any "other" Consciousness. Further to this important consideration are these following points. The "real" house of the waking state was assumed to be the cause of the unreal dream house. But, a "real" entity cannot be the cause of an "unreal" entity. The unreal cannot be brought into existence by the real. Or to put it another way, the non-existent (unreal) cannot be originated (caused, born) by the real (existent).
So, we have a question of origination and reality. This is resolved when we return to the fact that this whole scenario of dream (unreal), origination (cause) and real (waking perception), was the perceptions or reports of the consciousness of this sentient "individual". There was and is nothing to substantiate the claims of cause, origination or reality of any of the object in any dream or waking states. The conclusion is therefore that none of the objects or phenomena exist.
There is an underlying truth to all this. That truth or realisation is that there is Existence only because there is this awareness , this consciousness of being. Basically "I" Exist. "I" Exist because there is this awareness of existing. But in truth that is all that can be said with proof. So "I" Alone exist is the truth, and this is commensurate with the fact of non-origination, that the unborn eternal singularity alone exists. This Consciousness, this "I" is aware of "others" but these others are only sense objects. "I" have no way of proving the existence of "others" other than via the senses that are part of this consciousness.
The meaning of all of the above is that there is nothing that can be proved to have a reality, there is nothing that is real other than "I". As in a dream it is "I" alone, this Consciousness that is the discriminator of real and unreal.

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