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Listening to one of the talks by the swami. He explains the three States by using the following analogy of the sun and buckets filled with water.

Sun: Witness Consciousness (ultimate reality, god, etc) Reflected Sun in Bucket: Reflected Consciousness (us) Water in bucket: Subtle body. Bucket: physical body.

Where will the causal body be in the above analogy please? Also, Ego and Vasnas (past impressions) are they part of Subtle body or Causal Body?

P Jai
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    The causal body is part of the reflected consciousness. There's another video by him called Two birds on a tree. There he explains that the reflected consciousness (the lower bird) consists of causal & subtle bodies. – The Crimson Universe Sep 20 '18 at 16:21
  • Regarding, vasanas or mental imprints. There are two groups of advaitins. One of these groups believes it's the subtle body that holds or stores the imprints and carries it to the next life. According to this first group, the causal body is avidya or pure ignorance and can't possibly have any attributes and so it can't have any imprints either and so they believe that only the subtle body stores the imprints. – The Crimson Universe Sep 20 '18 at 16:36
  • ..... while the other group believes that since something (imprints) can’t come out of nothing, there has to be a source for this subtle phenomena (imprints) that appear in the subtle body. These guys consider the causal body to be the subconscious mind in which are stored in dormant form the seeds for the subtle phenomena (imprints) that sprout as ideas and desires in the subtle body. So according to these guys, it's the causal body which is the storehouse of imprints and also the cause for the manifestation of the subtle body. – The Crimson Universe Sep 20 '18 at 16:40
  • Here's the link. Upon reaching that site, just scroll down and check out the text in green. https://www.advaita-vision.org/q-368-vasana-s/ – The Crimson Universe Sep 20 '18 at 16:55
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    see here - https://hinduism.stackexchange.com/questions/6758/where-does-a-soul-attach-to-the-body/6787#6787 – Swami Vishwananda Sep 21 '18 at 05:00

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I doubt that the bucket is the physical body in the analogy used. The bucket is the ego and the water in the bucket is most probably the mind.

MASTER (to M. and the others): "Is it an easy thing to obtain the Knowledge of Brahman? It is not possible unless the mind is annihilated. The guru said to the disciple, 'Give me your mind and I shall give you Knowledge.' In this state one enjoys only spiritual talk and the company of devotees.

(To Ram) "You are a physician. You know that medicine works only when it mixes with the patient's blood and becomes one with it. Likewise, in the state of Brahmajnana one sees God both within and without. One sees that it is God Himself who has become the body, mind, life, and soul."

M. (to himself): "Assimilation!"

MASTER: "A man attains Brahmajnana as soon as his mind is annihilated. With the annihilation of the mind dies the ego, which says 'I', 'I'. One also attains the Knowledge of Brahman by following the path of devotion. One also attains It by following the path of knowledge, that is to say, discrimination. The jnanis discriminate, saying, 'Neti, neti', that is, 'All this is illusory, like a dream.' They analyse the world through the process of 'Not this, not this'; it is maya. When the world vanishes, only the jivas, that is to say, so many egos, remain.

"Each ego may be likened to a pot. Suppose there are ten pots filled with water, and the sun is reflected in them. How many suns do you see?"

A DEVOTEE: "Ten reflections. Besides, there certainly exists the real sun."

MASTER: "Suppose you break one pot. How many suns do you see now?"

DEVOTEE: "Nine reflected suns. But there certainly exists the real Sun."

MASTER : "All right. Suppose you break nine pots. How many suns do you see now?"

DEVOTEE: "One reflected sun. But there certainly exists the real sun."

MASTER (to Girish): "What remains when the last pot is broken?"

GIRISH: "That real sun, sir."

MASTER: "No. What remains cannot be described. What is remains. How will you know there is a real sun unless there is a reflected sun? 'I- consciousness' is destroyed in samadhi. A man climbing down from samadhi to the lower plane cannot describe what he has seen there."

The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, At the houses of Balaram and Girish, May 9, 1885

There is no causal body in the analogy. Ego and Vasanas are parts of the subtle body.

Pradip Gangopadhyay
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  • Actually, Swami Sarvapriyananda was right when he meant the bucket to be the physical body. The same has been said by another advaitin monk, Swami Tadatmananda in his video, where he said explicitly, that the bucket is the physical body- m.youtube.com/watch?v=Zb1mLzRL3wc ...... Just like the sun shines all over the earth, but it's reflection falls only on water, the same way, Atman being all pervasive, is present everywhere, but it's reflection falls only on the antahkarana/subtle body ....... The subtle body is the reflecting medium for Atman, just like water is the reflecting medium for sun. – The Crimson Universe Sep 24 '18 at 09:57