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Vedanta - Avasthatraya
by Y. Subrahmanya Sarma
in 14 Sep 2006
(...previous) Strictly speaking, therefore, we ought to conclude that Sleep is only Pure Consciousness, which as having no relation whatever with its manifestation in the shape of ego and non-ego, is neither waking, nor dreaming nor sleeping at any time. It is therefore neither cause nor effect from this absolute stand-point. It is this phase of sleep as identical with the ever-changeless Ātman that is described as “the Fourth” relatively to the empirical egos of the three states and serves as the theme of (non-genesis) found in Gaudapada's famous explanation of that Upaniṣad.
We may now briefly recapitulate the salient points of the Vedānta method of Avasthas which we have touched upon in the course of this short essay. The method assumes nothing, entails no belief in authority and seeks the aid of no special intuition. It is built upon the fundamentals of human experience and insists that all the three Avasthas, the Waking, Dream and Sleep, should be investigated, before we can light upon the Absolute Reality underlying the manifestations of life. It sympathetically points out the basic error involved in speculations which confine the application of reason to the facts of Waking State, and while admitting the practical utility of such speculations so far as they go, it shows their utter futility and helplessness in constructing a Science of Reality. By a procedure peculiarly to its own, it teaches us to look upon each of the three states as a complete expression of Reality, and then equating each of them to the other two, arrives at the remarkable result that our Ātman as the Witnessing Consciousness of all the three states, is the Highest Reality free from the taint of all the three illusory Avasthas which are superimposed upon it by the empirical understanding; is, in brief, essentially nothing more than Pure Being, Pure Consciousness and Pure Bliss. The following benedictory verse with which Śaṅkara begins his masterly commentary on the Mandukya contains in four lines the sum and substance of Vedānta teaching based on this unique method of Avasthas:
“That which pervades the worlds through its rays of Consciousness, spread out and diffused in animate and inanimate beings, thus experiencing the gross pleasures and pains in Waking and the subtle ones fancied by mind and born of desire in dreams; that which absorbs within Itself all distinction and sleep enjoying bliss, thus causing us the taste of all these states through its Māyā – to That which is “the Fourth” relatively to this illusory number three, but is absolutely the Highest, Immortal, Unborn Brahman, I make obeisance”.
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