When the world disappears from our vision, what exactly is left? When there are no thoughts in our mind following different visuals, sounds, smells, tastes and touch, what is left behind? When all movement of our thoughts have stopped, what else is left with us?
The Yoga Vasistha says, “After that, there is only a profound experience that is very quiet, majestic and deep. In that experience of silence, there is neither light nor darkness. There is neither thought nor experience of gross matter. This stillness covers everything. There is nothing that can be said about this experience of quietude. It is nameless, formless and indescribable. What is left of it to describe is that it exists. Nothing more can be said about it other than this—existence. There are no qualities, no names, no forms attached to this presence within us.
The wise ones have given many names to this existence, saying Ram or the divine reality, Self, Supreme, vast and expansive etc. These names are imagined and expressed only for a transactional purpose of understanding in the worldly context by the great beings and masters.
This Self, which is nameless, formless, attributeless, timeless and spaceless, seems to have assumed a name, a form, many qualities, in time and space. It appears to be different from itself. It appears as though it has some special life force operating through it and by mere contemplation of its own name and form, it has also acquired a grossness in existence.
There are three types of existence in this universe. One is gross, manifested as the physical body and this wide visible universe; the other is subtle in the form of our thoughts; and the third is causal, the one thought of individuality which is the cause for the other thoughts and the body itself.
The mind itself becomes a created individual being as if like a wave in the ocean. By that individual experience, the whole world appears in it like a magical web of colours, names, forms, qualities, sounds, smells, tastes, feeling and imaginations.
The different names that are used to refer to this delusory experience are avidya or ignorance of the reality of who I am, and samsruti, which means constant change. There is such a rapid change of thoughts, images, patterns, feelings and emotions in the mind in the form of thoughts that we are not aware that it is changing. Just as the rapidly rotating fan blades give the impression of the fan being still, the rapid movement of thoughts in our mind make us feel that everything is still, changeless and unmoving.
The other names given to this are moha or delusion, bondage as we are tied down by the thoughts we experience. It is also called maya or the delusory power of existence. It is called malam or waste, because the constantly moving thoughts are the by-products of existence, rather its excretion. It is tamas or blinding darkness as it hides the truth of our own unbounded real nature.
Brahmacharini Sharanya Chaitanya(www.sharanyachaitanya.blogspot.in)