Class 109, vivekacūḍāmaṇi

In this philosophically profound and cognitively transformative class on verses 109–110, Acharya Tadany clarified that Śaṅkarācārya does not distinguish between individual kāraṇa śarīram (causal body) and total kāraṇa prapañca (causal universe) because at the causal level, differences exist only in potential, unmanifest form — like a seed containing the entire tree (trunk, branches, leaves, fruits) yet showing no distinction — and are never experienced, unlike gross (sthūla) and subtle (sūkṣma) levels where individuality is clear. 

Acharya Tadany used deep sleep (suṣupti) as the primary analogy: no mind, no experience, no recollection occurs, yet upon waking we say “I slept well,” proving consciousness was present as witness even in non-experience; individual sleep (laya) mirrors cosmic dissolution (pralaya). 

Acharya Tadany reviewed four terms for the causal state — śakti (dependent power), avyaktam (unmanifest), māyā (indefinable), avidyā (ignorance negated by knowledge) — and defined māyā as anirvacanīya (inexplicable), unable to be categorized as matter separate from, identical to, part of, product of, or property of consciousness. He unpacked avidyā’s two meanings: (1) that which lacks independent existence (svayaṁ na vidyatē), like a desk negated in wood, jewelry in gold, wave in water; and (2) that which is negated by knowledge (vidyā nāśya), as the rope-snake or dream world is destroyed upon knowing reality — matter borrows “isness” from consciousness and is sublated in Brahma-vidyā. T

he class concluded that Vedānta is cognitive: understand intellectually, contemplate deeply, assimilate through meditation — avidyā (ignorance of Self) is negated, revealing śuddha-advaya-brahma (pure non-dual Brahman) as the sole reality.

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