When Svetaketu came back to his home after receiving knowledge from the Gurukul, he became very proud of it. He came to his house and sat there arrogantly without even talking to his father. His father, Uddalaka, seeing this became worried. He thought what has happened to his son. Why is he not talking and sitting there arrogantly. Uddalaka approached his son Svetaketu and asked, 'Have you learned everything?" Svetaketu replied, "Yes, father." Uddalaka again asked him, "Have you learned about that One thing by knowing it you know everything?" Svetaketu was perplexed. His guru in the Gurukul never talked about that One thing. He had learned all the Vedas, Puranas, and Chandas but have not heard anywhere about this One thing. Svetaketu's arrogant and proud suddenly dropped and he humbly said, "No, father. I haven't heard anything like this before. What is this One thing you talking about?"

Then starts the Chhandogya Upanishad.

Can anything come out of nothing? Have you ever seen rain without clouds? Can being come out of Non-Being? Is this possible? It will be absurd even to think about it. If this is the case, then, is Being the cause of the Being? This is like asking is fire cause of fire? Is chair cause of chair? This is a meaningless question. So, the creation cannot come out of nothing or non-being. Creation (Being) cannot also be the cause of Being, since saying water is the cause of water makes no sense at all. If Being and Non-Being both are not the cause of this creation, then what is the cause? There is no cause AT ALL. Is creation really there as a solid objective reality? If there is no cause of this creation, then what exactly is it? The answer to this question is the crux of Advaita Vedanta.

Before, understanding the term Advaita, we must observe closely the phenomenon of cause and effect relationship because the idea of creation solely depends on cause and effect relationship. Are cause and effect different? If they are different, cause is not really the cause of the effect. Then, are they same? If they are same, why do we even bother to denote it saying cause and effect? We are in a dilemma here ! We are caught in both ways.

Hope you realize this One thing which is indescribable, which senses cannot perceive, which is beyond scientific investigation, which is beyond mind and intellect. However, there is a way to understand this One thing. This is the path of Advaita Vedanta. Om Shanti.

@ Kiddo...... If I declare that there is no creation at all. What would you understand? You might be wondering what the heck is all this that I am seeing? Isn't this creation before us? So, I tried to bring the idea of cause and effect relationship through the example of gold and necklace made of gold to make you understand that the term creation is merely a sound with no corresponding reality at all. Do you remember the question I asked you: What do you touch when you touch the necklace made up of gold? You kept clinging over necklace which is not real. The only reality on that particular necklace is GOLD. Gold can assume any shape. The moment gold assumes different shapes, different form arises and you start giving different names for practical purposes. The necklace, the bracelets, all the rest jewelries are gold itself. Name arise only on account of form. It's like a dream. It is there this moment, it is not there the other moment. Which one is real and which one is unreal? So, when you truly understand the cause and effect relationship, you will start discriminating unreal from real. There is no such thing as necklace. It is just a name given for the form that the gold has assumed. The mere appearance of something momentarily doesn't makes it real. In term of pure spirituality, REAL means eternal. So, when you touch all this creation, do you touch creation or do you touch something else? How can you touch that which is untouchable? How can you hear that which cannot be heard? How can you understand that which is not understandable? There is a way and Advaita Vedanta teaches this technique. A speaker must understand who are his listeners! Therefore, I brought the idea of cause and effect relationship to help understand that effects are, in fact, cause in disguise. All effects are unreal because they appear and disappear. It is like a dream. When you sleep, you start seeing dream. What happens in dream. You can literally see a movie with clear picture and sound in your dream. What is that picture and sound? Who is watching that picture when your physical eyes are shot down? Who is hearing that sound when your physical ears are shot down? It is called inner vision. It is mind itself. Now, what are the objects we see in dreams. It is also mind. Who is seeing the dream. It is mind itself. The medium where dream takes place is mind also, the object that appears in dream is also mind, the experiences of vision, touch, and sound is also mind itself. If, all this is mind itself, why do we bother to call it this and that? If your body has to exist independent of space, your body must remove space and exist for itself. But, the moment your body removes space, where should it exist? In another space called hyper space? No, your body has to again remove this hyper space in order to exist independent. So, this will lead you nowhere. This is linear way of thinking. It is ad infinitum. Therefore, we need a different technique to find our solution. Your mind loves objects and it tries to externalize and internalize things on the basis of perception. When your mind is given an idea which is beyond objects it crumbles down because mind has no idea what it means by no space and no time. The unified field ( in your words: god or creator) is not an object that mind can entertain. When mind abandons all the qualities of finite then it automatically becomes infinite. This is where you understand who you truly are and who the so called creator is. The field is unknowable because there is no such thing as the known and the knower. For example: a magnet is a magnet. When you polarize, it starts creating a negative and positive pole. But the magnet is a magnet as a whole. Mind is such a polarizing unit. It always creates a false sense that there is something external and internal. Creation simply doesn't exist because there is no material in the first place to make all these things. When mind assumes sattvic states of mind, it starts understanding that there is no materiality at all. The water which you are seeing in ocean is merely a vibration. This whole universe is a wave which appears as concrete. This is all spiritual; there is no objectivity here. From this spiritual reality arises the magic product which we call the Universe. Universe is merely a sound with no corresponding reality at all. The only background that supports this so called Universe is Spiritual energy. So, since there is no creation at all, there is no creator as well ! Reality IS as it IS. There is no beginning here, and there is no end as well. It is what it is. Om Shanti.

ujl

You first started with a good story about Svetaketu; the irony is that you are acting like himself. Read few of your comments, you will understand what I meant.

Your last post actually makes a lot of sense. There is not a point I would contrast or disagree to. If you haven't yet, then google Sam Harris. His idea of consciousness sounds a lot more like what you are saying.

However; I still don't know your idea of God.The conclusion you draw from this discussion might not be same as the one I draw.

@ Kiddo..... I apologize if I acted like Svetaketu. True knowledge should bring humbleness in me. I guess, I am not enlightened !!
Btw, what is your definition of God? What are the qualifications for God? What's your world view? Let me hear what you think.

Ujl,

Still waiting for you to reveal your guru (s). Hope you're not embarrassed. I'm curious.

@ Power..... One of my top gurus is the Sun. Sun has no idea what darkness is. For Sun, darkness doesn't exist at all because wherever it goes, there is brightness and in such brightness darkness is nowhere to be found. Sun is always proud, ever illuminating and sustaining life.
Every morning, I let the sun rays enter my room because early morning sun rays are the healthiest rays. In Vastu Shastra, this is the reason where our Vedic Pundits tells us to make houses facing east. Now, whenever I see the Sun, It reminds me that darkness is unreal because it cannot exist wherever there is light. If darkness is real, it must have an independent existent wherever there is light. Similarly, ignorance is unreal because it doesn't have an independent existence. The moment there is knowledge, ignorance cannot even sustain for a second.
So, Sun is my real guru because it always reminds me who I am. It always reminds me that Ignorance is unreal and knowledge alone is real in that knowledge I always shine.

I hope I answered your question.

Always good to be skeptic and positive. One of my friend said the time has not come for people in earth to know beyond our understanding. 1000 years ago, it was impossible to know the present day galaxy or black holes or electron as the body of knowledge was tiny similarly today we are not equipped with knowledge to know more than it permits. There is exponential explosion in knowledge and may be we find what was before big bang or if there was big bang (for skeptics). But for now this is what we have and that's why among all things knowledge is the only thing that keeps on driving human ahead and make them curious, rest is old, plain and simple.
Why does the universe exist ? Was it always there ? What was before big bang? Are we, the earthlings, only living species ? Does existence have purpose ? How old is the universe ? Is there some repetitive pattern ? or What is nothing or something ? Do we know all things that we not see (even through all the waves and instrument ) ?

For now we are still in dark ages on the knowledge of our universe, those who try, seek for new frontiers of knowledge, those who give up say " Universe is vast unknowable". There is no rule about what should we do about life seek pleasure or knowledge. IMHO seek what keeps you awake at night.

Ujl,

No, you didn't answer my question. I think, you're becoming a guru yourself with all these guru like talk of yours.

Have you started thinking about quitting your day job and going full time with guru career?

The gold in the gold necklace is not REAL. To someone a gold bar is just a yellow hard stuff whereas to others it is a precious metal. Gold is an idea created to distinguish metals. Gold Necklace is an idea created to distinguish it from other jewelry pieces. These ideas are results of our conditioning. Ideas are not real since they can be changed. What is real is the MIND where the ideas are created. MIND is there but ideas come and go. The empty space that we call sky is there but clouds come and go.

Ujl, it is my affinity towards your positive vibes that drags me towards your writing. Please do not be offended by my ignorance and my playful nature because this humble soul means no disrespect towards you or your views. But again, out of curiosity wondering you must be dazzling bright to look at. Even your words/letters are sparkling bright that I have to use my sunglasses to read your post, hoping to get induced. Keep posting more; your post definitely nudges my hibernated rusty and dusty spiritual mode. Do not hesitate to punch me if I am bugging you.

There has never been a concrete answer to the universe or life. What exists are philosophies which serve to make the believers feel like they have achieved some knowledge that others do not have. They confuse themselves and try to confuse others with ambiguous words and statements like what is real and what is unreal. They will continue to confuse themselves and others with a web of words that sound intelligent and confusing at the same time. It's very easy to confuse others so that you gain some feeling of superiority over others.

There is no point in questioning if you are real or not. No matter what kind of philosophy you have to explain that this whole existence is not real, you are living each moment right now. Try to take a razor blade and run the blade across your body if you are not real. Everyone of us are as real as it gets right now. When we cease to exist there is no reality for us but the people who live are sharing a common reality of life which can intersect with each other or exist in parallel.

Hi Rethink, what does "real" mean to you? What is "real" in cutting yourself with a blade and feeling the pain?

The words we use to communicate with each others have their definitions defined in the dictionary. I am not communicating with you using my personal language :)

The reason i used the analogy of cutting yourself with blade is because you cannot deny that the pain you would feel is real. If you say the world and life is not real then how can you explain that real pain?

@ Rethink..... The dream which I saw last night was so real that I started flying up in the sky when a tiger suddenly followed me. My dream last night was real while dreaming. I cannot say that the dream was unreal while I am sleep. Only when I woke up, I realized it was a dream. Also, upon waking up today morning, my heart rate was increased, I was also sweating in my hands. But, the dream is unreal in waking standpoint! How can an unreal dream produce a real effect? Please enlighten me.

Also, in pure spirituality, REAL is something which is eternal;meaning which will remain even space and time collapse.

Hi Rethink,
Nothing is inherent. It is us and our conditoned mind that gives the definition of existance. The only think that exists is the "unknown". The only thing that is real is the "unknown". So what is this unknown? Some people like to call it "Om", some people like to call it "God" and some people like to call it the "Mind".

"Confuse others with ambiguous words and statements like what is real and what is unreal" backed up by logic makes us to rethink on it.
UJI make us believe what you are saying is right, you are not consistent and sometime it feels like you are forcing us to accept it.

@ Rethink...... According to your definition, space is unreal for you and also time is unreal for you because you cannot hold space as objective reality nor you can grasp time as objective reality. Are all maths unreal for you because all maths exist in human mind alone as imaginations. Please illuminate me, will you?

You are tripping in the fallacy of your own spiritual definition here.

I already told you the definition of "REAL" in english language as

"'being an actual thing; having objective existence; not imaginary:'"

That is not my definition. That is the definition for billions of english speaking people. Time and space are real objective concepts. You can measure time and space. Math does not exist alone in man's mind. It can be written down and understood in real form in equations and solutions.

@ Rethink..... Thanks for elucidating me. I was thinking space and time as unreal ! Now, I must rethink.

Everything that is not real is imaginary. All religious theories are imaginary. Books such as Upanishad, Bible, Quran, Mahabharat, Ramayan are all stories that have been imagined by the respective authors.

Why waste time on imaginary writings rather than focusing on real stuff, real people, real problems and real solutions.