"All the truth in the world adds up to one big lie", rasps Dylan in Things Have Changed. Which is what Advaita Vedanta alludes to in general. Once you know the rope to be a rope, then the fear of it as a snake disappears. It's not that everything you see in the world is an illusion. It's not that there is no cruelty around, or that people are not killing people, and that there is no violence. It's the wrong identification with the body that gives rise to the sense of reality curated by the five limited senses. As Ramana Maharishi would often remind people, "Did all these occur to you in deep sleep?"
Meaning, all of this came to life with the waking up of the wrong 'I'. We see the world after we open our eyes, the world doesn't come and tell us it exists. In deep sleep, we have no nationality, no religion, no beliefs, no gender, no family, no name, no worries, no anxiety, no plans and we don't even have our body. Yet, we wake up and declare that 'I' slept well. Bhagwan Ramana would ask questioners, "Who is the I that says I slept well and who is the I that has all the problems and questions and doubts?"
Or that's what I understand (that's the trouble with limited knowledge, isn't it?). So all that we think is true, all that we think is the 'snake' is, in fact, a strand of rope.
Kannadasan, the greatest Tamil lyricist of the 20th century who distilled the most profound truths into easily digestible, simple cinema songs, has a similar yet more powerful take on it. In a song titled "Yaarada mandihan ange" (meaning "who is the real man there?") he says, "In laughter, Man isn't. In tears, Man isn't. In his heart, Man isn't. In sleep, man is. Living beast, sleeping god, in between is Man". Brilliant.
It is the Man in sleep who is real. Not the beast that reacts and repents. Not the Man in between two stages who is confused and confounded. It is the Truth that lies behind one Big Lie.
Meaning, all of this came to life with the waking up of the wrong 'I'. We see the world after we open our eyes, the world doesn't come and tell us it exists. In deep sleep, we have no nationality, no religion, no beliefs, no gender, no family, no name, no worries, no anxiety, no plans and we don't even have our body. Yet, we wake up and declare that 'I' slept well. Bhagwan Ramana would ask questioners, "Who is the I that says I slept well and who is the I that has all the problems and questions and doubts?"
Or that's what I understand (that's the trouble with limited knowledge, isn't it?). So all that we think is true, all that we think is the 'snake' is, in fact, a strand of rope.
Kannadasan, the greatest Tamil lyricist of the 20th century who distilled the most profound truths into easily digestible, simple cinema songs, has a similar yet more powerful take on it. In a song titled "Yaarada mandihan ange" (meaning "who is the real man there?") he says, "In laughter, Man isn't. In tears, Man isn't. In his heart, Man isn't. In sleep, man is. Living beast, sleeping god, in between is Man". Brilliant.
It is the Man in sleep who is real. Not the beast that reacts and repents. Not the Man in between two stages who is confused and confounded. It is the Truth that lies behind one Big Lie.
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