It is to be concluded that the entire cosmic manifestation is a transformation of the energy of the Supreme Lord, not of the Supreme Lord or Absolute Truth Himself, who always remains the same. The material world and the living entities are transformations of the energy of the Lord, the Absolute Truth or Brahman, who is the original source. In other words, the Absolute Truth, Brahman, is the original ingredient, and the other manifestations are transformations of this ingredient. This is also confirmed in the Taittiriya Upanishad (3.1): yato va imani bhutani jayante. "This entire cosmic manifestation is made possible by the Absolute Truth, the Supreme Personality of Godhead." In this verse it is indicated that Brahman, the Absolute Truth, is the original cause and that the living entities (jivas) and the cosmic manifestation are effects of this cause. The cause being a fact, the effects are also factual. They are not illusion. Sankaracarya has inconsistently tried to prove that it is an illusion to accept the material world and the jivas as by-products of the Supreme Lord because (in his conception) the existence of the material world and the jivas is different and separate from that of the Absolute Truth. With this jugglery of understanding, Mayavadi philosophers have propagated the slogan brahma satyam jagan mithya, which declares that the Absolute Truth is fact but the cosmic manifestation and the living entities are simply illusions, or that all of them are in fact the Absolute Truth and that the material world and living entities do not separately exist.
It is therefore to be concluded that Sankaracarya, in order to present the Supreme Lord, the living entities and the material nature as indivisible and ignorant, tries to cover the glories of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. He maintains that the material cosmic manifestation is mithya, or false, but this is a great blunder. If the Supreme Personality of Godhead is a fact, how can His creation be false? Even in ordinary dealings, one cannot think the material cosmic manifestation to be false. Therefore Vaishnava philosophers say that the cosmic creation is not false but temporary. It is separated from the Supreme Personality of Godhead, but since it is wonderfully created by the energy of the Lord, to say that it is false is blasphemous.
Quoting: SaveTheLivingEntitiesIt can be useful to differentiate between language and states. The term "contemplation" can refer to "being in the state of nondual-contemplation", a state where attachment to concepts of self and other is cut through. The compulsion or need to conceptually define consciousness is cut through. The presence or absence of the concepts themselves is peripheral. The utility lies in knowing that you don't have to do anything you don't want to.
If consciousness exists before thought and things then consciousness exists regardless of the presence or absence of thought and things. If consciousness is the ground of thought and things, then consciousness is also "the conceptual mode of defining self and other" since distinguishing the difference between "consciousness" and "the conceptual mode of defining self and other", is itself another conceptual mode of defining self and other.
...the conceptual mode of defining self and other, isn't necessarily the ultimate definition of consciousness, and therefore there isn't necessarily an ultimate difference between consciousness and thought & things...since that difference is asserted by thought & things and not by consciousness.
On the other hand, if thought & things assert self and other, and if there is no ultimate difference between consciousness and thought & things, yet one is asserting self and other and the other does not, then how can there be any ultimate assertion of the existence or non-existence of subject and object?
I know this is convoluted, but thats sort of the point. Intellectual thought isn't necessarily antithetical to "non-dual contemplation"...can in fact be its primary vehicle.
How then can manifestation be said to be illusion and Brahman be said to be Truth? Both are both. Therein lies the limitless potential of Brahman to Become. The paradox of apparent manifestation is resolved in the state of turiya.
