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Nirvikalpa means free from all sorts of Vikalpas. Vikalpas are modifications and imaginations of the mind. The Nirvikalpa state of a Yogi is concerned with the mind.<ref name=":6" />
Nirvikalpa means free from all sorts of Vikalpas. Vikalpas are modifications and imaginations of the mind. The Nirvikalpa state of a Yogi is concerned with the mind.<ref name=":6" />
Following the Upaniṣadic tradition, Śaṅkara offers three lines of argument in support of the existence of Brahman as supreme consciousness. The third line of argument, possibly the most central of them, is that its truth is revealed in meditative realization. In other words, the existence of Ātman is a matter of direct experience. Through the practice of meditation, one can attain a state of samādhi where he/she experiences consciousness as-such, participates in Brahman and realizes the oneness with it. It is a state of non-relational and nonintentional pure consciousness devoid of subject–object duality, a self-luminous state of absolute bliss. It is self-revealing in that it does not need anything else to reveal it, just as a burning lamp requires no other lamp to make it visible.<ref name=":5" />
== Steps to attain Samadhi ==
== Steps to attain Samadhi ==
Meaning: the knowledge of hearing, touching, seeing, tasting, and smelling, are obstacles to Samadhi; but they are powers in the worldly state.<ref name=":1" />
Meaning: the knowledge of hearing, touching, seeing, tasting, and smelling, are obstacles to Samadhi; but they are powers in the worldly state.<ref name=":1" />
== Synthesis of Yoga and Advaita ==
Yoga shares with Advaita the notion that humans are situated in an existential matrix of suffering and that the human endeavor is to overcome and change it. Along with its twin school Sāṁkhya, Yoga sketches a psychological system that is both a theory of human bondage and a practical method to overcome that bondage.
We have here a psychological conception of consciousness and appropriate methods for cultivating it. In Yoga, as in Upaniṣadic thought, we find a basic distinction between two fundamental forms of consciousness—transactional and transcendental forms. Transactional consciousness is empirical consciousness as in vyāvahārika realm in Advaita.
The source of both kinds of consciousness in Yoga is puruṣa. Puruṣa, like the Brahman in Advaita, is consciousness as-such. It is self-manifesting and selfluminous. It has no content, nor does it have an object one is conscious of. It is apprehended intuitively. It is in principle irreducible to any form or manifestation of matter.
The fundamental difference in the conception of consciousness between Advaita and Sāṁkhya-Yoga schools is that in the former Brahman is one, whereas in the latter the puruṣas are multiple. Further, in Advaita, Brahman is the eternal, unchanging sole reality without any duality, whereas in Sāṁkhya-Yoga prakṛti, the foundational basis of all material forms, is just as real as puruṣas. This recognition in Yoga of the duality of reality in puruṣa and prakṛti provides a smooth transition from the metaphysical to the psychological conception of consciousness. In Sāṁkhya-Yoga tradition, there is not a single puruṣa, like the Brahman, but a plurality of them. Here then is the transition from the metaphysical conception to a psychological representation of consciousness from the absolute to individual.
The goal in both Vedānta and Yoga is to realize transcendental consciousness; and this involves cultivated transcendence of sense-mediated and mind-generated awareness.
The main issue is the radically distinct nature of consciousness (Brahman, puruṣa) and the world of matter (prakṛti, māyā).
Both Advaita and Sāṁkhya-Yoga share the assumption that consciousness as-such does not interact with mind/body; but consciousness does manifest in a variety of forms in human experience. The problem is therefore one of explaining manifest consciousness in the world. It follows there are two kinds of consciousness, consciousness as-such and manifest consciousness. In some ways, the two are utterly different. Consciousness as-such (puruṣa or Brahman) is contentless and nonintentional. The manifest, phenomenal consciousness, however, is intentional and has content.
The person, as we pointed out, is a unique composite of consciousness, mind, and body. The mind of the person, more precisely the buddhi, has the unique ability to reflect consciousness. Buddhi itself, an evolute of prakṛti, is constituted by a combination of the three primary elements, sattva, rajas, and tamas. It is the sattva component that has a special relationship with puruṣa. We, therefore, read in the Yoga-Sūtras (III.55) that the purity of sattva in buddhi is equal to puruṣa in the state of kaivalya, which means that the reflections of buddhi, the images of puruṣa in the mind, are nearly perfect and the knowledge they generate is apodictically true. However, the buddhi is generally muddled because it is saddled by rajas and tamas, the distorting aspects that prevent sattva from providing a true reflection and give instead sensorially muddled awareness. According to Yoga, it is possible to progressively control and even eliminate/neutralize the influence of rajas and tamas on the buddhi. When this happens and sattva of the buddhi is on its own, it is able to access consciousness as-such in its reflections. This is the state of intuitive awareness, the kind of realization that is incorporated in Śruti statements. Śaṅkara has no quarrel with Yoga and its practices presumed to give extraordinary knowledge and abilities. He explicitly accepts them.<ref name=":5" />
== References ==
== References ==