Jiva

MIND, MATTER AND GOD : JIVA, JADA AND ISVARA
M.M.NINAN
Three levels of reality
Shankara uses sublation as the criterion to postulate an ontological hierarchy of three
levels:
Pāramārthika (paramartha, absolute), the absolute level,
"which is absolutely real and into which both other reality levels can be resolved".
Vyāvahārika (vyavahara), or samvriti-saya; empirical or pragmatical level.
"our world of experience, the phenomenal world that we handle every day when we
are awake".
It is the level in which both jiva (living creatures or individual souls) and Iswara are
true; here, the material world is also true.
Prāthibhāsika; apparent reality, illusion level
"reality based on imagination alone".It is the level in which appearances are actually
false, like the illusion of a snake over a rope, or a dream.
These correspond to three states of consciousness:
Waking State(jågrat),
"It is described as outward-knowing (bahish-prajnya), gross (sthula) and
universal (vaishvanara)". This is the gross body. The first state is the waking
state, in which we are aware of our daily world.
dreaming state (svapna),
"It is described as inward-knowing (antah-prajnya), subtle (pravivikta) and
burning (taijasa)".This is the subtle body.
deep sleep (sushupti)
In this state the underlying ground of concsiousness is undistracted, "the Lord of
all (sarv’-eshvara), the knower of all (sarva-jnya), the inner controller (antar-yami),
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