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Jiva

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MIND, MATTER AND GOD : JIVA, JADA AND ISVARA<br />

M.M.NINAN<br />

2. The second possibility is that the Brahman is indeed inhomogenous allowing for<br />

variations all forming part of the whole. Universe is not a hologram is certain.<br />

They have different forms and different contents all together forming an organic<br />

living Cosmos. Within the organic oneness is simply the oneness of substance,<br />

oneness of purpose etc. This is in effect the Christian stand which is the Vishista<br />

Advaita. If love is the essence of reality, then oneness cannot be a reality.<br />

There has to be at least two within the oneness with some form on independence.<br />

Now we can say “God is Love”<br />

Experiences of the world depend on an individual creature's perceptive capacity.<br />

Humans perceive a physical universe, precisely responsive to known laws of physics<br />

through their five senses. Souls and angels have higher perceptive capacities than<br />

humans and perceive the exact same universe as a differet realm with different<br />

dimensions of existence and different senses. Their senses are not the same as we<br />

have. We have in fact no idea of the laws of Physics of their dimensions The same<br />

universe perceived with a different set of sense organs literally becomes a different<br />

cosmos as such.<br />

The Nirguna Brahman of Sankara is impersonal. In Sankara’s Advaita the Nirguna<br />

Brahman becomes a personal God or Saguna Brahman only through its association<br />

with Maya.<br />

In Vaishnava theology, māyā is described as one of the nine shaktis of Vishnu.<br />

Māyā became associated with sleep; and Vishnu's māyā is sleep which envelopes the<br />

world when he awakes to destroy evil. In that sense the cosmos is nothing but the<br />

dream of Brahman when he is asleep. Vishnu is represented as asleep on anantha<br />

(eternity). Maya originally denoted the power of wizardry with which a god can make<br />

human beings believe an illusion. Later the concept was extended to mean the<br />

powerful force that creates the cosmic illusion by which we assume that the world we<br />

experience is real. Maya is reflected on the individual level by human ignorance<br />

(ajñāna) whereby a man mistakenly thinks of ’I’ and ‘you’, which is in reality identical<br />

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