Vedantic Wednesday: Atman and Brahman – Second Part

Last week, I had shared with you one of the examples that we stumble upon regularly in advaita philosophy as it attempts to explain non-duality. Many of you had also shared with me how simple and hence stunning this example is. Though the philosophy attempts to explain the highest principles, as great teachers, our vedantic masters understood they have to take the help of simplicity to explain the complex of complex principles.  Sharing below another example which more recent masters use to explain non-duality.

To understand the identical nature of Atman and Brahman one can observe the impact of electricity on various bulbs. When electricity (consciousness) passes through the 10 watt bulb, the illumination is that of 10 watts (microcosm). When the same electricity passes through a 1,000,000 watt bulb, the illumination is so many times bigger (macrocosm). The differences in the light produced by the two bulbs is because of the nature of the bulbs (upadhis) and has nothing to do with the electricity (consciousness principle). In a similar manner the microcosmic (jiva) and macrocosmic (Isvara) are due to their respective conditionings (updahis) of the microcosm (three bodies) and the macrocosm (cosmos). But just like the constant electricity the underlying Sat-Cit-Ananda principle remains the same and unchanged.