Chapter 2 - Verse 16

There is no bhâva—no being, no existence—of the unreal (asat) such as heat and cold as well as their causes. Heat cold, etc.. and the causes thereof, which are (no doubt) perceived through the organs of perception, are not absolutely real (vastu-sat); for they are effects or changes (vikâra), and every change is temporary. For instance, no objective form, such as an earthen pot, presented to consciousness by the eye, proves to be real, because it is not perceived apart from clay. Thus every effect is unreal, because it is not perceived as distinct from its cause. Every effect, such as a pot, is unreal, also because it is not perceived before its production and after its destruction. * And likewise the cause, such as clay, is unreal because it is not perceived apart from its cause. †

Cp. ‘Whatever exists not in the beginning or in the end exists not really in the present.’ (Gaudapadakarikas on the Mandukya-upanishad. IV, 31).—(A).

This implies that the Absolute Reality is not conditioned by causality; and therefore the perception of the series of causes and effects must be illusory.—(A).

(Objection):—Then it comes to this: nothing at all exists. ‡

The objector evidently thinks that there cannot be a thing which is neither a cause nor an effect.

(Answer):—No (such objection applies here). For, every fact of experience involves twofold consciousness (buddhi), the consciousness of the real (sat) and the consciousness of the unreal (asat). Now that is (said to be) real, of which our consciousness fails; and that to be unreal, of which our consciousness fails.* Thus the distinction of reality and unreality depends on our consciousness. Now, in all our experience, twofold consciousness arises with reference to one and the same substratum (samānādhikarana), as ‘a cloth existent,’ ‘a pot existent,’ ‘an elephant existent’—not as in the expression a blue lotus’ †—and so on everywhere. Of the two, the consciousness of pot, etc., is temporary as was already pointed out, but not the consciousness of existence. Thus, the object corresponding to our consciousness of pot, etc., is unreal, because the consciousness is temporary; but what corresponds to our consciousness of existence is not unreal, because the consciousness is unfailing.

There must be an Absolute Reality which is neither a cause nor an effect. For, what is fleeting must be uureal, and what is constant must be real. In the case of our illusory perception of a rope mistaken for a snake, we hold that the snake is unreal because our consciousness of it fails, whereas what corresponds to “this” in the perception “this is a snake,"—viz., the rope,—is real, because our consciousness of it is constant through all its illusory manifestations. The reality and the unreality of things are thus to be inferred from our own experience.

Blue and lotus being two realities. Existence and the pot refer—as in the sentence ‘this is the man we saw’—to only one thing really existing. They are not two distinct realities, related to each other as the universal and the particulars, or as a substance and its attribute. If the pot, etc., were as real as existence we should be at a loss to explain why, with reference to one and the same substratum, the two—existence and the pot or the like—should always present themselves together to our consciousness any more than a pot and a cloth. Illusion, on the other hand, can account for the twofold consciousness of existence and the pot and so on, arising with reference to one and the same substratum, there being only one Reality—namely, that which corresponds to existence—and all the rest being unreal, as in the case of a rope mistaken for various other things which are unreal.—(A).

(Objection):—When the pot is absent and the consciousness of it fails, the consciousness of existence also fails.

(Answer):—No * (such objection applies here). For the consciousness of existence still arises with reference to other objects such as cloth. The consciousness of existence corresponds indeed only to the attributive (viseshana).

The consciousness of existence still arises in conjunction with the absence of the pot. When we say ‘here is no pot,’ existence is signified by reference to the place where the pot is said to be absent.

(Objection):—Like the consciousness of existence, the consciousness of the pot also arises with reference to another pot (present).

(Answer):—You cannot say so, for the consciousness of the pot does not arise with reference to a cloth.

(Objection):—Neither does the consciousness of existence arise in the case of the pot that has disappeared.

(Answer):—You cannot say so, for there is no substantive (viseshya) present. The consciousness of existence corresponds to the attributive; and as there can be no consciousness of the attributive without that of the corresponding substantive, how can the consciousness of the attributive arise in the absence of the substantive?—Not that there is no objective reality present, corresponding to the consciousness of existence.

(Objection):—If the substantive such as the pot be unreal, the twofold consciousness arising with reference to one and the same substratum is inexplicable. †

The objector means this: In all our experience, we find both substantive and the attributive to be real. So, here, the pot must be as real as existence.—(A)

(Answer):—No; for, we find the twofold consciousness arising with reference to one and the same substratum, even though one of the two objects corresponding to the twofold consciousness is unreal, as for instance in the case of a mirage, where our consciousness takes the form “this is water.” Therefore, there is no existence of the unreal, the fictitious—such as the body and the pairs of opposites—or of their causes. Neither does the real—the Self (Atman)—ever cease to exist; for, as already pointed out, our consciousness of the Self never fails.

This conclusion—that the real is ever existent and the unreal is never existent—regarding the two, the Self and the non-Self, the real and the unreal, is always present before the minds of those who attend only to truth, to the real nature of the Brahman, the Absolute, the All, ‘That.’ Thou hadst therefore better follow the view of such truth-seers, shake off grief and delusion, and, being assured that all phenomena (vikāras) are really non-existent and are, like the mirage, mere false appearances, do thou calmly bear heat and cold and other pairs of opposites, of which some are constant and others inconstant in their nature as productive of pleasure or pain.