Project Mandukya 2025 Afterword: Two Gaudapadas and a Buddhist Elephant

Having finished Project Mandukya 2025, I am writing this afterword. First let's talk about the Buddhist elephant in the room. There's at least two Gaudapadas in the room as well.

The first one is a G establishing Vedantic credentials by wrapping oneself in the flag of sacred revelation with a little Upanishad they like to call Mandukya.

The second one explains the first one's three-part Vedantic karika, using Buddhist language almost exclusively. Whether either G was an ex-Buddhist convert or an old-time Vedantist

using the Mahayana language of that age's spiritual empire is not a relevant question. Both G's are Vedantic in a revolutionary way. In the high Himalayan caves, G is known to be a great wise fool.

And Shankara is Saint Paul to that Laughing Jesus. Are there 2 G's or just a younger one and older one? Either way, all individual dharmas are unborn.

Short Talks on MK4.99-100

The knowledge of a realized one is untouched and pure.

The suchness of all being is that knowledge.

This is not the understanding of the Buddha.

Beyond all grasp, depthless, unborn, 

unvarying and fearless is that realization. 

I bow to that with all my power. 

Talks on MK4.91-95: sarve dharmah

All individual beings by their nature are known to be beginningless and unbound. There isn't the slightest difference there at any place or any time.

All individual beings are enlightened from the very beginning, immutable by nature. The ones who know this rest and seek no further, realizing that immortal truth.

Always peaceful, birthless, and free by nature, all individual beings are undifferentiated, undivided, and unborn, equally divine.

There's no integrity in duality. One caught in the concepts of separation will assert the violent rift of things. They are to be considered most unfortunate.

Unborn and self-same: those who stabilize in such an understanding are the wisest in the world. Ordinary people cannot fathom the depths of their way.

Talks on MK4.82-86: the sage abides

Bliss remains hidden beneath the constant misery of the mind always desiring things even though the self-luminous Self is all of this.

Is, is not, is and is not, or totally is not. Impermanent, permanent, both permanent and impermanent, or neither. Such childish beliefs veil the truth.

The four alternatives veil reality. The all-seeing one who doesn't hold to any of these points of view knows that truth.

Having attained the complete omniscience of Brahman, that quarter of nonduality without beginning, middle, or end, what other desire remains?

The wise ones, humble, balanced, and spontaneous, are said to display a self-control of natural restraint. Thus the sage abides in peace.

Talks on MK4.47-52: the firebrand

A firebrand appears to be straight, crooked, or otherwise, according to its motion in the darkness. Likewise consciousness in motion will split itself into appearances of seers and the seen. 

When not in motion, a firebrand is free from all appearances, remaining changeless. And a motionless Consciousness is free from all appearances, resting birthless.

When the firebrand is in motion, such forms do not come from somewhere else nor do they go elsewhere when it’s still. Neither do they return to its shining point.

Such forms do not issue from the firebrand for they are insubstantial. In Consciousness, such appearances are similar.

In consciousness associated with activity of mind (like both dream states), appearances do not come from somewhere else. When the mind is inactive (like deep sleep), appearances do not go somewhere else.

Lastly such appearances do not emerge from consciousness for their nature isn't real. And they are beyond comprehension because their nature is beyond cause and effect.

Talks on MK3.29-33: amani-bhava

As in the state of dreaming, a semblance of duality is projected by the maya of mind, so too in the waking state.

As a singular mind appears to be a world of duality in dreams, the nondual self appears to be dual in waking. No doubt.

A world of things, both moving and non-moving, is seen in the mind only. Duality is nowhere to be seen when the mind isn’t moving.

A mind, upon realizing the knowledge that Atman alone is real, ceases to be the mind. For the want of a mind, all perception is free from belief.

Ajam and free from imagination is Jnana. The Knowable is one with Brahman. That intent of Knowledge is unborn and immutable. By the birthless, the birthless is known.

Talks on MK3.27-28: sato

Existence passes into birth only through Maya and not really.

Believing things were born in such a way, they’ll be born ad infinitum.

The non-existent can’t be born the so-called real way or via Maya.

The child of an infertile woman isn't born one way or the other.

Talks on Mandukya K3.19-22: aja

The unborn is born only by the power of Maya and no other way. If this world were really real, the one immortal absolute would be phenomenally mortal right now. 

Some still say the unborn was born. As if that birthless and immortal ground could become a mortal seed.

The immortal can't really be mortal. The mortal can't really be immortal either. The object is never the subject.

How does an immortal one become the mortal many? How does the one that appears to change retain its changelessness? It's called Maya.

Talking about Talks on MK3.3-9

1. preface

Trying to get a handle on MK3.3-9 takes some effort.

In the end, I found Nikhilananda's new translation to be the easiest to follow.

Joseph Campbell edited the work and his sharp Mother English helps significantly.

2. in the beginning

Gaudapada spells out our simile first. Atman is like infinite space.

Death and infinite regression are to be seen through next.

K3.6 is the turn. No one is denying the Maya of names and forms.

3. in conclusion

Gaudapada isn't buying any chance of change in the changeless.

K3.7 leans into the turn. Atman is indivisible and beyond all cause and effect.

As the song is infinite space, the tenor is Atman, our song ends.

Talks on Mandukya K3.3-9: akasa

or Transcreating Nikhilananda

Say Atman is infinite space and Atman is manifesting in people like infinite space in clay pots. This is what birth is like.

Upon destruction of any clay pot, the infinite space contained in the pot merges with infinite space. So do people merge with Atman.

As the smoke-filled space in one clay pot doesn’t smudge the other spaces enclosed in other pots, so the emotions of one individual does not actually darken others.

Although a variety of names and forms of different spaces may be admitted, this does not imply there's any differentiation in space itself.

As the infinite space enclosed in a clay pot is neither an effect nor a part of infinite space, so an individual is neither a creation nor a part of Atman.

Only a child would think the actual dimension of space is being polluted by polluted air. Only the ignorant believe Atman can be similarly polluted.

Atman, in regard to its birth and death, its comings and goings, its dwelling in different bodies, is not unlike infinite space.

Talks on MK2.35-38: tattvam

Gaudpada keeps it real. His advaita is neither neo nor conventional. Free from attachment, well-versed in vedantic revelations, and able to discern reality from illusion, his seer is free from phenomenal duality—nondual.

Having realized the nondual self and having trained the mind to self-remember that, the knower of the truth acts as one who does not know when in the world.

Having given up god, society, and sacraments, this unconventional seer makes one’s home in the nondual self, using the body-mind for public transportation as needed and accepting whatever food and clothing happens by.

Seeing the inner truth and the outer truth, being one with the real truth and reveling forever in that, this seer is never not the truth, Gaudapada says.

Talks on Mandukya K2.32: na vai mukta

In K2.32, Gaudapada, radical nondualist par excellence, throws a bomb upon the Vedantic structure of teaching. He says there is no bondage, no striving student, no one desiring liberation, and no one ever liberated. That's the highest truth.

It's the highest truth from that perspective of reality. From the perspective of this transactional world, it’s another side of the enlightenment coin. But there are those poor fools who find themselves lost in friendly fire. They call their condition neo-advaita.

Look, it's like the old example of using a thorn to remove a thorn. Like Gaudapada is saying hold this thorn lightly and use it with the same dispassion and discernment as anything in this dream world. Upon removal of such a problematic thorn, be prepared to throw this thorn away.

Short Talks on Mandukya K2.16: kalpayate purvam

People are not created but imagined.

Because people were imagined, a person will imagine too.

With individuality comes ego. With ego comes duality.

Nobody knows which came first: reflected consciousness or the material universe.

Maya is beginningless. Pure consciousness is beyond both.

Talks on Mandukya K2.12: atmanatmanam-atma

As the dream state is projected from the mind by its own power of sleep, the waking state is projected from consciousness, in consciousness, and by consciousness through the power of its maya.

The dream begins as the mind forgets itself. The universe begins as the nondual Self has no need to know a thing (there is no other). In order to know itself, maya happens. God, beings, and the universe, oh my!

The projection of the Self is not duality. A movie doesn’t trouble the movie screen. In this way, the Self is just a witness. And the self-realized one knows all is in and of the Self. This is Vedanta, Gaudapada says.

Talks on Mandukya K2.1-6: Dreaming Up a Waking State

In the first chapter of his Karika, Gaudapada reduces the Mandukya’s three states of reflected consciousness into two: sleeping and dreaming. All three states are asleep, and waking is dreaming too. In the beginning of his next Prakarana on unreality, he quickly explains the logic of such a conflation.

First, and most obvious, he lists the reasons why dreams aren’t real, for the sake of pure argument. From the point of view of our waking state in this space-time continuum, there’s not enough of either in the body-mind for elephants and trips around the world. Also sruti says so.

Next, Gaudapada blows our collective minds. Because things are experienced in the waking state as things are experienced in a dream state, the act of experience is not a confirmation of some waking objective reality, as most assume, but proof that the waking state is just another state of dreaming.

Just as the dream world is in and of the mind, the waking world is in and of consciousness. Impermanence too. Just as the individual in the dream is dependent on the body-mind for its existence, the individual mind is dependent on consciousness for its reality. Consciousness is independent existence.

Talks on Mandukya K1.24-29

The four quarters of Aum are not to be known as vehicles but the four tenors themselves.

As if the sound of A is the actual waking state; U, the actual dreaming state; M, the actual deep sleep state.

And most notably, the real silence following and swallowing Aum is the witness consciousness, Turiya.

Aum is beginningless and that silence, timeless. Aum is an infinity of sounds appearing in the soundless.

Aum is God. That silence is Parabrahman. The one who knows Aum this way is the real sage.

Talks on Mandukya 12

The Mandukya Upanishad consists of two parts: an inquiry into Atman (culminating in the magnificent 7th mantra) and an inquiry into Aum, into which the two are merging in its glorious 12th and last mantra.

And this 12th mantra is ending such a revelation with the Sanskrit, atmanatmanam: the Self merging into the Self. Like the water of the waves merging into the water of the sea, there is nothing but the Self.

It’s like the tenors and the mediums of Aum falling into the silence of Turiya. If deep sleep is the relative silence of the absence of duality, Turiya is the causeless silence of the presence of nonduality.

Talking Realization: Transcreating Gaudapada's MK 1.15-18

Dreaming misapprehends reality. Sleeping doesn't apprehend reality at all. When these two errors disappear, Turiya is realized.

Asleep in beginningless maya, the individual awakens into birthless, sleepless, dreamless realization of the nondual.

And there’s no doubt the world would disappear if it actually existed. But duality is nothing but Maya and nondual in reality.

Concepts are to be abandoned when imagined for the sake of teaching. This talk of duality stops upon realization.

~transcreated from translations of Mandukya Karika 1.16-18 by Nikhilananda, Gambhirananda, Chinmayananda, Paramarthananda, and Swartz

Talks on MK1:11-15

Gaudapada says both waking states and dreaming states are bound by cause and effect, deep sleep is bound by cause alone, and Turiya is beyond all cause and effect.

Deep sleep knows nothing of any other state of consciousness nor the state of deep sleep itself. It knows nothing of truth or untruth, but only knows the absence of duality. Turiya is the presence of nonduality, that all-seeing existence.

The absence of duality is actually common to both deep sleep and Turiya. But deep sleep is the seed of variety and such a fruit does not exist in Turiya.

Not only the dream state but the waking state is a state of sleep and dream. Deep sleep is a state of sleep without dream. The wise ones say neither sleep nor dream is to be seen in Turiya.

Dreaming misapprehends reality. Sleeping doesn't apprehend reality at all. Gaudapada says when these two errors disappear, reality is realized.

Talks on Mandukya 7

Sages say the seventh mantra of the Mandukya Upanishad is the peak of Advaita. In fact, the word, advaita, makes its first appearance there.

The Muktika Upanishad says, “the only means by which the final emancipation is attained is through Mandukya-Upanishad alone” and this is considered to be scripture by many.

If not the creator, Gaudapada is the godfather of the Mandukya. Tradition says he’s the guru of the guru of Shankara. Disciple of a godlike teacher, Gaudapada is Paramaguru of Advaita.

Mandukya 7 is divided into three parts. The first nullifies the microcosmic atmans of all states of consciousness. The second nullifies all the macrocosmic brahmans. The third affirms Mandukya’s mahavakya: ayam atma brahma.

Some people call reality a fourth state. Like nirvikalpa samadhi. Gaudapada calls reality nondual. Atman is Brahman. That is the real self. That is to be realized.