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Vivekachudamani - Crest Jewel of Wisdom

Vivekachudamani - Crest Jewel of Wisdom

Auteur(s): Vedanta Society San Francisco
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 Swami Tattwamayananda will begin a new scripture, Vivekachudamani of Shankaracharya, on Friday November 15 2024, at 7:30 p.m. at the Old Temple.

Vivekachudamani, which means "The Crest Jewel of Discrimination," is a poem by Shankaracharya that summarizes Advaita Vedanta philosophy and is one of the its important introductory texts.

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  • Vivekachudamani 20 From Intellectual Understanding to Emotional Common Sense - By Swami Tattwamayananda

    Vivekachudamani 20 From Intellectual Understanding to Emotional Common Sense - By Swami Tattwamayananda
    Jun 27 2025
    116th verse: “Even one who is intellectually advanced, who knows scriptures, who understands the subtle truths and who is convinced of his learning – even such a person, by the power of Tamas, looks upon the unreal as the real and the real and unreal. This is the strength of Maya.”

    Such a person does not have the power of discretion. What he may know intellectually, he is not able to translate into common sense in real life. He remains a slave to sensory enjoyments. He is like a parrot which is fed food, can speak, but remains imprisoned.

    Maya is beyond definition and intellectual comprehension. We can feel that Maya is working when we have inner conflict, when we want to do certain things, but the mind does not cooperate.. This happens due to accumulated samskaras over past life cycles.

    This ignorance of our true nature is not an absence of knowledge at an intellectual level. It refers to the state in which we live (at an emotional level) without awareness of our true nature.

    Maya operates with two powers: Avarana-shakti, which conceals the reality. Therefore, we are not aware of our true nature as Atman, the divine spark that is present everywhere and in everything. The second power is Vikshepa-shakti, which projects something false. Due to this projection, we interpret ourselves as something other than our true nature. We superimpose the world and its impermanence on Atman.

    Knowledge can be of two types: (1) Knowledge from our intellectual conviction, but without full realization of the knowledge (2) Full realization of the knowledge where there are no doubts left. The person mentioned in the 116th verse does not have this absolute spiritual realization, and remains bound to samsara, the cycle of birth and death.

    One may ask: what is the problem with being reborn again and again. We recognize that this cycle is a problem only when we have spiritually evolved.

    Despite what is stated in the 116th verse, reading scriptures and associating with higher ideas plays a very important role in spiritual life. The 19th verse describes the four qualities – Sadhana Chatushtaya Sampatti that seekers should practice. There is a practical application of these four disciplines. They give us a higher perspective on life.

    117th Verse: This verse mentions “abhavana”, which means absence of the right understanding of the truth. It also mentions “viparita-bhavana”, which means presence of a contrary or wrong notion. Due to these two factors, we interpret (wrongly) our body and experiences to be Absolutely Real. He remains engrossed in doubts.

    Doubts do not disappear at the intellectual level. When we evolve spiritually, our doubts cease to be doubts, our questions cease to be questions.

    When we spiritually evolve, we are able to transcend the positives and negatives in life and look upon both of them with equanimity of mind.

    When we start our spiritual life, a secondary personality begins to emerge. Initially, its voice is weak. When we persist in our efforts, it gets stronger in its fight with the previous personality. Finally, the earlier personality disappears and only the new personality remains. Buddha’s Jataka tales are an illustration of this. In each life cycle, previous memories tried to drag him back. But he fought those obstacles and a new Buddha emerged.

    118th verse: “Such a person remains in deep spiritual slumber (with ignorance, sleep, inertia, laziness and natural tendency to mistake), like a pillar that is dull.”

    Spiritual awakening refers to the realization that health and wealth will perish and that we need to bring something higher in life to make it more meaningful.

    Ignorance, laziness, sleep, and inertia are natural characteristics of tamo guna. When we are full of tamo guna, we do not even have the capacity to understand Vedanta. Our emotional system does not co-operate. To enjoy higher spiritual ideas, our emotional system has to evolve. Without this evolution, it is difficult to sustain the interest in higher ideas.
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    1 h et 14 min
  • Vivekachudamani 19 Avarana and Vikshepa Shakti - By Swami Tattwamayananda

    Vivekachudamani 19 Avarana and Vikshepa Shakti - By Swami Tattwamayananda
    Jun 20 2025
    The entire text is built around answering seven questions from the student in the 51st verse. The seven questions are: (1) What is this bondage? (2) How does it come about? (3) How does it exist and what sustains it? (4) How do we come out of it? (5) What is anatman? (6) What is the supreme Atman? (7) How do we differentiate between atman and anatman?

    The teacher starts by answering the 5th question first: “What is anatman”, by discussing different sarira (body). There are three sariras: Sthula sarira (gross body), sukhshma sarira (subtle body, the personality behind the gross body) and karana sarira (lack of understanding of our true nature).

    Karana-sarira is the actual cause of bondage. We forget our true nature (ignorant) and mistakenly identify ourselves with the physical body. It is called Avidya, Mithya, or Maya.

    In the rope-snake analogy, we mistake the rope for a snake, crack on the floor, a stick or a thin stream of water. There is no source of this misunderstanding as the snake, crack, stick or water stream never existed. Similarly, due to our past samskaras, we mistake ourselves for many things which are not our true nature.

    Maya cannot be defined. We think it is real, as long as we are not spiritually enlightened.

    111th verse: Maya is not “sat” not “asat” nor a combination of sat and asat. Maya is neither different from Brahman, nor non-different from Brahman, nor a combination of difference and non-difference. Maya is neither endowed with parts nor devoid of parts, nor a combination of the two. All of us experience Maya in our everyday life. It is beyond logical comprehension, cannot be explained in words or cognized with the mind, and is a great wonder.

    113th verse: Maya functions at the level of three gunas: Sattva guna, Rajo guna and Tamo guna. Tamo guna functions as Avarana or concealment. Rajo guna functions as Vikshepa or false projection. Sattva guna functions in the form of our natural interest to explore higher truth.

    Sri Ramakrishna describes the three gunas with the story of three thieves. Three thieves ambush a traveler in a forest. The thief representing Tamo guna says: “Let’s kill him and take all his belongings.” The second thief representing Rajo guna says: “Let’s give him some blows and bind him to a tree.” The thief representing Sattva guna takes the traveler to the road and shows him the way to the village.

    The sattvic aspect of Maya is called Jnana-shakti. It helps us take us beyond Maya.

    114th and 115th verses: Maya operates with two powers: Avarana-shakti, which conceals the reality and Vikshepa-shakti, which projects something false. Avarana-shakti is the cause of Vikshepa-shakti . These two together keep us bound to the world. The 115th verse describes concealment and the 114th verse describes false projection.

    The 114th verse lists different types of false projections on our true nature: desire for external objects, anger, greed, pride, jealousy, egoism and extreme competition.

    When we see the sunlight reflect on a mother of pearl, we mistake it for silver. We do not know that it is the outer shell of an insect – its true nature is concealed. We project a false identity (silver).

    116th verse: “Even one who is intellectually advanced, who knows scriptures, who understands the subtle truths and who is convinced of his learning – even such a person, by the power of Tamas, looks upon the unreal as the real and the real and unreal. This is the strength of Maya.”

    This ignorance of our true nature is not an absence of knowledge at an intellectual level. It refers to the state in which we live (at an emotional level) without awareness of our true nature.

    There is a gap between the truth of Vedanta and our understanding of Vedanta. Vedanta emphasizes Sukta, Yukta, Swanumbhuta (reading/listening, contemplating, experiencing) to evolve spiritually close this gap. When we do deep contemplation on spiritual truths, we can verify that a spiritual idea is as real as things in physical life.

    When we try to use what we know, then what we know becomes common sense.

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    57 min
  • Vivekachudamani 18 What is Maya? - By Swami Tattwamayananda

    Vivekachudamani 18 What is Maya? - By Swami Tattwamayananda
    Jun 13 2025
    The entire text is built around answering seven questions from the student in the 51st verse. The seven questions are: (1) What is this bondage? (2) How does it come about? (3) How does it exist and what sustains it? (4) How do we come out of it? (5) What is anatman? (6) What is the supreme Atman? (7) How do we differentiate between atman and anatman?

    The teacher starts by answering the 5th question first: “What is anatman”, by discussing different sarira (body). There are three sariras: Sthula sarira (gross body), sukhshma sarira (subtle body, the personality behind the gross body) and karana sarira (lack of understanding of our true nature).

    If we analyze the nature of this world, it is subject to change. It does not have permanent existence. It is called anatman in Vedanta.

    Karana-sarira is the actual cause of bondage. We forget our true nature (ignorant) and mistakenly identify ourselves with the physical body. It is called Avidya or Maya.

    This ignorance is not absence of knowledge at an intellectual level. It refers to the state in which we live (at an emotional level) without awareness of our true nature.

    110th verse describes Maya.

    It is avyakta. It does not have a verifiable dimension, such as name and form. Greed, anger and jealousy exist because of a lack of awareness of our true nature.

    It is paramesa-sakti. It is God’s power.

    It is Anadi – it does not have an origin, but it does have an end. It comes to an end when we realize our true nature.

    When awakening happens, we feel inner serenity and contentment, and we also become a source of serenity to those around us. Christ and Buddha had this contentment at their last moments.

    It is trigunatmika. It manifests through the three gunas: sattva (serenity), rajas (activity) and tamas (laziness).

    This world of name and form is a creation of Maya. It is a strange, mysterious reality. We understand it when we get out of it.

    Maya is composed of two sounds: “Ma”, which negates and “Ya” which is a pronoun and refers to something real. “Ya” refers to something “real”, but “Ma” negates it (not Real). It is only real in a relative sense.

    The idea of relative cannot be conceived with the idea of Absolute. The Absolute seen through the prism of time, space and causation is the relative.

    Maya can only be inferred. It does not have a visible form. It can be inferred when we reach a higher level of spiritual evolution. The unevolved only see the relative. The enlightened see both the Absolute and the relative. Ramana Maharshi saw this world as non-distinct from the Absolute.

    The 111th verse is a very celebrated verse, one that has been translated by Swami Vivekananda in many of his Vedanta lectures.

    Maya is a great mystery that cannot be defined. It is beyond "shabda pravirti nimittani" means it is beyond the five conditions necessary for us to be able to explain anything by words.
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    59 min

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