Continuing his counsel to the man involved in the useless repetition of a grammar rule, Sankara brings out the essential Vedantic truths. He has already pointes out that man is entangled in the cycle of birth and death. He is born again and again and experiences death too repeatedly! Whenever there is birth there is inevitable death! From the womb of the mother he finally lands into the lap of mother earth! In every birth he has various associations and relationships. He has father,mother, brother, sister,uncle, aunt and various other friends and other acquaintances. Counting the endless births of the individual and remembering the countless connections he has during the time of his present birth is practically impossible! The strong point of Hinduism is its principle of ‘ punarjanma’-rebirth! That is how the question of unmerited suffering is answered by our Sanatana Dharma! We have no unmerited suffering! All suffering or enjoyment is specifically merited by the individual as a result of his past Karma in his innumerable previous births!
Does anyone remember how many births he had earlier? Is it possible for him to remember his fathers, mothers , sisters, brothers, uncle's, aunts, friends and various acquaintances he had in his countless janmas? It is practically not possible! The accumulated karma, in the previous janmas, has to be experienced in full through suffering and enjoyment. Thus in every birth man reduces an infinitesimally small portion of his huge accumulated karma, dies, and is reborn again to experience and reduce his Karma! This is a cycle since he adds on to his past karma all the actions of his present birth whose effect he has to experience again and again! According to our Scriptures after a series of endless births, by reducing almost all Karma by suffering and enjoyment, man qualifies himself for salvation or mukti or emancipation!
Thus Sankara poses the questions: “who are you and who am I? From where do I come? Who is my mother? Who is my father?” Sankara wants everyone to ponder over these questions. These things and relationships are essenceless! The Whole world is an idle dream! It Is an illusion showing up the unreal as the real! “ Brahma Satyam Jagan Mithya”. In our dreams there is a sense of reality and we believe in them as long as we sleep! But the moment we wake up, we are relieved that it is, after all, a dream!
How many wives you had? “Who is your wife? Who is your son? Of whom are you? From where have you come? This Samsara is very strange! Sankara asks the brother to ponder over these truths! Sankara himself had a bitter experience of Samsara when he transmigrated into the body of the dead king to have a knowledge of its intricacies! In his “Karavalamba Stotra” he calls it sagara- ocean, kupa,- a deep well, jala,- a dragnet, sarpa- a poisonous serpent, vruksha- dense tree with innumerable branches, a fierce raging fire, a mad group of elephants run amuck etc! Family life or samsara is described as a shoreless sea and fathomless!
Caught in the web of birth and death, man undergoes the ups and downs of life! He enjoys and suffers not knowing that the world and all his trivial pleasures are transitory and meaningless! He is puffed up with pride and ego and pulled down by unsatiated desires! The more and more he attaches himself to his family and material things the more he throws himself into the abyss! He should realize that it is all an illusion and steer clear of them as early as possible! Illusion or Maya is avidya or ignorance! Illumination or light is knowledge or Jnana! It is a realization that the world is a dream and our existence is dream-like! Sankara, being a philosopher, warns man to understand these truths and conduct himself wisely and not waste his limited days on earth!!
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