Rope & Snake

Om Namah Shivaya!  ‘Shiva’- Pure Consciousness is our nature.  Not knowing this, we are identified with ‘Shava’(Dead, inert Body) and feel that we are finite.  Real-Snake on the neck of Lord Shiva constantly beckons us to reflect on the classical example of Vedanta - “Snake on the rope” and come to realize that we are not ‘shava’ but SHIVA.  

1. Perception & Conception:  Perception is seeing a thing as it is. Perception can only be in the present moment.  Perception is factual.  Conception is not seeing what is and getting lost in memories, projecting and seeing something else.  Conception differs from people to people.  Conception is about the past or future.  Conception is imaginary.
   The rope is not perceived and in its place one conceives a snake or a garland or a stick or a crack in the earth or a stream of water etc.  This proves that the rope alone is.  Everything else is an illusion.  If snake was real everyone should see the snake.

2. Anvaya & Vyatireka: 
1. At any time one can either see the snake or the rope.
2. When the snake is, rope is.  This is anvaya.
3. Even when the snake is not, rope is.  Subtract the snake from the rope, rope alone remains. This is vyatireka of the snake.  The rope alone is at all times.  Thus the rope alone is real.

3. Creation:
1. If one sees the snake and asks, “From where was it born?” the answer is “From the rope”.  If one asks, “How can the inert rope produce the sentient snake?”, then the same question has to be asked to the one who is seeing the snake, because there is no snake and yet one is seeing it.
   If you see the world and ask – “From where the world was born?” the answer is “From Pure Consciousness”  If one asks – “How can the Infinite produce the finite, inert and insentient?”  We have to ask that to you because you are seeing the world as Real. 
2. When it is said, “From the consciousness, the world is born.”  It is not a real birth.  It is like the birth of a snake from the rope.  It is an illusion.
3. If one sees the snake, it is born out of the rope.  The rope sustains it.  It dissolves in the rope.  If the world is considered real, then Consciousness is the cause of the birth, sustenance and destruction of the world. 
4. Rope alone pervades the snake.  Consciousness alone pervades the whole world.  Consciousness pervades the 3 states of experiences.  It is antaryami.
5. Rope alone is the substratum of the snake, the garland, the stick etc.  Consciousness alone is the substratum of all the names and forms of the world.
6. The world disappears on realization.  Its disappearance is like the disappearance of the snake into the rope.  It was never there. 
7. Nothing has happened.  Rope is, was and will be.  Rope never became the snake.  Snake is ‘as though’ seen.  Consciousness alone is, was, will be.  There is no creation.  Creation never happened. 

4. Maya: The different superimpositions cannot be said to be unreal because they are seen.  They are cannot be said to be real because when the rope is seen all of them disappear. They are neither real nor unreal. Thus they are an illusion.  This is Maya.  Creation is not real because it is changing constantly.  It is neither unreal because we experience it.  The creation is an illusion – That which is not, but which appears to be.  

5. Sadhana: 
1. We do not see the rope.  We see the snake and are afraid.  We think that the snake is real and try to seek the solutions to end our fears.
   We study the Upanishads to seek a solution to our fears arising out of body-identification.  We have taken the body to be real and make a horoscope for it as well.  Upanishads are not to solve the problems but to make us realize that there is no problem at all. 
2. We hold on to the snake (BMI) and want to see the rope(Consciousness) through sadhana.  The only thing to be done is to give up the notions of the snake(neti neti). He, who chooses the rope exclusively, sees it, by negating all other superimpositions.  Rope will reveal itself to him.
3. What is meditation?  If the snake meditates on the rope, it is useless.  The snake can never know the rope.  The super-imposition cannot know the substratum.  Snake must give up its identity to know that it was always the rope alone.  Finite must give-up its identity to realize that it is Infinite.  Finite can never ‘become’ Infinite by any amount of Actions or Sadhana
4. The rope is farther than the farthest, for the snake.  The rope is nearer than the nearest, so to say, to itself.  Self is farther than the farthest for the one attached to BMI.  It is nearer than the nearest to the detached.
5. Searching & Seeking:  Where there is the snake, the rope is also there only.  Where there is agitation, peace is also present there itself.  Enquire into the substratum.  Don’t Search outside.  Seek Within.  Where there is ignorance, Knowledge is also there.

6. Time: The rope has no birth (in this context).  The snake has a birth and death, so to say.  The question- “When was the snake first born?” is a meaningless question, because, if the first birth of the snake is known, then, what existed before the first birth? The rope.  If you know the rope, how can you see the snake? 
   When was my first birth?, pre-supposes that time must exist first and then I am born.  But the truth is I am born and then time is born.  So it is answered that the snake existed from beginingless time.  Jiva existed from beginingless time.  But, upon knowing the rope, the snake ends.  Upon knowing the Self, Jiva ends. 

7. Action & Knowledge:  Any amount of action, to kill the snake, to tame the snake etc. is only temporary solution.  There will not be permanent freedom from fear and insecurity. When the knowledge of the rope arises, there is instant freedom from all fears and insecurity.  No amount of action can give us Total Happiness, Permanent Peace.  Knowledge of the Self alone can.  Action can only purify the mind to discover and abide in this knowledge.

8. Realisation:
1. Upon realization, the Jiva merges with Brahman, like the snake merges with rope.  The rope had never become the snake.  Brahman never became Jiva who merges back with Brahman.  Jiva- Brahma-Aikya is not 2 merging to become one.  The rope as though appeared as snake.  Snake did the sadhana, as though.   As a result, snake merged with rope, as though.
2. In Vedanta, liberation is not liberation from bondage.  It is to realize that there was no bondage.  There was no snake.  The rope alone is present at all times.  This is liberation, so to say.