Brahman is the World

Brahman is the World Let us begin our consideration with the Dharma Jewel of the Triple Gem. It is an intriguing fact that, even though the Dharma is often referred to as ‘eternal truth,’ it has, throughout the ages, undergone a few major evolutionary changes. Its continued evolution has, at times, uncovered groundbreaking new understandings about the nature of reality that have had significant consequences for our spiritual lives. So, it is well worth taking a moment to explore how the Eastern Dharma has evolved as it made its way through history and moved into the 21st century – especially in its attitude toward the manifest world, the world in which evolution occurs. All throughout the ancient world many Great Spiritual Tradi- tions of the East, such as Theravada Buddhism, viewed the mani- fest world as a dreadful illusion, a prison cell one needs to escape from. The ultimate goal was to get off the wheel of birth and death, escape this hellish world of suffering called Samsara, and attain the enlightened state of eternal peace, emptiness, and bliss in the heavenly realm called Nirvana. This orientation however, is essen- tially dualistic. Nirvana was seen as being separate from Samsara; The Dharma: Evolutionary Enlightenmet the world of form was felt to be divorced from formlessness. In the second century, however, the philosopher-sage Nagarju- na, who founded the Madhyamaka school of Mahayana Buddhism, caused nothing short of a revolution in Buddhism as he began to object to the peculiar duality between Samsara and Nirvana. He pointed out that emptiness and form are not-two, and that reality was actually nondual – a breakthrough perhaps most strikingly summarized by the famous verse from The Heart Sutra: “That which is Form is not other than Emptiness, that which is Emptiness is not other than Form.” This new insight did not only emerge in Buddhism. It is present in other traditions as well, such as Kashmir Shaivism, Advaita Vedanta, Vajrayana Buddhism, and Tantra. In our own day and age Ramana Maharshi, echoing Advaita Vedan- ta’s founding father Shankara, offered us a similar insight when he said: “The world is illusory; Brahman alone is real; Brahman is the world.” Emptiness and Form, indeed, are not-two. As the ontological difference between Nirvana and Samsara; Brahman and the world; Emptiness and Form was erased, the form aspect of reality began to be more fully embraced. After all, when Emptiness and Form are recognized as One Single Reality, the world of form reveals itself as a direct expression — a radiant gesture — of the Divine, and needs to be appreciated as such. This radically new orientation swept the ancient world and dramatically changed the way people conducted their spiritual lives. Spirituality was no longer about fleeing one half of reality and hiding in the other, but about uniting both halves. And enlightenment came to mean: the nondual union of Emptiness and Form.