I was listening to a contemporary mystic - a fine person indeed. However his interpretation of non-duality cannot be accepted. He interprets non-duality to mean that non-conceptual consciousness and manifest consciousness are one, in the sense that both are equally real. This kind of interpretation is not based on Sruti pramanam - rather it is based purely on an emotional investment in the sense of reality in the jagat.
How can the reality, which is unchanging,a ever-existent and free of all attributes, be changing as well?
Sruti points out that the changing reality in the form of the universe is a projection of the unchanging ever-existent infinite chaitanyam, seemingly possible because of its indescribable creative power. Within the projection, the universe is governed by the cosmic laws of cause and effect.
The changing universe is dependent in a two-fold way. Everything in the universe is dependent on n number of local factors to be what it is. Additionally, to prove that it exists, everything depends on the presence of a conscious being. Also nothing in the universe is permanent. Moment to moment the universe is never the same. It is an entirely different order of reality, (ontologically called the mithya) from the independent changeless consciousness on which it is dependent, and of which it is a seeming manifestation.
Non-duality inspite of the perceived differences in the universe is possible, because the universe is purely a projection on the changeless consciousness thru its indefinable creative power. What is the changeless, independent reality, does not undergo any real change to become a real universe.
This can best be understood through the example of dream. In the dream, you are there as a simple conscious being. There is nobody else. Yet you experience a diverse universe peopled with sentient beings and insentient things. You alone project yourself as all of these. One alone appears as many.
So too, the one changeless reality, appears as many. The changeless, independent infinite reality is real (satyam). The changing reality is dependent (mithya) on the changeless order of reality. As effect, the universe is non-different it's cause, the changing reality.
Om Tat Sat
