The abode of Heaven

If advaita metaphysics teaches that absolute truth lies in uniqueness and that relative in human knowledge that is dual, what is evident at first glance by the grasp of our senses is relative reality, subject to errors because it responds to the criteria of speculative reason and reflective processes of the mind, but that is "our" reality. The weak qualities of relative reality where there is heaven above us and earth beneath our feet, do not nullify its existence, which is real within its own order. Since our heaven and our earth are present throughout the continuity of our lives, they exist and because they exist they come from the Absolute, although to have a true knowledge of their nature it is necessary to go to the beginnings of non-dual metaphysics.

The most direct objection to the recognition that the Absolute is the abode of Heaven and Earth arises from the phrase "He is the only bridge to immortality" ( Mundaka Upanishad, II, 2, 5). And the strength of the objection is based on the true assertion that the Absolute rejects any idea of ​​duplicity, given that the bridge implies the existence of two shores; that is, one side from which one goes to another side to which said bridge leads. Shankaracharya fights the objection with an appointment and an explanation: the quotation is from Brihad? Ranyaka Upanishad, II, 4, 12, which says, referring to the Absolute: "Endless, without another shore beyond." And the explanation is this: “We point out here that the word bridge has a meaning related to what is being said. A bridge holds. Do not think that it has another side. In no way should we assume that this bridge is normal, built with clay and wood. Since the word setu (bridge), from riva of the root siñ which means to paste and the idea of ​​holding together, the idea of ​​holding more than being connected with something beyond is also implied ”( Brahma-S? After, Comments by Shankara, p. 143, ed. Trotta, Madrid 2000, by Consuelo Martín).

The constant mobility of the interpretation of writing, between the literal and the esoteric, to which the symbolic and the figurative sense must be added, greatly complicates the purpose of unraveling the most appropriate meaning of certain passages of the sacred texts. On this occasion, in Shankaracharya's opinion, the text has to be read applying the figurative meaning, that is, where bridge says, one must understand support or support that sticks or joins. In another case, if the quotation is read widely without leaving out what precedes it and what happens to it, it can be noticed without fear of error that one is talking about Brahma, the creative divinity of the universe; that is, one of the aspects assumed by God Brahaman . In that Upanishad, II, 4, 1, it reads: “Manifesto, close, moving in the cave of the heart, is the great Being. In it is centered everything that we know as movement, breathing, blinking, what we know as Being and Non-Being, the adorable, the best, what is beyond the understanding of creatures. ” This P? Dha of the second Khanda, is its beginning, and everything that will be explained later will always refer to the Supreme Being, the Absolute. There can be no doubt. That is why there is also coherent understanding when in Brahma-S? After it is said after the appointment of Shankaracharya, that “The chains of the heart are broken and all doubts find a solution, all actions grow when one can contemplate, for He is the Supreme among the supreme ”( Mundaka Upanishad, II, 2, 8). For all this it seems logical to think that the phrase: "He is the only bridge to immortality" can not offer any doubt to whom it refers.

The reference to the Absolute is quite evident, since nothing in the cave of the heart of the individual being can manifest itself close and move, as expressed by the Upanishad, nobody or anything other than the Absolute since the heart is the center of the individual being and the residence of the appropriate powers so that with the help of Pure Consciousness, the individual being can merge into the Absolute. The activity of consciousness in an attitude of meditation that leads to contemplation of the Absolute can only originate in the heart, the natural residence of intelligence and intellectual intuition, and therefore, far from the reflexive or speculative methods of reason resident in the brain.

Another reference to the human heart is contained in Padha 8, as we transcribed in previous lines. "The chains of the heart are broken, " says the writing. Breaking the chains of the heart means breaking with the moral and sensitive bonds that hold the most noble of the human being, with the claws of earthly temptations. It is the chains of the heart that must be destroyed in order for the "union" of being with the Supreme Being to take place, which moves in the cave of the heart. This break is consummated when the being in a state of contemplation achieves its purposes for having achieved total detachment with the objects of the physical world. Broken the chains of the heart, all doubts dissipate and all actions grow when the being contemplates the Supreme among the supreme; that is to say to Brahman over Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, the Hindu ternary (diverse from the Christian Trinity), which are some of the aspects, as we explain in another study, that the Great God assumes for the rejoicing of men to whom that way they open the free path of religion. The expression "All actions grow" must be interpreted as the optimization of the oblations of those who do not devote themselves to contemplate the Absolute and, however, if necessary, they are tempted by contemplation after detachment, their oblations win the sympathy of the Absolute for having broken the chains of his heart that was dedicated exclusively to rituals and good works.

In addition to what has been said, the previous quotation mentions Being and Non-Being as who is in the cave of the human heart, moving close to it. This closeness represents the incitement of the Being so that the human being tries the detachment as the first step towards the beneficial meditation. If the quotation in its literality expresses that it is within the moving heart, it cannot logically say that it is "close" when in fact it is already within. This closeness must be interpreted as spiritual and not physical. In this case the figurative sense helps the interpretation that finds no other way to explain in a few words a sacred aspect of this metaphysics. It should be borne in mind that the great difficulty of reading these texts is due to the constant bending between the divine and the human; a permanent inter-reference between the Being and the being, so that the Being seems to show itself again and again in the eyes of the intelligence of the individual being so that it reacts to the perverse stimuli of relative reality and seeks the way of contemplation, joining that apparent duplicity in what, however, was always unique.

Being and Non-Being are the two aspects of Creation that can be identified as manifestation and the unmanifest. It is of such immensity the idea that encompasses both aspects, which cannot be the Absolute, but the consequence of its creative will. The Upanishad quote does not say that it is the Being and the Non-Being, but that it focuses on everything we know as movement, breathing, blinking, what we know as Being and No -It will be. What focuses on Being and Non-Being is the greatness of Creation in its two possible aspects: the manifested and the unmanifested. From a purely human point of view and serving a more accessible understanding, Being and Non-Being are outside the Absolute because they are the expression of their creative will more, from a point of view of the Non-dual metaphysics, Being and Non-Being never cease to be in the conception of the uniqueness of the Absolute. And in this there is no figurative sense but two ways of understanding the same issue. In other words: the Being and Non-Being are in the Creation and therefore outside the Creator of which they are their expression from a point of view of the dualistic metaphysics that is based in knowledge For the non-dualist based on the evidence of Pure Consciousness, they have never ceased to be the Absolute itself, unique and without second or other.

As for the word bridge, it is here, used symbolically, which has a different range from the figurative sense. The bridge in the Upanishad appointment is a symbol of support and glue, or it could also mean the path of Hindi liberation. The liberation of the contingencies of the human state to, once released feel or know by the state of consciousness that is already joined to the Absolute. Ren Gu non explains with these words the symbolism of the bridge: The two shores symbolize two different states of being and it is evident that the rope is in that case the same as the thread that joins these two states between them., that is, the s? Tr? Tm? ( Fundamental symbols of Sacred Science, p. 283, ed. Paid s, Barcelona 1995). And later: The two worlds present on the two shores are, in a more general sense, the sky and the earth ( ibidem, p. 284). In the next chapter Guà © nnon gives an explanation of the bridge which, when it assumes a vaulted shape similar to the rainbow, symbolizes the union of Heaven and Earth.

There is no doubt that the bridge interpreted in a semantic key by renowned authors is a sustenance and union, without it being correct to transfer this symbol to Nature (Pradh? Na) . A symbol or the interpretation of a symbol cannot change the nature of an object of manifestation, and even less, of non-manifestation. If we talk about fundamental symbols we will have to rely on tradition. For example, in the icon of the Nativity of Jesus, the newborn is flanked by an ass and a bull; anyone would say that it is a tender and bucolic image, when in reality it is a symbolism that represents good and evil given what each of these two animals in the tradition means by itself symbolic We have dealt with the subject quite extensively in our study The icon of the Nativity, on the web ATRIVM-Towards the essence of Christianity, of the Symbols ring.

Heaven and Earth that the previously transcribed scriptures speak of are not, in principle, in manifestation. The manifested Heaven is a concession of the Space element to the boundaries of the globe; and as for the Earth, it is one of the elements of Creation. In any case and bearing in mind that the Being is in a corner of the cavern of the heart, it is not inadmissible to consider that it is an earthly reference. The writing says: “What is here is also there; and what is there is also here. Death after death gets who sees difference in it ”( Katha Upanishad, II, 11). Before, at No. 7, he had said: “The fire, hidden in the two logs that are rubbed to produce it, as an embryo well protected by pregnant women, is worthy of being venerated day by day by attentive men. This really is that. ” Because ultimately, as it has been repeated so many times, the Being is in the individual being, limited by the bodily form, but it is not a part of the Being or a residue of Him, because the body has disintegrated after death, the Being is it recovers, in the same way that space does with the one that was limited by the edges of a clay jar that, when broken, the union of everything that was separated only in appearance occurs, as two parts that were never such, but because of the dualistic knowledge with which the human being knows the earthly.

From a strictly metaphysical point of view, Heaven and Earth have their residence in the Absolute, which reabsorbs everything, as the Universe is reabsorbed in its complex totality. Heaven is reabsorbed as a way of being of the space element, and Earth as the dense form of the element of the same name, fifth of Creation. Heaven and Earth have their mission in the manifested Creation, and in the unmanifest they serve as a bridge for the yoghi liberated by detachment to meet in unity with the Infinite. There is a Heaven and an Earth in the manifestation considered as a Gnostic objective for man. And there is a Heaven and an Earth, which captures Pure Consciousness in the Oneness of Being, and nothing outside of It. And this is so because Total Possibility is constantly required by the Universal Being to make possible beings emerge in a world that admits everything possible because it is in permanent movement.

However, and as we briefly indicated before, Heaven and Earth have a decisive importance in the understanding of the state of manifestation as a totality of the multiple states that the Being can cover in it, including, obviously, the human state. This is how René Guénon explains it, referring to the Great Eastern Triad, expressing that “Man appears in it truly as the synthesis of the ten thousand beings, that is, of everything that is contained in the integrality of the universal Existence” ( The Grand Triad, p. 11, Paidós, Barcelona 2004). The cap. III of this same work begins with a blunt statement: "Heaven covers, Earth supports", which constitutes the description of the two functions or missions of these two terms of the triad, "and which symbolically defines their situations, respectively superior and inferior, in relation to the ten thousand beings, that is, to the whole of the universal manifestation ”( ibidem, p. 18), including man, obviously. Being the Earth a support, it also acts as a containment of the forces or influences that act in a descending manner on the manifestation, and “this can be applied to any level of existence, since it can always be considered, in a relative sense, that the essence and substance, in relation to every state of manifestation, are, for that particular state taken, the principles that correspond to what are the universal Essence and Substance for all states of manifestation ” (ibidem) .

In a universal sense, man is the mediator between Heaven and Earth, the bridge, thus integrating the essential (Heaven) and substantial (Earth) triad, which despite that universal character that is characteristic of all metaphysics, is not nevertheless of absolute character in non-dualistic metaphysics, because when distinguishing the essential and the substantial a limitation is introduced or, if desired, a distinction, which tarnishes any possibility of considering them as an absolute perfection, which is the character of all uniqueness. Heaven and Earth, then, whether as an unmanifest universal or as a state of manifestation, are inextricably linked as two components of that triad that completes man, who acts as a mediator between them (bridge that joins or strikes, as we saw before), or as a component of a state of Being, which is covered by Heaven that covers everything (subtle aspect of manifestation) and that is sustained or sustained by Earth, which is the dense aspect of the manifested.

Na