11am Sunday Talk: “The Equations of Maya”
(according to John Dobson)
 PART 2, with Br. Shankara

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or via Zoom by clicking here.

This Sunday at 11am, we continue our talk and discussion with Part 2 of “The Equations of Maya” (according to John Dobson)!
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May is a month for study of Jnana Yoga (advaita vedanta). As a jnana yogi, you practice discrimination, reason, detachment, and satyagraha (insistence on Truth). The goal is freedom from limitation . Our teachers say that all miseries in life are caused by seeing inaccurately. An earnest and persistent jnani may break through this misapprehension (Maya) and see only the Divine Presence everywhere, in everything and everyone. 

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Last week, taking time for the congregation’s comments and questions, we got through about half of this long discourse on the nature of reality. Afterward, a devotee called to say that John’s text — as read nearly verbatim — was difficult to follow. It’s possible others felt the same way.

This week, I’ll offer a short summary of what was covered last Sunday. Then, the rest of Dobson’s talk on how Brahman appears to us as this Universe will be interpreted, in the hope of being more listener-friendly. 

John Dobson earned a Masters in Chemistry from UC Berkeley in 1943. He went on to become an astronomer, student of human history, and Vedanta philosopher.

Dobson wrote, “Modern cosmologists usually take non-existence for granted and hope to get the Universe out of nothing. But must we assume that in the absence of the Universe and in the absence of space and time there would be nothing? Or can we, without so rash an assumption, find clues to what might remain if instead we take existence for granted but leave out space and time? Could what remains, through apparition or maya, appear as this Universe? Can we, from what remains, get a Universe of gravity, electricity and inertia?”

“”There cannot be two existences, only one.”  — Swami Vivekananda