Gods, Lokas and the concept of Oneness in Advaita Vedanta

Sri Sunil perceived a contradiction in Advaita Vedanta,
and posted a message on the Advaitin Yahoo group.
He formulated this question:

"If Self is Brahman and if all is one, there is only Brahman
and everything else is Maya. Why then if we are able to
transcend all the Gunas, including Sattwic Gunas, we are
able to find a place amongst the "heavenly denizens".
Does it mean another level of consciousness, maybe at a
different frequency, exists, and is that the reason we
talk of different Lokas? Does this not go against the
philosophy of Advaitism? I mean if there are different
Lokas inhabited by celestials, then where does the
oneness principle go?"

Here is an elaborated attempted answer:

The three gunas are part of the illusion created
by the Maya of Shakti. In order to understand the
relationship between the three gunas and the different
Lokas, and also their relationship to consciousness,
it is necessary to know something about Shakti.

Maya means magic. Maya is the magical power of Shakti.
Many Western scholars translate the word Maya into the
English word 'illusion', 'the whole universe being
an illusion', but really Maya in Sanskrit means magic,
the power to create illusion, not the illusion itself.

The Monier Williams Sanskrit dictionary gives the
following English translation:

Maya (as a feminine noun) = Art, wisdom, extraordinary
or supernatural power (only in the earlier Sanskrit
language), illusion, unreality, deception, fraud, trick,
sorcery, witchcraft, magic.

All these English meanings seem relatively accurate,
and to condense them into one useful word... 'magic'
or 'magical power' is perhaps preferred?

Monier Williams indicates that Maya (when masculine-
feminine-neuter or adjective) also means measuring,
or creating illusion (said particularly of Vishnu) and
is derived from the verbal root 'Ma' which is the base
of the first person pronoun in the accusative case (me).
These meanings are suggestive of measuring by means
of mathematical law. Shankara states that Maya is
eightfold, a concept which can be translated into
Western philosophical language as: The Law of Octaves.
The action and interaction of the three gunas, rajas,
tamas, sattva, can additionally be understood as The
Law of Three. The creation of the illusion of 'the me',
is an attempt to superimpose the accusative object
upon the nominative subject, mistaking the one for
the other, which is the fundamental illusion discussed
in depth by Shankara in his Brahma Sutra Bhasya.

Combining these concepts: Maya is comprehensible
as two magical mathematical laws... of triads and
octaves... in which the illusion of the universe is
produced and artfully entwined with the deception
of me as the Self.

Shakti is said to awake when Brahman sleeps, and
conversely when Brahman awakes then Shakti sleeps,
and the two actually are each other, although they
do not appear ever to meet. Shakti is usually
regarded as a chimaera, and Brahman as the only real.
Advaita states: you are Brahman and Shakti is your
coeval companion. You can never divorce her. How
can you divorce yourself?

The Self never sleeps. Therefore the statement
"when Brahman sleeps, Shakti is awake and when Brahman
is awake, Shakti sleeps" requires subtle explanation.
The explanation is that the Brahman referred to is
not an absolute. Brahman is not the same as yourself,
the Self, the Absolute.

It takes three things to produce a universe... energy,
awareness and mathematical law. Shakti is the energy,
Brahman is the awareness, and the manifestation is
accomplished through the enactment of two mathematical
laws: (i) The Law of Three, which is Prakriti. Prakriti
is the arena of Primordial Nature in which the warfare
of the three gunas is played out, each endlessly
struggling for domination. (ii) The Law of Octaves
is the law governing the succession of manifestation,
or the succession of levels by which the universe is
composed. Shakti first creates an octave of successionary
dimensions and then enters into the octave at every level.
Therefore, although you may not realize it, you encounter
her at every level. The octave of levels that Shakti-Maya
produces consists of the five subtle elements of:

akasha (space = individual and universal mind)
vayu (air = prana, life, power)
tejas (fire = consciousness, light and the forms)
jala (water = nature)
prithivi (earth = the gross physical manifestation)

Beyond akasha-space there are three further higher
levels completing the octave, which are said to be
beyond the range of human comprehension. Sometimes
these levels are hinted at as being beyond space,
or the other side of space.

Shankara refers to the octave in his
Bhagavad Gita Bhasya VII.4

"This Prakriti (primordial nature) thus described,
is my divine power of Maya, divided eightfold."

You, being Brahman, are awareness only and are
timelessly still. You never move. Shakti, being
energy, is responsible for all movement. Without
her energy you cannot move. When you become weary
of being still, never moving, you lament. Shakti
hears your cry, understands your request, and creates
the universe and everything and everyone in it. The
universe is infinite response to request, and I regret
to have to inform you... You must have requested it.
The universe isn't going to go away until you
subsequently become thoroughly disinterested with it.
The disinterested witness is that awareness within us
which does not move, nor is attracted towards
the universe, nor ever becomes entangled in it.

Maya has produced the universe for you, as a Lila,
a drama, with yourself apparently playing a part in
it, even appearing to move, talk, gesticulate, love,
desire, and hate. It is a very very subtle and
convincing illusion. The part you are playing in the
universe does not suspect that it is in a complete
illusion created by the magical power of your own
companion Shakti. Worse, the part you are playing
does not realize that he himself is a fictitious
character, a mere part in a play, a jiva. You may
prefer to believe you are at least an actor, or a
director, or even the god-like author of it. Being
a mere part is not a very flattering image. In fact
most people cannot bear being a jiva, which inevitably
is only a minor part in the drama, a severely limited
nature. All this discomfort is because we have
identified with the part, a jiva, and do not realize
that 'who we think they are' is actually non-existent.
It is as if Hamlet believes that he is a real person,
and no longer has any intimation that he is merely
a part in a play. How can Hamlet know that he is a
part in a play? He cannot, unless that is written
into the script of the play? Who then is the actor?
The actor is your own spiritual self, the buddhi.
The parts in the play are all being played by spirits.
Your spiritual self lives in the higher intellect. He
is standing behind you, projecting you, projecting
your nature, in exactly the same manner that an
actor projects his part in a play. You ordinarily
have no idea that he is there. Hamlet does not realize
that there is an actor located behind him, projecting
him.

How can a part in a drama, in the theatre of the universe,
realize that it is nothing more than a part in a drama?
You, the part, cannot know you are a part, only the
audience can. The audience in the theatre of the universe
is the witness, which in the language of Advaita is the
Sakshin. In the entire theatre only the audience, the
witness, is real. There are two witnesses, Sakshin and
Purusha. Sakshin is the lower witness and Purusha is the
higher witness. Sakshin is located in the stalls of the
theatre of the universe and Purusha is high up in the
upper circle, looking down. The Sakshin observes the Law
of Octaves, and with the help of citta, memory and
understanding, sees that it is all a mechanism, and
completely unreal. Purusha looks down and sees that
everything is merely the action and interaction
of the three gunas, wrestling with each other in an
arena of the universe, entwining, like the three
strands that compose a rope. Purusha realizes that
the three interacting gunas constitute Prakriti, Nature.
It is the Purusha who sees the Law of Three exactly as
it is, something not to be entangled in. Contrary to
what Samkhya Philosophy may teach, Purusha is never
entangled in Prakriti, never involved in the
interaction of the gunas. Purusha has location, but
has no form and no power. Since location is related to
the subtle element space, causal power is related to the
subtle element air, and form is related to the subtle
element of fire, therefore it is concluded that Purusha
is beyond consciousness and fire, beyond action and air,
but not beyond mind and space. Therefore Purusha is
not an absolute, although Purusha is as near to the
Absolute as someone in the world can approach, as close
as the mind can approach.

You are the witness inside the universe, and outside of
the universe... you are the Absolute. But contrarily,
you, your pure consciousness, the Atman, believe you
are a nature, your own nature, your character, your 'I',
your 'me', and the theatre prompt puts your words, your
lines, into your mind and you speak them, believing they
are your own thoughts and words and actions. As you are
only in the universe as the witness, the invited audience,
how can anything be your own? By identifying with a jiva
it is the Atman that has become entangled with Prakriti,
not Purusha. It is your pure consciousness, looking out,
that has identified with a nature, a jiva, which is
nothing more than an unreal theatrical projection of
the buddhi.

The Law of Three is the three gunas.
Brahma is the personification of rajas guna, Shiva
is the personification of tamas guna, and Vishnu is
the personification of sattva guna. In Western language
they represent the positive, the negative and the neutral.
They are commonly identified as Creator, Destroyer,
Maintainer (or alternatively: the Preserver). They
each have their own Loka or world. Brahma Loka is Heaven,
a benevolent place where the positive is believed to be
the good, and where all support all. It is subtle fire.
You ascend to it by understanding alone. Siva Loka is
Hell, a malevolent place where the negative is believed
to be the good, and where the jivas smash each other
into myriad fragments, it is subtle earth, and you
descend into it by your attraction to the truth. It
is the destination of the yogis. Vishnu Loka is a Great
Mass of Being, subtle water, the Ocean into which
everything real dissolves without trace and is thereby
preserved. There is a horizontal way to Vishnu Loka
which is actively followed by the bhogis who slowly
accumulate enjoyment. Enjoyment evolves being and your
being is in reality part of the Great Mass of Universal
Being which is Vishnu Loka. The action and interaction
of the three gunas, the warfare between the three
great gods, is Prakriti. Prakriti is an endless
irresolvable melee, something that Purusha, the highest
witness within you, realizes is not something
one should become entangled with. If you find yourself
located in, sojourning in, an inhabitant of, any of
the three Great Lokas, you will not be able to stay
there for ever. Everything is temporary. Eventually
you have to leave and take another birth. None of the
Lokas is absolute. Some advaitins state that Brahma
Loka is a half-way house.

So now... to attempt to answer your question:

"Where does the oneness go?" It never goes anywhere,
it has never moved. If you seem to be moving
you can be sure you are engulfed in Shakti's
illusion. Being still, being perfectly still, is a
sadhana recommended for approaching Brahman, for
approaching yourself. The Self is stillness so how
can you possibly approach it other than being still?

The Loka with the heavenly denizens is Brahma Loka,
a golden world of heavenly light. O brave new world
that there are such people in it! It is part of the
illusion. You are still in the realm of the gunas
and haven't transcended them. The Parabrahman is the
One Alone. There are no others in the Parabrahman,
no celestial beings cohabiting with you as separate
entities for you to socialize with.

Advaita teaches that consciousness is One, there are
no levels of consciousness. Consciousness is light,
Isvara's light, dancing in the brain, which reflects
upon the screen of the mind, producing the world,
which you find interesting. Light is associated with
sattva, and also with Isvara, Ishvara's light is
consciousness which creates the world. Even the Atman
is a type of inner light ... all this light, all this
consciousness, indicates that you are still in the
realm of the gunas, and still in the illusion. Sattva
is the guna of light and consciousness. The Absolute
is awareness of awareness, and stands behind
consciousness. When you become aware of consciousness
for what it is, you realize that consciousness is a
temporary condition, which will leave you at death,
when it will rejoin the universal consciousness.
It is a mistake to think that consciousness is your
own, or your own individual possession. Consciousness
is not a personal possession.

Nisargadatta states: "Consciousness is normally
associated with an individual. But it is not really
the individual that has consciousness, but it is
the consciousness that assumes innumerable forms."
Consciousness produces the world, including the
suffering. Consciousness is merely a subtle form
of energy, and energy is indicative of Shakti,
the creator of the illusion. Consciousness merely
illuminates the forms, and if there are forms then
you are still in the illusion, because the Absolute,
including Shakti, has no form. You are not
consciousness, nor anything within its contents.
It is difficult to accept that consciousness is part
of the illusion. The Atman identifies with a form
within consciousness. The form that the Atman
identifies with is your nature, the jiva. The Atman
is being tricked by Isvara and Shakti. Why? That is
the ultimate mystery which perhaps can only be
resolved by knowledge and understanding of the error?
Maya Shakti is particularly associated with arousal
and manifestation of the Aham (I am) and the animation
of the buddhi (intellect) in man, in the sense of
evoking the illusion of the ego, and the formation
of an image of a natural self in the mind, which is
merely a projection of the intellect, and with which
the pure consciousness, the Atman, so automatically
identifies as itself. Nisargadatta states: "Identity
occurs only when there is the `I am'. The Parabrahman
is without identity. The concept or thought `I am'
is not there in the Parabrahman. Everyone assumes a
certain image of themselves, believing I am so and so.
The image is merely an intellectual concept about
oneself. When this is seen for what it is, and
understood to be the source of one's actions, one
becomes free of it by seeing it as false."

But why the Shakti produces an illusion in front of
our consciousness knowing we will identify with it....
is an interesting question. I do not know the answer,
but I offer an hypothesis that it is connected with
the separation of the Atman from Brahman. It is perhaps
an attempt to remove ignorance associated with the
Atman? Shakti does this by exposing the ignorance in
the Atman. Atman has separated from Brahman and as a
result the entire illusory manifestation, Prakriti,
comes into being with the object of helping the Atman
to return to the unicity of Self. In man the Atman
is pure consciousness that is looking out. In ignorance
Atman identifies with something in Prakriti, something
illusory, a nature, a person, and the identified Atman
becomes firmly bonded, glued to, the illusory jiva.
The Atman is now known as the jivatman. Atman's
identification with what it is not.... is ignorance.
The jivatman, having become completely enmeshed
in Prakriti, is played with mercilessly until it
disengages itself from Prakriti. The entire universe,
Shakti's illusory universe, all the scenes, all the
things in it, and all the people in it.... are merely
playing with you. The mystery of the world is that...
everyone and everything is playing with you. They may
appear as bodies, they may appear to be natural people
living ordinary lives, but they are not... they are
spirits acting out parts, and they are all playing
with you. When, momentarily, the spirits reveal
themselves to you, the dramatic effect becomes intense...
until you realize that they, the spirits, are all
merely subtle mechanisms, part of the gigantic turning
Cosmic wheel of Prakriti, which creates and presents
the scenes of your life. Prakriti consists of the
three gunas, manifesting at the gross, subtle and
causal levels. To completely transcend the gunas you
have to transcend the causal world.

The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad states that you, the
Atman, couldn't stand being one alone. You wanted a
companion. Shakti is your companion, and by her power
she turns you into a multitude. Nisargadatta says:
"Yes, this occurs at the threshold of your being,
which is the I-am state, but the ultimate state is
beyond the grasp of both the mind and the Upanishads.
In the ultimate there is no desire." Therefore Shakti
is the companion of Brahman, but the Absolute has no
companion and is the One Alone. Shakti is Brahman's
desire but the Absolute is desireless. It may be
concluded that Brahman and the Absolute are not the
same. The Absolute is beyond Brahman. Brahman and
Atman, the separation of Atman from Brahman, and the
return... are also part of the drama. They and their
separation are the central event around which the whole
drama and manifestation of the universe revolves.
That is the entertainment. The child consciousness,
the Bal-Krishna, the child in your breast, finds it
all highly entertaining, and perhaps he subtly induces
it all, and then enjoys the result, as he grows and
evolves slowly towards the perfect Mahat.... the holy
form of yourself. But the Self is not an enjoyer, and
consequently is indifferent to entertainment. The
Self does not evolve. All evolution is in Prakriti.
The holy perfect form of yourself is not yourself.
It is the subtle inducement to get you to take up
the offer of the incarnation. You have no form.

Conceptually, Shakti cannot be understood unless the
Absolute is transcendental to, and beyond, Brahman. For
this reason the concept of the Parabrahman is formulated,
as that which is transcendental to Brahman. The Sanskrit
word para means: transcendental, into the remotest
extreme, that which is faintly detectable only at the
extremity of consciousness and which then is realized
to be located beyond the range of human faculties.
The Parabrahman is absolute, whereas Brahman is not
an absolute. The Brahman which is not an absolute is
Saguna Brahman, ie Brahman at the level of the three
gunas. Saguna Brahman is Sat-Chit-Ananda, which is
translated as: Being-Consciousness/Knowledge-Bliss.
But the Absolute, The Parabrahman, is beyond being,
beyond consciousness, beyond knowledge, and beyond
bliss.

There are probably three forms of Saguna Brahman, each
related to one of the gunas. The Brahman associated
with tamas is Shiva's Brahman, the ground, the
fundamental basis of the here and now, that upon which
the world is superimposed, subtle earth. It is the
Paramarthika. It is the truth. Although Siva's Brahman
is beyond comprehension, it can move slightly and reveal
itself as the fused heads of some ancient yogis. The
Brahman associated with sattva is in fact Vishnu's Brahman,
or Vishnu Loka, a transcendental Mass of Being into which
everything real is preserved, into which all the beings
dissolve without trace, everyone dissolving into subtle
water, the Ocean of universal impersonal being. It is
the real. The Brahman associated with rajas, is Brahma's
Brahman, subtle fire. It is a Loka of golden light,
into which your own light merges into the company of
heavenly light. It is the union of understanding.
Great though these forms of Saguna Brahman are,
they are all fundamentally illusory. Possibly some
advaitins may have confused Vishnu Loka and Siva
Loka with the Parabrahman. They may have encountered
one of the forms of the relative Saguna Brahman
and believed it to be the Absolute Parabrahman.

Nirguna Brahman is the Brahman without qualities and
to which nothing can be attributed. For those who
desire to attribute something to Nirguna Brahman
it is said to be beyond consciousness, or consciousness
when it becomes free of the three gunas. It is the
undifferentiated, when space disappears, the state
when 'I am' is transcended, when the sense of 'I am'
passes into oblivion, the disappearance of the whole
of identity, when being is transcended, an eternal
non-being state, the eternal state, the totally free
state, beyond bliss and suffering, beyond thought,
the Observer without qualities, the unmanifested
Absolute.

The Parabrahman is the transcendental. It not eternal,
it is timeless. It is neither of the opposites. It
is transcendental to the unmanifest Nirguna and the
manifest Saguna, which are both merely mental concepts.
To all and everything it is the beyond, the transcendental.

Nisargadatta states: "Saguna and nirguna are one in
Parabrahman. There is only the Supreme. In movement it
is saguna. Motionless it is nirguna. But it is only
the mind that moves or does not move. The ultimate is
beyond, you are beyond."

Advaita is a philosophy which is almost impossible
to understand, but it becomes slightly more easy
to understand if three levels of Brahman are
formulated: Saguna Brahman, Nirguna Brahman, the
Parabrahman. Of these three, only the Parabrahman
can be regarded as truly Absolute. Saguna and
Nirguna are part of the drama.

Brahma Loka is for those who ascend by understanding,
but understanding is only a stage. Nisargadatta states:
"You must go beyond this understanding stage, to a
stage beyond, you must come to a state of "I have not
understood anything." "The ultimate point of view is
that there is nothing to understand, so when we try
to understand, we are only indulging in flights of
concepts across the sky of the mind."

Understanding includes the realization that the truth
is beyond the mind. Understanding includes the
realization that the Self is beyond the mind.
At a certain significant point the mind has
to be abandoned, and at that moment there has to be
an expansion into the greater. In Sanskrit the word
Brahman derives from a verbal root 'brh' which means
to expand. One goes beyond the mind when the mind
expands instantly, explodes, into a greater dimension
which intimates its presence by knocking on the walls
of one's small confining consciousness. Hearing the
sound coming from the Paramarthika, one gives it
attention.... and the same instant you expand.... you
become everything, everything becomes you. That is the
oneness you speak of. It has not gone anywhere. It is
always there. It is you who has gone somewhere...
you have moved away, just a little, from Brahman.
This is the Brahman state, but it is not the
Parabrahman, which is not a state, and is beyond
both language and conceptualization and therefore
disappointingly cannot be described.

Atman believes he is Atman. Atman believes he is
individual awesome pure consciousness looking out.
Atman believes he is everything and everything is
himself. The ignorance is in the Atman. Shakti has
through her intermediaries, Maya and Ahamkara, animated
the Buddhi, which is part of Isvara's light, bringing
it to apparent illusory life. Latent 'being', static
in the buddhi, manifests by the mere touch of Ahamkara.
The Buddhi projects the jiva, your nature. The Atman
within you, your pure consciousness, believing it is
everything, sees the jiva, and moves towards it,
identifying with it. Once your consciousness
identifies with the jiva you become it. You are glued
to it for endless transmigratory existences. The ignorance
involves moving, identifying with what one is not,
believing oneself to be an individual, believing oneself
to be consciousness looking only outwards, failing to
discriminate between the real and the not-real.
Atman lacks knowledge. Atman does not know that if
you can see it, you cannot be it. Pure consciousness
lacks knowledge.

Atman has separated from Brahman... yes.
Atman is pure consciousness... yes.
Consciousness is One... yes.
I am pure consciousness that is One... no.
As soon as you say "I am" the error occurs.
"I am", believing that it is One, believing that
everything is itself, identifies with whatever it
sees. I am that. That is myself. That is how
the error occurs.

The Atman is the centre of the error.
The Atman is pure consciousness looking out.
The "I am" manifests in the Atman.
As soon as a form appears, the Atman says "I am
that." As soon as Atman says "I am that" he becomes
that. It is true that because Atman is pure awesome
consciousness, Atman must be everything, simply
because consciousness is One. But there is something
which can see the Atman, see the Atman as pure
awesome consciousness, and see the jiva as an
illusion projected by the animated manifested being
of the buddhi, which in turn is a contrivance of Ishvara
and Maya. That which sees, knows and understands the
flaw in the Atman is wiser than the Atman. The Atman
is being observed by something which Atman cannot see.
Atman is glimpsed by Purusha, the highest witness.
Purusha has no form, and therefore cannot be seen.
Purusha does not say "I" or "I am". Purusha just
observes. But Purusha, in turn, is known by something
which observing Purusha's location. That observer is
awareness. Next, there is that which is aware of that
awareness. It is timeless and without location. Nothing
can be said about it because there appears to be no
observer of it.


You are the awareness that is aware of consciousness.
Awareness stands behind consciousness. Atman is
not Atman. Atman is Brahman. But ultimately, you
are neither Atman, nor Brahman. They are also part
of the illusion, they are the highly refined,
awesome, and truly great parts of the illusion.
First you become them, then you transcend them.

You are transcendental awareness. Awareness ever
transcendental to itself. You are the final
observer in a chain of observers. This is because
you are in all the other observers as the awareness
that makes observation possible. The ultimate observer
is the observer of awareness. All that can be
said is... you are the ultimate awareness.
Because there are no more words, the word 'awareness'
is the limit, beyond which words cannot go. The
word 'awareness' has to be limply repeated.
Nisargadatta says... 'You are awareness of awareness.'

Remembering Sunlil's question:

If Self is Brahman and if all is one, there is only
Brahman and everything else is Maya. Why then if we
are able to transcend all the Gunas, including
Sattwic Gunas, we are able to find a place amongst
the "heavenly denizens". Does it mean another level
of consciousness, maybe at a different frequency,
exists, and is that the reason we talk of different
Lokas? Does this not go against the philosophy of
Advaitism? I mean if there are different Lokas
inhabited by celestials, then where does the oneness
principle go?"

Another, more direct, answer is:

Brahman is not the Absolute. The Absolute is the
Parabrahman. The Absolute, the Parabrahman, is
transcendental to Brahman. The Parabrahman is beyond
both Brahman and Maya. To say "Brahman and everything
else" indicates there are two entities, which
introduces the concept of duality. When there is
Brahman there is no Maya. When there is Maya, there
is no Brahman. Brahman and Maya cannot exist
simultaneously as separate aspects of the same
oneness. At the level of Brahman, Maya and Brahman
apparently alternate. In the Parabrahman, Maya and
Brahman are one. Maya does not exist at the level
of the Absolute. Maya only exists as the power of
Shakti which is the coeval companion of Brahman,
although the two, Brahman and Shakti, never meet.

The use of the word 'Self' to describe the Absolute
is potentially problematic. The word Self implies a
not-Self, which subtly creates a duality. Although
advaitins commonly use the word 'Self' to indicate
the Absolute state of oneself which is identical
with the Parabrahman, it introduces an irresolvable
logical contradiction. The contradiction is revealed when
one asks the question: Why does one wish to use the word
'Self'? An answer: Probably to indicate who one is?
Why does one need to indicate who one is if everything
is oneself? If everything is One then it is impossible
to assert the sense of self. The word 'Self' is a
concept and is used to distinguish who I am from everything
else. Nirguna Brahman is the undifferentiated and the
concept of 'Self' attempts to differentiate the
undifferentiated. If the concept of 'Self' does not
exist at the Nirguna Brahman level, then it is even
more impossible at the level of the Absolute Parabrahman.
The Parabrahman does not know whether he is or is not.
There is no knowledge of 'I am' in the Parabrahman.
There is no 'I' in the Parabrahman. Therefore there is
no concept of Self in the Parabrahman. Therefore, to
avoid conceptual difficulties, the word 'Self' should
not be used as an absolute.

When all the gunas are transcended, including sattva
guna, there are no Lokas, because the Lokas are the
worlds of the Trimurti Gods, who are themselves nothing
more than personifications of the gunas. The gods,
Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva are the pure personifications
of the gunas, and their three individual Lokas are
their chief abode, representing a haven for their
devotees, for those who originate from, leave temporarily
to play their roles in the world, and then return home
to the company of the god. The three Great Lokas are
the differing destinations of the jivatman who has
fallen under the influence and domination of one
particular gunas. If there are Lokas, the gunas have
not been fully transcended. In the beginning there were
no gods, the gods and their Lokas came later. In the
end there are no gods and no Lokas. Universes appear
and disappear, even endlessly appear and disappear,
even eternally recur, but the Parabrahman is quite
unaffected. The Parabrahman is aloof, and is not in the
universe, nor associated with it in any way. To be in
any apparent universe, to be located in any heavenly
or celestial Loka, is to be under the spell of Maya.

The universe, you and I, the gods and their Lokas,
everything, is merely the manifestation of the Oneness
principle. Everything is part of the Totality, the
Oneness which, as the unmanifest, is manifesting itself.
It is only because of the effects of the power of Maya
that we believe ourselves to be separate, and do not
realize that we are the Totality manifesting itself.
Manifestation is one direction, the outward direction,
whereas renunciation is the return direction, the inward
direction. The Oneness remains unaffected by the
manifestation and its dissolution. Advaita Vedanta
teaches... To the Absolute Oneness, this you, this
I, the gods, their Lokas, the world, the cosmos, all
the universes.... do not exist.