This teaching is intended to clarify the relationship between the individual perspective and the total perspective.

This can be understood with examples: gold is the samaṣṭi perspective of the gold of a ring. The total space is the samaṣṭi perspective of the space in a pot. And the ocean is the samaṣṭi perspective of ocean waves. Gold, space and ocean are of course not aspects but substrates or deeper substances of the richness of forms in which they express themselves. Thus, samaṣṭi always includes, supports, or embodies vyaṣṭi, its individual, local expression or manifestation.

The perspective as a single living being (jīva) is called vyaṣṭi, the total picture (īsvara) is called samaṣṭi.

Interesting and important: The relationship between the whole and the part is one of substance, not of number, size or time! If you touch a wave, the whole ocean is touched. Everything can be reduced to consciousness, the only truth. A body consists of cells, molecules, smallest particle, information, intelligence, pure intelligence-consciousness. Consciousness is often compared to space, but consciousness is not spatial. We don’t know what consciousness is, and it doesn’t matter. What we do know is that it is non-dual. Hence, I, who as jīva appears to be limited power, space, knowledge, and manifestation, am the whole!

The famous theorem of śaṅkara tells us how it is: Brahma satyam, jagan mithyā, jīvo brahmaiva nāparaḥ. Consciousness is the samaṣṭi, the whole of both jīvātmā and īśvara-brahman, and so they are equal. How is that possible? Because the jīva is in reality pure consciousness, brahman. And because īśvara is just as pure consciousness. Although brahman literally means ‘great’, it has no dimensions, numbers, etc. Consciousness is consciousness. And everything, no matter how small or insignificant (vyaṣṭi), is that. It just seems that there is a part and a whole.

Each individual thing is therefore an expression of a deeper reality, which carries the individual. Each individual thing therefore turns out not to be part of a larger reality in reality. But the ignorant person does experience it that way, because of the concept of space.

This is what distinguishes advaita vedanta from all other views. A table is made of wood. Wood is fibers. Fibers are made up of molecules. Molecules atoms. Atoms, quarks, bosons, strings. Smallest particles consist of space (!). Space is a concept. A concept is information. Information consists of knowledge, intelligence. Knowledge, intelligence consists of pure knowledge and pure intelligence. Pure knowledge and pure intelligence consist of (pure) consciousness. And that is always and everywhere the case.

Therefore, everything is consciousness, and the apparent laws of māyā, for example, the laws of projection, concealment, and karma, make a person live in an individual world through his senses. But in his deepest ground (cit, brahman) the individual is like the whole. This applies to everything.

Also for something as mental as kindness. It is not for nothing that kindness is recognizable as the substance or essence of all individual acts of kindness. Individuals exhibit dharmic behavior in one dharmic divine field, and recognize it from each other. This is because there is no other. A happy person generally behaves in a friendly way, because he begins to connect with the truth of bliss (ānanda), the happiness of full existence. Happiness is reflected bliss, you see?

People (vyaṣṭi) automatically contribute to īśvara (samaṣṭi), because they find that dharma, that which carries everything, brings happiness. If this does not work due to ignorance and, for example, the confusion of greed, then you get adharma. In greed, the ignorant person projects the whole in himself onto the insignificant in himself, and thinks that she or he gains in the process. But the chronic dissatisfaction of living beings means that they have first infinitely shortchanged themselves, by wrongly assuming that they are an individual. The only thing that is gained by this is more ignorance. This, too, is easily recognized in worldly conditions, and suffering.

The jñānī knows that she or he is whole, complete and full.

Until this is recognized, jīva will be the individual (vyaṣṭi) ignorance of the knowing īśvara (samaṣṭi). And I’d better surrender my jīva to the greater. Karma yoga and upāsana is the giving away of limiting ideas about myself to the greater. I can only do this properly if I understand somewhere that I have never been small or a part.

Knowledge of this helps me to recognize my deeper identity with īśvara as a brahman, being the greatness of boundlessness. Therefore, samaṣṭi does not mean total in the sense of sum, but total in the sense of the whole deeper reality. This seems to be a small part of the space that closes off a jar, but in fact, the jar does not close the space at all.

The oft-used counter-argument of a self-contained tree in a forest is flawed, as a tree cannot exist alone, far from any forest. All things are connected by the supporting consciousness, because they are an expression of this deeper truth. That is why the whole cosmos is one organism of laws, just as the world economy is one big, individually uncontrollable engine of growth and destruction. One consciousness, one system, no problem.

But given the specific karma of this jiva, a tree can certainly fall into a forest without me noticing it senses, or thinking about it spiritually. Consciousness is everywhere. The mind and senses of an individual are not everywhere. How can I experience objects in my dream, or experience the object-less in deep sleep, while consciousness, manifested as another person, does not experience it? That is no problem either. Karma and our senses are always fooling us, and seem to cut things up. But as a consciousness I know that everything is myself.

I can’t ignore the fact that I love everything. Why? Because as sat cit ānanda I love myself completely conclusively.

I am also always loved, because ‘everyone loves themselves’, because everything is aimed at self-love and self-preservation. I quote verse 2 from the advaita makaranda of śrī lakṣmīdhara kavi: aham asmi sadā bhāmi kadācit nāham apriyaḥ

I am. Forever I shine. I am never not loved.

Brilliant!