The Emergent as Analogue

as the Play of Maya

The Druid’s Upanishadic Perspective

The Upanishads declare that Brahman—the ground of all being—is without qualities, without parts, without limitation. It is nirguna, beyond name and form, and yet it is the source from which all names and forms emerge. This absolute ground is neither accessible to perception nor exhaustible by thought.

“yato vācho nivartante aprāpya manasā saha”
“From which words turn back, along with the mind, unable to reach it.”
— Taittiriya Upanishad

In this framing, the initiating quantum field (or condensate) or ubiquitous ground resembles Brahman: it is everywhere discretely present, indivisible as ground and unknowable in itself. All discrete quantized excitations—photons, wavefunctions, probabilities—are its transient manifestations, not its essence.

The Emergence of the Analogue

In order for any localised observer (jiva) to act, a projection must occur. Discrete instructions—energy packets contacting the senses—are structured (with invariant rules), integrated and re-presented as a seemingly continuous, stabilised analogue:

· A local time-space (ākāśa and kāla)

· The vivid experience of realness (sat)

· The sense of individual identity (jivātman)

This analogue is not Brahman itself. It is Maya—the principle by which the unmanifest appears as the manifest.

Three Vedantic Interpretations

1. Advaita Vedanta (Non-Dualism)

Advaita, most prominently articulated by Adi Shankara, holds (that is to say, inferred) that Brahman alone is real (satya), the world is Mithya (undefined by him)—not absolutely real but not absolutely unreal, and the individual self (jivātman) is ultimately identical with Brahman.

In this perspective:

· The self-generated analogue (the saguna Brahman) is a superimposition (adhyāsa) upon Brahman, arising from ignorance (avidyā) (undefined by Shankara).

· All differentiation—time, space, identity (and realness ?)—is an artifact of Maya.

· Quantum discreteness and the emergent analogue are both provisional, transient appearances.

· Liberation (moksha) lies in recognizing the falsity (this reflects the Brahmin priest’s view) of the projection and the sole reality of Brahman.

Analogy in Advaita:
The entire quantum-causal chain, with its discrete instructions and continuous analogue experience, is like a dream projected upon the consciousness that is Brahman alone. The projection has pragmatic utility but no independent reality. In other words, it’s an expedient, beautiful, comforting lie.

2. Dvaita Vedanta (Dualism)

Dvaita, formulated by Madhvacharya, insists on an eternal distinction between:

· The individual self (jiva)

· The supreme Lord (Vishnu, Brahman)

· The material world

In this view:

· The discrete instructions (quantum events) and the emergent analogue are not illusions, but real creations of God.

· Each jiva’s experience is a unique, God-given vantage point, never dissolving into undifferentiated oneness.

· The cosmos is real, but always ontologically dependent on the supreme Being.

· Liberation is communion with Brahman, not identity with it.

Analogy in Dvaita:
The emergent analogue is a real but subordinate domain—like a reflection of the sun in many pots of water. Each reflection is genuine and individual, even if it depends on the true sun.

3. Ekkatva Vedanta (Monist Doctrine): The druid’s inference.

Ekkatva Vedanta—the radical oneness doctrine formulated by Jinasadhu—holds that:

· Only a single (Eka) ground of emergence (Brahman exists.

· All apparent multiplicity—quantum events, localised observers, the entire play of discrete and continuous—happen as spontaneous analogue self-display within that One.

· The “emergent analogue” is neither an illusion superimposed upon Brahman (Advaita), but a momentary mode of the One happening as localised iteration.

· There is no second principle. Maya, as analogue display, is the veiling of unknowable, unlimited oneness that makes it differential and thereby cognizable.

· Liberation is achieved by perfecting one’s display of Brahman to perfection, thereby inferring the Brahman’s whole potential.

Analogy in Ekkatva:
The quantum ground and the emergent analogue are like waves on the ocean: not merely projections nor distinct from the water, but selected modifications of it. Nothing is ever separate, even in appearance.

The Play of Maya Reframed

From this vantage:

· The unknowable quantum substratum corresponds to the unmanifest Brahman.

· The discrete differential excitations are the initiating structures of individual manifestation.

· The emergent analogue—time, space, realness, identity—is the Play of Maya: the spontaneous, ruled (i.e. constrained) emergence of form within the formlessness quantised ground.

· For the localised observer as selected analogue, his emergence is absolutely real and identified, albeit relative and transient.

· About the ground of analogue emergence nothing factual (rather than inferences) can be said.

Implications

1. Epistemology

o All cognition arises from the analogue.

o No experience reveals the unconditioned ground.

2. Ontology

o From Advaita: All phenomena are provisional, non-ultimate.

o From Dvaita: Phenomena are real but dependent.

o From Ekkatva: Phenomena are real identifiable modes of the One. Hence, as the druid said: “Everyone is God in their space.”

3. Soteriology

o In perspectives 1 & 2, the highest purpose is to recognize the limitation (hence pain) of the emergent transient analogue and eliminate it.

o In perspective 3, the highest purpose is to play one’s Brahman analogue to perfect completion.

Conclusion

Thus, the notion that each emergent arises as a momentary, localised analogue projection of an unknowable quantum ground is not foreign to the Upanishadic tradition. It is, rather, a contemporary reframing of what ancient seers called the Play of Maya. Whether this play is an illusion to be transcended, a reality to be honoured, or an indivisible mode of oneness to be directly recognized remains a question of perspective—Advaita, Dvaita, or Ekkatva. But all concur, sort of: the cognizable cosmos is a beautiful awe-inspiring lie (as analogue) and not the final, and from the perspective of the observer ugly, truth.

“Sarvam khalvidam Brahma”—“All this is indeed Brahman.”
Yet each observer sees, realises only his analogue arising in the stream of momentary appearances, until the veil (his differential) is lifted and he returns to the unending non-real, non-identifiable sameness of the unknowable Brahman-as-ground.

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