What is Substratum, Silence & Stillness?

Substratum is the screen without anything (NOTHING). 

Silence is when there is no noise of mind. 

Stillness is the state where there is No thought and no mind state.

For practical purposes, keep watching the screen behind the movie instead of the movie.

What is the meaning of the sloka samudra vasane devi?

Shlokam श्लोकं శ్లోకం:

समुद्रवसने देवि पर्वतस्तनमण्डले ।

विष्णुपत्नि नमस्तुभ्यं पादस्पर्शं क्षमस्वमे ॥

samudravasane devi parvatastanamaṇḍale ।

viṣṇupatni namastubhyaṃ pādasparśaṃ kṣamasvame ॥

సముద్రవసనే దేవి పర్వతస్తనమణ్డలే ।

విష్ణుపత్ని నమస్తుభ్యం పాదస్పర్శం క్షమస్వమే ॥

O! Mother Earth, who has the ocean as clothes and mountains as your bosm, who is the wife of Lord Vishnu, I bow to you. Please forgive me for touching you with my feet. 

This is the meaning which we all know. We will look at it in the impersonified way.

samudra = ocean; vasane = staying; devi = goddess (actual meaning here is the feminine part of the cosmos, i.e., the manifested form of the unmanifested); parvata = mountain; stana = bosom; mandale = space; vishnu = all pervading; patni = wife; (vishnupatni = wife of vishnu - this is how we understand as a person - the meaning turns out as the other half of the vishnu, in the impersonal the meaning would be - the manifested form of the unmanifested); namaha = bow; tubhyam = to you; paada = step; sparsham = touch (paada sparsham means the touch of thought, i.e., going from NOTHING state to Thought state. Because the moment the thought starts, then the duality comes in, the unmanifested becomes manifested); kshamasvame = forgive me (this is one meaning where we understand as a form. The other meaning of this is: kshamasva = king's face; which means the face of the king, that is the manifested form of the unmanifested, considering the king as the unmanifested and the king's face as the manifested.)

Now the whole meaning of the sloka comes out as:
I bow to the manifested One so that every step that I take remind me of the unmanifested One behind this expression of the manifestation and let me be aware of the substratum of this manifestation in every work that I carry out in this manifested world.

What is Brahman?

Brahman = The one which is emanated (not created)

To understand this word, one has to look into the deeper meaning of this.

It is just like an idea that you are thinking not present really but still present. Let us say you are thinking about a beautiful landscape in your mind with green pastures, a creek, river, birds flying around, animals moving here and there, people playing around etc. Now this whole scene is there only as an idea in your mind. It is not there existing outside in gross form. And, if you tell someone - see the beauty of my landscape which is there only as an idea in your mind. People will laugh at you and tell you that you are crazy. They will also say that it is an illusion and it does not exist in reality.

Let us say you have build this idea of beautiful landscape into gross form. Then people will say - oh! here it exists. But you know that it is still only an idea. Because what is existing outside has emanated from within you and in reality does not exist. It is like a spider emanating from it the thread to weave the web. The gross landscape is only a manifested form of the idea that has been emanated from you (your mind). For you - truly speaking both do not exist, it is only an illusion. You as such only exist. The idea and the manifested landscape will undergo change and do not exist.

In the same way this Brahman or the external manifested world is only an idea of the unmanifested One. It is just an illusion. Only the Unmanifested One exists. The rest is all illusion.

Hence, only Brahman exists. The thought, the idea, the manifested world: all are only illusions.


sarvam khalvidam brahma.