Jnana Vahini - Post 26

JIVA

Who is this Jivi calling himself 'I'? Reflecting on this problem, he will see that the 'I' is the immutable permanent-witness, the Atma, which forgetful of its real nature considers itself affected by change, through sheer ignorance. 

Caught up in the coils of change, it is very hard to realize one is just the witness of all this passing show. 

SAKSHI

The Sakshi has no Ajnana and so has no need to get rid of it! The ignorant alone need to take steps to remove it. Qualities like ignorance or knowledge attach themselves only to the Jivi, not to the Sakshi. This is proven by actual experience. Because the Sakshi who is the apparent basis for Jnana and Ajnana, is devoid of both, while the Jivi is actively bound to these two.

Some may doubt, how this distinction came to be. "Does the Sakshi know the Jivi, the I, which changes and gets modified and agitated? And who is this witness? We are not aware of it", they may ask. 

JIVA BECOMING SAKSHI

When a Jiva deliberately spends thought on his identity, he will know, "I am not a Vikari, I am the witness of the ego," the ego that suffers continuous modification; then, from this step, he will proceed to identify the immutable Seer or Witness (or Sakshi) with himself. 

Undergoing the sorrows of Ajnana and seeking solace in the study of Vedanta, one infers that there must be a Witness, unaffected by the passing clouds. 

Getting a glimpse of the king inside the fort does not help the beggar acquire wealth or power; so too, the Jivi must not only know the Sakshi, (the Sakshi, more ethereal than the sky, beyond the three-fold category of knower, known, and knowledge, eternal, pure, conscious, free, blissful) but must become the Sakshi. Till then, the Jivi continues as Jivi, it cannot become Brahman.

Later, the Sakshi or Atma, which one knew by reasonings, is realized in actual experience, when the superimposition of the illusion of the world is removed by Sadhana.

The Sakshi is the inner core of everything, the 'immanent', the embodiment of Sat, Chit and Ananda. There is nothing beyond it or outside it. 

The Akasa in the pot is the Akasa that has filled everything everywhere. The Akasa in the pot is the ever-full immanent Akasa. 

The wind in one place is the wind in all places; the sunlight in one place is the sunlight everywhere; the God in one image is the God in all images. This type of identity has to be grasped.

Love.