Atma Bodha - Post 33

Dear All,

We are contemplating on the verse which reads thus:-

(As the sun’s nature is luminosity; that of water is coolness; and that of fire is heat; so too, the nature of Existence, Knowledge and Bliss, of Eternity and Purity, are of the Self or Atman).

We covered the nature of existence, SAT, yesterday. We will take up the next part - Knowledge of CHIT, today.

CHIT

In the Kena Upanishad, we find a very interesting question. We see, hear, speak and think — but what power impels our mind to think, our tongue to speak, our eyes to see and ears to hear? In other words, what are we in the deepest, most profound depths of our being?

Like most deep questions, it appears deceptively simple.

Consider our bodies. They are made of matter. Yet, we have a

first-person experience in our bodies. There is something like experiencing the redness of a rose or ‘being myself’.

Modern neuroscience is unable to account for the vivid living conscious experiences which we have all the time. This vivid first person experience cannot be captured by a materialistic account like the firing of neurons. This is the so-called ‘hard problem’ of modern consciousness studies.

The Kena Upanishad begins with this question about consciousness — the inner experience of thinking, hearing, seeing, speaking.

What is that, shining within us, which enables all these conscious experiences and functions?

Who is that Being or what is that mechanism which makes these possible?

The Guru’s answer is extraordinary and profound (and, at first, rather enigmatic). ‘It is the Ear of the ear, Mind of the mind, Eye of the eye …’!

Let us try to understand this. The answer, simply put, is Pure Consciousness — Chit. The moment we use a term like Consciousness, we have to be very careful because the immediate temptation is to understand it in the sense of thoughts and feelings.

This is how Consciousness is usually understood by modern psychology. But when the Upanishads speak of Pure Consciousness we must carefully distinguish it from the ordinary understanding of Consciousness. Science says Consciousness is a product of the body (the brain to be specific).

But the Upanishads hold that Chit or Consciousness is not a product of the body or even the mind.

Our bodies are made of matter and our minds too are made of matter, albeit of a subtle kind, while Chit is radically different from matter.

Chit pervades and illumines the mind and body enabling all functions — thinking, seeing, hearing, feeling, speaking and so on. Chit is ‘known’ only through its manifestations in the various functions of the mind, organs and body.

Without the body and mind, as in deep sleep, Chit cannot be known or experienced — yet, It continues to exist.

Now we are in a position to understand the Guru’s enigmatic reply: ‘Since It is the Ear of the ear, the Mind of the mind, the Speech of speech, the Life of life, and the Eye of eye, therefore (realizing It) the jnanis transcend the world and become immortal.’

Since Chit enables each organ to perform its specific function, it is appropriate to call It, the essence of all organs—Ear of the ear, Mind of the mind, etc. Chit is what you really are — Pure Consciousness. It is unchanging and undying and if you realize yourself as Chit, you become immortal (rather, you realize that you are immortal and always were).

Chit identified with body and mind appears to be mortal. Note that the bodies are mortal — equally for the jnani and ajnani. Ramakrishna, Christ and Buddha — all had physical bodies and those bodies are gone, just as our bodies will perish one day. But as Chit, we are immortal.

This is to be realized and this is the Upanishadic ideal of moksha or freedom. Our true Self, Chit, is not an experience, yet all experiences shine in Chit. Chit is the consciousness illumining every thought, every experience. To the jnani, Chit is experienced in each experience.

  

We shall take up the 3^rd part - Atman is Bliss, in the next post.

Love.

Atma Bodha - Post 32

Verse 24

प्रकाशोऽर्कस्य तोयस्य शैत्यमग्नेर्यथोष्णता ।

स्वभावः सच्चिदानन्दनित्यनिर्मलतात्मनः ॥ २४॥

PRAKAASHAH ARKASYA TOYASYA

SHAITYAM AGNEH YATHAA USHNATAA

SWABHAAVAH SACHCHIDANANDA

NITYA-NIRMALAT AATMANAH

  

(As the sun’s nature is luminosity; that of water is coolness; and that of fire is heat; so too, the nature of Existence, Knowledge and Bliss, of Eternity and Purity, are of the Self or Atman).

Knowing that the mind’s nature cannot be changed, we leave it to its own ways. We do not fight it, just ignore it. Just as the mind has its own nature, so too, the Self has its own nature which is the opposite.

Why not try to be identified with the nature of the Self instead of the mind?  This is what we are being made aware of here. Everything in creation has a nature which it has to express. The Self has the nature of being eternal, pure, Existence itself, Consciousness which is of the nature of Knowledge, and Bliss.

These are not just qualities that we are seeing in a role model outside, but they are of our very own Self. By shifting our attention to that which is stable and unchanging within us, we can break away from our mind, whose very nature it is to be changing all the time. This is the strategy which is being passed on to us in this verse. 

Sankara gives us three universally known objects whose nature cannot change, and without which they will be something else. The Example: The Sun, Water, and Fire.

It is the Swabhava of these three objects to respectively be luminous, cool and hot. Without these qualities they will not be what they are. The Self has the essential qualities mentioned above. 

If we contemplate upon these qualities, we will get closer to the Self, and thereby feel these developing in us. The Self can only be defined directly in terms of its essential nature, Satchidananda.

Let us get more deeper into the three essential nature of Atman/ our true Self.

SAT

In the sixth chapter of the Chhandogya Upanishad, we find a dialogue between a sage and his son, Shvetaketu.

The enquiry here is, ‘What is that knowledge by which everything becomes known?’ And to grasp the answer to this bold question, we must appreciate the concept that by knowing the cause one can know the effects.

Thus if you know clay, you know all pots made of clay (you know that all such pots are nothing but clay), by knowing iron one understands all implements made of iron, by knowing gold, all gold ornaments are understood as nothing but gold and so on. In the same way, if we enquire deeply enough, the Upanishad claims, we shall see that all existent things are nothing but existence itself or pure existence.

Sat is the term used for Pure Existence. To explain further, take the traditional example of a pot — the pot is nothing but its cause, clay; clay is nothing but its cause prithvi or the earth element, prithvi is nothing but its cause apah or the water element, and in this way we trace everything back to the primeval cause, Pure Existence or Sat.

It is Sat appearing as this world through the mysterious agency of maya. And ‘Thou, O Shvetaketu,’ says the sage, ‘art That!’ By ‘That’ of course, he means, Sat, Pure Existence. You, your mind and body, and indeed, everything you see around you, are essentially nothing but Pure Existence, appearing in multifarious forms, courtesy of maya.

Ignorance means being unaware of your Sat nature, and consequently being identified with the body-mind complex with all its attendant problems and sufferings. Enlightenment is just the reverse — being aware of yourself as Sat and being free of the body, mind and all samsara.

You are the immortal, unchanging Sat and the world is a mere shadow, the projection of maya, passing over you. This does not actually destroy the body or the world — rather you begin to see things as they really are. 

Your true Self, Sat, is not a thing, an object, among other objects of the universe. Rather It is the very existence of all things and they are not apart from It. To a jnani, each object reveals Sat.

We will take up the 2^nd essential nature- Chit, tomorrow.

Love.

Atma Bodha - Post 31

Verse 23

रागेच्छासुखदुःखादि बुद्धौ सत्यां प्रवर्तते ।

सुषुप्तौ नास्ति तन्नाशे तस्माद्बुद्धेस्तु नात्मनः ॥ २३॥

RAAGA-ICCHHAA-SUKHA-DUKHA-AADI

BUDDHAU SATYAAM PRA-VARTATE

SUSHUPTAU NA ASTI TAT NAASHE

TASMAAT BUDDHEH TU NA AATMANAH

(Attachment, desire, pleasure, pain, etc, are perceived only when the intellect functions. In deep sleep, when the intellect is absent, they too are absent. Therefore, they belong to the mind alone and not the Atman. )

Placing himself in the shoes of an objector, suppose, someone asks, “You are asking me to take all my attention away from the things I like. What kind of life are you asking me to live? Whatever you may say about desires, I feel very much that I am those desires. Is there any proof you can give of your statements apart from all these examples. I am tired of your similes. They are only similes, where is the proof that this is so?”

  

These objections are to be expected, but the Vedantin is rooted in sound logic and observation of life without any bias. Here, in this verse, Sankara resists the temptation of giving a simile, in order to answer the above doubt.

Where Do Attachments, Desires and Pleasures Reside?

We experience all these only as long as the intellect or mind functions. As soon as the mind is not available, as in deep sleep, these tendencies, desires, attachments, and so on, also cease. Is that not proof enough that they exist only in the mind and not the Atman? Hence, they cannot be the Self.  

The logic of this verse is undeniable. It is simple and clear. The conclusion Sri Sankaracharya expects us to draw from it is that these are mental conditionings and we should not identify ourselves with them, unless we don’t mind being kicked about whichever way the mind blows.

One of the monks from Chinmaya mission gives some excellent examples for this verse, though Sankara has not given any simile for this verse.

1. A buffalo is walking past as you cross the road. Buffalos are always a nuisance to traffic, but you have no need to make that your problem unless, of course, you somehow feel that you are that buffalo! That is what we are doing to the thought-buffalos of our mind. They are not “me”; we should just observe them and ignore them. But when we make them “me”, that is when we are asking for trouble.

2. We see a boat rocking in the water at the river bank. After watching it for some time, we ‘take over’ the rocking movement and feel as if we are rocking with it. Why? – Because we identify with it.

3. A Mahatma was trying to teach a student how to handle the mind. He took two stones and kept rubbing them against each other. His student, watching this, asked why this was being done. The Mahatma said, “I am trying to make these stones white.”

 

The student said it was not possible to do that; the stones will never become white. Then the Mahatma smiled at him and said, “It is the same with this mind. We can never change it; we have only to learn to be indifferent to it. However much we try, we will never make it Brahman.

4. And the last example: Suppose we have just completed a long 2-day journey to Sidhbari in the Himalayas. When we get off the train, for quite a while we find ourselves still swaying like we were doing in the train. It is hard to keep balance, until we adjust slowly to being motionless again.

There is a Self within us that is steady and unflickering. It does not follow the vagaries of the mind. It is stable and steady, silent and peaceful, desireless and unattached.

Love.