Verse
25
आत्मनः सच्चिदंशश्च बुद्धेर्वृत्तिरिति द्वयम् ।
संयोज्य चाविवेकेन जानामीति प्रवर्तते ॥ २५॥
AATMANAH SAT-CHID-AMSHAH
CHA
BUDDHEH VRITTIH ITI
DVAYAM
SAMYOJYA CHA AVIVEKENA
JAANAAMI ITI PRAVARTATE
(The
Existence-Consciousness aspect of the Self and the thought wave of the intellect by
the indiscriminate blending of these two, there arises the notion of “I know”.)
Here,
Sankara turns again to pure reasoning to present his point, without
resorting to any analogy or simile. The verse aims to help us explain at the
level of the mind, that is, to our own intellect, how the Self has come to get
identified with the mind.
From
the standpoint of creation or duality, this explanation gets to the very root
of the entire problem of Ignorance and all its ramifications.
We
cannot explain this to our mind, because the mind is not where reasoning,
analysis and decisions are taken.
Reasoning
belongs to the realm of the intellect. This verse explains at the intellectual
level how this false identification takes place.
It
is quite a fundamental misperception, and any light thrown on this will be of
value to dis-identify ourselves from the mind, using the intellect as our tool.
Though
Sankara has not given any Simile for this verse, a classic example is given in
a treatise “Drik Drsya Viveka” of a red hot iron ball. We have two things in
this example:
i.
Firstly, there is fire, which is red hot
but has no solid form.
ii.
Secondly, we have an iron ball which has
form but no heat.
When
the two are brought together, the iron ball begins to glow with the heat from
the fire.
In
an earlier post, we have dealt with "How Consciousness illumines intellect
(or, How Intellect by itself absorbs Consciousness).
Thus,
the intellect has absorbed consciousness and the
first reflected consciousness has emerged in the intellect.
Exactly
similar to the iron ball and furnace example given above, the reflected
consciousness and the Ego of a human come into contact with each other. Till
this point of contact, the Ego is Pure "Aham".
Imagine
once the iron ball has assumed the entire quality of furnace, as if the
iron ball begins to think that it is verily the furnace itself.
Exactly,
after the coming together of Ego (aham) and the reflected consciousness, the
Ego gets a mistaken notion that it is verily the reflected
consciousness, i.e. the reality.
This
is how, the pure Aham, with the illusion caused, becomes ahamkara, the
lower ego.
The
Ahamkara then begins to think and assert, "I know"!!
This
is how a human being starts believing that whatever he thinks, whatever
his likes and whatever his dislikes are, to be TRUE and REAL, though they
are not his real identity.
The
verse tells us that such an association has brought about a misplacing of
identity, or a shift in our identity from the Self to a pseudo-Self identified
with thoughts.
Love.
