Upadesa Saram - Post 19

Verse 16

दृश्यवारितं चित्तमात्मनः |

चित्त्वदर्शनं तत्त्वदर्शनम् ||

dṛśyavāritaṁ cittamātmanaḥ |

cittvadarśanaṁ tattvadarśanam ||

The seen warded off, the mind is of the Self.

The revelation of Consciousness is the revelation of the Truth.

The mind that is ‘destroyed’, which does not run after objects, is itself declared to be Consciousness. This is the revelation in this verse, which will turn many necks. That state of total annihilation of the mind, requiring its withdrawal from the sense objects, is nothing but Consciousness. Not only that, it is the ultimate vision of Reality or Self-realization. 

When One’s mind, CHITTAM, is withdrawn from all perceptions, DRSYAM, one gains appreciation of one’s nature which is awareness, CHITVAM and this is the truth in essence, TATWAM. 

To understand this, we first look at two very basic definitions: 

i)   What is the mind? – A flow of thoughts.

ii)  What is a thought? – Only an awareness of an object.

Mind   =     Thought + Thought + Thought…..

(Mind is a bundle of thoughts, Swami has said)

Awareness + Object  =   Thought

So, if the object is removed from the above equation, then what remains??

Since we have seen above that Mind = Thought and also, in the second equation, after removing object, Awareness= Thought, hence, due to the common factor of thought, we conclude the following.

Mind   =     Awareness!

i) If object changes, thought will change; awareness remains the same. As we allow the mind to jump from object to object, thoughts keep arising in it. To control the thought, we need to stop the objects from changing. 

ii) If we remove the object from thought, only awareness remains. As we do this to many objects one at a time, the mind only becomes a flow of Awareness.

In the above process, it is to be known that there is a knower consciousness and there is an object consciousness. 

Our thought on an object and we the knower, both are in the same consciousness, as God, as Pure Consciousness, pervades the entire creation.

Just remove the thought of an object, what remains in awareness. 

You are observing / seeing an object, say, a flower kept on the table. Here, what is explained is that your thought process about the flower is also in awareness, and you, the knower, is also in the same pure consciousness. If the thought about the flower  is withdrawn, then what remains is you the pure awareness. 

When we stand on a sea shore and keep observing the waves, apparently, one may say that a wave is different from the water.

However, the reality is that waves will keep coming from the water. Thus wave, innumerable waves, have no separate existence apart from water. Each wave, when it arises, the truth is that the vision of water flows as wave. Even when waves change, the vision of water does not change.

Similarly, even when the thoughts (waves) keep changing, the pure awareness “I” remains the same (water). One must see themselves AS THE PURE AWARENESS, even amidst the thought waves that flow from them.

The Culmination of Ashtanga Yoga: 

The search for the Reality ends in the mind itself. The mind, when freed from restlessness by not permitting itself to have any relationship with either object or subject, is found to be none other than pure consciousness. 

There is no ‘ego-consciousness’ left, since the subject ‘I’ has been treated as just another ‘object’ and eliminated. The objectless mind is pure Consciousness. 

Love.