Upadesa Saram - Post 31

Verse 27

(Continued….) 

ज्ञानवर्जिताऽज्ञानहीनचित् |

ज्ञानमस्ति किं ज्ञातुमन्तरम् || २७ ||

jñānavarjitā'jñānahīnacit |

jñānamasti kiṁ jñātumantaram || 27 ||

Knowledge abandoned, ignorance abandoned, Consciousness is.

Is there knowledge to know difference?

The Self which illumines all the external objects ranging from the intellect, the mind, the ego, the sense organs and the various external sense objects is of the very nature of Consciousness or illumination. As the Sun doesn’t require any other light to illumine itself, similarly the Self doesn’t require any other light or knowledge to illumine itself. 

The great Upanishadic verse found in Mundaka, Katha  and Svetashwatara Upanishad says:

Na tatra sooryo bhaathi na Chandra taarakam na ima vidhyutho bhaanthi kutoyam agnih

Tameva bhaantham anubhaathi sarvam tasya bhaasa sarvam idam vibhaathi

The Sun doesn’t shine there (in the Self), neither does the moon or the stars. There the lightning also doesn’t shine, then how can Fire shine??? It’s own shineness others follow (meaning that it’s illuminations others take from it) and it shining others shine.

Then how come the Self is not known by everyone?

Everyone knows the Self – there is no one who doesn’t know the Self. But there are very few who know that they know the Self, who know that “I am the Self”. Others due to ignorance don’t know their own real nature of Self or Consciousness. 

Upanishads tell two beautiful stories about realization and that realization is not something new to be attained but realizing one’s own real nature of Consciousness through removal of ignorance which obstructs the Self, being known as one’s own real nature.

A lioness who was pregnant saw a flock of sheep and she pounced over the sheep. At that time, she gave birth to a lion cub and died on the spot. Thus, the lion cub was amongst the young sheep. The cub grew along with the sheep and behaved exactly like a sheep. 

Then one day a lion saw this cub amongst the sheep and was surprised. The lion then caught hold of the cub which then started to cry like a sheep!!! It took the cub to a river and said “See yourself and see me in the river”. The cub watched the river and saw that he was very much like the lion only. Suddenly realization dawned and it realized that it is not a sheep but a lion. Then it started roaring like the lion and started behaving like a lion.

The above story is illustrated to show that the cub never was a sheep, it never was converted to a sheep. But it didn’t know its own real nature of a lion and hence considered itself as a sheep. But when a person like Guru came to it and told that “You are a lion”, it realized its own very nature of lion.

Similarly the Self is always present and a person is already that only. But this has been forgotten and all activities including study of scriptures and contemplation on Brahman or the Self are all illusions only – they are performed in order to remove the ignorance which obstructs one to realize his own very nature of Self.

Another story illustrated in Panchadashi of Vidyaranya is the story of ten fools.

There were once ten fools who were disciples of a Guru. They wanted to go to a village and hence asked permission from the Guru and started going to the village. On the way, they had to cross a river. They crossed the river. But then they had a doubt whether everyone had reached the shore safely or anyone was drowned. Hence they decided to take a count of everyone. 

So, one person started counting. He counted till 9 but forgot to count himself. Then another person also counted and he too forgot to count himself. Thus, they thought that one person had died and started crying and weeping over the dead person. 

Then a passerby stopped and asked them what was the problem and he told them that he would count. He then counted all ten. They were now little bit happy, but not yet convinced. So, the passerby told the first person to count. He counted till 9 and then the passerby told the person “You are the Tenth”. Hearing this, they were all rejoiced and very happy.

The passerby (the Guru) made each one of the 10 persons count the other nine and then the Guru asked the person counting to turn the finger to his own self and said, “You are the 10^th person".

Everyone has forgotten about the Self – one’s own real nature and are trying to find God in the external world forgetting the reality that the Self is the God, God is one’s own real nature of Consciousness.

When this ignorance is removed through the knowledge of contemplation on the reality, the reality of Self shines forth as self-luminous Bliss, one without a second.  Thus, the Self is beyond both concepts of ignorance and knowledge & also there requires no external knowledge or medium to know itself.

That Self we all already are. This knowledge or realization that “I am the Self and everything that is seen is only an illusion in the Self” needs to be realized through removal of ignorance which vanishes the moment its source is sought out and through contemplation on the reality.

How, upon attaining SELF KNOWLEDGE, both knowledge (the process of knowledge, the subject of knowledge, the object of knowledge) as well as ignorance is abandoned, is beautifully given in the following Atma Bodha verse: 

अज्ञानकलुषं जीवं ज्ञानाभ्यासाद्विनिर्मलम् ।

कृत्वा ज्ञानं स्वयं नश्येज्जलं कतकरेणुवत् ॥ ५॥

AJNANA KALUSHAM JEEVAM 

JNANA ABHAASAAT VINIRMALAM

KRUTVA JNAANAM SVAYAM 

NASHYET JALAM KATAKA RENUVAT

(Constant practice of knowledge purifies the Self (‘Jivatman’), stained by ignorance and then disappears itself – as the powder of the ‘Kataka-nut’ settles down after it has cleansed the muddy water.) 

The exposition of kataka nut is covered in Atma Bodha Post - Post 12.

Love.

Upadesa Saram - Post 30

Verse 27

ज्ञानवर्जिताऽज्ञानहीनचित् |

ज्ञानमस्ति किं ज्ञातुमन्तरम् || २७ ||

jñānavarjitā'jñānahīnacit |

jñānamasti kiṁ jñātumantaram || 27 ||

Knowledge abandoned, ignorance abandoned, Consciousness is.

Is there knowledge to know difference?

Which means, 

Consciousness is devoid of the thought or Vritti of ignorance and knowledge also. Is there any knowledge other than the Self to know the Self?? There is not (The Self is self-knowing and hence doesn’t require any special knowledge to be known).

Maharshi is explaining here the inherent nature of the Self which is knowledge or Consciousness called Chit. 

Thought-based Knowledge & Self-knowledge: 

Thought-based knowledge is secondary; Self-knowledge is primary. Thought-based knowledge is on a relative plane; whereas Self-knowledge is absolute. 

Secular knowledge is thought-based. That does not mean that it is of no use; it has its place in governing all our interactions in the world. It brings objects to our awareness. In fact, we cannot conduct any business in the world without thought-based knowledge. And until we attain Self-knowledge, it is all we have in our mind. 

In the realm of thought-knowledge one can say, “I know what I know, and I know what I do not know.” 

Another aspect of thought-knowledge is that it changes. “What I know" can become "What I do not know", and vice versa. In other words, knowledge of objects is also time dependent. It can be forgotten, or it can change with time. Knowledge can become invalid under new conditions. 

Thought-knowledge has another interesting feature: What we call knowledge today can become ignorance tomorrow, and the other way, too. As our experience and factual information changes, so do the thoughts change with regard to a particular object. A person thought to be a criminal today, could be declared innocent tomorrow when more facts are unearthed. 

The point being made in the context of this verse is, “What is the worth of knowledge in such a case? It is better that we don’t give it so much of importance. All that we learn in books can be forgotten. That is not the knowledge we are after.” 

In the case of Self-knowledge it can never become ignorance again. Its very nature is knowledge. This is the difference between true knowledge of the Self and secular knowledge. When we realize the Self, we truly know. It is not something that can be forgotten. For it is not a thought; it is our very being. Our quest for knowledge is really a quest for this permanent, unchanging basis of knowledge. It can never be satisfied with the outer, thought-based knowledge. 

SELF LUMINOUS

  

A person when inside a dark room doesn’t need any light to know his own existence. He doesn’t need to ascertain from another person whether 'I exist or not'. This is what is called self-luminous nature of the Self.   

To be continued…

Love.

Upadesa Saram - Post 29

Verse 26

आत्मसंस्थितिः स्वात्मदर्शनम् |

आत्मनिर्द्वयादात्मनिष्ठता || २६ ||

ātmasaṁsthitiḥ svātmadarśanam |

ātmanirdvayādātmaniṣṭhatā || 26 ||

Complete abidance as the Self is the revelation of one’s own Self.

Because there are not two of the Self, there is firm Self-Abidance. (26)

Sri Ramana, based on His own personal experience of the Truth, says that abidance in the Self is that very experience of “Vision of the Self”, the ultimate goal, and that there is nothing further than that. Here again, He brings a relief to seekers who may be prone to doubt the state of their spiritual growth. 

Atma-Samsthiti: This is the state of abidance in the Self, which we have described earlier as the state in which a person is directly aware of the Self, having thinned out and ‘destroyed’ his mind of all thoughts and most especially the ‘I-thought’. 

Abidance in SELF may sometimes be construed as if there is a lower SELF or the Jiva, who has to abide in Higher SELF, ATMAN, to be known as a realized seer.

This notion is wrong. How?

Abidance means, settling permanently, eternally in SELF and existing as SELF. So, it has to be clear that there is no lower SELF or higher SELF. There is only SELF.

Upto the point / moment of realizing / discovering ourselves to be this SELF, it is only ignorance of a being that he thinks that he is not SELF, he thinks that God is somewhere in high heavens (incidentally, that is why, when we refer to God in any religion, we look up, raise our hands and indicate the sky, indicating that God is not within us!!!), God is Supreme and he is sinner, so on and so forth.

Once, through intense spiritual sadhana and Guru and Easwara Krupa, the sadhaka realizes / discovers the SELF within, then, there is no more higher or lower SELF. 

So, 

Therefore, 

(Here, the minus of Avidya, the removal of Avidya has to be necessarily for ever, otherwise, the word removal is of no relevance. So, with eternal removal of Avidya, one eternally abides in SELF).

The difficulty being addressed in this verse is that of knowing when we have reached the goal. There may always be the tendency to feel that the SELF has not yet been attained. To remove this doubt, the Maharshi stipulates two conditions that have to be met: 

i) Atma-Nir-Dvayaat: “Non-dual, consistent, unchanging”.  The abidance in the SELF has to be consistent. It cannot keep changing. It has to be the same in nature every time.

ii) Atma-Nishthataa: “Firm, of long duration, all the time or continuous”. The abidance has also got to be firm, ie., for a long period of time or continuous. This is the second condition to be met. 

A seeker should be very clear with the definition of liberation or realization and should know what this really means. Realization is not something to be gained fresh or after leaving the mortal coil on Earth. 

Realization is not something that can be seen because whatever is seen vanishes (is illusory alone like the worldly sense objects). This means realization is not an experience that can be attained in either heaven or during yoga meditation when kundalini power is aroused. 

Realization is what already is. Realization is knowing one’s own nature of God or Brahman. Realization is vision of oneself (as one cannot see oneself, realization means removal of obstructions of ignorance so that the SELF shines forth without any hindrance). Realization is one’s own very nature. (The analogy of Sculptor discovering the enchanting Krishna’s form already there in the rock / wood on removing all that was not Krishna, shared by the author in a common group aligns with what is said now in this post). 

Any object in the world can be experienced. All these are experienced by the experiencer. But the SELF is the experiencer of everything and hence it can never be experienced. Thus, the SELF cannot be an experience of the mind and sense objects as it is beyond all these.

Such a God is not the reality of SELF or Brahman. Thus, such a God is only a perception of the mind and an object of experience. As explained earlier, God cannot be seen because it is the Seer of all objects, the experiencer of all experiences, substratum of all illusions.

Thus, realization is knowing or realizing one’s own real nature of SELF and not attaining some God sitting in heaven. 

Yoga Vasishta says:

Chit chetya kalitha bandhah tanmuktaa muktiruchyathe

Chit achetya kila atmethi sarva Vedanta sangrahah

Consciousness when through ignorance gets mixed with (seems to get mixed with) thoughts is called bondage & liberation from thoughts is freedom or liberation.

Consciousness without thoughts is called ATMAN or SELF - this is the essence of Vedanta.

  

The very scientific theory of inertia plays here also. Wherever, there is a deviation in the form of thoughts and actions, there, anxiety also arises because one is not in his natural state of Bliss. 

Thus, abidance in the natural state is vision of one’s own real nature of SELF, of the nature of Existence, Consciousness and Bliss Absolute. This abidance when not mixed with any thoughts is the vision of the ultimate reality knowing which there remains nothing else to be known.

Constant effort needs to be put to set aside the ignorance that 'I am not the SELF' & always reside in the ultimate reality through contemplation,

AHAM BRAHMA ASMI 

( I am Brahman)

Or

CHIDANANDA ROOPAH SIVOHAM SIVOHAM 

( I am that SELF of the nature of Consciousness and Bliss, I am the SELF – one without a second”)

Love.