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.

Upadesa Saram - Post 28

Verse 25

वेषहानतः स्वात्मदर्शनम् |

ईशदर्शनं स्वात्मरूपतः || २५ ||

veṣahānataḥ svātmadarśanam |

īśadarśanaṁ svātmarūpataḥ || 25 ||

The abandonment of the assumed appearance is the revelation of one’s own Self.

The revelation of the Lord is the state of the nature of one’s own Self.

Removing the Conditionings 

Maharshi here says that when the limitations are removed, the Jivaatma which seems to be limited by the body and mind, and which seems to be in bondage realizes its own real nature of Self or Pure Consciousness. 

Self and God Are One 

The second and more important part of the verse is to assure us that this experience of our inner Self is no different from the much sought-after “Vision of the Lord” that spiritual seekers aspire for all over the world. There is no other experience that can go by this name. 

It seems that it is purely intended to put the mind of the seeker at rest so that he does not feel the restlessness of thinking that there is something greater still to be attained. Self-realization is the Vision of God – the final end of the spiritual journey. 

One should remember that what Maharshi and Vedanta wants to convey when it says that there is no real difference between Ishwara and Jiva, is that there is only one Consciousness which is absolute. 

It has no change, no qualifications, no limitations, no reflections because it is one without a second. There is nothing different from Consciousness so that it is limited or gets reflected. Therefore, there is really no difference between God and the individual and hence the difference is only an illusion created due to ignorance.

Vision of God 

What is usually conceived to be a ‘Vision” of God is the appearance of a form familiar to the seeker, a form he has been worshipping for long, which is his personal favorite deity. It may be Lord Rama or Krishna, Jesus or Buddha, or one’s Guru or any other Divine Being. Such experiences are not denied by this verse. They do happen in the spiritual realm. 

But the Maharshi, in keeping with His characteristic of being direct and to the point, says that the essential experience of the Vision of God is just what He has described here, Self-Realization. 

In Bhagavad Gita, when Arjuna asked Krishna to show His cosmic form, Krishna shows His cosmic form in which, the entire creation, including the battle field, including everyone else except Arjuna was found. Arjuna is frightened and asks Krishna to come back to His normal form.

Why Arjuna was frightened?? Because, Arjuna was separate and on the other side was the God, with everything else contained in Him.

Imagine, if only Arjuna had also found/experienced himself within Krishna, then would there be any fear? All fear, all agony is experienced by human being only till the time he considers himself separate from God.

The moment a person realizes that I am not the individual, but I am pure Consciousness, one without a second, of the nature of Existence, Consciousness and Bliss Absolute – that very moment the illusory jiva vanishes as limitations are broken off.

The great Narayana Sookta says,

“Yat cha kinchit jagat sarvam drishyathe srooyathe api va

Antar bahih cha tat sarvam vyaapya narayana sthithah”

"That whatever is present as the world which is seen and heard, it is pervaded internally and externally by Narayana, the ultimate Being of Brahman".

Here, 'external' and 'internal' means that there is no difference and no duality which again point out that the Self or Consciousness alone is everything.

Thus, what is required from the seeker is just little effort to contemplate, “I am not the body, but I am Consciousness, one without a second. There is nothing here but Consciousness alone. As there is no duality, then how come sorrow or delusion? – There is thus only Bliss, eternal Bliss”.

Dear All,

From verse 19 onwards, ever since we started going through the verses along with their commentary on SELF-ENQUIRY and SELF-KNOWLEDGE, we will find that it is the same one single truth which is spread over in all these verses. 

We are talking about just the few verses but believe him, all the 10 major and around 98 other upanishads, so many treatise on Vedanta given to the world of spiritual sadhakas by Adi Sankara, Dattatreya, Vidyaranya Swami etc. - all of them speak only of this single truth, The Essence - SAT-CHIT!

There is no school of knowledge anywhere in the history of mankind which is more direct, more conclusive and more convincing as the greatest treasure of our great Bharath - the Vedas and the Vedanta!

Love.