“This Self is That which has been described as Not this, not this.
It is imperceptible, for It is not perceived;
Undecaying, for It never decays; unattached, for It is never attached;
Unfettered, for It never feels pain and never suffers injury.
“In the vision of death, though all the senses were benumbed, the aham sphurana (Self-awareness) was clearly evident, and so I realized that it was that awareness that we call "I", and not the body. This Self-awareness never decays. It is unrelated to anything. It is Self-luminous. Even if this body is burnt, it will not be affected. Hence, I realized on that very day so clearly that that was "I" “
It is imperceptible, for It is not perceived;
Undecaying, for It never decays; unattached, for It is never attached;
Unfettered, for It never feels pain and never suffers injury.
Him who knows this, these two thoughts do not overcome: For this I did an evil deed and For this I did a good deed.
He overcomes both. Things done or not done do not afflict him.”
(BrihadAranyaka Upanishad, 4.4.22)
He overcomes both. Things done or not done do not afflict him.”
(BrihadAranyaka Upanishad, 4.4.22)
Some important questions that may arise
What is the Self (ātman) that the ancient Indian scriptures talk about?
Where and how can It be found? In other words: Who am I?
The fictions that you used to think of as real
In order to answer these questions, or at least to find out whether they can be answered at all, we first have to make an enquiry into what the Self is not.
The following enumeration, drawn-up almost randomly, is meant to illustrate the practical and psychological implications of this statement (i.e. “Neti, neti”), whose aim is to integrate human consciousness into a larger dimension that transcends all categories of thought.
Therefore: You are not the things you are able to think or believe to be you. So, do not believe everything you think and do not think everything you believe to be the true. Thinking is a tool through which one can only deny that which one isn’t.
You are not your name, nor are you your physical appearance, nor your mental image, nor your mind projections about yourself. You are neither your mind nor its functions. You're not any of the representations of your mind.
You are not your name, nor are you your physical appearance, nor your mental image, nor your mind projections about yourself. You are neither your mind nor its functions. You're not any of the representations of your mind.
You are not your thoughts, feelings, emotions, nor your moods whatsoever. You are no thing that arises and subsides in this empty space of your consciousness.
You are neither your social nor your biological function. You are neither your physical body nor its multiple sensory organs and motor functions. You're not a child, you're not young, you're not old, and you’re neither a man nor a woman. You are not your profession; neither are you the father nor the mother, son, daughter, husband, wife. You're not the friend, the lover, the enemy, the partner. You are not the relationship with the others, with the environment, with God. You are neither your religion nor your ideas, nor your faith, nor your religious beliefs. You're not an ideology, a doctrine whatsoever. You are neither your social status nor your social and professional accomplishments, nor are you your responsibilities as a family member. You are neither your reputation nor are you the failures.
You're not one and the same with your ethnicity, race and species where you think you belong. These memberships, associations and allegiances are temporary, contingent and conventional.
You are neither your memories nor your experiences, be they pleasant or painful, nor are you your plans for the future. Neither pleasure nor pain, nor desire, nor dreams, nor despair, nor fear, nor hope.
You are neither your social nor your biological function. You are neither your physical body nor its multiple sensory organs and motor functions. You're not a child, you're not young, you're not old, and you’re neither a man nor a woman. You are not your profession; neither are you the father nor the mother, son, daughter, husband, wife. You're not the friend, the lover, the enemy, the partner. You are not the relationship with the others, with the environment, with God. You are neither your religion nor your ideas, nor your faith, nor your religious beliefs. You're not an ideology, a doctrine whatsoever. You are neither your social status nor your social and professional accomplishments, nor are you your responsibilities as a family member. You are neither your reputation nor are you the failures.
You're not one and the same with your ethnicity, race and species where you think you belong. These memberships, associations and allegiances are temporary, contingent and conventional.
You are neither your memories nor your experiences, be they pleasant or painful, nor are you your plans for the future. Neither pleasure nor pain, nor desire, nor dreams, nor despair, nor fear, nor hope.
No gain, no loss and no retribution can ever affect That who you really are.
You're not any of the comfortable things which you have surrounded with nor your daily habits, good or bad, you are none of that which is known and familiar. You are neither your material possessions nor your theoretical knowledge, nor the books you've read, nor your information, nor the languages that you speak. You are not the professional qualifications that you have, nor are you the academic status that you have managed to acquire with such big efforts.
You're not any of the comfortable things which you have surrounded with nor your daily habits, good or bad, you are none of that which is known and familiar. You are neither your material possessions nor your theoretical knowledge, nor the books you've read, nor your information, nor the languages that you speak. You are not the professional qualifications that you have, nor are you the academic status that you have managed to acquire with such big efforts.
You are no thing, no knowledge, and no characteristic that can ever be acquired, possessed, learned and understood.
You haven’t been born on the date printed on your birth certificate nor will you die on the date that will be printed on your death certificate.
You are neither your physical nor moral strengths, nor weaknesses. You are not one and the same with your vices and virtues, sins or pious deeds.
You haven’t been born on the date printed on your birth certificate nor will you die on the date that will be printed on your death certificate.
You are neither your physical nor moral strengths, nor weaknesses. You are not one and the same with your vices and virtues, sins or pious deeds.
All of these are but your vehicles, layers and sheaths.
You do not have any feature that can be expressed otherwise than through metaphors. Words can only render those transitional forms that are projected within the space of consciousness.
Whatever you believe or think you are, you're not.
You do not have any feature that can be expressed otherwise than through metaphors. Words can only render those transitional forms that are projected within the space of consciousness.
Whatever you believe or think you are, you're not.
And never will you be.
An ancient reductionist approach
Who are you, then?
An ordinary human identity revolves around the characteristics listed above. One cannot know oneself unless he/she drops off any sense of identity derived therefrom. When you no longer identify yourself with these layers, sheaths and clothes, the pure Consciousness that remains after you have dropped away all forms and concepts that come and go - that pure Consciousness with no content and shapeless - that’s you. But can you think of it? Of course not. However, these are the implications of the “neti, neti” epistemological approach quoted at the beginning of this essay. It doesn’t address the rational mind but rather the intuition.
"Neti, neti" means “not this, not this” or “neither this nor that” and represents one of the great statements of Brihad - Aranyaka " Upanishad (c.8th century BCE). It explicitly arrives to this conclusion: the absolute can only be expressed and experienced by progressively subtracting all elements pertaining to the relative phenomenal existence. All that remains after this reductionist and apophatic operation is Atman, which is the same with the Soul, the Spirit or the Self. Everything else is more or less illusory and ultimately, the whole universe is just a thought that arises in the Supreme Consciousness of Brahman.
The mind has an enormous and at the same time subtle power to design fictitious realities, however, the “illusory” existence is not in fact synonymous with non-existence or non-reality, it is rather some kind of adjacent, accessory, dependent or relative reality, which varies according to the level of Self-awareness or Consciousness. So, the ontology of the Upanishads is entirely epistemological, meaning that Consciousness (“cit”) is one and the same with Being (“sat”) and consequently, the different worlds (gods, humans, animal and plant lives, mineral substances etc.) acquire their different levels of “reality” only to the extent to which they are informed by this transpersonal, universal Consciousness. The Sanskrit word māyā was translated as “illusion” in the western world and this is the common standard that I use, but a more precise rendering would be “non-autonomous reality” or “dependent existence”. The so-called visible existence is not entirely a creation of the mind, as it is usually understood, since “projecting” is not one and the same with “creating”. The mind is only a lens which distorts the light of the Self, or of the all-pervasive Consciousness. Even the so-called “ego” is not entirely created “from scratch” by the mind and thereby it is not purely non-existent, the ego is only the confusion between the intellect or any other “fragment” of phenomenal reality and the Self " in other words the Self, but the Self as seen through a distorting lens (i.e. the intellect) " Self as the World. These fragments of reality and mind projections represent the basic stuff out of which the apparent Self, or the Ego, is made out of. The ego is your identification with fragments of reality, waves emerging on the surface of the Ocean of Being. As an example: only the ego can state “This is my body”, “this thought and/or this knowledge is mine”, “my reputation”, “I have a headache” etc. This sense of “I do” or “I have” is in fact the ego. A correct perception of all phenomena, from the Upanishadic viewpoint, would be lacking any feeling of possession or any personal involvement: “There is pain in this head” instead of “I’ve got a headache” and so on. So, when making a careful enquiry, you will find that all of your thoughts and emotions, and the sense of “I”-ness on top of them, arise in this dimension of time and that they are impermanent. They are born and they disappear shortly thereafter.
The mind has an enormous and at the same time subtle power to design fictitious realities, however, the “illusory” existence is not in fact synonymous with non-existence or non-reality, it is rather some kind of adjacent, accessory, dependent or relative reality, which varies according to the level of Self-awareness or Consciousness. So, the ontology of the Upanishads is entirely epistemological, meaning that Consciousness (“cit”) is one and the same with Being (“sat”) and consequently, the different worlds (gods, humans, animal and plant lives, mineral substances etc.) acquire their different levels of “reality” only to the extent to which they are informed by this transpersonal, universal Consciousness. The Sanskrit word māyā was translated as “illusion” in the western world and this is the common standard that I use, but a more precise rendering would be “non-autonomous reality” or “dependent existence”. The so-called visible existence is not entirely a creation of the mind, as it is usually understood, since “projecting” is not one and the same with “creating”. The mind is only a lens which distorts the light of the Self, or of the all-pervasive Consciousness. Even the so-called “ego” is not entirely created “from scratch” by the mind and thereby it is not purely non-existent, the ego is only the confusion between the intellect or any other “fragment” of phenomenal reality and the Self " in other words the Self, but the Self as seen through a distorting lens (i.e. the intellect) " Self as the World. These fragments of reality and mind projections represent the basic stuff out of which the apparent Self, or the Ego, is made out of. The ego is your identification with fragments of reality, waves emerging on the surface of the Ocean of Being. As an example: only the ego can state “This is my body”, “this thought and/or this knowledge is mine”, “my reputation”, “I have a headache” etc. This sense of “I do” or “I have” is in fact the ego. A correct perception of all phenomena, from the Upanishadic viewpoint, would be lacking any feeling of possession or any personal involvement: “There is pain in this head” instead of “I’ve got a headache” and so on. So, when making a careful enquiry, you will find that all of your thoughts and emotions, and the sense of “I”-ness on top of them, arise in this dimension of time and that they are impermanent. They are born and they disappear shortly thereafter.
These conclusions that I merely transcribe in the form of a short essay cannot be reached by a purely theoretical approach, but only by a thorough in-depth, introspective exercise, which is called enquiry into the nature of the Self (Skr. ātma-vicāra). Ramana Maharshi, one of the great Indian saints of the 20th century was the one to bring to the western mainstream audience the ancient reductionist technique of self-enquiry, even authoring a short treatise called Self-Enquiry (Vichara-Samgraha). Both the method of Self-Enquiry and the spiritual magnitude of its proponent reached the western readers in 1934, when Paul Brunton published his book In Search of Secret India, which recounts the author’s meeting with R. Maharshi in 1931. The technique of self-enquiry is not a metaphysical argumentation, but an experiential intuitive vision, involving all resources, potentialities and energies of the human psyche. As an example of the deep spiritual transformation which is envisaged by this method, I reproduce below the account of Maharishi’s personal spiritual experience as quoted by a visitor in 1945. This is how Maharshi, in a vision of death, had experienced that pure essence of the human being that undergoes neither death nor decay, called Atman, Self, Soul or Spirit:
“In the vision of death, though all the senses were benumbed, the aham sphurana (Self-awareness) was clearly evident, and so I realized that it was that awareness that we call "I", and not the body. This Self-awareness never decays. It is unrelated to anything. It is Self-luminous. Even if this body is burnt, it will not be affected. Hence, I realized on that very day so clearly that that was "I" “The method described by R. Maharshi follows the Indian tradition, being one essentially experimental and aiming to drive the awareness of the individual to his inner essence, the Self (soul, ātman), which, paradoxically, is one and the same with that very awareness.
It should be noted that although the Indian mind can feel perfectly comfortable in the area of pure metaphysical speculation, yet achieving those great truths discovered by generations of rishis within the innermost space of the human psyche is a dominant feature of Indian spirituality. The Self-knowledge, in the sense of transcending any conditioned reality, which is synonymous with the realization of the Unconditioned that is actually beyond the individual, is the ultimate goal of any philosophical school and of any religious endeavor in India.
Although the Self, like God him-(or it-)self, defies any attempt of conceptualization, we can still say, in a pretty relative and conventionalist manner, that the Self is that which never dies in the human being, that the Self is in fact the very human being, or, even more appropriate, the “being” component of the “human being”. Other synonymous concepts are in use in the western world: soul, spirit, consciousness, super-conscious, trans-conscious, transpersonal, overself, oversoul. Author and spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle, for instance, who confessed that his teaching is a “coming together” of the teachings of R. Maharshi and J. Krishnamurti, calls the same essence (as synonymous terms) sacredness, spaciousness, being, one life, awareness, peace, stillness, formless, source, energy. So, it’s the same ancient Upanishadic truth expressed in different words, all of which are, of course, metaphors.
Since the Self is by its very essence undefinable, the Upanishads often make effective use of negation, in order to deduct, first of all, that which the Self is not. The ancient Vedāntic method promoted by R. Maharshi, the Self-enquiry, resorts to a reductionist process: the Self is "found" by preliminarily and gradually denying whatever the Self is not, starting with one’s physical body and the automatic stream of thinking.
Since the Self is by its very essence undefinable, the Upanishads often make effective use of negation, in order to deduct, first of all, that which the Self is not. The ancient Vedāntic method promoted by R. Maharshi, the Self-enquiry, resorts to a reductionist process: the Self is "found" by preliminarily and gradually denying whatever the Self is not, starting with one’s physical body and the automatic stream of thinking.
R. Maharshi’s own words as quoted in P. Brunton’s book convey the essence of his teachings:
“Trace thought to its place of origin, watch for the real self to reveal itself, and then your thoughts will die down of their own accord.”
Freedom of thought from an Indian perspective
Form an Indian perspective, freedom as a socio-political goal only reenacts on a visible level the actual and deep truth of the spiritual freedom or “mokṣa”. To a western reader of India’s philosophies, it is this astonishing discrepancy between our freedom of thought and India’s freedom from thought that can make one reconsider almost entirely one’s life perspective. The bondage has no social sources - it is identical with psychological conditioning, having as primordial cause the nescience, avidyā. As a consequence, the inner experience of release is synonymous with experiencing on an individual and very concrete level the deconditioning of the mind, which is always seen as the device or vehicle of spiritual transformation.
The trouble with the so-called ordinary thought processes is that the thinker is thought by his/her thoughts and he/she is not a thinker, in fact, because the fluctuating attention running incessantly from past to future and from thought to thought recreates again and again one’s identity around each impermanent fragment of reality, to the extent to which the “thinker” can no longer be perceived as an active handler of mental processes, but a passive victim, a divided consciousness who dries out by repeatedly taking up the transient form of thoughts and virtually incarnating in thoughts. Very often, the mind is entirely trapped in thoughts, which can become energy leeches and ultimately, in pathological cases, mind-killers. This is how the “normal” thinking operates. So, there is no freedom of thought in our daily lives and no social uprising or reform can bring it about.
Real freedom cannot be found unless we can manage somehow to recognize, and to abide in, that state of freedom that pre-exist all thoughts and remains ever unaffected by them.
And yet, people nurture this illusion " they can think freely. This is a core statement in any bill of rights and in every constitution: freedom of thought. But in fact, no constitution can bring about or protect this freedom of thought, because people do not think, they are only being thought by their own thoughts. Freedom from thought would have to be obtained before achieving freedom of thought. Usually, the individual is driven by his/her unconscious mind patterns and imprints that emerge into the manifested, apparently conscious mind, in the shape of these unstoppable thoughts. Furthermore, these unconsciously-born thoughts determine people’s unconscious behaviors. They may seem conscious, from a psychological point of view, however, the way one acts is conditioned by billions of past conditioning imprints. There can be no freedom, unless some form of release supersedes the mind conditioning. Realizing the Unconditioned or de-programming the mind is the main goal of any of India’s philosophies and religions, for thousands of years.
The search for freedom of thought is a spiritual quest, not a political agenda. And it’s also a heroic adventure, because the old egoic self has to be sacrificed. It has to die in order to release the sacred light from within, which is called the Self of Indian philosophy and religion, ātman. Without freedom of thought there is no freedom at all, this is a universal truth, but the real freedom of thought means that you are able to think whenever and whatever it is truly beneficial, as it were, the real freedom of thought cannot be gained prior to obtaining the freedom from thought. Usual thoughts arise automatically and unconsciously and they are very often repetitive, unproductive or even toxic overflowing reverberations of your mind.
Thresholds of Awareness
A well-known mantra in Brihad Aranyaka Upanishad defines the essence of this teaching:
“Lead me from the unreal to the real.
From darkness lead me to light.
From death lead me to immortality”. (1,3,28)
One’s salvation, in India’s principal philosophies and religions, resides in simply knowing one’s true Self, one’s innermost nature. The conclusion that was reached by ancient India is that there is a consciousness that transcends all thoughts and forms and all minds and in the absence of which there is no mind, no thought, no name, no form. In India, this consciousness pre-exists thought, mind, matter and energy and at the same time, sustains them all. There is no own “light” in the human brains or in the human mind. The “light” of the brains or the mind’s reflexivity is the same with the light of the moon, which only reflects the light of the sun. So, the brain is the vehicle for the mind, which in turn is only a tiny reflection of the absolute consciousness in this space-time dimension. This view was clearly pointed out in the classical yoga system of Patañjali:
“The mind is not self-illuminating, as it can [also] be perceived [in its own right] as an object of knowledge.” (Patañjali, Yoga-Sūtra, 4,19)
This is why the space between two consecutive thoughts is sometimes indicated as one of the gateways unto one’s inner eternal dimension.
You derive your sense of identity from your thoughts. This is the “disease”, i.e. the root-problem to be solved by any Indian philosophical system. “Disease” means in fact “normal human condition”. In most cases, a metaphysical system or a religious path is purposefully designed as some kind of cure or therapy for the universal “illness” of ignorance (avidyā), which is the main cause of all human misery (duḥkha). The Buddha himself taught his method as some kind of therapy. The following sūtra is ascribed to him: “I teach one thing and one thing only: suffering and the end of suffering”, which is very consistent with his teachings, even though his authorship of this aphorism is under debate.
The “self-enquiry” therapy begins by questioning the solidity and the absolute reality of thought. Whenever the mind gets involuntary dragged into this stream of thoughts, constantly generating anxiety and unhappiness, this automatic flow is blocked by introversion, by repeatedly turning the mind inwardly, into its own source, using such queries as: "To whom does this thought, this care, this problem occur?" In other words: who is that witness (Skr. “sakṣin”), who is that still awareness that is able to experience the turmoil?
Gradually, one becomes able to see that every thought has an ephemeral life - that is, a second-hand existence, and the mind itself is "colored" by this incessant flow of thoughts that come and go and bring about a false sense of "I"-ness, which is the source of human suffering of all kinds (from the simplest, short-lived “missing the bus” dissatisfaction to the extreme tragedies).
Thoughts come and go like tiny clouds on the sky. The trouble with “ordinary” thinking is that it automatically leads you into believing that clouds are very solid and very durable, that they are long lasting structures. But they are not. They are only appearances.
We can look upon this spiritual evolutionary process underwent by human consciousness getting the witness perspective as a series of ever ascending, spiraling thresholds of awareness. From the impersonal “IT” perception of things, going on through the personal “YOU” perspective, the human consciousness undergoes an in-depth metamorphosis and finally arrives to a “THOU” perception of reality, wherefrom it can open up to the transpersonal sacredness of each being and each thing. Each threshold is true and necessary in its’ own right and its’ system of references (even the level of consciousness that makes you believe that you are a physical body) provided that every superior stage incorporates harmoniously and creatively the previous one. So, the higher you climb on this spiritual spiraling stair-case, your vision will always integrate the lower levels, making you capable of empathy or compassion as you carry within you the deep and thorough understanding of the previous steps. This integrating witnessing perspective makes you able to teach the spiritual path to others, as you become able to understand each system of references, each “degree” of reality and each corresponding stage of self-awareness.
This transformation of consciousness begins at the lowest level, when one sees him/herself as identical with the thought processes and mental images, as this false identification leads to stress, anxiety or even terrible suffering. The suffering is the “ignition” or the triggering event in any spiritual awakening and this is why in India ignorance and suffering don’t have the usual malefic connotation of the “sin” of the Christianity. The suffering has no evil person or event in the background. The current human condition is not the result of any primeval sin or fall, but of the primeval ignorance, which is a very metaphysical and psychological approach. In Eastern terms, you are not capable of becoming aware of yourself because you are permanently dragged away by your noisy thoughts, which “cloud” your real self to the extent to which you perceive yourself as being in fact, your mind-created image of yourself.
So, this is when one crosses the first threshold of awareness, the jumping-off point: when one can step out of one’s stream of thinking and becomes able to “see” one’s own thoughts and body, as a witness, observer or a dispassionate watcher. When you find out that your thinking and your body are not who you truly are, your hidden spiritual light is ready to emerge and the transformation of your consciousness is unstoppable. By continuously returning the mind unto its own source, this avalanche of thoughts subsides and finally disappears, coming back again only when thoughts are really useful, when they are “summoned”, so to speak.
In the front of the first threshold of awareness, you are able to be aware that a thought was a mere thought only after the thought has passed away. It’s only the beginning, but it’s a realization of the uttermost importance. This first step can be called anamnestic awareness. In the next step, which I call synchronic awareness, you are able to recognize the thought for what it is as it shows up. In the following stage, which can be called anticipatory awareness, you will be able to foresee the thought that is about to emerge and you become an observer, a non-attached witness. And also you can recognize a toxic or negative thought for what it is even before it arises, and become able to stop it beforehand. By constantly cultivating such a progressive witnessing perspective one can arrive to a unified field of consciousness, which is a concept that I obviously borrowed from physics. In this step, one’s all-pervasive consciousness becomes one and the same with the Totality, with the Whole or with the One. So, the separation process of the witness-consciousness, which becomes aware of itself as a no-thought, no-thing, no-object etc., ends up as a unifying force which integrates everything, including one’s own body and mind processes. In this stage you are not a particular thought or a particular thing or a state of mind, but the Wholeness in which all things and thoughts arise and pass away. You can then act from the perspective of an unconditioned consciousness, undisturbed by that which is happening in this time-space dimension, which is only its’ surface and from that still point that is the hub of the whirling existence, where the motion (i.e. time) and the motionless (i.e. eternity) co-exist. “Things done or not done do not afflict him” means that for those to whom the self-awareness has stabilized, the space-time dimension, the visible word, is perceived only as the manifestation of the invisible, unchanging Self, which remains ever unaffected by what happens at its surface.
The illusion (māyā) has two main powers (śakti): the first power of māyā is the obscuring and concealing power (āvaraṇa), which blocks the auto-reflexivity of consciousness whereas the second power is the projecting power (vikpṣepa) which replaces the self-awareness with the mental images of the universe and the forms of transient states of mind or thoughts. By reflecting itself in this tiny “pond”, the absolute consciousness obscures itself. This is the so-called “obscuring”, “clouding”, “veiling” or “covering” (lit. āvaraṇa) power of māyā, which prevents you from being aware of your own awareness, followed by the projecting power of māyā, which leads you into perceiving yourself as a mental image, a thought, a transitory state of consciousness, a physical body, a social identity and so forth (as listed at the beginning of this post). In order to “reveal” yourself, your real Self, you will have to reverse the whole process. The veil that clouds the awareness of one’s real self and replaces it with the mental projections is called superimposition (adhyāsa). The spiritual “technique” of self-enquiry aims to reversing the superimposition by deconstructing and removing (apavāda) the inconsistent pseudo-reality created by thought.
When the Consciousness objectifies itself as a visible form, or, in other words, when the consciousness experiences itself as a temporal reality, only then can It be conceptualized. When the One Consciousness reveals itself as an object or a thought, it paradoxically and simultaneously obscures itself. This is why it is so hard to see beyond the world of dancing and playing forms (Skr. “rūpa”) and concepts (Skr. “nama”), the underlying reality. However, the objectified, the manifested or the visible aspect of reality, as a whole, in other words, this dance of māyā represents, for India, just a symbolic representation of the absolute Being or the Unmanifested, that vibrates both through this phenomenal existence and as this phenomenal existence.
This is in fact a vision that will be later developed in a masterpiece: The Bhagavad-Gītā, the gatherer of the core principles of all Hindu thought. The same paradoxical vision is summarized by H. Zimmer in his marvelous work “Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and Civilization”:
“Regarded from the viewpoint of the Divine itself (a position attained in the enlightenment of yoga), the apparently contradictory aspects of existence " creation, duration, dissolution "are one and the same as to origin and meaning and end. They are the changing phenomenal self-expressions of the one divine substance or energy of life, which, though revealed in a threefold way, is finally beyond, and unaffected by, all the changes that it seems to inflict upon itself. The understanding of this unity is the goal of Hindu wisdom (…) Hindu wisdom, Hindu religion, accepts the doom and forms of death as the dark-tones of a cosmic symphony, this tremendous music being the utterance, paradoxically, of the supreme quietude and silence of the Absolute”.
In other words, the relative world of māyā as a whole is a metaphorical rendering of the absolute, which is the Self.
The mind itself, as the entire contingent existence is a vibration (Skr. “spandita”) of the unmanifested consciousness. The mind is reabsorbed back into the unmanifested consciousness during deep sleep, coma or death, or during the state of rapture (the mystic trance, ecstasy or “sāmadhi”), in the same way that ripples merge with the ocean whence they sprang up. The ripples are only apparent and impermanent vibrations of the ocean and have no distinctive existence apart from the existence of the ocean. From the point of view of Advaita Vedānta, which is the official, so to speak, philosophy of the Hinduism, the ripples have only an illusory or secondary existence. "What exists in truth is the Self alone. The world, the individual soul, and God are appearances in it.” [R. Maharshi, “Who Am I?" (“Nan Yar?”)].
This simile of the waves or ripples on the surface of the water is frequent in the school of Vedānta and it is always used in order to illustrate how the “māyā” can occur in the mind. The mind grasps only fragments of reality and believes them to be true. But reality is “true” only when perceived as a whole, as the ocean, and “false” when the fragments, “ripple”, “waves”, i.e. objects or thoughts are perceived as autonomous entities and not recognized for what they are: vibrations within the unique consciousness.
Thou Art That
After the reality of all this mind-constructed order has been denied, all that remains is the space of the consciousness’ canvas on which there are painted all these physical phenomena and impermanent states of consciousness. This space is synonymous with Self-awareness, the spirit, the soul, the imperishable essence, Atman. That's you. “Tat twam Asi”, as it’s been said in Chandogya Upanishad, 6,8,7. (“Now, that which is the subtle essence"in it all that exists has its Self. That is the True. That is the Self. That thou art, Svetaketu”).
This is the road pointed out by the great sages who authored the Upanishads: from the supreme reductionist negation ("neti, neti "=”neither this nor that”) of Brihad - Aranyaka " Upanishad, to the ultimate affirmation ("tat twam asi"=”thou art that”) in Chandogya Upanishad, without them being in any way contradictory, since all this road of spiritual awakening consists of crossings of successive thresholds of awareness and layers of reality.
All these steps and thresholds reveal, one after another, new and larger dimensions of the same reality, which, although unchangeable as such, vibrates in different frequencies. Every new threshold opens you up to a fresh perspective, which encompasses also the perspectives gained in the previous stages. So, all these thresholds are true and necessary in their own way and constitute parts of an evolutionary process.
Looked upon as a part, you might appear as identical with any of the entities and characteristics listed at the beginning of this essay. They all are but mere fragmentary undulations of the one consciousness that transcends time and space, which is beyond any name and form but without which, however, there can be no form, no name, no action and no energy. Therefore you are, ultimately, all these things, too. Only, they are all, together, entirely, within you, because you are this One Life or Totality that temporarily wears a human cloth, a human body. All this big Universe stretches in you and Thou Art That. You are unstirred; you are ever still, although these raging colossal forms of existence unfold within you.
Ignorance derives from one’ tendency to identify oneself with one or another particular component of the phenomenal universe, which generates feelings of alienation, separation and fragmentation. When you no longer identify yourself with this name, with this form, with a physical shape, a mental imprint, when you no longer consider yourself as an individual, a person, you are merged with the totality of existence. This is why, in the non-dualistic view of the Upanishads, “jīvātman” or the Self (the individual soul) is identical with Brahman, the totality or the supreme Self (“adhyātman”, “paramatman”) or God.
When you realize the illusory existence (as separate entities) of names ("nāma”) , forms (“rūpa”) and actions (“karman”), you cease to identify yourself (or your Self) with those separate and relative aspects of an absolute existence and henceforth the individual consciousness is reabsorbed in this Totality, in the same way in which the river merges with the ocean toward which it flows.
This is liberation, mokṣa.
This is liberation, mokṣa.
Beyond being and non-being, where nothingness and wholeness merge
This is the great Indian paradox in which two Upanishadic statements, apparently opposite, coalesce, a standard coincidence of opposites in the sense that the supreme negation equals to the supreme affirmation if and insofar they are properly understood, as pointers to the same reality. The absolute reality reveals itself and obscures itself at the same time, as every manifested phenomena emerging from the unmanifested underlying reality represents simultaneously the coverage and the indication of the transcendent source. The veiling power of māyā is identical, from another perspective, with the revealing power of māyā. The manifested reality is the vehicle that could take us to the unmanifested. In fact, this is a function of symbols in general and Indian creation myths express the same truth, but on a larger scale, as pointed out above " this whole relative creation is only a symbolic expression of the Absolute or the dream in the absolute consciousness, which is sometimes personified by Vishnu, whose dream is this whole visible existence.
So, from the standpoint of the paradoxical and apophatic approach of the Upanishads, the boundaries between such categories as being and non-being tend to be erased. “Neither this nor that” of Brihad Aranyaka Upanisad equals to “Thou Art That” of Chandogya Upanishad, since the absolute existence transcends all categories of thought, including being and non-being. When you say you're nothing, nothingness or no-thing-ness, this might appear as the way of the Buddha, which is no coincidence at all, because Buddha’s birth some one or two hundred years after Brihad Aranyaka Upanisha is no mere accident. The “nothingness” concept is deeply rooted in the apophatic vision of the Upanishads and this is true with the Buddha’s teaching itself. The Buddha’s “emptiness” or “śūnyatā” is a way of expressing the same paradoxical merging of being and non-being.
Furthermore, in Buddhist terms, when you say that you're nothing (no-thing), when there is no subject of the drama of the existence, nor is there any sense of “I”, moreover, no “Self”, no soul, nothing can be lost, nothing can be found, yes, this can be a liberating feeling. Maybe this annoying question would yet persist: “To whom is this feeling liberating, if I am nowhere to be found, if I’m gone to the yonder shore?” The answer is that this final question is irrelevant, so long as the liberating feeling is there. A liberating feeling is the ultimate goal of any religious experience and not a conceptual truth.
This is the crossroad of two apparently opposite views: Hinduism (The Upanishads, Bhagavad Gītā, Vedanta Sūtra etc.), which posits a soul or an immortal Self, on one hand and Buddhism, on the other hand, which asserts that there is no such thing as the Self, but only an aggregate or composite structure consisting of ever fleeting but nonetheless ever interconnected thoughts, lacking any inner essence or Self. This means that there are no entities, there are only processes.
This is the crossroad of two apparently opposite views: Hinduism (The Upanishads, Bhagavad Gītā, Vedanta Sūtra etc.), which posits a soul or an immortal Self, on one hand and Buddhism, on the other hand, which asserts that there is no such thing as the Self, but only an aggregate or composite structure consisting of ever fleeting but nonetheless ever interconnected thoughts, lacking any inner essence or Self. This means that there are no entities, there are only processes.
The distinction between the Upanishadic Hinduism that posits an all-integrating immortal Self and the Self-denying Buddhism is only apparent; they just use different symbols and metaphors for the same truth. The consciousness within you that rejoices at the idea that you are no-thing-ness and the feeling just as liberating that says that you are the immortal Self, is one and the same.
Probably, I’m not the only one to owe to Ramana Maharshi this intuitive, paradoxical understanding of being and non-being, which had been originally stated in the Upanishads, but which becomes evident after your read the almost obsessive references he made to the experience of deep sleep since apparently there is neither experiencer nor experience whatsoever during the state of dreamless sleep. Ramana Maharshi stated again and again that if you look a little bit closer, there is a memory of the deep sleep. His method, as I said earlier, was simple: focusing the unified flow of consciousness on the experiencer instead of the experience. This practice of refocusing on the experiencer leads you to the intuitive experience of a consciousness beyond and underneath deep sleep, coma, death, being and non-being, which in Mandukya Upanishad is called “turīya”, or “the fourth [state of consciousness]”. The “fourth state of consciousness” is the essence, the seed or the unconditioned-Consciousness manifesting as the Self in the three states of waking, dream and dreamless sleep. In other words, it takes a consciousness beyond being and non-being for one to be able to experience even the non-being or, more properly said, to be aware of the non-being, of the no-experience and no-thought. By pointing out to the thoughtless (and apparently unconscious) “experience” of the deep sleep R. Maharshi was trying to demonstrate that there is a common ground for both being and non-being, reality and illusion, that it’s possible to actually experience the non-being, as a detached observer residing in the “background” awareness which lies underneath the waking state, the dreaming and dreamless sleep, coma and even death. I know that his arguments isn’t infallible, but still, it proves, on one hand, that ancient India’s meditation techniques explored thoroughly the apparently unfathomable depth of the human psyche and that no conceptual and therefore relative truth can describe what these generations of rishis have actually discovered in themselves.
As a conclusion, this undefinable Consciousness in which the Buddhist thought that you're nothing (or no-thing) was projected is the same Consciousness on which the Hindu thought that you are everything (or every-thing or all things) was projected.
As a conclusion, this undefinable Consciousness in which the Buddhist thought that you're nothing (or no-thing) was projected is the same Consciousness on which the Hindu thought that you are everything (or every-thing or all things) was projected.
You are this Consciousness.
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