Showing posts with label transitive awareness (suṭṭaṟivu). Show all posts

Monday, 22 March 2021

The second and third paragraphs of Nāṉ Ār?

In this article I will discuss the history behind the second paragraph of Nāṉ Ār? and the practical and philosophical significance of what Bhagavan teaches us in the third paragraph.

Monday, 9 March 2020

Though we appear in two distinct modes, we are just one awareness

When I woke up on Saturday morning, a fresh clarity occurred to me. If I try to put this clarity into words, as I will do in this article, it is what I knew already, but somehow on that morning I saw it with a fresh clarity. In words I cannot actually express this clarity, but I can explain what it is about: that is, what it is that somehow became more clear.

Wednesday, 18 April 2018

The ego does not actually exist, but it seems to exist, and only so long as it seems to exist do all other things seem to exist

A friend recently wrote a series of emails expressing his views and asking questions about the ego and other related matters, so this article is adapted from the replies I wrote to him.

Sunday, 22 January 2017

Sunday, 15 January 2017

What is aware of everything other than ourself is only the ego and not ourself as we actually are

In a comment on one of my recent articles, Why does Bhagavan sometimes say that the ātma-jñāni is aware of the body and world?, a friend called Ken wrote, ‘Ramana states: “The ego functions as the knot between the Self which is Pure Consciousness and the physical body which is inert and insentient.” Therefore, there is nothing that can experience other than the Self. [...] since the body is insentient (cannot experience), and only the Self can experience, then any experience that occurs, can only be experienced by the Self’, but contrary to what he argues in this comment and in several other ones, what experiences everything (all forms or phenomena) is not ‘the Self’ (ourself as we actually are) but only ourself as this ego, as I will try to explain in this article.

Monday, 21 November 2016

What is the correct meaning of ajāta vāda?

In a comment on my previous article, The difference between vivarta vāda and ajāta vāda is not just semantic but substantive, a friend called Venkat questioned my understanding of the meaning of ajāta vāda, citing something that I wrote in the sixth section of that article, What is unborn (ajāta) is only pure self-awareness, and since it is the infinite whole, nothing else actually exists, namely ‘ajāta vāda is the contention that no creation has ever occurred even as an illusory appearance’, and then arguing:
Michael I think that you might be incorrect in your understanding of the advaitic meaning of ajata vada. I cannot argue with you on what Bhagavan Ramana meant by it.

Gaudapada’s famous ajata verse occurs in the second chapter of his karika. If this verse is taken in context of the verses that precede and follow it, it is clear that Gaudapada does indeed mean that there is no real creation of the world or the jiva, and that both are illusions.

30: This Atman, though non-separate from all these, appears as it were separate. One who knows this truly interprets the meaning of the Vedas without hesitation
31: As are dreams and illusions or a castle in the air seen in the sky, so is the universe viewed by the wise in the Vedanta
32: There is no dissolution, no birth, none in bondage, none aspiring for wisdom, no seeker of liberation and none liberated. This is the absolute truth.
33: This (the Atman) is imagined both as unreal objects that are perceived as the non-duality. The objects are imagined in the non-duality itself. Therefore non-duality alone is the highest bliss.

Sankara’s commentary on v32 is also worth reading, though quite long. Relevant extracts:

“This verse sums up the meaning of the chapter. When duality is perceived to be illusory and Atman alone is known as the sole Reality, then it is clearly established that all our experiences, ordinary or religious, verily pertain to the domain of ignorance.”

“Thus duality being non-different from mental imagination cannot have a beginning or an end . . . Therefore it is established that duality is a mere illusion of the mind. Hence it is well-said that the Ultimate Reality is the absence of destruction, etc, on account of the non-existence of duality (which exists only in the imagination of the mind”.

My understanding is that srsti-drsti vada says first the world is created and then jivas evolve from it thereafter. Then, vivartha vada takes a step back to say that actually the jiva’s perceiving creates the world. And ajata vada then takes a further step back to point out that the jiva itself is an illusion, a superimposition on the atman.
In this article, therefore, I will try to explain more clearly why the correct meaning of ajāta vāda is the contention that no vivarta (illusion or false appearance) has ever been born or come into existence at all.

Wednesday, 19 October 2016

As we actually are, we do nothing and are aware of nothing other than ourself

In several comments on one of my recent articles, What is the ‘self’ we are investigating when we try to be attentively self-aware?, a friend called Ken wrote:
Note that the Self is what is watching the movie [...] (4 September 2016 at 17:45)

[...] the ego is actually the Self in another form. (4 September 2016 at 23:27)

The Self is God [...] The Lila (play) of the Self (Brahman/Atman) is that it “veils” itself so it itself thinks it is limited. As “veiled”, it is watching the movie. When it decides to stop watching the movie, and the lights go on, it then sees it is actually the Self. Hence “Self-” “realisation”, i.e. realizing that it is the Self. (5 September 2016 at 04:16)

The ego stops giving attention to “2nd person and 3rd person”, i.e. sense perceptions and thoughts. The Self sees this and if it is convinced of complete sincerity, then it terminates the ego (this is the “action of Grace performed by the Self” according to Ramana — paraphrased). [...] since the Self IS your own basic awareness, then it is entirely aware of everything you have ever thought, said or done. (5 September 2016 at 04:26)

The Self (atman) is: The present moment [and] That which is looking. (7 September 2016 at 03:26)

This is what is called “The Play of Consciousness” (lila in Sanskrit). [...] The Self makes the “mistake” of identifying with a character in the world. (8 September 2016 at 02:09)

The Self definitely wants to see the movie, otherwise the movie would not even exist. (8 September 2016 at 17:49)

Because there is nothing other than the Self, so there is nothing that can force the Self to do anything. The Self is alone, so it decides to “veil” itself and limit itself as a multitude of “individuals”. This is the Lila, the play. (9 September 2016 at 00:04)
Ken, in these remarks you have attributed properties of our ego (and also properties of God) to ‘the Self’, which is ourself as we actually are, so in this article I will try to clarify that our actual self does not do anything and is neither aware of nor in any other way affected by the illusory appearance of our ego and all its projections, which seem to exist only in the self-ignorant view of ourself as this ego.

Saturday, 2 July 2016

Names and forms are all just thoughts, so we can free ourself from them only by investigating their root, our ego

A friend recently sent me a long email in which she began by saying, ‘The ego generates words in consciousness. The ego presents in consciousness as streams of words which form the so-called “stream of consciousness”’, and then went on to express her reflections on this idea, saying for example, ‘We all know how the mind races at times with endless streams of words which form thoughts of countless subjects, fears, hopes, memories, etc.’, and ‘Language forms words into thoughts, objects, events, time, space, memories, etc. creating the dream of a populated earth in a vast universe’, and she explained how she tries to apply such ideas in her practice of self-investigation (ātma-vicāra). The following article is my reply to her.

Tuesday, 31 May 2016

What is the logic for believing that happiness is what we actually are?

In a comment on my previous article, How to attend to ourself?, a friend called Sundar referred to my reply to his previous comment and wrote, ‘You have not explained the logic by which you say that we can get infinite peace and happiness when we manage to be attentively aware of ourself alone’, and regarding Bhagavan’s argument that we can understand that happiness is our real nature because in sleep we are perfectly happy just being aware of nothing other than ourself, he objected, ‘I can only be certain of having had a sleep with dreams. Because I can recall some of these dreams in the morning. But, I can not be sure of even having had a dreamless sleep. Hence, I can not speak of a ‘perfectly happy’ time during the dreamless sleep’. This article is therefore addressed to him in reply to this comment of his.

Tuesday, 17 May 2016

We can separate ourself permanently from whatever is not ourself only by attending to ourself alone

In a recent comment on one of my old articles, Ātma-vicāra and the ‘practice’ of nēti nēti, a friend called Roger tried to explain why he considers that ātma-vicāra (self-investigation) and nēti nēti (which literally means ‘not thus, not thus’, ‘not so, not so’ or ‘not like this, not like this’, and which is generally considered to be the practice of meditating on the idea that the body, mind and other adjuncts that we mistake to be ourself are not ourself) are both ‘entirely valid and have the same potential’, and that nēti nēti is ‘one method of keeping attention fixed on “I”’, one among ‘multiple other such methods’, so this article is my reply to him.

Sunday, 8 May 2016

The ego is the thinker, not the act of thinking

In a comment on my previous article, The person we seem to be is a form composed of five sheaths, a friend called Ann Onymous wrote, ‘Ego is the very thinking that there is, or even seems to be an ego’, but this is confusing an action with the actor, mistaking the former (the thinking) to be the latter (the thinker). Thinking that there is an ego or that there is no ego, that it actually exists or just seems to exist, or thinking any other thought about it or about anything else cannot be the ego, because thinking is an action, whereas the ego is the thinker, the one who does that action.

If the ego were the act of thinking, we could investigate it simply by observing our thinking, which is obviously not the case. To investigate this ego we must ignore all thinking and observe only the thinker, the one who is aware of thinking and of the thoughts produced by thinking. Therefore it is necessary for us to clearly distinguish the thinker from its thinking, and also from whatever it thinks.

Friday, 8 April 2016

Self-investigation (ātma-vicāra) entails nothing more than just being persistently and tenaciously self-attentive

In a comment on my previous article, Why is it necessary to make effort to practise self-investigation (ātma-vicāra)?, a friend called Pachaiamman referred to the first section of it, We must practise ātma-vicāra for as long as it takes to destroy all our viṣaya-vāsanās (in which I had cited extracts from the sixth, tenth and eleventh paragraphs of Nāṉ Yār?), and asked:
May I give a short description what happens in my poor experience of practising self-investigation in the following passage: The attentiveness with which one investigates what one is has to be accomplished by the ego. The ego is a bundle of thoughts. So attentiveness is also a thought. The attentive thought ‘who am I’ is entrusted to try to extinguish/erase other rising thoughts and simultaneously or after that to investigate to whom they have occurred. It is clear that it is to me. By further investigation ‘who am I’, I do not clearly recognize if the mind subsided or returned to its birthplace, that is myself. Because the same (my) attentiveness has to manage to refuse the spreading/developing of other thoughts (without giving room [place/field] to other thoughts) and rather eliminate them, other thoughts are on my mind well waiting for refusal of their completion. Thus I am far away from grabbing the opportunity that the thought ‘who am I’ itself is destroyed in the end (like the fire-stir-stick). What is wrong in my strategy or where I am on the wrong track?
The following is my reply to this:

Wednesday, 16 March 2016

We are aware of ourself while asleep, so pure self-awareness alone is what we actually are

In many of my articles in this blog, including my most recent one, The role of logic in developing a clear, coherent and uncomplicated understanding of Bhagavan’s teachings (particularly in sections six and twelve), I have written about Bhagavan’s teaching that we are aware of ourself while asleep, but it is such a crucial aspect of his teachings that I do not hesitate to write about it repeatedly, because it is a concept that many people seem to have difficulty grasping, and because thinking about it deeply and understanding it clearly is an extremely valuable aid to us in our practice of self-investigation (ātma-vicāra). In fact, until we are able to recognise clearly that we are aware of ourself even when we are aware of nothing else whatsoever, as in sleep, while trying to investigate ourself we will not be able to distinguish our fundamental self-awareness from our awareness of all other things, including our body and mind.

Sunday, 25 May 2014

The mind’s role in investigating ‘I’

In a comment that he wrote on my previous article, How to attend to ‘I’?, Jacques Franck referred to a sentence in which I wrote, “Therefore our aim is to experience ‘I’ alone, in complete isolation from all other things, and in order to experience it thus, we need to try to be aware only of ‘I’ and thereby to ignore everything else”, and commented: ‘It sounds simple and complicated at the same time [...] Because when I try to do this, I have the feeling that my mind is trying to do this. So is it normal that in first place the mind is a little involved or much involved [...]?’

Yes, since our mind or ego is what we now experience as ‘I’, the ‘I’ that investigates itself is only our mind. One obvious reason for this is that our real self (what we actually are, or in other words, ‘I’ as it actually is, rather than as the mind that it now seems to be) always experiences itself as it actually is, so there is no need for it to investigate itself. The mind seems to be ‘I’ when I do not experience myself as I actually am, so it is only this mind that needs to investigate itself in order to experience ‘I’ as it actually is.

When we try to investigate ourself by attending only to ‘I’, it is our mind that is trying, but in its attempt to attend to ‘I’ it is actually undermining itself — that is, it is undermining our illusion that it is ‘I’, and when this illusion is dissolved our mind itself ceases to exist, since it seems to exist only when we experience it as ‘I’.



Last updated: 7th November 2024