Exploring "I"

[kallol]

I is conscious identity. It is an expression consciousness aware of itself. There is no firewall other than infinite potency. Your I and my I, while functionally the same, are each subjectively different (in content of experience). By culture (communciation of commnalities), spiritual, ethnic etc, we may decrease the diffrences in content but never extinguish the differences. As universal consciousness is infinite, so its minute microcosms (your I and my I and his I and her I), also have infinite range and scope.

Thanks Sarangiji. What you said is eternally true as far my knowledge goes.

Love and best wishes

[kallol]

hariḥ oṁ
~~~~~~

namast� kallol,



This sets the stage to answer your questions more appropriately... We are not done yet and I can continue if you wish.


Vibration in consciousness is how creation begins and is sustained. This is supported and reviewed in the spanda-kārikā-s, a kaśmir śaivism important śāstra (document).
This ~vibration~ is called Self-referral . This pure Being is aware of Itself - that is the 'throb' , the vibration if you will, that is reviewed in the spanda-kārikā-s. That is why it is different then śāṁkhya and in some cases vedānta schools of thinking.

You see, in kaśmir śaivism ( an advaya or non-dual view), pure Being, Brahman is not inert - we see this in the śāṁkhya view. The very 1st verse of the spanda-kārikā-s( based upon the sage's experience) suggests that this Self-referral quality ( spanda) is the basic nature of pure Being ( we call śiva, some prefer Brahman).

So if you are locked into one school of thought you will come to an end in your thinking that leaves you on a remote island without a ship to take you to the shores of understanding.
Note this is not an advertisement for you to pursue any one school over the other... Continue to explore, ponder.
The wise inform us, it is not what you do not know that is an issue, but what you do know that's just not correct, that gets one into a bind.

So, a bit more reading and study will be good, but also direct personal experience is the formula for greater understanding.

Various HDF members will be happy to help. May I suggest one issue/doubt at a time? It will lead to other answers for you.

If you are okay with that then my last post will be a foundation to answer your initial 3 to 4 questions , if we follow a progression of thought . If this is acceptable to you, I will be happy to proceed. If you care to go in another direction, let us know.

praṇām

Thanks Yajvan ji. I believe, I will take some time to understand this. At this point it is looking slightly perplexing. But I will surely do more research to have better understanding on this.

All persons being unique, they have different adhar to absorb and be comfortable. This ofcourse change with time (which affects body, mind, intellect). So are the differences in perceptions, opinions and approach.

Pardon me if I look a bit stubborn.

Love and best wishes

[saidevo]

namaste Kallol.

I appreciate the sincerity and humility shown by you in seeking answers to your questions, admist various suggestions. Just like you, I am not much familiar with Hindu scriptures (because of no systematic study as yet). I am an advaitin who believes that advaita is the final answer, but then the answers of dvaita and vishiShTAdvaita also are real and fit at their own hierarchical levels below advaita, in the vyavahArika satyam--practical reality, of the jagat--world.

The most famous mahAvAkya says: tattvamasi--"That thou art", or in another words "The self is Brahman". The self, that is, the 'I-consciousness' in us works differently at different levels of abstraction/association.

• At the physical level, it is associated with the body. We commonly say, looking at a photograph of ours, "It is I (me)."

• At the mental level, it is a feeling and thought: "I feel, I think, etc." "I think, therefore I am" said Descartes, which is incorrect and should be, "I am, therefore I think" as BhagavAn DAs has pointed out.

• At the intellectual level, as associated with buddhi, it works as the voice of our mana-sAkShin--conscience.

• At the spiritual level, it identifies itself with the jIvAtman--individual self.

• At all levels, the I-consciousness, in essence, is the Self--Atman/Brahman, which amounts to an existential experience, which is ubiquitous among all the jIvas.

‣ Every individual self has this immanent nature of 'I' which transcends gender; and every individual self identifies another self it meets with as 'you', and a group of individual selves as 'we', with pronouns that transcends gender too.

• Of the nature of nirguNa brahman that is, sat-chit-Ananda, the individual self, 'I', readily knows about and experiences the sat--existence/truth, aspect, without being taught, right from the birth.

• The other two aspect are known and experienced in bits and pieces only. The more the individual self learns to know about and experiences the chit--consciousness/intelligence/knowledge, and the Ananda--bliss/peace, aspects of Brahman, the more it transcends the individual self and comes into the nature of the universal Self.

• What has the manas--mind, to do with, in all these facets of existence? Let us remember that all knowledge and proof we seek are only of the human mind, by the mind and for the mind. So long as the knowledge we gain is associated with the mind, it is shaded by avidyA--nescience. Only when we attain the knowledge that transcends the mind, we can experience its other aspects of chit, Ananda in full.

‣ Ironically, all knowledge--including the knowledge of our Self as identical to Brahman--is obtained through the mind. This means that the mind is the field of action and flow of knowledge.

‣ It is the field of activity for sensual information in jAgrat--waking level of existence. In svapna--dream level, it is the field of activity for its own creations, in whose drama, the self plays different roles. In suShupti--deep sleep, the darkness of avidyA completely dominates it, which is why the mind is not aware of the experience the peace and bliss, although it merges into its source, the Self in deep sleep.

‣ In the fourth state of existence--turiya, the mind increasingly becomes shuddha manas with only awareness and no thought pervading all over, so it becomes a perfect field of experience of the sat-chit-Ananda where the knower is rolled into the known and the knowledge.

*****

With this background observations, let us collect some shurti quotes for our ready reference, contemplation and meditation.

Brahman, the Self and the self

What do the mahAvAkyas speak about Brahman? If we look at them, we would find that except in two statements, they all speak from the viewpoint of duality. Arranging the mahAvAkyas from the viewpoint of advaita--non-duality, to dvaita--duality, we get:

01. ekam evadvitiyam brahma--Brahman is one, without a second.
--Chandogya upaniShad 6.2.1, of sAma veda

02. prajnAnam brahma--Consciousness is Brahman.
--aitareya upaniShad 3.3, of Rg Veda

03. sarvaM khalvidaM brahma--All of this is Brahman.
--Chandogya upaniShad 3.14.1 of the Sama Veda

04. ayam Atma brahma--This Self is Brahman.
-- mANDukya upaniShad 1.2, of Atharva Veda

05. tat tvam asi--Thou art that.
--Chandogya upaniShad 6.8.7, of Sama Veda, Kaivalya upaniShad

06. aham brahmAsmi--I am Brahman.
--bRhadaraNyaka upaniShad 1.4.10, of Yajur Veda, mahAnArAyaNa upaniShad

Inasmuch as very term upaniShad requires a disciple to sit by the side of his guru and then both contemplate together on the meaning of the Reality, all the above mahAvAkyas might be considered as teachings, rather than statements. It's beautiful, the way the guru leads his disciples to the Reality of the Truth through these teachings:

• To start with, the guru makes a statement to indicate the target:
"Brahman is one, without a second."

• Then he describes the nature of that Brahman:
"Consciousness is Brahman."

• Lest the disciple think that only human beings with their superior consciousness are Brahman, the guru expands on the idea:
"All of this is Brahman."

• And then he gets personal, first by refering to the Self in everyone:
"This Self is Brahman." (This Self the big-I that Yajvan has indicated.)

• The disciple is anxious that if he and his guru can ever be equated because of the unity of Self, so the guru assures him:
"Thou art that." (The self referred to in 'thou' is the small-i that Yajvan indicated.)

This statement, which is the most famous, is perhaps the most significant one. Here Brahman is described as (a mere) tad--that, as if it is something distinct and located farther in space. tvam--thou, is more real to us than tad--that. The dhAtu--root, of both these terms simply indicate two entities: tad--that, tva--the other. The pronouns tad--that and tvam--you, have been derived from these roots.

The teaching of this mahAvAkya is "you are that": that is, what is considered 'you' and what is considered as 'that'--which is actually inside you--are not two different things but only an identical Reality.

• Finally, the guru zeros in on the first person and teaches "I am Brahman", and urges the disciple to have this thought persistently in mind at all times so he may eventually realize it. The aham is the small-i that gives the feeling of ahamkaraNa as Yajvan has explained.

Significantly, the teaching is, 'ahaM brahma asmi'--'I AM Brahman', not 'I was Brahman' or 'I will (one day) be Brahman'. I AM Brahman in my waking, dreaming and deep sleep states and the fourth state that I would be eventually be capable of existing--in this or in another birth.

The shikaram--peak, of all these mahAvAkyas of the upaniShads, is the cryptic statement of the Rg veda about the Reality: ekam sat--Reality/Existence is One.--RV 1.164.46.

*****

Nature of Brahman

aumiti brahma, aumitIdaM sarvaM |
--taittirIya upaniShad 1.8
"AUM is Brahma(n); AUM is all this."

satyam jnAnam anantam brahma
--taittirIya upaniShad 2.1.1
"Brahman is truth, knowledge, and infinite."

KAnchi ParamAchArya explains this verse as follows:

"sat-chit-Ananda brahmam is the meaning. anantam means infinite; also has the name bhUma. Only bhUmA--fullness, is the sukham--bliss, not the alpam--trifle. So anantam is sukham, Anandam. sat chit Anandam."

• In the vishiShTAdvaita vedAnta philosophy, Brahman has a two-fold nature: One substance, eternal, infinite, changeless, 'Ishvara', has two aspects, is animate and inanimate, chit and achit, conscious and unconscious, Self and Not-Self; and by its power, mAyA, shakti, this 'sove-reign Lord' causes interplay of the two, for its own high pleasure which there is none other to question, without any compulsion from without.

• The shAstra vAkyas--scriptural statements, that correspond to this philosophy are:

dve vAva brahmaNo rUpe, mUrtaM chaiva amUrtam cha |
--bRhadAraNyaka upaniShad 2.3.1
"It has two natures; one, Formless, the other Form;"

sa vai naiva reme, tasmAd ekAkI na ramate, sa dvitIyam aichchat, AtmAnaM dvedhA apAtayat | tataH patiSh cha patnI cha abhavatAM |
--bRhadAraNyaka upaniShad 1.4.3

"He was not at all happy. Therefore people (still) are not happy when alone. He desired a mate. He became as big as man and wife embracing each other. He parted this very body into two. From that came husband and wife."

sad asach cha |
--prashna upaniShad 2.5
"This god is the gross and the subtle."

sad asat cha ahaM arjuna |
--Bhagavad gItA 9.19
"I am also both the Sat and the Asat, O Arjuna!"

*****

• The taittirIya upaniShad statement above, "AUM is Brahma(n); AUM is all this", is very significant, because it marks the birth of the primeordial sound AUM, called nAda brahman, as the first manifestation of nirguNa brahman.

• It is from this AUM, the saguNa brahman who manifests as the trimUrti are born, which is one reason, AUM is part of most--if not all--lines of eulogy to a personal god.

• AUM is also the source and substratum of all the seven worlds, as the line AUM bhUr bhuva suvaH in the gAyatrI mantra, and the lines AUM buH, AUM bhuvaH, AUM suvaH, AUM mahaH, AUM janaH, AUM tapaH, AUM satyam in the prANAyAma mantra, indicate.

• In his book 'The Science of Peace', BhagavAn DAs synthesizes all philosophical knowledge--eastern and western--into the adhyAtma vidyA--knowledge of the Self and spells out the hierarchical levels where everything fits.

‣ He illustrates how the letters A, U, M in AUM stand for Atman--Self, anAtman--Not-Self, and niShedha--negation, and shows that the Self negates (as neti-neti), at every moment in time and point in space, the Not-Self (created by its own shakti--power) that arises to associate with, and because of this persistent negation, the creation of samsAra takes place, and moves in a cycle of sRShTi--creation, sthiti--sustenance, and pralaya--dissolution.

‣ Thus AUM as the praNava mantra is the sum total of Brahman in whom reside the Self, Not-Self and the power of negation.

I strongly recommend you and other seekers to read this book, which IMO, has all the answers for a seeker. I have serialized this book in sixteen threads here in HDF, starting with this thread:
http://www.hindudharmaforums.com/showthread.php?t=2598

*****

[kallol]

Dear Saidevo,

Brilliant content. Thanks. Thanks again for the well read and supported content. Definitely I will go through the content of your thread and try to get hold of the book.

I intend to go today to Sastraprakasika to get some more CDs on the discourses on upanishads.

Though nothing better than having a live Guru. I generally take refuge in Swami Paramarthananda (whose CDs I buy), whenever have doubt.

Thanks again for the guidance.

Love and best wishes