All posts by Manish Verma

IITian ~ Consultant & Educator manishverma.site

False Identification, Negation & Enlightenment

When you watch a gripping movie, you forget about your body & mind. You are unable to watch the movie in a detached manner. You become part of the movie or you become some character of the movie or you become the movie. This is the meaning of false identification.

There are several such situations in daily life in which there is false identification. Husband is actually a role played by a man but most of the times he gets attached to the role and identifies with it. Sometimes, we identify with body, sometimes with emotions of pleasure, sadness etc., sometimes with something else. When we identify or get attached with something we become that thing and we are unable to see it as something appearing within us but is not us. When we are attached to thoughts, there is a sense of movement along with the thoughts.

Neti-neti (negation) is a procedure of Self Inquiry using which we find out about the wrong identifications that we are having. Finally, there is nothing left but the unchanging Awareness and that is what we really are. It is Awareness itself that becomes husband, wife, father, pleasure, anger etc. Self Inquiry does not mean that you ask, “Who Am I” and then wait for the Awareness to give a shout. Self Inquiry is a highly engaging process. There were some days during my seeking days in which my mind would do Self Inquiry for almost all the time and would raise doubts and would itself find the answers. Self Inquiry is also a great way of doing bhakti/smaran/surti of the Self and can eventually convert intellectual understanding (atmagyan/parokshanubhooti) to direct-knowledge/enlightenment (atmabodh/aparokshanubhooti). Ramana Maharshi says in, “Who Am I”:

The gross body which is composed of the seven humours (dhatus), I am not; the five cognitive sense organs, viz. the senses of hearing, touch, sight, taste, and smell, which apprehend their respective objects, viz. sound, touch, colour, taste, and odour, I am not; the five cognitive senseorgans, viz. the organs of speech, locomotion, grasping, excretion, and procreation, which have as their respective functions speaking, moving, grasping, excreting, and enjoying, I am not; the five vital airs, prana, etc., which perform respectively the five functions of in-breathing, etc., I am not; even the mind which thinks, I am not; the nescience too, which is endowed only with the residual impressions of objects, and in which there are no objects and no functioning’s, I am not. After negating all of the above-mentioned as ‘not this’, ‘not this’, that Awareness which alone remains – that I am.

Kootastha

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[Panchadasi]

Comments: Consciousness that is surrounded by physical and subtle bodies is called Kootastha (anvil like) because just like the Koot (anvil, see fig. below) of blacksmith which remains unaffected even when iron is beaten keeping on top of it, consciousness remains unaffected. While changes take place in physical and subtle bodies, consciousness remains unchanged. One way to seek the truth is to find out that which remains unchanged in you.

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Koot

Self

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[Vivekachudamani]

Meaning: That which knows everything that happens in the waking, dream, and deep-sleep states, That which is aware of the presence or absence of the mind and its functions, That which is the essence behind the ego, is the Self.

Comments: Self is, “Impersonal Awareness”. If you find it difficult to understand, it is because your mind has the wrong notion that you are body etc. So, your mind wonders how can somebody be awareness and finds it difficult to digest. The process of Self Inquiry makes the mind rethink and eventually Self is recognised directly.

Universe Creation – A Model

The problem with the big bang theory is that it does not explain the cause of the bang. If there was nothing before the big bang then how can there be a bang if there is nothing to bang with?

Here is a model to explain the creation of universe broadly:

Consciousness – It is the fundamental permanent reality. Its true nature is of knowing without any feeling whatsoever in its pure form. The experience/feeling is possible under the influence of a faculty called maya which can give rise to intelligence, imagination etc. (in other words maya is the faculty using which consciousness becomes the experiencer and can be called macrocosmic reflected consciousness). This macrocosmic reflected consciousness wants to understand everything, especially the reason for its existence and of its qualities. In other words, it wants to know who it is and what is its source. Had there been no pure consciousness, there would be no intelligence, imagination etc. as these qualities require pure consciousness. The source of reflected consciousness is pure consciousness. This desire of the macrocosmic reflected consciousness to know its source gives rise to chain of vasanas. Since macrocosmic reflected consciousness is not limited by body, it can simultaneously have many thoughts giving rise to many vasanas. These macrocosmic vasanas give rise to creation/projection of universe as vasanas need expression. These vasanas remain unfulfilled many times when expressed in creation/projection and then they are expressed again. This expression of vasanas again is called rebirth/another birth. Rebirth/another birth is not of an individual but is of vasanas when seen from this perspective.

Macrocosmic Reflected Consciousness – As explained above it is consciousness becoming experiencer under the spell of maya.

Macrocosmic/Ungrouped Vasanas – Responsible for creation/projection of Universe.

Grouped Vasanas (Causal Body) – Responsible for creation/projection of individual entities – both sentient and insentient.

Jiva – Created/projected by Causal body. It is sentient* having astral body & physical body.

Astral Body – It is created by causal body. It keeps on taking rebirth as long as causal body or group of vasanas responsible for its creation are not burned. However, after every physical death it merges with the causal body where the memory of previous birth is wiped off before new birth is taken.

Physical Body – It is the host of the astral body. It is always inert but appears to be animated in Jiva.

Liberation – When the group of vasanas responsible for creation/projection of an individual entity are exhausted, there is nothing left to be expressed and hence there is no rebirth. This is called liberation.


Question: If macrocosmic reflected consciousness wanted to know itself and hence created everything, it should have known itself by now as it has known the minds of many enlightened beings already on the planet earth.

Answer: While the desire to know itself would have triggered the creation of few vasanas, now they have become huge due to a chain. While there have only been handful number of self actualised enlightened beings, there have been enormous number of other living/non-living beings. Out of huge number of macrocosmic vasanas, only a few have got burned but most are still there. Until the total number of macrocosmic vasanas are drastically reduced, the world should go on for a long time. On the lighter side, macrocosmic reflected consciousness created the world due to the vasana to know itself and through the first enlightened person, it knew itself and went to sleep and now the chain of vasanas are driving the world. As long as macrocosmic reflected consciousness continues to sleep, the world should go on. When it wakes up from the sleep and realises that it already knows the reason, it may not need the world.


*Strictly speaking, Jiva is inert on its own, but it reflects Consciounsess and due to that it appears to be sentient.

Maya

Maya - Parallel Lines

Illusion works impenetrable,

Weaving webs innumerable,

Her gay pictures never fail,

Crowds each other, veil on veil,

Charmer who will be believed,

By man who thirsts to be deceived.

[Emerson]

PS: In the image on the top, the two lines appear to be of different lengths but they are not of different lengths.

Guided Self Inquiry

Student: What is the Atman?

Teacher: What you see in your eyes is the Atman. What you see in the reflection is the Atman.

Student: What is reflected anywhere, which is nothing but this body, is the Atman, then the Atman would be affected by every kind of defect to which the body is subject. So there would be a defective Atman. This body is subject to death. This Atman cannot then be called immortal. When this body goes, the Atman also will go, if the body is the Atman. If I am well-dressed, the Atman is also well-dressed. If the body is blind, the Atman is blind. If the body is crippled, the Atman also is crippled. If the body is diseased, the Atman would have disease. There is something wrong with my understanding.

Teacher: That which you see in the state of dream is the Atman.

Student: One feels as if one is chased or driven away or being killed even in dream. One feels sorrow and grief and passes through unpleasant experiences in dream also. One cries, weeps and sobs when one has painful experiences in dream also. The dreaming person can be sorry, can be affected in a serious manner like the waking one and he has even the experience of destruction etc. There is something wrong with my understanding.

Teacher: He who is in the deep sleep state, that is the Atman.

Student: It is as if it is not there at all! It is a zero, an annihilation, a negation of all things! This Atman is a darkness which knows neither its own self nor others. What kind of thing is this sleep? Neither it knows that it is, nor does it know that anything else is. It is like complete annihilation, as it were. How could self-annihilation be the Atman? There is something wrong with my understanding.

Teacher: I was just making you ready to hear the truth. Atman is not an individual thing. It is due to which every experience is possible, yet it itself does not experience anything – just watches with detachment. It is not personality consciousness like waking state; it is also not non-consciousness like deep sleep state. It is awareness without individuality. It is just awareness without yours or mine. When you look at my eyes or to anybody’s eyes, you can see it. It is not like your Atman but you yourself are Atman, or it is not like your awareness but you yourself are awareness. You are taking yourself to be the body and are asking what is Atman, but actually you are Atman who has forgotten its true nature and is wrongly taking it to be the body. The Atman is bodiless just like space which has no body but is everywhere.

Derived from Chhandogya Upanishad by Swami Krishnananda