tat tvam asi

[Guest guest]

The discussion on tat and tvam is interesting and enlightening. I

cannot resist the temptation of posting the following two-page matter

entitled 'That art Thou' from my book: The Ten Commandments of

Hinduism, published in '94. It does not contain anything new, I know.

But it is supposed to be addressing itself to non-experts. I hope it

is acceptable to the advaitin also.

V. Krishnamurthy

 

That art Thou:

 

One of the famous Mahâ-vâkyas (Great Sayings) that occur in the

Upanishads is the one that is meted out by Aaruni to Svetaketu in the

Chândogya-Upanishad. It says, literally: That thou art.

(Tat-tvam-asi). The Mahâ-vâkyas are the grand pronouncements of the

Upanishads. For each of the four Vedas one such pronouncement is

recognized as the Mahâ-vâkya of that Veda. Consciousness is Brahman

(Rig Veda); I am Brahman (Yajur-Veda); That art Thou (Sâma Veda);

This âtman is Brahman (Atharva Veda). Each one of these

pronouncements can give rise to a prolonged debate as to what exactly

they mean. The Masters of the different schools of philosophy take

pains to write detailed commentaries to establish their point of view.

In a book of this kind it is not feasible to get into that kind of

dialectics. However, since we have been discussing the Advaita of

Sankara in this chapter, we shall take one of these Mahâ-vâkyas,

namely That Thou art, for a detailed explanation. according to

Sankara. That Brahman which is the common Reality behind everything

in the cosmos is the same as the essential Divinity, namely, the âtman

within you. It is this identity which is the grand finale of the

Upanishadic teaching. The Realization of this arises only by an

intuitive experience. This is toally different from any objective

experience. It cannot be inferred from some other bit of knowledge.

Subtler than space

 

Who is this Thou? It is the inherent substratum in each one of us

without which our very existence is out of question. Certainly it is

not the body or the mind or the senses or anything that we can call

ours. It is the innermost Self. It is the âtman. On the other

hand, the entity expressed by the word 'That'' is, by the notation

used in the Vedas, Brahman, the transcendent Reality which is beyond

every finite entity, concept or thought. You cannot give a full

analogy to it and that is why the Vedas say words cannot describe it.

It cannot even be imagined because when there is nothing else other

than Brahman it has to be beyond space and time. We can imagine space

without Earth, without water, without fire, and without air. But it

is next to impossible to imagine something outside space. Space is

the most subtle of the five elemental fundamentals. As we proceed

from the grossest to the subtle, that is, from earth to water, water

to fire, fire to air, and air to space the negation of each grosser

matter is possible to be imagined within the framework of the more

subtle one. But once we reach the fifth one, namely space or âkâsa,

the negation of that and the conception of something beyond, where

even the âkâsa is merged into something more subtle, is not for the

finite mind. The Vedas therefore only declare the existence of this

entity and call it 'sat' ( = existing entity).

That and This

 

The âtman or the innermost core of our self seems to have an

individuality of its own. So in saying that it is the same as the

unqualified Brahman in the Infinite Cosmos, we seem to be identifying

two things, one that is unlimited and unconditioned and one that is

limited and conditioned.. Whenever somebody says, for instance,

that the person (call him B) whom you are meeting just now is the same

as the one whom you saw (call him A) twenty years ago at such and

such a place, what is actually meant is not the identity of the

dresses of the two personalities of A and B, nor of the features (

those of B may be totally different from A), but of the essential

person behind the names. So whenever such an identity is talked about

we have to throw away certain aspects which are clearly distinctive

in both and cling on to only those essentials without which they are

not what they are. B and A may be engaged in distinct professions, B

and A may be having different names, B and A may be having different

attitudes towards you or towards a certain issue , B and A may be

posing as different persons, by, say, showing off different passports,

-- but still they are the same, is what is being asserted. So when

Brahman and âtman are being identified in this statement, we have to

see what commonalty or essentialness there is in them that is being

identified. Brahman is the Cause of this Universe. But this is a

predication of Brahman and so this is extraneous to the identity that

we are talking about. The Self or the âtman, appears to be limited by

an individuality which keeps it under the spell of ignorance; this

is extraneous to the essentiality of the âtman. So what we are

identifying is Brahman, minus its feature of being the cause of the

Universe and âtman minus its limitations of ignorance-cum-delusion.

That these two are the same is, in essence, the content of the

statement: Tat tvam asi. The cosmic Mâyâ is what makes Brahman be

the cause of this Universe. The individual Avidyâ (= ignorance) is

what makes the âtman circumscribed and delimited. So the Mahâ-vâkya

says that Brahman minus its Mâyâ and âtman minus its Avidyâ are

identical.

Goldness of the golden ring and woodness of the wooden elephant

 

A simple illustration might help. There is a golden ring. But a

golden ring has two aspects in it: one that says it is golden and the

other that says it is a ring. If you want to see gold in it and show

it to somebody and say this is gold it does not mean that gold is of

ring-shape. Gold has nothing to do with shape. The shape is that of

the ring and not of the gold. The 'goldness' of the ring is its

essential characteristic. So from the golden ring one has to separate

its 'ring-ness' and take only the quality of being golden, to

recognize the gold in it. So also from the visible Universe which is

nothing but the manifestation ( the effect ) of Brahman, we have to

remove the visibility and concreteness of the universe and see behind

it what is essential to it namely that of its being the Cause in

essence. It is Brahman camouflaged by the various distractive

appearances of what we call the Universe. To see Brahman we have to

see through the Universe and beyond the Universe. A wooden elephant

is nothing but wood if you are talking about the essence. If you are

talking about the appearance, it is an elephant. Learn to see the

wooden elephant as nothing but wood. Learn to recognise in the

Universe the cosmic Brahman manifesting everywhere and at all times.

One, One only, No second

 

First one has to learn to say no to what is visible. For this, the

indirect knowledge that we learn from the scriptures and from

inference through observation help. That the âtman is different from

our three states of awareness and also different from the five

sheaths of personality, namely the physical, vital, mental,

intellectual and bliss-filled personalities can be logically argued

out by our intelligence. In fact logic can go a step further and

establish that the Self is of the nature of Consciousness. The

Vedas declare that Brahman is of the nature of Consciousness. That

the two types of Consciousness may be the same can only be a

conjecture as far as logical deduction is concerned. 'Ekam eva

advitîyam Brahma ' is a famous statement from the Upanishads,

systematically used by Sankara. There is only One Consciousness.

Before we say that an entity is One, there are three obstacles. There

could be within that One, several parts -- like the hands and feet of

a human being or the branches and leaves of a tree. If this

distinction is present we call it 'sva-gata-bheda' that is,

distinction within itself. There is no such distinction within

itself, in Brahman, says Sankara, because it is 'Ekam'. The second

word 'eva' says that there is no distinction within the category. In

other words there is no other entity within the same category as

Brahman, that is, there is only one Brahman. If there is such a

distinction, that is, in the same category if there are more than one

-- such as two living beings, one a human being and the other an

animal; or two different trees, one a mango tree and the other an

apple tree --we call it 'sa-jâtîya-bheda' , a distinction within the

category. The word 'eva' says that there is no such distinction;

that is, there is nothing else equivalent to Brahman. Thirdly, there

is no 'vi-jâtîya-bheda', no distinction between categories. For

instance, there could be two distinct things, trees and mountains .

There is no such category distinction, says the third word

'advitîyam'. Brahman has no second. There is nothing other than

Brahman. It is One and One Only.

Direct Perception

 

The Vedas go from this to declare that the consciousness that is the

âtman and the consciousness that is Brahman are the same. And the

Master ( Guru ) confirms this. But this declaration either by the

Vedas or the Guru is only an indirect knowledge ( paroksha-jnâna) for

us. This indirect knowledge becomes a direct ( = aparoksha ) knowledge

only when there is direct experience. That this individual Self is

the same as the Supreme Self ( Aham Brahma asmi ) has to be only an

experience , says the school of Sankara. He calls it

'aparoksha-anubhûti'. It is the experience of seeing the right thing,

that is, Brahman, behind the negated universe and the negated

individuality of the âtman. Here the scriptures can only show the

way. It is direct perceptive knowledge. It is the experience of

unity amidst the visible multiplicity. More than that. It is the

highest spiritual truth not as a piece of knowledge or information

but as it is. In fact it is not an experience, because an experience

implies a transition from one stae to another state. It is the

natural state.

[Guest guest]

Hello,

 

My two cents:

 

Tat is the real nature of the world, which is pure Existence.

Tvam is the real nature of the self, which is pure Consciousness.

Equating them both is the statement Tat Tvam Asi.

 

Same is the case with Ahambrahmaasmi.

Brahman is the real nature of the world, which is pure Existence.

Aham is the real nature of the self, which is pure Consciousness.

 

This describes Sat (Existence) nature and Chit (Consciousness)

 

nature of Reality. The realization of the equality of them leads

to the third nature - Ananda (Bliss).

 

There is an interesting discussion in this line in "Advaita

Bodha Deepika". You can get the book from Sri Ramanashramam

(http://www.ramana-maharshi.org/).

 

 

With love,

Gomu.

 

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