Transmitting Consciousness

[Guest guest]

>Dennis Waite <dwaite

>advaitin

>"'advaitin '" <advaitin >

> Transmitting Consciousness

>Fri, 18 Feb 2000 16:41:35 -0000

>

the metaphor of buddhi

>'reflecting Atman'. >Two questions arose as I thought about this. Firstly,

>where is the source

>for this metaphor in the sruti? I don't recall coming across it anywhere. I

>know the Bahagavad Gita has lots to say on the guNa but have not read it

>recently. Is it in there?

 

 

Namaste,

 

Chapter 14, guNatrayavibhAga-yogaH, deals with this metaphor.

 

Maitri upanishad III:2-3 also refer to this (without the word

'reflection'.

 

 

 

Secondly,

 

 

 

bR^ihadaaraNyaka upanishad II:iv:14 says:

 

" Where, verily, everything has become the Self, then by what and whom

should one smell, then by what and whom should one

see....hear...,speak....think....understand....know?...."

 

 

Regards,

 

s.

 

 

 

 

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[Guest guest]

Last night, I picked Vasant Godbole up on his statement that "Buddhi is

awakened intelligence, awakened because it reflects Atman more perfectly.

Mind understands Atman not actively as an ego understands the nonego but

passively when it is completely still".

 

I wasn't sure why but did not feel happy with the metaphor of buddhi

'reflecting Atman'. Now I have remembered why. In the teaching propagated

by the School I used to attend, it was said with respect to the guNa that

sattva transmitted the light of consciousness, rajas reflected it and tamas

absorbed it. This seems like a useful metaphor and is intuitively correct.

Tamas, with its properties of dullness and deadness etc. you could imagine

as absorbing all light and consciousness and being totally without

activity. Sattva, having properties of stillness and clarity, seeing

without distortion from emotion or opinion, can certainly be imagined as

transmitting light/consciousness, leaving its full force undeflected.

Rajas, associated with continuous movement and agitation, emotions and

thoughts confusing issues, can be thought of as reflecting the light of

consciousness first this way and then that so that we don't know whether we

are coming or going.

 

Two questions arose as I thought about this. Firstly, where is the source

for this metaphor in the sruti? I don't recall coming across it anywhere. I

know the Bahagavad Gita has lots to say on the guNa but have not read it

recently. Is it in there? Secondly, though, and more interestingly, I

wondered whether this cast some more light on my original question. Despite

all of the excellent responses on the subject of the 'Mind seeing the

Self', I do not really feel I yet know the answer to this.

 

We have accepted that, if it is possible, it is only when the mind has been

purified (by teaching, sAdhanA, etc.) that it could happen. From the

comments above, this would be when sattva prevails and buddhi is operating

correctly - i.e. transmitting consciousness. The mind would be perfectly

still; no thoughts or emotions to cloud perception. So the whole instrument

of antaHkaraNa would be operating optimally. But there my train of thoughts

comes to an end. The mind itself can still do nothing without the Self

(indeed doesn't exist without it; ignoring the true state of affairs that

it doesn't exist at all) so how does it see back to the source? There is

nothing independent of the Self to see anywhere. All that this analysis

seems to suggest is that this state of the organ makes it possible for the

Self to see itSelf through the medium of the mind. Is this the answer? (It

is not what Sankara said.)

 

Dennis