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Source: The Hindu (http://www.the-hindu.com)

 

Self-realisation, a matter of experience

 

CHENNAI, MAY 16. The quest for the Self (Atman) is a journey

within and it becomes evident to one who embarks on it that there

is an underlying consciousness beyond the levels of the body,

mind and the intellect. It is very subtle and all the human

faculties function because of it. While all the other faculties

are able to act as instruments of knowledge because of the

consciousness of the Self, the Self is self-luminous. The

following doubt is often raised, ``When an object in the world is

known through perception, why then is the Self which is supposed

to be responsible for the functioning of the mind, not evident to

oneself for perception?''

 

This is a paradox which every seeker of truth confronts during

the course of his spiritual evolution and the philosophers

explain this by the relationship between cause and effect. Just

as one who sees curd knows that milk is the cause of curd, so

also it must be understood that it is due to the Atman that the

mind receives the light of knowledge and is able to function.

Another question that is a corollary of this is, ``What is the

use of the Self since the mind is sufficient to deal with every

sphere of knowledge and activity in the world?''

 

In his discourse, Sri Goda Venkateswara Sastri said that the

Upanishads explained that the mind was not eternal in nature. For

instance during sleep it ceased to function. But, the

consciousness of the Self (I) never ceases to be. A person after

waking up says, ``I slept well.'' From this it also becomes clear

that the mind and the Self are different. The mind functions in

the waking and dream states but not in sleep, whereas the ``I''

consciousness is there in all the three states of waking, dream

and sleep. The Self is often referred to as the fourth state of

consciousness.

 

In the Maitreya Brahmana section of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad

Sage Yajnavalkya discourses on the question why if the ``I''

consciousness is present in all the three states of waking, dream

and sleep, does a person not know the ``I''? The example of the

inseparable nature of a mixture of water and milk is cited to

highlight how the mind acquires the qualities of the Self in its

interactions with the world. This makes it difficult to know the

Self as distinct from the mind. How then can the Self be

realised? We have to first start with the level of the mind and

get an intellectual grasp that the Self is different from the

mind. But it should not stop at this level. Since thoughts

constantly arise in the mind it is unable to intuit the Self.

When the mind becomes one-pointed this knowledge becomes a matter

of experience.

 

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