Advaita for the Novice - Who is the doer-experiencer? - 4

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Namaste all.

 

Series on Advaita for the Novice

 

"I am neither the Doer nor the Experiencer" - 4

 

(For No.3 see post #35079)

 

Who is the Knower?

 

[A reference, say, to Ch.2, Shloka 7 of the Bhagavad-Gita would simply be

given as

"(2 - 7)" without mentioning the Bhagavad-Gita]

 

[Recall the caution given at the beginning of the previous post]

 

The last post ended up with a question on Self-Knowledge. Man is not only

conscious of the world around him but is also self-conscious. This

self-consciousness is not self-knowledge. The JIva is a complex of spirit

and matter. It is therefore made up of the knower and the known, the subject

and the object. The latter is presented to the former and the resulting

cognition is self-knowledge. This self is the empirical self and not the

Absolute Self. There can be knowledge of the empirical self ('empirical'

means 'arising from observation, experiment and experience'); there can be

no such 'knowledge' of the Absolute Self. The latter is the Inmost Self, the

Witness. It is Pure Consciousness. Both subject and object are presented to

it, whereas itself is not presented to anything. It cannot be an object in

relation to itself as subject nor can it be presented to some other subject

since there is no other. It is the 'non-witnessed Witness'. Two names of God

bear testimony in this connection: 'Devoid of witness' ("sAkShi-varjitA"

in Lalita-sahasranama), and 'Witness' ("sAkShI" in Vishnu-sahasranAma).

 

What hears sound is the ear. What tastes an edible is the tongue. But both

sensations are received by the brain, registered by the mind and the

awareness of both sensations are due to the life-force, the Consciousness

within. When we switch on a light in a dark room we see many objects. The

same light lights them all. But when the room is empty of objects, the

emptiness itself is indicated by the same light. In the same way, when the

room is dark, the darkness is registered in our awareness by the Light

within us. Consciousness, or the Self, is that Light. It is the same

Consciousness that showed the light to us when the room was lighted.

 

Of course if we are blind this Consciousness would not tell us whether the

room is lighted or not. But it (the Consciousness) would know that it (this

BMI) does not know whether the room is lighted or not. A dead body in the

room would not know whether the room is lighted or not and would not also

know that it does not know. Because the dead body is just inert matter

(PrakRti) without the presence of the purushha (Consciousness) in it.

 

But one may ask very legitimately: "The dead body also should be

Consciousness, because Consciousness as the Absolute Reality is everywhere.

Then why is it not knowledgeable about the lighting of the room?" The subtle

explanation is that although the Ultimate Self is there at all times and in

all things, yet it cannot shine in everything. Just as a reflection appears

only in polished surfaces, so also the Self shines as Consciousness only in

the intellect (Shankara's Atma-bodha, verse 17). But the intellect (and the

mind) has left the body in the case of the dead body!

 

This Absolute Self is unseen, beyond empirical dealings, beyond the grasp

(of the organs of action) , undefinable, unthinkable, indescribable (as this

or that), and whose valid proof consists in the single belief in the Self,

in which all phenomena cease and which is unchanging, auspicious and

non-dual. (Mandukya U. 7). As the all-pervading space is not tainted because

of its subtlety, so also the Self permeating the entire body, is not tainted

by anything that the body, mind or intellect does (13 - 32). The

Atman/Brahman/The Self is like the Sun which illuminates the whole world but

is at the same time uncontaminated by anything of the world. Every action of

the world as well as of the body, mind and intellect is dominated by

prakRti.

 

However this does not mean that the Absolute Self has to be unknown. It is

known intuitively as the very self in us. It is self-luminous. A burning

lamp does not require another light to reveal it. Consciousness does not

need to be revealed by another consciousness. The Self is not unknown to

anyone for it is the inmost self in us. 'The Self to which all mental states

become objects of knowledge, is known through every one of these states. The

witness of all mental operations, whose essence is mere sentiency, is

implied by those operations themselves as being the common element in them

all. There is no other means of knowing the inner Self' (Shankara Bhashya of

Kenopanishad. II - 4). "Through what should one know that owing to which all

that is known? Through what should one know the knower?" (Br. U. II-4-14).

"As fire does not burn itself, so the self does not know itself and the

knower can have no knowledge of a thing that is not an object" (Shankara

Bhashya to Br.U.II - 4 -14)

 

The empirical self (The soul, JIva) is the knower of whatever can be known.

But his knowing is all vitiated by the tendencies sticking to the mind. This

is particularly emphasized by Shankara's interpretation of the name

"avijnAtA" (= non-knower), one of the names in Vishnu Sahasranama. Shankara

says "The soul is the knower, namely the one for whom the knowledge that the

doership and experiencership are only imagined as belonging to the Atman is

vitiated by the age-long tendencies of the mind and known in the opposite

way; the Ultimate is the non-knower". In other words, JIva 'knows' things

the wrong way! That it is the 'wrong' way dawns on him when true

enlightenment illumines him. How long has he been knowing it the 'wrong'

way? Ever since he became the JIva. When did he become the JIva? When

ignorance descended on him. Whose ignorance? JIva's ignorance. Thus

Ignorance and JIva are coeval. You cannot say which was first. Vedanta says

this is undecidable (*anirvacanIyaM*).

 

But when finally Enlightenment comes to the JIva, there is no more JIva

thereafter; only Brahman. Thus what was a beginningless Ignorance comes to

an end. But the end of ignorance comes in such a way that the very 'fact'

(!) of a stated ignorance is no more even a past fact; because Brahman has

always been Brahman; there 'was' no JIva at all!

 

This is a little difficult to digest - isn't it? Why 'little'? It is the

most difficult advaitic teaching to accept. Because we still continue to

think as an 'empirical self' in an 'empirical' way! When we mistook the

rope for the snake, and better lighting showed there was no snake but only

the rope, the rope-knowledge eradicated the 'appearance' of the snake

thoroughly. The empirical reality of the knowledge here was of a higher

order of reality than the phenomenal reality of the delusion of the

snake-phenomenon. But when we are told that "JIva is only Brahman, the

phenomenon of JIva is only an appearance, and the real thing is the IP", we,

BEING THE EMPIRICAL SELF, receive the knowledge in an empirical way and

this empirical knowledge has no strength to destroy the identity with the

BMI, which is also at the SAME EMPIRICAL LEVEL of understanding.

 

Thus there can be no 'knowledge' of the Absolute Self, the non-participating

Witness, in the ordinary sense of the term. There can be only an intuitive

experience of it. "A man, who is in the presence of an object to be known,

has only to be drawn attention to the object of knowledge. When that is

done, the knowledge arises naturally in conformity with the the object and

the means of knowledge." ('jnAna-viShaya eva darshyitavyaH ...

jnAnam-utpadyate': Shankara, Commentary on Br.S. III - 2 -21). Mark the

word 'arises' (Sanskrit: 'utpadyate'). Knowing and Being are welded into a

unity here. Since this state is also free from all desires, it is further

characterised by Bliss. Hence its 'own state' ('sva-rUpa') is

sat-chid-Ananda.

Shankara's emphatic insistence on the point that, The Self is not something

that is 'attained' can be seen throughout his writing. Two instances may be

quoted here from his commentaries in this connection, though the context is

slightly different from ours.

 

In the first he emphasizes the need to distinguish between

'para-brahman' and 'apara-brahman' (meaning 'superior brahman' and

'not-so-superior brahman' : See the Weekly definition files on Brahman).

Only the 'apara-brahman' is attainable. The 'para-brahman' cannot be

'attained' nor can it be 'known', for it is the Self of every one.

Attainment is possible only when there is difference, where the attainer is

different from the attained. Commenting on Brahma Sutra IV - 3 - 14 he

says: "Therein by the fact of not clearly distinguishing between

'para-brahman' and 'apara-brahman', the scriptural statements of movement

etc. attributed to 'apara-brahman' are superimposed on the 'para-brahman'.

Does it mean then that there are two brahmans, namely 'para' and 'apara'?

Certainly, yes. There are two. Because, 'He Satyakama! What is known as

Omkara is itself both 'para-brahman' and 'apara-brahman' says Prashna

Upanishad (5 -2). If it is questioned 'What exactly is 'para-brahman' and

what is 'apara-brahman'?', here is the answer. Wherever brahman is taught

by words such as 'not material, not concrete' in order to negate the

attributes like name and form created by Ignorance, that is 'para-brahman'.

And wherever that same brahman is taught, for the purpose of worship, as if

it has name and form, by the words such as 'He consists of mind, His body is

life, His form is light' ' (Chandogya U. 3-14-2), that is 'apara-brahman'.

"OBJECTION: If that is so, then all the shruti that proclaims non-duality,

will be contradicted.

"ANSWER: No. That fault is nullified by the fact that the name and form are

only adjuncts created by Ignorance".

("tatra para-apara-brahma-viveka-anavadhAraNena ... nAma-rUpo-pAdhikatayA

parihRtatvAt")

 

The second instance is from his commentary on the Gita verse (18-50):

"Therefore the effort should only be to discard the superimposition of

Ignorance on the Self; no effort is necessary to 'obtain' the enlightenment

of brahman - because it is self-evident. Though thus quite self-evident,

easily affirmable, quite near and forming the very self, Brahman appears to

the unenlightened, to those whose understanding is carried away by the

differentiated phenomena of names and forms created by ignorance, as

unknown, unaffirmable, very remote, as though he were a separate thing".

("avidyA-kalpita-nAma-rUpa- ....yatnaH kartavyaH").

 

So when we ask "Who is the knower?", the answer has to make a distinction

between the knower of all that goes by the name of knowledge-which is the

same JIva, as before -- and the knower of Brahman, which, as we have seen,

is not an object of knowledge. The knower of brahman becomes brahman, says

the Upanishad (Mundaka U. III - 2 -9).

 

Look at the grand truth of what is illumined, what illumines and the

Illumination, by the concluding paragraph on 'de-superimposition' from

Vedantra SAra of Sadananda (of the 15th century,), translated by Swami

Nikhilananda:

 

"As the light of a lamp cannot illumine the lustre of the sun but is

overpowered by it, so Consciousness reflected in that state of the mind is

unable to illumine the supreme Brahman, self-effulgent and identical with

the individual self, and is overpowered by it. And on the destruction of

this state of Absolute Oneness with which that Consciousness is associated,

there remains only the Supreme Brahman, identical with the individual self,

the JIva, just as the image of a face in a looking-glass is resolved into

the face itself when the looking-glass is removed. Such being the case,

there is no contradiction between the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad statement "By

the mind alone it is to be perceived" (Br. U. IV -4-19), and the

Kenopanishad statement "That which cannot be thought of by the mind" (Kena

U: I - 5). We are to suppose that the unknown Brahman is brought into

contact only with the mental state, - which simply destroys the JIva's

ignorance concerning Brahman, but does not help to reveal it -- but not

with the underlying Consciousness, because Brahman is self-luminous and it

does not require the help of another Consciousness to reveal itself."

 

Thus it is that what is illumined, what illumines and the Illumination are

all Brahman - recalling to us the immortal verse (4 - 24) from the Gita.

 

(To be Continued)

 

PraNAms to all advaitins.

profvk

 

 

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