Analysis of the Mind-6

[Guest guest]

6. Fundamental Human Problem

 

We have discussed two aspects, the mind and the subtle

body. Of the mind, the important component is Ego,

involving ‘I am this’, which is the essence of the

individual ‘I’ with which I do all the transactions.

It involves the conscious-existent entity, ‘I am’

identifying with inert entities, body, mind and/or

intellect to facilitate all transactions in the world.

Ego, although a necessary vehicle without which I

cannot transact in the world, it became the essence of

myself, since I do not know what my true nature is.

Thus a false guy, ego, has become a real guy, since

real guy is not known. When I take my self as ‘this’,

the limitations of ‘this’ becomes my limitations.

‘This’ is always limited by ‘that’, while freedom is

to BE beyond all limitations, absolute infiniteness,

Brahman (the word Brahman itself means infiniteness).

Any limitation causes unhappiness, and no one wants to

be unhappy. Unlike other infinities that we are

familiar in mathematics, such as pi or e or parallel

lines meeting at infinity, etc., which are

conditionally infinite or qualified infinite (for

example pi cannot be more than and less than some

numbers or parallel lines are separated by some finite

distance, etc), Brahman is absolutely infinite or

unconditionally infinite or unqualifiedly infinite and

therefore unconditionally limitless which is the same

as absolute happiness. Limitless that I am, take

myself to be limited notional ‘I am = this’. This

leaves me with three fundamental limitations which can

be expressed as a) I am a mortal b) I am unhappy and

c) I am ignorant. I do not like the presumed

limitations that I have. Hence, I struggle hard to

gain my true nature. If we examine our lives we find

that all our struggles in life can be reduced to two

broad categories, a) trying to gain something

(pravRitti) and b) trying to get rid of something

(nivRitti). All these struggles are to overcome these

three fundamental limitations stated above. Thus from

birth to death or from womb to the tomb, every living

being is trying to solve these three fundamental

limitations by way of trying to gain something or

trying to get rid of something, pravRitti and/or

nivRitti. This is true across the board and from the

time immemorial. The tragedy of life is, no one will

be able to solve these problems of limitations, now or

ever. Let us look at each one carefully and see where

the problem lies.

 

When I take myself as I am the body, then body

problems become my problems. The body, by its nature,

undergoes six modifications; existence in the womb

(asti) for seven to nine months, birth as a

baby(jaayate), growing pains as a child to an

adulthood (vardhate), modifications of the body

(vipariNamati, i.e. problems of the grownups), slow

disintegration with all the health problems in the

world (apakshiiyate) and ultimately kicking the bucket

(vinasyati). That which is born has to die or that

which has a beginning has to have an end, (jaatasya hi

dhruvo mRituH) says Krishna. That is the Law of

Nature. No body or nobody is permanent here.

Civilizations have come and civilizations have gone.

The world is always in a continuous flux, never in a

static condition. Hence the Sanskrit word for the

world is ‘jagat’ and etymologically it means ‘jaayante

gacchate iti jagat’ that which is continuously coming

and going; that is the nature of the world. What comes

must go, like the slogan, what goes up must come down.

In a dialogue between a celestial being (yaksha) and

the King YudhiShTara in Mahabharat, yaksha asked the

king, ‘What is the greatest wonder in the world?’.

Obviously, the King had no idea of our seven wonders

of the world. He responded, “We see people being born

and people dying everyday, yet everyone acts as though

he is going to be permanent in this world; and that is

the greatest wonder of the world”. By the by, related

to the mind there was a question too. Yakshaa asked

the king, “What moves the fastest in the world?”. The

king replied without knowing that the velocity of the

light is the fastest we can reach, “mind moves the

fastest in the world”.

 

Coming back to the topic, body cannot but be mortal.

When I identify with the body as I am this, I feel I

am going to die one day. The fear of death is the

greatest fear that a human being faces. No one wants

to die. Even those who want to commit suicide also do

not want to die, but they think that by ending their

life they would solve their problems. They do not want

to die if the problems of their mind can be solved

without dying. Those problems arise because of the

ego or identification with the body, mind and

intellect. Therefore the problem of mortality, we can

never solve, whatever pills or medication we take or

however much we try to hide our age by coloring or

making up the deficiencies, etc. Man’s longing to

live eternally is inherent, where as finite life seems

to be the fact of life. To solve this problem some

turn to religion. Some religions promise eternal

life, not now, but after death; of course only if you

believe in them. After your death, no one would know

if you lived happily ever after. There is a day of

judgment when you will be taken to eternal heaven or

pushed to eternal hell – either way eternity is

guaranteed. All these beliefs sprung up since there is

inherent desire to live eternally. No animal wants to

die. Preservation of one’s life at any cost is

instinctive. Hence mortality is a problem, since I

identify myself with the body. It has become not

anymore body’s mortality but my mortality. But

whatever we do, we can never solve or escape the jaws

of the death. I want to be eternal, but with the body

I can never be. Hence all attempts to live happily

ever after with the body will be futile.

 

The second problem arises with the notion that I am

unhappy. This arises fundamentally with the

identification with the mind as I am the mind. Mind is

never happy with what it has and therefore it always

wants to make itself more full by acquiring this or

that. Life becomes a rat race and twenty-four hours

is not sufficient. However much we accumulate, the

inadequacy that I feel that I am not full still

remains. Only way to solve this problem of inadequacy

is to be fully adequate. That means have everything

in the world, possessing limitless entities. One can

never reach limitless by adding limited things.

Addition of finites cannot accumulate to infinite.

Hence problem of inadequacy of the mind or unhappiness

of the mind remains as an unsolved problem.

 

The third problem is based on the identification that

I am the intellect, which is always limited. We cannot

stand this limitation either. Hence the longing or

curiosity to know remains. Unfortunately, the more we

learn, we find that there is lot more things to learn,

which we did not know before that they even existed.

However much we learn, we are left with an

uncomfortable feeling that what we know is very little

compared to what we do not know. Our ignorance grows

exponentially with our knowledge. Hence even the

ignorance problem also we cannot solve. Man becomes

desperate. In one of the Upanishad, the student goes

to a teacher and asks, “Sir, please teach me knowing

which I know everything”. Upanishads recognized that

there is an intrinsic desire to learn everything.

 

Vedanta says there is a fundamental problem in our

understanding about ourselves. Since I am a self

conscious entity, not knowing who I am, I take my self

to be what I am not – that is I am the limited body,

limited mind and limited intellect. Equipments, body,

mind and intellect remain limited irrespective of who

I am. As a result of this identification, I take

myself I am mortal, I am unhappy and I am ignorant.

All struggles in life are to solve these fundamental

problems. The analysis shows that all our attempts to

solve these three fundamental limitations miserably

fail. For majority of us these struggles temporarily

end one day, when we die. This seems to be

autobiography of everybody, the billions of people

that live on this planet earth; only the details of

how they failed in trying to solve these fundamental

problems vary.

 

Vedanta says, everybody fails only because everyone is

trying to solve a problem where there is no problem to

solve. Why should anyone solve a problem when there is

no problem to solve? According to Vedanta, the

problems are not real but imaginary, since we started

with a wrong assumption about ourselves. Imaginary

problems can never be solved. Since we do not know who

we are, we take ourselves to be something other than

who we are. Intrinsically there is a natural drive to

be who we really are. Hence longing to be immortal,

absolutely happy and having infinite knowledge are

inherent drives to become what we are. Hence according

to Vedanta there is really no problem to solve, but to

recognize our true nature. We are ignorant of our

selves and solution to this problem is to know who we

are. Who are we then? According to Vedanta, we are

sat-chit-ananda swaruupa; that is we are of the nature

of existence-knowledge and limitless or happiness.

Hence Vedanta is considered as mirror that shows who

we really are compared to what we think we are. ‘I

think, I am’ – was the statement of Descartes. Vedanta

says, I am – hence I think. That is I am existent and

conscious entity. Existence has to be infinite. Finite

would make the existence bounded. A question then will

arise in terms of what is there beyond the boundaries

of finiteness that is different from existence.

Different from existence is only non-existence; and we

cannot say non-existence exists on the other side of

the existence. That is a self-contradictory statement.

Therefore existence has to be infinite. I am not only

an existent entity but also a conscious entity.

Consciousness has to be existent, since we cannot talk

about non-existent consciousness. Hence existence and

consciousness are not two separate entities but one

and the same entity viewed from two different

perspectives. I cannot qualify myself – since any

qualification belongs to an object which is inert.

Hence Vedanta says – I am unqualified absolute

infinite existence-consciousness – which bible says –

I am that I am, since I cannot add anything else to I

am to qualify myself.

 

There are two things that are unqualifyable. One is

Brahman, since it is absolutely infinite. The reason

is simple. Only finite things can be qualified since

a qualification is that which distinguishes the

qualified object from the rest of the objects in the

world. The absolute infinite has to be only one,

since if they are two, each limits the other and

neither one will be Brahman. Hence, there cannot be

anything else besides Brahman, in order for it to have

qualifications to distinguish it from anything else.

Hence whatever descriptive words that are used are

only indicative of Brahman (lakshyaartha) and not

literal descriptions (vaachyaartha), similar to the

word infinite, to indicate that anything finite cannot

be Brahman. The other thing that cannot be described

is the subject I, since I am a subject and not an

object, and objects alone have qualifications. Hence

when I state my qualifications using my bio-data, I am

only describing all ‘this’ that I identify with, which

are qualifications of ‘this’ and not ‘I’.

 

Now we arrive at the famous equation what Vedanta

calls as mahaa vaakhyas (great aphorisms). Since

Brahman is one without a second, absolutely infinite,

existent and conscious entity and I am also

unqualifyable existent-conscious entity, we are left

with no other possibility other than the identity

relation, I am = Brahman (aham brahmaasmi). Our

problems started with our presumed identity equation I

am = this, where as Vedanta says the correct equation

is I am = Brahman. The first equation is invalid,

since I am equating a conscious entity with

unconscious entity. On the other hand, in the second

equation I am equating two conscious entities, only

with clear understanding that there cannot be any

divisions in consciousness or in existence.

 

Looking at our struggles to solve the three

fundamental problems stated above, Vedanta declares

that we are solving a problem where there is no

problem; and that has become a fundamental human

problem. All attempts to solve this problem fail.

Only way to solve this problem is to recognize that I

am not a limited entity that I think I am. The

limitations are the result of my superimposing

qualities that do not belong to me – the qualities of

the body, or the mind or the intellect or all of the

three. Hence Vedanta says– YOU ARE THAT (tat tvam

asi). I am referring to unqualified

existence-consciousness that I am and Brahman is

absolutely infinite existence-conscious which cannot

be away from me – in fact it is me. This teaching is

direct and immediate like seeing apple in my own hand,

which is by direct and immediate perception. I do not

have to think, I do not have to run to Himalayas to

sit and meditate or contemplate for me to see the

apple in my hand. As soon as I open my eyes, I cannot

but see. Similarly I do not have think or contemplate

or meditate or analyze to find out if I am existent or

not, conscious or not. I do not have to prove myself

that I am. I am self-conscious and self-existent

entity. I might even say I am the only one that is

self-conscious and self-existent entity. As for as I

am concerned, I have to be there to establish any

other’s existence. That I am conscious-existent

entity is direct and immediate and so is Brahman,

since it is absolutely infinite. Whether I can accept

this equation or teaching immediately or not depends

on my faith in the teaching as well how closely I am

seriously I am interested in finding my true nature.

It is logical yet the truth is beyond logic. I am an

existent-conscious entity is not logic – it is a fact.

Brahman is infinite existent-conscious entity is what

Vedanta declares. The identity of the two is pointed

out by Vedanta and that is logical too, since it is

illogical to divide existence; it will be like

dividing space. Just as space cannot be cut, made wet

or dry or burnt by fire, Krishna starts teaching in

Bhagavat Gita to Arjuna, a confused soul, that

existence-conscious that you are cannot be cut, made

wet or dry, or burnt to death by fire – you are

indestructible and immortality is your very nature.

It is amazing that we accept readily that we are the

inert body, mind or intellect but are not ready to

accept we are existent-consciousness-limitless, says

Shankara, the one who formulated this advaita

philosophy on firm grounds using Vedanta as the means

of knowledge.

 

The question that remains then is, why is that I do

not know who I am, since I am taking myself what I am

not as I am. Essentially when did this ignorance of

myself started. The related questions are what this

world is, if Brahman is everything, or why did Brahman

become this world, since unlike Brahman it appears to

be an unconscious entity.

 

In addressing these issues, we are going beyond the

boundaries of logic. Hence Vedanta alone becomes a

means of knowledge for these things, even though the

answers that Vedanta provides are not illogical. The

reasons logic fail is that the answer is not in the

domain of the intellect with the cause-effect relation

ships. Cause and effects are in the realms of time.

We are asking questions that transcend the time

concepts and hence intellect cannot find the answer by

itself. This is the same reason why science also will

fail to address these issues, since science is logical

and objective while the truth is beyond logic and

deals with subject, I.

 

When did I become ignorant of myself?- Vedanta says

ignorance has no beginning. If I can ask myself, since

I do not know Anthropology, when did my ignorance of

Anthropology start? I must say from the beginning I

did not know Anthropology. However, even though my

ignorance of Anthropology is beginningless, that

ignorance can end once I learn that science. Similarly

the self-ignorance has no beginning but can end once I

learn my true nature that I am

existent-consciousness-limitless entity. This

beginningless self-ignorance which is root cause for

all human suffering is called the primordial sin by

some religions.

 

Ignorance or lack of knowledge is only one aspect.

The related aspect is projecting myself as something

other than myself. Classical example is when I do not

know that the long thin soft one that is lying on the

semi dark road is a rope, I project it to be a snake.

Because of that projection, I sweat, my blood pressure

goes up, and I may even faint. The innocent rope may

not have any thing to do with all these secondary

reactions that arise from my misunderstanding. Vedanta

says the problem is exactly the same, when I do not

know myself, I project myself to be something other

than myself and suffer the consequences of that false

projection. Ego that we discussed is the starting

point of that misrepresentation of myself.

 

Next we ask, when did the ego start? When did I start

seeing the snake where the rope is? The moment I saw

that there is a thing on the road and since I do not

know that it is a rope, I saw it as a snake only, not

that I saw first rope and then the snake. The moment I

know I am there and not knowing my true nature, that

very moment I take myself as ‘this’, which is

different from I. Taking myself as this will start a

set of chain reactions involving the three fundamental

pursuits in life – to be immortal, to be full and to

be knowledgeable – discussed above.

 

It is common knowledge that what I do now will affect

what I will have or what I want to be in future. That

is what I am now must be the result of my past

actions. Within the transactional reality, the laws of

cause and effect are perfectly valid. If I am

engineer today, it is only because in the past I went

and studied engineering. Similarly, all the effects

that I am experiencing now is the product of my past

actions, whether I remember them or not. Likewise,

the future that I experience will be the result of my

past actions modified by my present action. Having

become an engineer, if I now study medicine, I will be

one day a physician but with engineering background.

Thus I am the prisoner of my past, and also master of

my future. If this is perfectly logical, then Vedanta

says, where I am born, to whom I am born and the type

of body with which I am born – all the results - can

not be by random choice but must be effects caused by

my previous actions. I do not accept that randomly I

become a engineer or a doctor, but by deliberate or

willful action in the present or in the past I am what

I am today. Just as a background, randomness does not

operate at an individual level. All the statistics

that we apply is only for a group behavior and not to

predict the behavior of individual entity. We can not

use statistics to predict the behavior of an

individual. At an individual level statistics can

only tell about probability of my becoming this or

that. In technical language, the deterministic

behavior of an individual cannot be predicted by a

statistical randomness of a group.

 

This means my birth in this life is dictated by the

actions that I must have done in the past and the

birth in the last life must have been dictated by the

actions that were done in the life before, etc. Then

how is my first birth determined? Since ignorance is

beginningless, my misunderstanding that I am this is

also beginningless in the sense that it is also beyond

the concept of time. As stated above, intellect itself

is the product of the birth, which is due to

ignorance; one cannot provide an intellectual answer

to the very first birth. Vedanta says

birth-sustenance-death is a cycle with no beginning.

It can have an end once we have a knowledge of who I

am, since there is no more struggles related to taking

myself who I am not. Knowledge of who I am can end

the ignorance of myself.

 

Then who is that, that takes rebirth life after life?

We discussed before that we have gross physical body

consisting of gross matter – called food-sheath – that

which is born of food, sustained by food and goes back

to become food. We have a subtle body consisting of

total mind that has four components; 1)emotional

center, mind, 2) rational intellect 3) memory 4)ego,

+ Five physiological functions + Five senses + five

faculties of organs of action – together 19 entities.

In addition to these two bodies that we discussed

before, there is still subtler one called causal body

(kaaraNa shariira). It is called causal body since it

is the cause for all the other two bodies. Since we

just mentioned that it is the primordial ignorance

that is the cause for our birth – that ignorance

constitutes the essence of causal body. We need to

discuss now the contents of this causal body since it

is the cause for the divergence for different types of

births and also accounts for why I am born with such

and such body, in particular place, for particular

parents and environment, … the whole nine yards.

 

This we will do next.

 

Hari Om!

Sadananda