Knowledge and the Means of Knowledge - 6

[Guest guest]

(We are discussing perceptual knowledge based on Vedanta ParibhASha of

Dharmaraja

Adhvarindra, topics in the order that is presented, but in the way as I

understand it).

 

 

6. Internal perceptions

 

Internal perception:

 

Here we need to discuss how an internal perception occurs. Under this topic, we

are not

concerned here about the recollection from the memory as internal perception.

Internal

perception we mean is the knowledge of the mental moods – happy, unhappy,

desire, anger,

fear etc that arise in the mind. When I say I am happy – it is an experience

and

knowledge that I am happy – When one is happy, the statement is immediate and

direct –

one does not have to say – let me think whether I am happy or not, or let me

meditate on

it to see if I am happy or look at some cause-effect relationship to deduce that

I must

be happy for this reason. I am happy, I am unhappy, I feel bad, I am afraid, etc

these

emotions are also mental moods which are immediately and directly illuminated by

the

witnessing consciousness. Hence the mental mood – happy mood of the mind – is

illumined

and the reflected limiting consciousness is cognized as I am conscious of the

happy mood

of the mind. ‘I am happy’ is not a recollection from memory although I can be

happy by

recollecting some pleasurable experience happened in the past. However that

recollection

of past experience can make me happy or even unhappy in the present. (Many

people live in

the past, particularly if they are sorrowful experiences, by continuously

recollecting

those experiences again and again like continuous re-runs on the TV – those we

call as

attachments). The negative mental moods, anger, joulousy, sorrow, cause

significant drain

of mental energies resulting in mental depressions and other neurotic problems.

Some

times the root cause for these is desires or extreme dependency on something on

things

and beings for their happiness or survival. These, when they are unsatisfied,

result in

frustrations and anger. Mental depressions can occur when they have no control

of their

minds or the control of the external situations. Krishna gives how a mind can

down the

drain starting from intense desire to anger to delusion causing loss of

discriminative

power, etc.

 

All vRittis that arise in the mind are immediately illuminated and the resulting

reflected consciousness from these is known. That means we are conscious of

them

immediately as they arise in the mind. It also follows that there cannot be a

vRitti

without it being recognized immediately. What that means is I cannot think or

be happy,

unhappy or angry without my knowing it! Therefore all vRittis or mental moods

are

illumined and reflected immediately by the ever present witnessing

consciousness.

 

A comment: Here we can raise the question whether ‘I am happy’, I am unhappy, I

am angry,

etc are thoughts or mental moods separate from thoughts, although both are put

under one

category as mental moods or vRittis. From experience, we find that these

vRittis are not

of ‘thought forms’, but just simple mental moods.

**********

Recently I had an extensive discussion with Swami Paramarthanadaji about three

aspects

which are pertinent here. 1) Concerning vRitti – VRitti is a mental mood, and

thought is

also a mental mood – hence translation of vRiiti as a thought is not

inappropriate (note

the double negative). We have idam vRitti – thoughts about this and aham vRitti

– ‘I am’

thought’. vRitti is also a feeling which need not be expressed as thought, as

conceptualization of that feeling. Hence translation of vRitti as thought is

difficult

here. – looks like it is as difficult as translating the feelings into thought

forms!-

Hence sometimes it is better to stick to the words vRittis as mental moods or as

feelings, particularly when it comes to internal perceptions. 2) Second aspect

I

discussed was about my statement – Existence of an object can be established

only by the

knowledge of existence. Otherwise it is indeterminate. Swamiji said that it is

exactly

correct provided I clarify that it is the knowledge in the minds of some

conscious

entity, which Shree Sastriji also endorsed. 3) Third about the biological time –

From the

second item it follows that it has to be in minds of some one that includes

Iswara, as

well, as conscious entity. He agreed with my statement about vaiswaanara in the

operation

of biological clocks. Anyway these are clarifications from Shree Swamiji for

those who

are interested. In the present context, we are now dealing with feelings of

happiness,

angry, etc. as mental moods. These need not be the same as thoughts involving

conceptualizations, but one can consider them as mental moods expressed as

thoughts and

not after the fact thoughts. I would prefer to be called as just mental moods or

feelings, rather than thoughts of the feelings.

************

Hence, ‘I am happy’ as a thought is different from the mental mood of

happiness. I

consider thought as a conceptualized entity while happy mood does not involve

conceptualization of that state. Similarly ‘I am angry’, ‘I am frustrated’ etc.

These

emotional moods are experienced directly and immediately. Hence when I express

my happy

state of my mind with a thought or vRitti as ‘I am happy’ thought, I am actually

no more

happy, since I am now busy cognizing the thought than being happy. VP says that

mental

moods are known immediately as they rise in the mind – when we formulate those

moods in

terms of thoughts, we are now describing the moods than cognizing the moods.

Hence ‘I am

happy’ statement or thought is different from being in happy mood. Cognition of

the mood

is different from the expression of the mood as thought and its cognition.

These

expressions are after the fact. (This happens also when we cognize the object

through

perception. If there is jar in front and I see the jar, and cognize it as ‘Here

is a

jar’. That part is immediate. This cognition can follow with, ‘I know here is

a jar’,

which is an after the fact or cognition of the knowledge of cognition). Hence

when one

tries express the feelings in terms of thoughts, one fails. Words and thoughts

cannot

express those feelings although words (some time facial or other bodily

gestures) are

needed to express those feelings to others. In fact, in case of fear, etc., the

body also

reacts to the feelings, in terms of adrenal reactions – high blood pressure,

accelerated

heart beat, etc. Thus, we can also state that mental moods of anger, jealousy,

frustration, etc., the negative moods cause perturbations in the mind as

response to the

situations that are being faced. These mental perturbations will trickle down to

perturbations at the body level in terms of physical and/or chemical reactions.

On the

other hand, the positive emotions are mental moods that make the mind calm and

quiet with

all mental perturbations become quiet, at least momentarily. That results in

apparent

perception of happiness that associated with my intrinsic nature, since I am

ananda

swaruupa or of the nature of pure bliss, which is non-dual. It appears from

this that

the positive mental moods are actually more close to absence of normal mental

moods since

under these conditions, the witnessing consciousness beams forth in its true

glory –

which is felt as ‘I am happy’, etc.

 

Expression of love is also similar wherein the duality ceases between lover and

the

loved. The negative moods of hate, anger, etc take the mind away from myself,

where

duality gets exemplified. Fear arises from the second. Cognition of these

mental moods

of happiness, unhappiness, anger, fear, etc., do not need to be expressed via

thoughts.

Hence internal cognition of the mental moods is direct and immediate cognition

of the

mental states, when those states that arise in the mind. Similarly, the state of

realization, that is the realization of my original nature – I am – as

sat-chit-ananda

swaruupa– is called akhanDa AkAra vRitti - unbroken formless form of mental

mood - here

again vRitti is not a thought form but similar to a mental mood involving

unbroken

cognition of myself as the self that I am. It is not like other moods that come

and go,

but this mood is a constant awareness of ever present self-illuminating

consciousness

that I am– that intense feeling of self recognition is in the mind only. It is

not

recognition of the reflected consciousness (as in reflected light) but cognition

of the

original consciousness (as in original light in the room or sunlight) which is

ever

present which is unrelated to any reflections that may or may not occur – that

is stated

as akhanda AkAra vRitti in the mind, since that recognition is in the mind only

like the

room light or sunlight falling in the room. When that realization arises there

is no

more feeling of understanding that I am the limiting reflected consciousness.

Here it is

not that there are no more vRittis that are getting reflected as limiting

consciousness(es). Those are cognized as such without the notion that ‘I am

this’. That

is – the vRittis – this, this and this – are getting reflected as they rise in

the mind,

but no more identification with those vRittis as I am this, since I have now

realized

that I am the background ever present witnessing consciousness that I am, and

not the

limiting reflecting consciousness ‘this’. Once I have known who I am and abide

in that

knowledge of who I am, then, I can still take the role of ‘I am this’ for

transactional

purposes, but with clear understanding of who I am. That is, I am not the

limiting

consciousness, as ‘I am this’ stands, but I am the limitless consciousness that

I am,

which was referred to earlier as sAkshI chaitanyam or witnessing consciousness

in

relation to sAkshyam, witnessed limiting consciousness. We can state that the

difference

between state of realization and the state of ignorance is only this. We have

for all

our cognitions – the sAkshI, or the witnessing consciousness in whose light the

mind and

its moods are being illumined and the reflected limiting consciousnesses from

these

illuminations are cognized. When I am ignorant, that is, when I do not know my

true

identity, I take myself as a constant reflecting limiting consciousness as ‘I am

this’ –

where ‘this’ keeps changing as the reflecting limiting consciousness of the

mental vRitti

changes with body, mind (including memory) and intellect thoughts. That

identification of

I am with ‘this’, this being a reflected limiting consciousness is called EGO.

With

changing ‘this’ my identification also shifts. In the state of realization, I

recognize

that I am that akhanDa AkAra vRitti – a continuous original consciousness that I

am and

not the reflecting consciousness that I used to think that I am. ‘I’ is still

called

vRitti but unbroken vRitti since my attention is shifted from specific

reflections to the

original general light of consciousness. The localized reflections and

cognitions will

continue as part of the metal moods but my identification is now shifted from

the

reflected limiting consciousness to that which is continuous ever present, the

ever

shining original consciousness –which still illumines as before the moods that

arise in

the mind. Nothing has changed except for my shifting of my attention of who I

am – I

used to think that I am reflected consciousness and now I realize that I am the

original

consciousness. Since the original consciousness is ever present, there is no

confusion

in terms of understanding who that ‘I’ stands for. It is like recognizing I am

the

original light that is beaming all the time than the reflected light of the

original

light from the vRittis or mental moods that still continue as before. The

contents of

the limiting vRittis may also change now since there is no more ego-centric

desires and

their resulting thoughts. All vRittis now will be centered towards the totality

that I

am – that is that which benefits the totality that is vRittis are for loka

kalyAnam.

 

Actually the language fails to express properly the correct understanding, as

the

scripture says the words return back. From the point of ignorance, there is a

knowledge

in the sense I now know who I am - therefore I do not take myself what I am not

as I am.

The vRitti knowledge eleminates the ignorance of who I am - As Shankara say that

is

during realization - kRitvaa jnaanam swayam nasyet - having eliminated the

ignorace this

is also gets eliminated. What it means is it no more like knowledge as a

thought but

knowledge as a fact. Once I shift myself from what I think I am to what I am,

the

knowledge or self knowledge is 'I am' period without any qualification of this.

Bhagavan

Ramana says - aham aham taya - I am - I am- etc spontaneously rising in one's

mind -

that is pure knowledge that we discussed earlier - which is also expressed as

akhanda

aakaara vRitti. Better to leave it with that, than try to explain anymore with

words.

 

Hari Om!

Sadananda