Talks -25.

Talks -25
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Talk 25.
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On a former occasion B. V. Narasimha Swami, author of Self-

Realization, asked: Who am I? How is it to be found?

M.: Ask yourself the question. The body अन्नमय कोश / annamaya kosa and its

functions are not ‘I’.

Going deeper, the mind मनोमय कोश / manomaya kosa and its functions are not

‘I’.

The next step takes on to the question. “Where-from do these

thoughts arise?” The thoughts are spontaneous, superficial or

analytical. They operate in intellect. Then, who is aware of them?

The existence of thoughts, their clear conceptions and their

operations become evident to the individual. The analysis leads to

the conclusion that the individuality of the person is operative as

the perceiver of the existence of thoughts and of their sequence.

This individuality is the ego, or as people say ‘I’. 

विज्ञानमय Vijnanamaya kosa (intellect) is only the sheath of ‘I’, and not the ‘I’ itself.

Enquiring further the questions arise, “Who is this ‘I’? Where-from

does it come?” ‘I’ was not aware in sleep. Simultaneously with its rise

sleep changes to dream or wakefulness. But I am not concerned with

dream just now. Who am I now, in the wakeful state? If I originated

from sleep, then the ‘I’ was covered up with ignorance. Such an

ignorant ‘I’ cannot be what the scriptures say or the wise ones affirm.

‘I’ am beyond even ‘Sleep’; ‘I’ must be now and here and what I

was all along in sleep and dreams also, without the qualities of such

states. ‘I’ must therefore be the unqualified substratum underlying

these three states आनन्दमय / anandamaya kosa transcended.

‘I’ is, in brief, beyond the five sheaths. Next, the residuum left over
after discarding all that is not-self is the Self, Sat-Chit-Ananda.
D.: How is that Self to be known or realised?
M.: Transcend the present plane of relativity. A separate being आत्म / Self
appears to know something apart from itself  अनात्म / non-Self. That is, the
subject is aware of the object. The seer is drik; the seen is drisya.
There must be a unity underlying these two, which arises as ‘ego’.
This ego is of the nature of chit (intelligence); अचित् / achit (insentient
object) is only negation of chit. Therefore the underlying essence
is akin to the subject and not the object. Seeking the drik, until all
दृश्य / drisya disappears, the दृक् / drik will become subtler and subtler until the
absolute दृक् / drik alone survives. This process is called दृश्य-विलय / drisya vilaya
(the disappearance of the objective world).
D.: Why should the objects दृश्य / drisya be eliminated? Cannot the Truth
be realised even keeping the object as it is?
M.: No. Elimination of दृश्य /drisya means elimination of separate identities
of the subject and object. The object is असत् / unreal. All दृश्य / drisya (including
ego - अहंकार) is the विषय / object. Eliminating the unreal, the Reality survives.
When a rope is mistaken for a snake, it is enough to remove the
erroneous perception of the snake for the truth to be revealed.
Without such elimination the truth will not dawn.
D.: When and how is the disappearance of the objective world ( दृश्य -विलय / drisya
vilaya) to be effected?
M.: It is complete when the relative subject, namely the mind, is
eliminated. The mind is the creator of the subject and the object
and is the cause of the द्वैतपरक / dualistic idea. Therefore, it is the cause of
the wrong notion of limited self and the misery consequent on
such erroneous idea.
D.: What is this mind?
M.: Mind is one form of manifestation of life. A block of wood or a
subtle machine is not called mind. The vital force (प्राण)  manifests as life-activity
and also as the चेतन / conscious phenomena known as the mind.
D.: What is the relation between मन / mind and विषय / object? Is the mind
contacting something different from it, viz., the world?
M.: The world is ‘sensed’ in the waking and the dream states or is the
object of perception and thought, both being mental activities. If
there were no such activities as waking and dreaming thought, there
would be no ‘perception’ or inference of a ‘world’. In sleep there is
no such activity and ‘objects and world’ do not exist for us in sleep.
Hence ‘reality of the world’ may be created by the ego by its act
of emergence from sleep; and that reality may be swallowed up or
disappear by the soul resuming its nature in sleep. The emergence
and disappearance of the world are like the spider producing a
gossamer web and then withdrawing it. The spider here underlies
all the three states - waking, dreaming, and sleep; such a spider in
the person is called Atman (Self), whereas the same with reference
to the world (which is considered to issue from the sun) is called
Brahman (Supreme Spirit). He that is in man is the same as He that
is in the sun.
(Sa yaschayam purushe yaschasavaditye sa ekah /
स यश्चायं पुरुषे यश्च असौ आदित्ये  स एकः).
While Self or Spirit is unmanifest and inactive, there are no relative
doubles; e.g., subject and object - drik and drisya. If the enquiry
into the ultimate cause of manifestation of mind itself is pushed on,
mind will be found to be only the manifestation of the Real which is
otherwise called Atman or Brahman. The mind is termed सूक्ष्म / sukshma
sarira or ‘subtle-body’; and jiva is the individual soul. The जीव / jiva is
the essence of the growth of individuality; personality is referred
to as jiva. Thought or mind is said to be its phase, or one of the
ways in which the jiva manifests itself - the earlier stage or phase
of such manifestation being vegetative life. This mind is always
seen as being related to, or acting on, some non-mind or matter,
and never by itself. Therefore mind and matter co-exist.