Hi Neil,
OK. I’ve got lots of illusory time. I’m at least as time rich as Bill Gates is
money rich. I honestly don’t ‘do’ anything
important at all. I’ve been lounging
around here by the pool, reading the New Yorker and the New York times,
chatting with Rami, one of my friends from
Ram: “God is just an explanation given to people
who find themselves caught up in a body to explain their origins and the
origins of the world in which they find themselves. You are eternal awareness”.
Neil: If I am this, why am I in a body with a mind?
Ram: This is a very important but tricky and
subtle topic. If you can sort this out,
you’re ‘finished’ spiritually. I will
try to approach it in a number of ways to help you understand.
Perhaps it will
help to think about it this way. The
body is known to you. But you are not
known to the body. The body and mind
appear as objects in your awareness. You
see them, you experience them, but they do not experience you. So who is ‘in’ who?
Of course this all
hinges on the meaning of ‘in.’ I’m sorry
to bring in semantics but semantics is perhaps the main issue at this level of
understanding ( I’m sorry if this sounds frightfully ‘intellectual’) because we
need to be clear what terms mean if the teaching is going to be useful. When we say something is ‘in’ something else
we are basically speaking of the relationship between one thing and
another. In the physical world object
‘a’ may be ‘in’ with reference to object ‘b’ but ‘out’ with reference to object
‘c.’ In the ontological world ‘in’ means
‘within the scope of.’ So it has to do
with the pervasiveness of objects. The
principle is that a gross from of consciousness (and remember we are dealing
with, as scripture says, a non-dual reality composed only of Consciousness) a
grosser form of consciousness cannot perceive or know a subtler form. If a ‘level’ or form of Consciousness is
subtler than another it is said to contain them ‘within’ it.
If the body is the
sentient principle then the mind and the Self would be ‘in’ the body. But the body lacks sentiency. It is the grossest form of Consciousness and
as such it lacks consciousness. How this
happens can only be explained by the theory of Maya, which in Vedanta is said
to be ‘that which isn’t,’ meaning the Self somehow has the power to appear to
be something that it is not. The body,
then, is Consciousness but it is not aware.
It exists (sat) but lacks awareness (chit). Awareness is all powerful. It can (apparently) become something that it
is not. So it can apparently ‘become’
insentient. Still it does not ‘become’
matter as a worm, for example, ‘becomes’ a butterfly. In this case the worm disappears completely
and a butterfly, something different, comes into being. But it remains as chit, Consciousness, and
appears as the cosmos, the five elements, like an image in a mirror. This power is called Maya, the power to make
something that isn’t seem to be something that is.
Vedic spiritual
science explains Maya as a series of ‘levels’ or layers in (and of) Consciousness. It is like one of those Russian toys, a doll
within a doll within a doll. The outer
doll does not ‘know’ that another small (read subtler) doll is hidden ‘within’
it. So while the mind seems to be hidden
‘in’ the body and the Self seems to be hidden ‘in’ the mind, it is actually the
other way around. The Self knows the
mind, but the mind does not know the Self.
The mind knows the body but the body does no know the mind. So the body is ‘in the mind,’ not the other
way around.
This may seem like
semantics but it is crucial to anyone striving to free themselves of limitation
because as long as you have it backwards about your relationship to the body,
you are imprisoned in it. As soon as you
see that the body (and indeed the whole world since the body is just the five
elements) is ‘in’ you, you are free of it and all the karma that attaches to
it. The body and mind depend on the
Self but the Self does not depend on the body and mind.
Here’s another way
to think about it. If you are in the
body then how do you get out of the body when you go to sleep? Who is watching you in a dream when you are
living your dream life? The dream body
and mind, which you take to be real in the dream and appear as objects, are
known to whom? If you are caught up ‘in’
them, how do you know them? You can only
know them if they are objects. To know
something you need an (grosser) object and a (subtler) subject.
What happens when
you, Neil, sleeps? There is no body or
mind there. In fact there is no Neil there.
How did you get out of body and mind and get rid of Neil too? You did not get out of them because you were
never in them. They appear ‘in you’ in
the waking and dream states. Because of
Maya in the waking state you were tricked into thinking of yourself as caught
within the body. But you can get out of the body in the waking state too by
inquiring into who you are. When you
investigate Consciousness you see that it is limitless, that everything is contained
it in, but nothing contains it.
Or look at it this
way: Where do you experience the
body? Is it ‘out there’ in physical
reality, like a mountain or a tree? It
seems to be. But is it actually ‘out
there’ or do you experience it ‘in here’ in your mind? Yes, I experience it in my mind. OK. Where do you experience your mind? Well, like the body, I experience it ‘in
here,’ in my consciousness. Fine. How far are you
from your body and mind? Is there a gap,
a tunnel down which I must journey to contact my body and mind? No, there is no tunnel. So your body and mind are
you? Yes. They have to be me. OK.
But are you the body and mind?
No. I cannot be the body and mind.
Why not? Because they are known
to me but they do not know me. Can you do without them? Oh, yes, very nicely. I spend eight hours a day without them. They do not limit me in any way. What about the waking state? Are you in them? No, they appear in me as objects, and do not
limit me in any way.
Neil: How and when
did we get pressed into prakriti, into Maya? For what reason
?
Ram: It depends on who ‘we’ is? Non-dual Vedanta does not admit the existence
of a bunch of ‘we’s.’
Qualified non-dual Vedanta does admit the existence of individuals but
it says that they are not actually ‘real.’
They have an apparent temporal existence but no absolute existence. Actually, Maya, prakriti, is ‘in you’ not the
other way around. This is something that
needs to be realized. Shakti appears in
you. Your visions appear in you. Even in the case where ‘you’ seem to appear
in a dream or a vision, or even in the waking state
for that matter, actually the ‘you’ that appears is only an insentient image,
like a film projection. Everything that
is known is only known by you, by Consciousness. Neil is just a concept in Consciousness that
makes it possible for a body/mind to function in a world of appearances.
The issue of
‘when’ is not an issue because a non-dual reality is eternal. It is not ‘in time.’ Time is ‘in it.’ If you examine your life carefully you will
see that there is a part of you that has never changed. All the events, emotions, thoughts, etc.
appeared before it and then disappeared.
Yet you remain, ever the same, the unblinking
‘eye’ of awareness.
Finally, there is no
reason why we as body/minds are here.
There are explanations (to suffer, to realize the Self, to get what we
want, to play, etc.) which
can act as reasons but when you realize your nature as non-dual awareness the
‘why’ disappears. This is so because the
‘why’ comes from an intellect that has not understood the nature of
reality. This does not mean, as most
imagine, that the quest for the ‘why’ is not valid. In fact, I argue that ultimately the only
valid spiritual path is inquiry although the experience based sadhanas are
useful in preparing the mind for inquiry.
Life is a problem because we do not understand what it is, not because
it is not understandable. By inquiring
into the why, understanding comes, and one’s problems disappear. This whole ‘spiritual’ business is just about
ridding oneself of the need to know ‘why.’
Or put it this
way. From the Self’s point of view, the
bodies and minds are not ‘here,’ meaning they have not come from somewhere
else. They appear in awareness by a
wonderful magic and they ‘disappear’ when you see from awareness, not from
ideas.
Neil: You said, ‘you cannot be in everyone’s heart
because you are everyone’s heart”. If this is true, why do I not know
what is in your heart, while the Self knows what is in every heart (viz. “not a
blade of grass moves without the knowledge of the Self”)
Ram: You know what my ‘heart’ is when you know
what your heart is, i.e. Consciousness, awareness. There is a difference between the Self as
Self and the Self as mind. From the
Self’s point of view there is no mind, no moving blades of grass. Or if there are then they are known because
Awareness, the sentient principle illumines them. But Awareness does not have memory so what it
knows has no ‘meaning.’ As they appear
within the panoramic scope of Awareness, the apparently moving blades of grass
are known as Self.
That is all…because they can only be Self.
Neil, the
individual, by definition can not know everything, because his intellect is
limited. Only ‘Ishswra,’
the ‘cosmic intellect,’ can know everything.
But Ishwara is as indifferent to the meaning
of what is happening as the Self, since Ishwara is
just an explanation, not an actually being.
Knowledge is only important to embodied beings…plants, animals, and humans…because
they need to negotiate their way through this dream called the world. And because knowledge is power and human
beings feel powerless, they try to accumulate it; they seek the ‘edge.’ To the Self, you, it does not matter what is
known and what isn’t. It is only
interested (a bit of personification here) in enjoying itself. With the world it enjoys, without the world
it enjoys.
The Upanishad
says, ‘What is it, knowing which everything is known?” Do you need to drink the seven seas to know what
salt water is…when a simple sip will do?
The Western view is that one continues to explore material and
psychological reality (Maya) to accumulate ever greater and great knowledge. But the problem with this approach…as I
mentioned…is meaning. What does it
mean? This is so because knowledge is
relative to the ignorance it removes.
And since ignorance is beginingless it
continually demands more knowledge. The
more you know the more you realize how much you don’t know. You do not get to total or absolute knowledge
by gaining knowledge of things in Maya, ‘what is in my heart’ for example. ‘What is in my heart’ is not my heart. If you know my ‘heart’ you know everything in
it because everything in it is just the ‘heart’ i.e. Consciousness. The body and mind are just
Consciousness.
How can I be happy
if I don’t care about my body and mind?
How can I function in society if I don’t care about my body and
mind? I say it is only when you are free
of body and mind consciousness are you happy.
As long as I’m ‘in’ it, I’m in trouble.
You don’t get ‘out’ by physically leaving the world. You get ‘out’ by seeing that you are already
‘out.’ As what? As pure awareness.
I hope that covers
it. Things here are just fine. I hope your karmic situation improves.
Love,
Ram