Marie: In one of your audios, I heard you say “For Isvara, objects exist all the time. For jiva, objects exist as long as you are placing your attention on them.” Would you comment on this in the context of the Mandukya Upanishad teachings?
Ramji: Well, what sustains the existence of all the objects (the sun, the moon, the stars, and so on)? It’s only Isvara, or consciousness, that is keeping attention on it. When Isvara withdraws Its attention from all these objects, what happens? They disappear! They are no longer supported by consciousness, so they dissolve.
Isvara is eternal, so the creation is eternal. Isvara has the consciousness and can create, sustain, and destroy objects eternally. That is Its job. So, Isvara is paying attention: It is consciousness illumining or shining light on Maya. And because Maya is eternal and consciousness is eternal, then this process of life goes along around and around over again; things are created, sustained, and destroyed in these cycles and cycles and cycles. It just endlessly cycles. Goes around and around, and then it hides for a little bit, becomes unmanifest, it goes to sleep; then it wakes up and starts again. If you look at all the cycles, it is all predictable.
And jiva, what does it do? For jiva, objects exist as long as you are placing your attention on them. That’s right! Jiva has free will. Isvara is not a big person that has free will. Jiva is the only one who has free will. That means we can choose what kind of thoughts we want to think. You can eat an apple or an orange or you can eat something else. You have choice, but if you are going to survive, you have to eat. The survival thing is Isvara. But within that survival, you have certain choices.
In Vedanta, we say that the only thing you really have a choice for is what is going to happen in the future, because the choices you have made before have to come back to you. They have to fructify. You have no choice for what is happening now, because that was in the pipeline before. And what is going to happen tomorrow is going to be the same as what happens now, unless you change your actions. If you change your actions, then that is going to come out as a different result. So you can become a different person by choosing different ideas. In other words, you can make a cognitive shift. But animals can’t do that. Animals and plants don’t have a cognitive shift because they are not self-aware. So, only we can change our destiny by changing the way we think.
So, Vedanta is telling you “Think in harmony with Reality. Don’t think in harmony with your likes and dislikes.” This is because it is your likes and dislikes, your fears and desires, that are generating good and bad karma for you. And if you are so attached to getting what you want as a jiva, in other words, if you have your attention only fixed on what you want and what you don’t want, you are going to suffer.
Marie: I was thinking, in the context of the Mandukya Upanishad, that the jiva is aware of the waking state. So in the waking state, the waker exists. But when the jiva is in the sleep state or in the sleep state, awake-reality objects don’t exist anymore for that jiva. However, they do for Isvara. But not for the dreamer or the sleeper. That’s where I was going with my question. It’s like what exists for me is just what is in front of me (what is in my awareness, in my attention). And if what is in front of me is the waking state, then that exists for me. But when what is in front of me is not the waking state (the waking state is no longer in the scope of my awareness, my attention), then that no longer exists for me. That is like, gone!
Ramji: That’s right!
Marie: Yet, it exists for Isvara, but not for me. Like: I’m not aware that there is a body on the bed. Isvara is, but I’m not. Right?
Ramji: Which I are we talking about here? Are we talking Awareness or are we talking jiva?
Marie: Well, I’m not sure, to be honest. It’s just that, when I try to analyze experience, if I just stay with what is in front of me, like in the first-person singular for the jiva, I only have those three “flavors” (three experiences): wake, dream, and sleep. But if I start thinking from Isvara’s point of view, then I think that’s when my confusion comes in. Because, if I am just analyzing the dream experience, I don’t have access to the waking body on the bed. Those things confuse me. That is why I was going to that quote (in my original question), because “For jiva, objects exist as long as you are placing your attention on them.” So, my attention in the dream is on the dream. It couldn’t possibly be on the waking perception of the body on the bed.
Ramji: That’s right! That’s right. Because you are a different person in the dream. You are the dreamer in the dream, and what is in front of you is the dream world. So, that’s all you know there. And when the dream ends, when Isvara ends the dream, then you become a waker. Now you only have access to the waking state world; you don’t have access to the dream world, except as a memory. You could remember the dream. But you don’t have access to the dream itself other than as a memory. When you go to sleep, you are neither the waker nor the dreamer. What do you have access in sleep?
Marie: Just that undifferentiated bliss, right?
Ramji: Yes, bliss and freedom. You are free and you are blissful. But do you feel like you are three different people?
Marie: I think it is kind of falling apart. It feels like I am increasingly more identified with the Witnessing Awareness. And it is as though there is a set of beings showing up intermittently in front of me (Witnessing-Awareness): the waking being, the dream being, and the deep sleeper, as intermittent appearances. Right?
Ramji: That’s good! That’s good. In other words, the waking exists, the dream exists, and the sleep exists. Those are all things you know. Aren’t they?
Marie: Yes! And they appear like in a “movie” in front of me, like I’m witnessing it intermittently or sequentially, on and off, one after the other. Right?
Ramji: Yes, that’s right. There you go!
Marie: Ok, then, I think that the I speaking is the Witnessing Awareness, because I am witnessing the waker on and off, the sleeper on and off, and the dreamer on and off. And they kind of play in front of me intermittently.
Ramji: That’s it! Those are objects appearing in you!
Marie: Exactly! And, then, they only exist for me the Witnessing Awareness I as long as they are “in front” of me. When they are not “in front” of me, they don’t exist for me (Witnessing Awareness). They may exist for Isvara! but not for me!
Ramji: They exist because of me, because they don’t exist because I am aware of them, but they don’t have anything to do with me.
Marie: Yes, but if I’m dreaming, the body on the bed has no reality for me whatsoever, for me the Witnessing Awareness. Right? But some other jiva in the waking state could look and see that there is a body on the bed sleeping, but that is because Isvara is bringing that up for that other waker-jiva.
Ramji: That’s right.
Marie: Ok, thank you. Phew! Thank you. That was so helpful.
Ramji: Yes, you understand it.
Marie: I think I got it. Thank you so much! Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Ramji: Yes, you are welcome! Yes, it’s your own experience. I’m glad you asked and we took our time to sort it out. That’s good.
Marie: Thank you so much.
Ramji: You are welcome. Absolutely.