Karen: Dear James, I hope you and Sundari are both well. I’m writing to say how much I appreciate your clear explanation of the Bhagavad Gita which I have been listening to more intensely over the past few weeks. I’m now at chapter 14 on the three energies, and despite having read your book on the topic several times I’m getting a new insight after listening to it explained in this sequence.
I see that too much tamas (plus unseen variables) has had a large part to play in my not accomplishing previous goals I set myself and even my occasional difficulties in completing tasks. Too much rajas kept me filling up my days with multiple activities that prevented me from having the sattvic state of mind needed for focusing regularly on the teaching.
After hearing you speak of your guru, Swami Chinmayananda, in one of the Bhagavad Gita videos, I looked at some of his talks on YouTube, and that just added to my joy at being able to benefit from this teaching presented by devoted teachers.
What I’m finding helpful to correct my perspective is to take one of your examples in a video a little further. Not “the world exists” but “existence worlds”; not “the tree exists” but “existence trees”; not “I, Karen, exist” but “existence Karens.” Just as I say “a wooden table” or “a gold ring,” perhaps I can say “a consciousness person.” We’re always “experiencing” existence as the subject.
James: Yes, consciousness (seemingly) “persons.”
Karen: I also tried to build on Swami Chinmayananda’s talking about the vasanas in YouTube video, where he explains that if you see with your eyes you are seeing as the perceiver, but if you recognise that you are seeing THROUGH your (the body’s) eyes, you are free, seeing from the perspective of the Self. (I have a question about this that I’ll get back to.) Later in the video, the Swami asks: if you are in a room with a window and see the moon rise, does the window see the moon rise or do you see the moon rise THROUGH the window?
Each jiva looks through their own style of window – different frame, different type, style or colour of glass, different size and shape of window – so their view of the landscape is conditioned by what kind of window they look through, whether they are attached to their window as special and unique or maybe even think that they are the window.
James: Most everyone thinks they are the window, the experiencing entity.
Karen: The landscape, however, is still the landscape irrespective of which window it is being viewed through. The analogy breaks down a bit here – as all analogies must at some point – because I wanted to say that the house, the window and the “landscape” are all in me (Self/space).
As I listened to the Gita videos (speaking as jiva here) and after reading a satsang on the Vedanta process, I did have some questions and I’d like to clarify a couple of things to see whether I’ve understood or not.
I am clear that the Self is not the doer or experiencer. In a satsang on the process of Vedanta, you say that Vedanta sadhana is for purification and is for the doer, and that Vedanta pramana is for knowledge and is for the knower. I (mis-?) understood this to mean that the Self is the knower or I am the knower. But in chapter 14 of the Gita, you say that the Self (consciousness/existence) is not the knower; the Self becomes a knower when sattva appears in consciousness.
James: The Self is not a knower when Maya (ignorance) is not present. Maya generates objects. The Self doesn’t generate objects, because it is unborn, non-dual existence. There would have to be at least one other existence capable of modifying the first existence to generate action and cause existence/consciousness to change. When objects are present there is something to be illumed by consciousness, and therefore to be known. So it is a knower when objects are present and not a knower when objects are absent.
Karen: So I’m wondering then, who is the knower? If the (non-eternal) jiva is the experiencer/doer, then is the eternal jiva the knower? Is the reflected Self (eternal jiva?) the knower (consciousness plus sattva)?
James: Your question assumes that the knower and the doer are conscious and different. The doer needs to be conscious to do, and the knower needs to be conscious to know. They can’t be different, because there is only one consciousness. When it is associated with thoughts it is called a knower, and when it is associated with actions it is a doer. It seems to be different owing to its association with different ideas, i.e. thinking and doing. Thinking and doing are just seeming actions generated by Maya. Nothing is actually happening from consciousness’s point of view. Things arise and fall within its panoramic scope. One has to be conscious to know something but neither the self nor the objects are conscious. When Maya appears the Self appears as a conscious knowing entity.
Karen: And is the reflected Self dependent on sattva for its recognition of itself?
James: Yes.
Karen: When a jiva is beyond the three gunas, does that mean that the reflected Self is also “negated” because anything in the field of experience is not real, so not necessary to hold on to?
James: “A” jiva is not beyond the gunas. A (non-eternal) jiva is purely a conceptual, seemingly conscious, material object. The eternal Jiva, which is non-separate from original pure consciousness, is beyond the three gunas, i.e. Maya. However, the answer to your question is yes because individuality is known to you, the unborn eternal Jiva. The word “jiva” means “a living being.” The Self doesn’t live or die. It is the knower of life and death.
Karen: And in fact who is the “I” that corrects its perception of itself? Is it the non-eternal jiva that freedom is for and from? It cannot be the Self, as there is nothing for the Self to observe or correct, etc; it has nothing to say or know and cannot “know” anything, especially not itself, since there is no duality.
James: You are a good inquirer, Karen. You are getting to the heart of the teaching. Because the non-eternal jiva is a thought construct and thoughts are inert, which is to say they can’t think, it can’t correct anything. Correction implies knowledge, which implies consciousness.
Here’s the rub. Because there is only one consciousness, there is only one knower, so the Self under the spell of Maya, which is to say consciousness thinking it is a limited entity, needs to correct itself. But it can’t do it without the help of Vedanta, which involves a teacher and an impersonal teaching. If, as you say, there is no duality from the Self’s point of view, then there is nothing to correct, so the question is wrong.
Karen: Who is the “I” we want to speak as (I am limitless, I am love and so on)? Is it actually the reflected Self using a kind of verbal formula to remind it of its original? Because the reflection cannot “see” the Self – how can something unreal see something real? They aren’t of the same order of existence.
James: You answered your own question. It can’t be the reflection, the non-eternal jiva, although it seems as if it is because it is unreal and insofar as it exists it exists as an inert material substance that can’t speak or correct itself. So it can only be existence/consciousness itself apparently under the spell of Maya. To say, however, the Self falls under the spell of Maya is to say that Maya, ignorance, is not real insofar as it can be removed by knowledge. It is “seemingly” real. If ignorance was real there would be no way to remove it.
Karen: Or is the reflected Self not taken from the perspective of the reflection (what I’ve been calling the eternal jiva) but from what is being reflected (Self “seeing” itself)? Just as consciousness doesn’t “know” anything till sattva appears in it, then does consciousness not “see” itself until a sufficiently still mind appears in it?
James: You are making me work hard. This paragraph takes some untangling. The reflected self is not (to be) taken from its own perspective, because it is non-eternal, not “eternal” as you say. A non-eternal, inert material concept can’t “take” anything, because taking implies consciousness. Even though the question is wrongly worded, the conclusion is correct. Consciousness does not know itself until knowledge of its nature appears in a sufficiently still material reflection, which it to say a sattvic mind.
Karen: Awareness is, but who or what observes, witnesses, knows?
James: Awareness observes/witnesses when objects, thanks to Maya, are present. In their absence there is nothing for it to observe. It just is.
Karen: Apart from the verb “to be,” all the other verbs here require an object, something that is observed, witnessed, known, which implies duality. I’m having trouble grasping this.
James: Verbs are action words. They imply consciousness (chit), which is being (sat). But the juxtaposition of “to” and “be” is ignorance because it implies that being is an action, which it isn’t. There is a saying, “be here now,” which implies that you, consciousness, are not here now, which is impossible; or that an apparent entity can be in the here and now when, insofar as it exists, it exists in consciousness, the “here and now.” There is no action that can make you “be,” because you already are. It is a fact that can’t be dismissed. Nobody ever told you that you exist, because it is self-evident. Maya is the most difficult concept to grasp. When you grasp it, you are free.
Karen: I apologise if all this will become clear as I listen to the rest of the Gita videos, but as it was beginning to confuse me, I hoped you might help me to clarify if you have the time. Or Isvara will provide the answer in some other way if not! Thank you for reading.
James: Isvara made you write to me to save you more confusion because it probably won’t become clear if you listen to the rest of the Gita, because some of your definitions are not correct. If you aren’t taught the definitions of words, you are likely to assume incorrect meanings, which will create confusion all along. Generally we start with Tattva Bodh by Shankarachaya, which defines the terms on which the whole Vedantic edifice is constructed. You’ve got most of it right and you shouldn’t feel bad, because Maya is the most difficult teaching. The issue here was basically the definition of the word “jiva.” There is only one jiva but it appears as two or more. The body is a ‘’limiting adjunct (upadhi).” A limiting adjunct is something that makes something appear to be something that it isn’t. If a yellow flower sits next to a clear crystal, the crystal seems to be yellow. Maya is an upadhi for you, consciousness. When you experience consciousness and a body, aka a human being for instance, you assume that consciousness belongs to the body, and since there are many bodies, you assume that there are many consciousnesses. Probably you incorrectly assume that consciousness depends on the body too.
“A” jiva is three things: original pure existence/consciousness; a material reflecting medium, which we call a subtle body, and which people generally call the mind; and finally the reflection itself. Jiva is consciousness associated with a body. It is called “the indweller” because it looks like it is living in the body owing to the power of Maya. But in fact the body lives “ïn” it, meaning is known to it.
~ Love, James
