GS: I don’t do yoga or any practice.
Sundari: Yogic practices, such as meditation, devotion, or chanting are very helpful to purify the mind and prepare it for self-inquiry, they are a precondition to assist self-inquiry. But they do not take its place. Self-inquiry is also a practice, a sadhana. It should be the most important thing you do every day for Self-knowledge to do the work of removing ignorance. But self-inquiry differs from yoga in that it is about knowledge, not doing actions for a result. While you want a result when you inquire into the true non-dual nature of reality, which is freedom from limitation and suffering, self–inquiry is about negating the doer. All doing is done in the karma yoga spirit, which is consecrating each action to Isvara in an attitude of gratitude, knowing that the ego is never in control of results. You need to be totally committed to self-inquiry because ignorance (the hypnosis of duality) is extremely tenacious and hard-wired.
GS: The state of superconsciousness happened without my effort. I knew that it was known to me.
Sundari: Who do you mean by known to me? Who does ‘me’ refer to, jiva or the Self? Did you know that what you took to be a state of so-called ‘superconsciousness” IS YOU, the Self, and not a state but the ordinary ever-present Consciousness you are? The fact that you experienced it is a state (which ended) means your knowledge of the Self is indirect, it is not firm, so ignorance returns. The difficulty here is your belief that what you experienced as the Self was something extraordinary, rare and special. It is not.
As I explained in my last email to you, you are only ever experiencing the Self, it’s the only option, no matter what is or is not going on in the mind. That is why we define the Self as whole and complete, unchanging, ever-present ORDINARY Awareness/Consciousness. Do not fall into the trap of making it an extraordinary experience that only takes place very rarely because that is objectifying the Self and will keep you trapped in duality. Freedom from duality requires not only karma yoga but the constant discrimination between satya, that which never changes and is always present (meaning the Self of course), and mithya, that which is not always present and always changing, (meaning the ego or jiva), in every moment of every day.
Along with karma yoga and discrimination between satya and mithya, the most important practice is taking a stand in Awareness as Awareness, and thinking the opposite thought. In other words, mind management through jnana yoga–knowledge of the gunas and how they condition the mind. But the practice “I am Awareness” does not give you the experience of Awareness or make you Awareness. It negates the idea “I am the jiva.”
When the Jiva identity is negated, the inquirer should be mindful of the Awareness that remains because negating the jiva produces a void. Nature abhors a vacuum. Many inquirers get stuck here and depression can set it if they cannot take the next step, which is understanding that the emptiness of the void is an object known by the fullness of the Self, the ever-present witness. Or, at that time, many inquirers ‘start’ to experience as Awareness and make a big fuss about it even though you have only ever been experiencing as Awareness all along!
So, the discrimination between Jiva’s experience of Awareness and the Self’s experience of Awareness is essential. The Self’s experience of itself is qualitatively different from the jiva’s experience of the Self as an object or as objects. As we have said many times, it is one thing to say “I am the Self as the Self and another to say it as the jiva or ego. This realization may well be a painful moment for inquirers who are very convinced that they are enlightened without knowing that they are only enlightened as a jiva, or as an ego, not as the Self.
GS: You are so caring to respond to my mail. If Self is unchanging, it cannot be Knower of state. Then who is Knower? Kindly bear with my questions. I swear I am not testing you. This is the last question I have.
Sundari: No problem, it is a pleasure to help you with your sadhana, and you are welcome to ask questions, in fact, that is an essential part of self-inquiry. Vedanta is a provocative teaching which gives rise to questions and doubts. You need to be properly taught so that you do not interpret the teachings according to your own ideas. And you are certainly not testing me!
Here is the breakdown of how knowing happens:
1. You are correct, both the known and unknown do not apply to the Self because it is not a knower in the sense we use that word. How can it be a knower if there is only itself? What’s to know or not know if all there is, is you? The jiva is not a knower either because it is not conscious; it is an inert know object whose consciousness (ability to know) belongs to the presence of the Self. But does it belong to the Self? Yes and no. No consciousness is possible without the Self, but the Self/Consciousness does not know anything because it does not modify to experience.
2. When Maya appears, prakriti, the subtlest form of matter that the creation is created from, appears ‘simultaneously’ in Maya, before the gunas emerge. Prakriti is reflected Awareness and also does not know anything because it is not modified by the gunas, which have not manifested yet.
3. When the gunas manifest, pure Awareness operating Maya in the ‘role’ of the Creator, meaning Isvara, knows the world – the reflected medium – because Isvara is conscious. Why? Because with the appearance of Maya there is something to be conscious of – an apparent creation, the reflected medium. Isvara is in fact, the only knower.
4. The reflected medium is the Field of Existence in which the jiva perceives, experiences and works out its karma. The Field and the Jiva seem conscious because the light of Consciousness shines on them. We can infer that the Field is intelligent and must have an intelligent creator because we know that we are conscious, and the Field is intelligently designed. Consciousness makes everything possible, everything depends on it, but Consciousness is unaffected by everything.
It is all very subtle, I know, and hard to grasp.
Om
Sundari