Ribhu Gita (Tamil) Ch 35:
(37)
The dualistic mode of "I am the Body" & such.
The Witness-mode that I am the Witness of all,
The undivided mode that I am the Absolute –
Rejecting 2 of these 3 modes.
And attaining the differenceless Knowledge of the Supreme
Brahman
By the divisionless, undivided, Supreme mode,
And being rid of all the original Bondage of the misery of
Worldly existence,
Ever abide in the Self.
(39)
The gross Body and others are all of the nature of Brahman,
Whatever is seen as Dual is of the nature of Brahman.
Space & Time are all of the nature of Brahman.
Whatever things that are seen are all of the nature of
Brahman.
l am the root Cause, the Supreme Brahman.
Setting aside everything by such settled Knowledge,
Abide as the true, undivided Self, the true Abode,
Which is not different from the Supreme Brahman.
Some disciple of Ramana Maharshi quotes:
You can only put your attention on 1 thing at a time. While it is on the Mind or the Body, it
cannot be on the Self. Conversely, if
you put attention on the Self & become absorbed in it, there will be no
awareness of the Mind & Body.
You have to forcibly drag your wandering attention back to
the Self each time it shows an interest in going anywhere else.
While the Search was on, that which was being sore sought
was, in Reality, that through which the seeing was taking place. You were looking for an Object that finally
turned out to be the Subject that was doing the seeing.
Even the question, '"To whom has this thought come
? To me," quote is based on
Ignorance of the Truth. Why ? Because it is verbalizing a state of
Ignorance; it is perpetuating an erroneous assumption that there is a person
who is having troublesome thoughts. You
are the Self, not some make-believe person who is having thoughts.
Based on the Teachings of a great Sage:
A doubt may arise whether the Self may properly be called Changeless,
even though it does not change as the Body changes. But change is a characteristic of Matter. The Self,
since it transcends the Body, transcends change, including Birth & Death. Our notion of individual existence is born of
the identification of Self & Body. This identification is mistaken, because
the Changeless Self & a changeful Body cannot be identical.
Typical expressions of identification are, "I am of medium
height." This portrait is of "me as a child"; "I am hungry",
"I injured my leg", "my Body
is lean", & "I lost myself". This supposed identity of incompatibles is
called a human being. Plain men use the pronoun, “I”, indifferently to express 3
distinct levels of Identification. First
is identification with the Body & the bodily Senses. For example, "l am of medium height"
& "I hear".
Second, there is identification with thoughts & the
affections. For example, "I think" or "I imagine", & "I
am happy" or "I am (emotionally)
moved.
Third, there is identification with the state of un-consciousness
which is supposed to exist in the absence of thought. For example, "I was
unconscious" or "I slept soundly". The expression, "I was
unconscious", is a contradiction in terms. It means “I”, the thinker, had no thoughts. But I cannot be a thinker when I have no
thoughts. When thought is absent, I
remain in Being, although the consciousness of an individual existence has
vanished with the cessation of mental activity. Thus the expressions, "I
was unconscious", or "I will be unconscious", imply that “I” continued,
or will continue, to exist without individuality.
Every human Life proves the foregoing fact, although it is
not recognized. If, for example, there
were any fear lest the loss of individual consciousness spelt annihilation, no
one who identified himself with his Body would dare to fall asleep. As human beings,
we seem to have a personal identity that is expressed by the pronoun, “I”. This Ego
causes the real Self to appear as identical with the Body, the Senses, or the Mind.
Such an identification is wholly
illogical & unreal. The personal pronoun “I”, whatever Sense we may give
it, denotes always the immutable Self, that single True “I”.
Consciousness is that n which the totality of objective experience seems to occur. I
think means "I am conscious of thoughts". "I see or hear" means I am
conscious of Visual or Auditory Perceptions ; & "I am happy"
means l am conscious of a feeling of Happiness.
The terms "thinker', thinking, & thought"
include all the different aspects of mental activity as such. That is to say, Reasoning
& Intellection, Imagination, Feeling, Volition, & Perception. Perception denotes the mental action of
knowing external things through the medium of Sense presentations. To this list must be added one other, namely, Egoism
or the habit of Body-identification, called the "I-thought".
Some more selected verses from the Ramana Maharshi disciple Master Nome:
The Upanishad says, “The unknown Knower of all that
is known.” It is non– objective, thus unknown, for it is
something that cannot be thought of. The
entire World is known by the Senses, but all the Senses are, in turn, known,
too [by Sense-Thoughts about them].
You know if there is Seeing or if there is Hearing, just as you know if
there is something Seen or something Heard [Perceptual Thoughts of objects]. Furthermore, all that occurs for the Mind.
The Mind's cognition & thoughts, in whatever form they appear, do not
illumine themselves & are, in themselves, inert. Something else knows them. It is not that one thought knows
another. None of these thoughts have a knowing
principle.
There is only one Knower, but when you look at him,
he is unknown in the sense that he cannot be objectified. The Individuality of that Knower should
be examined very closely. In Truth,
there is just one Knower, & not a knower in you, a knower in
him, & a knower in her. If we
think of it in terms of an Individual knower, such is the Knower,
or Consciousness combined with some idea, with some connection with an aspect
of the Mind. Regard all that is objective
as not who you are. Even the notion
of "I" & whatever seems to
be apart from the undifferentiated Absolute, should be relinquished as not
being the Self.
In knowing the Self, it is essential that not only your
Identity be known as being just Consciousness, but that you understand Reality
to be that, as well. If you leave the
sense of Reality mixed up with something objective, it necessarily
implies your stand as a particular experiencer. If you recognize that the World is the known
& "I" am the knower, but you still regard
the World as existing in some form, such posits some "experiencer"
of the World. That experiencer is
an embodied, sensing entity. Even if he
be regarded as disembodied, he is still a sensing entity. The truth is that the Self is not a sensing
entity. The notion of a sensing entity
& the Senses themselves are equally objective as the things known. Therefore,
if you are thorough in your Inquiry, the sense of Identity, its Happiness,
& Reality will return completely to their rightful place.
The above themes & 1600 pages more are freely available as perused or downloaded PDF’s, the sole occupants of a Public Microsoft Skydrive “Public Folder” accessible through:
www.jpstiga.com/
http://jstiga.wixsite.com/nonduality/
or with Caps-sensitive:
http://sdrv.ms.YPOgkX/
Duplicates available on:
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for very succinct summary of the teaching & practice,
see: www.ajatavada.com/
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