[Returning soon after illness:]
What seems to make for Ignorance regarding our true Non-Dual & ever–Liberated nature is a special kind of "Ignorance" that is constituted of whatever we regard as "this", whatever objectivity we take to be real. Reality, Consciousness is purely subjective & can never be known. Nor is Consciousness ever unknown because we feel it working as we feel the eyes working when we experience vision.
Consciousness is Self–Luminous. By its Light all appear. When all disappear, Consciousness is still the same. The Known has no Light of its own. Inquiring, one should trace this Light inward to realize that which is perpetually illuminating, that is Consciousness. That ever–shining colorless Light illumines the Senses & the Mind but can never be this seen by the Senses or envisioned by the Mind. Knowledge or direct experience, of this Light consists of Identity with it, Consciousness.
Changeless, blemishless, ever free, immovable, eternal, bodiless, & imperishable, without Ignorance or Knowledge, the Self is of the nature of Consciousness alone Existence. The Self is the sole, ever–existent, Non-Dual Reality. The aspirant can know Absolute Being, or Brahman, only if it if it is identical with him. He cannot know that which is different from him. The Self, being Non-Dual Consciousness cannot know another. The Self, being the self–existent Consciousness cannot be known by another. The Self alone, can know itself. There would be no use for the countless descriptions of the Absolute by the Scriptures in the holy Sages, & no use for the negation of all limited definitions, if that, the Self were other than one's own self. For what purpose would be served by speaking of something that could never be experienced at all ?
The negation of attributes and limited definitions of Brahman, as given in such spiritual instructions, must be understood to be the negation of attributes & limited definitions of the Self. If they are to be applied to oneself, they involve the negation of super-imposition upon the Self of what is not the Self.
The descriptions of the Self & the negation of attributes & the limited definitions of the Self, such as that it is bodiless, non-sensory, without prana, free from thought, etc. would be meaningless if they referred to some sort of other "self" different from the aspirant own true Self. There are not 2 selves in the same one Being. There is One Self, & when known as it is it is Infinite & Eternal, not a being but just Being, Existence.
