Esoterics of GOD: November 2017

(By Sudhakar V Reddy)

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Awareness is the PURE, unlimited, open, empty field/substratum in which all experience appears, with which all experience is known and out of which all experience is made.

That which knows (without a knower-status) but cannot itself be known (as an object) is Awareness. Pure Awareness does not know itself as "something." It is Quality-less or Dimension-less. Awareness ('Sphurana', 'Gnyaanam') is the undeniable/uncontradictory Reality/Truth that cannot be externalized. According to Vedantha, Whatever you are aware of...is not Awareness! To put it another way, Whatever you can call 'this'...is not Awareness! This is an indirect definition of Awareness but is very useful. Awareness is a word in which the two fundamental aspects of our self – being and knowing (existence and consciousness) – are recognized as one. Awareness is the ground of existence and the potential for all experience.  Awareness is the natural state in which the thought "I" (the ego) does not rise even in the least. Awareness is Consciousness without thinking or focusing, being alert with no thought. It is the Consciousness knowing/being none other than itself. Therefore, Complete Consciousness is Awareness.  Sanskrit word for the Ultimate Reality is 'Brahman.'

I-I is the Original/Pure Awareness. IT is Totality, Reality. I is identical to I.  I-I is Awareness always aware (just by being) but has no body and not available for transaction. So IT is actually not even an I-I or Aham-Aham, because there is no I in IT. We are calling IT an I-I just to talk about IT.  This open Awareness without a body-mind complex, therefore, does not have Self-Awareness. I-I is aware but not aware as 'something.' I-I cannot say "I" because there is no other that exists as "thou." Pure Awareness cannot be experienced; it can only be "claimed" as You!

Kena Upanishad: Student: What is it that gives the senses and the mind the power? Guru: It (Awareness) is the ear of the ear, the mind of the mind, the speech of the speech. It is also the praana of the praana and the eye of the eye!...By answering thus (precisely and usefully) the guru explained that the One Awareness, without the second, is not part of any object (matter/mind), not produced by any object, not dependent on any object and yet it is the essence of all objects and pervades them.

Consciousness is Awareness reflected in a mind by which one knows, "I know that I am, or I know that I am present!" Consciousness is Awareness that knows/feels itself as "something" which is impersonal. Reflected-Awareness=Individual-Consciousness=Soul.

Consciousness=Awareness-at-Rest (Reflected) which will seemingly become Awareness-in-Movement, because Awareness or Pure-Consciousness is Actionless. Consciousness is (a seemingly) Individuated Awareness and is Impersonal. Whatever knows the objects and selves as itself but is not an object of knowledge is Consciousness. Consciousness is the expression of Self-Awareness in anything that exists. Consciousness is always conscious of something, and there is always someone who is conscious. Consciousness is looking to experience the highest feeling of Love with the instruments of body and mind. Consciousness and Awareness are interchangeable words, even though they have some subtle differences. The word Consciousness is used in duality whereas Awareness is used in Non-Duality.

Consciousness is "I AM," Aham-Asthi, Saakshi, Pragnyaanam, Self-Awareness.  I AM is neither exclusively a thought nor exclusively Pure-Consciousness. It is "prior" to thought where time and Eternity intersect, where space and Infinity intersect, where mind and Reality intersect! "I AM" is the meeting point, a dimensionless point between "I am this finite self" and "I AM THAT Limitless Awareness!"  "I AM" is the last stop in thinking before we can "be!" A common man is in the state of "I am this" in waking and dream states and "I AM" in deep sleep state, whereas a sage ('gnyaani') is always in the state of "I AM THAT!" Soul, I AM, is the seemingly changing, continuous and impersonal aspect/content of an individual.

Consciousness is the continuous awareness, or the continuous element of experience, that knows objects and also knows itself at the same time. With or without objects, Consciousness knows itself. When Consciousness knows objects as itself, it is called Enlightenment. Consciousness is continuously changing (as feeling, thought and perception - the three channels of experience) and also unchanging at the same time.

God: The word God is a mumbo-jumbo word invented by the priesthood. God is misleading because the word personifies. In the western religions, it means "Creator" that created this world from nothing. Then, "Who created the Creator?" cannot be explained in a rational way. If the Creator existed on his own outside of Creation without being created, then what is the problem, why can't the world/nature exist on its own without being created? In the Advaitha tradition, there is no exact word for God. Their equivalent word is "Eeshwara" meaning Supreme Power or Supreme Energy, i.e., Intelligent Energy.

Therefore, God means All-Intelligence plus All-Energy. It is the sum total of all "enclosed" Consciousnesses of the world. It is the Absolute Potential or Absolute Cause of the world. According to Advaitha Vedantha, Eeshwara appears as this world, like one's potential appearing as one's dream-world. All there is to one's dream-world is his/her potential mind. The Source of God is Pure-Consciousness. God is Pure-Consciousness with qualities. Since Pure-Consciousness is quality-less, God is Pure-Consciousness but Pure-Consciousness is not God like your shadow is you but you are not your shadow or ornament is gold but gold is not an ornament. God is "I." God is Consciousness-Unlocalized. God is Consciousness pervading the body of the whole world/universe.

Thought or imagination is the focusing of Consciousness upon anything other than itself.

Thought=Consciousness+Object. Vedantha defines an 'object' ('vishaya'=object of senses) as anything that is experienceable. The origin of thought is the Universal Mind or Maya which is inexplicable.  When Consciousness seems to forsake its own real nature of mere being and springs towards other things in the form of desires, it becomes a thought.  The ego or the thinker is what seems to perceive the thoughts, and by perceiving them it apparently creates them.  In thoughts, you allow yourself to be limited by yourself. Thought is an apparent objectification of Consciousness.

Mind is Consciousness aware of an object.  Mind is the shape/activity/modulation (name-and-form) that Consciousness seemingly takes to experience a finite world.

Mind=Consciousness-Localized. Mind=Ego (the first/root thought)+Other Thoughts (of objects). Mind=Consciousness+Subtle Body (Pseudo-Subject)+Object. Mind=Experience+Subtle Body. Mind=Ego+Object.
Universal Mind is called Maya. Individual mind is called Ignorance.  Mind apparently causes all thoughts to arise in it which makes the real appear as something which it is not. World seen through the individual mind is 'mithya' or illusion. Mind facilitates relative experience and safeguards the body. The three tools of the Jeevaathma/soul are: thought, word and deed (jeevaathma=associates with a body, jeeva=identifies with a body). The activity or play of Consciousness is called 'leela' in Sanskrit.

Reflected-Consciousness+Empty-Infinite-Space=Universal-Mind; Thoughts, images, feelings, emotions, sensations and perceptions are the contents of mind.

Ego is the first or the root thought. Personal ego is the thought under the spell of ignorance. Personal ego is not You; it is an idea of You! Separate-self is the activity of fear and lack.

Ego=Consciousness+Subtle Body (Pseudo-Subject). Impersonal (Universal) ego is the ego of a sage in a body ('Aham'+'Aakaara'=I in a form=I in a body). Personal ego is Consciousness pretending itself to be a separate-self that seems to be aware of objects ('Aham'+'kaara'=I as a doer). Ego is the I-sense or the continuity of a pseudo-I that connects all of our events in life. Vedantha defines 'Ahamkaara' as 'Abhimaanathmika Anthahkarana Vritthi.' 'Abhimaana' means me and mine-ness. Ego is a confused mixture of Consciousness and body.  Ego is personal. Ego is a temporary and an apparent limitation (in imagination) imposed by the Infinite Awareness to apparently experience something other than itself (objects). Therefore, ego as an activity/agency of Consciousness is not a problem, but the ego as an independent entity is the problem. When your ego runs amok, it not only continues to do the job of separating you from Everything Else, it separates you from your True-Self. It makes you think that you are IT, not that IT is a part of you. Your ego, the Smaller Self, has then confused its job, imagining that it must protect you from knowing your very Larger Self. Smaller Self is a perception tool (it separates you from the rest to experience the manifestation) that must be used as a device with which to see the Larger Self. Use it as a tool, not as an identity; use it as an association, not as an identification. Ego/Separate-Self is resistance to experience. When your ego runs amok it not only continues to do the job of separating you from Everything Else, it separates you from your Self. It makes you think that you are Ego, not that Ego is a part of you. Your ego has then confused its job, imagining that it must protect you from knowing your very Self. Ego is a fiction as it is the role-maker; ego changes so many roles during the waking state but has no role to play in deep sleep! You, the Unchanging Consciousness, are also the witness of the changing roles/thoughts! If you are not that Unchanging Consciousness, then you would not know the roles/thoughts you had earlier because you would be the new thought and you would have no relation to what happened before! Memory is possible only with an Unchanging Consciousness!

Ego is "I am this."

What is Experience?...Experience=Consciousness+Object!  Experience is Reality filtered through the mind.  Experience happens in the presence of Awareness just like a plant grows in the presence of sun. Ultimate Experience is knowing+feeling of God in relative terms.

What is Creator/Eeshwara?...Eeshwara=Consciousness+Nature (Maya or Potential or 'Jada' or 'Prakrithi')! Eeshwara =Consciousness-Unlocalized.

Remember: Man is a three-aspect being: body, mind and soul.

<<<Body is gross matter. Mind is subtle matter or energy. Mind/energy is in every cell of your body, concentrated in the brain. Soul/Intelligence/Individual-Consciousness is everywhere in your body including the empty space (your body is more than 99% empty space). It is the soul that holds you, your body and mind, together. Even though the Intelligence is everywhere in the manifestation (there is only "One Soul"), individual soul seems separate like the air in a dining room versus the air in a living room. Air is just one. Soul is like an aura around you. The soul is that which holds you together - just as the Soul of Reality is that which contains the cosmos and holds it together. Energy concentrated is matter. Energy dissipated/thin is mind. Energy-Pure is the Soul, "One Soul" that is apparently individuated. Experience of love is made at the soul level. The soul is part of you that is connected to everything else. The body is the part of you that is separate. The mind is the bridge between the two. If your soul could be described by a feeling, it would be freedom and love. Love expressed Freely is what Pure-Consciousness is! Pure-Consciousness needs matter and mind/energy to express itself. Matter and mind/energy is lifeless without Consciousness because they (or nothing) cannot become matter/energy all by themselves. Nothing "matters" in and of itself. As Jesus Christ said, "Without the Father (Consciousness), I am nothing!"

The three aspects of Self - body, mind and soul - are in no wise unequal to each other. Each has a function, but no function is greater than another, nor does any function actually preceed another. All are interrelated in an exactly equal way. Conceive - create - experience. What you conceive you create, what you create you experience, what you experience you conceive. At any point in this process, soul never overrides the body or the mind. That is why it is said, if you can cause body to experience something (take abundance, for example), you will soon have the feeling of it in your soul, which will conceive of itself in a new way (namely, abundant), thus presenting your mind with a new thought about that. From the new thought springs more experience, and the body begins living a new reality as a permanent state of being. Your body, mind and soul are one, working in unison for the soul to evolve, for the soul to know "Who It Really Is" in its own experience! Gross Body: functions with perceiving and sensing, operates in time and space, expresses with actions, experiences pleasure and pain, composed of sensations and emotions; Subtle Body: functions with thinking and creating, expresses with words, operates in time and transcended-space, experiences happiness and misery, composed of thoughts and images; Soul Body: functions with knowing and desiring, expresses with feelings, operates in now-and-here, experiences joy/peace and ignorance, composed of likes and dislikes>>>

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What is ego?..........

Ego is Consciousness under the spell of ignorance. Ego is the Consciousness pretending itself to be a separate-self that seems to be aware of objects.

Awareness is simply "I." Impersonal ego is the I in "I am." Personal ego is the I in "I am this." What we 'seem to be' is the ego and what we 'really are' is the Awareness.  Ego is the part of your mind that thinks that you are your mind. Ego is not you; it is an idea of you. Ego is the sense of individuality, and a confused mixture of Consciousness plus body. Ego is not an entity with independent existence, it is an apparent activity of Consciousness.  In Vedanthic lingo, ego is known as ahamkaara (the I-concept, aham means ‘I’ and kara means the notion or idea about 'I' as a thinker/doer, separate-self; aham+aakaara also means 'I' in a finite form, separate-activity) or chith-jada-granthi, a knot between Consciousness (sentience) and material ('jada', insentience or body). Ahamkaara=Anaathma Abhimaana. Ego is ignorance.

Mind is known as four different names depending on the four functions it performs: Ego/Ahamkaara, Higher Intellect/Buddhi, Lower Intellect/Manas and Memory/Chittha. When the ego is impersonal, it is known as soul/spirit or chidhaabhaasa (a reflection of Awareness shining in the intellect/buddhi as "I am"; seemingly-enclosed Awareness). Taking Myself to be the subtle body with chidhaabhaasa (as the supporting background) is ahamkaara (me-ness). It is like taking the image in the mirror to be Myself. Self-Realization is using the very same image and understanding that I am not the image but the original face that is reflected in the mirror of the mind. Knowledge does not destroy the image; what it destroys is the misunderstanding that I am the image.  Ego is also known as abhimaana (sense of mine-ness, 'mamakaara') which is either an overly 'inflated ego' or a lowly 'deflated ego.' Abhimaana/Mamakaara is an extension of ahamkaara (me-ness). So, ahamkaara is identification with your body-mind complex and mamakaara is identification with the external world.  There are three places where we have strong abhimaana, in family-property-profession; two places where we have ahamkaara (me-ness), in body-mind.

Ego is the First Thought, thought mixed with Consciousness, that is aware of the rest of the thoughts (at the same time). Ego is nothing more than a thought with "me" attached to it, an identification with a body.  Ego has nothing to do with Who You Really Are, the Pure Awareness.  The difference between Pure Awareness that we actually are and the ego that we now seem to be is that Pure Awareness is aware of nothing other than itself (because it alone actually exists), whereas the ego seems to be aware not only of itself but also of other things (at the same time) only in the presence of other things (which are all its own projections and therefore unreal like itself).

Our ego seems to be aware because it borrows the light of self-awareness from ourselves (Awareness) by posing as ourselves, so its awareness is a false appearance, being just a reflection, semblance or image of our own Pure Awareness.  The ego arises or originates from nothing other than ourselves (Awareness) as we actually are, because prior to its rising nothing else exists, and since our Actual Self is not the efficient cause of anything, there is absolutely no cause for the arising of this ego. The ego is Maya, and Maya is inexplicable, so anyone who tries to explain what causes the ego to appear has not understood its real nature.

Ego seems to be a mixture of sentiency/consciousness (chith) and the insentient body (jaḍa), but it is not actually either. Ego is like a knot, chith-jada-granthi, that seems to exist only when sentience and insentience are seemingly entangled. Knot is an appropriate name for ego. What is a knot? When two pieces of string are tied together they form a knot, but when they are untied it ceases to exist, because it has no independent existence of its own. It is not either one string or the other, but is a combination of both. Likewise, this ego is neither sentient nor insentient but seems to be a combination of both. Ego is like a wire charged with electricity, a live wire. The live wire thinks that it knows because it assumes the ownership of the electricity. Thus, ego (I am this body thought) is a pseudo-subject; soul or spirit or Reflected Awareness (I am) is the subject or the Witness or 'Saakshi' and Pure Awareness is the subjectless subject because it cannot take part in experience ('Saakshi'=The Seer/Knower of Oneself as the One and Only). The intellect, as the secondary consciousness, is confused and, as a result, the pseudo-subject/ego, assumes that it is the real subject and takes control of the life. We call this 'samsaara.' When we actually seek the ego, it disappears!

The mind is nothing but the stream of thoughts that passes over Consciousness. Of all these thoughts, the first one is the thought "I am this body." Because, in order to attend to a finite object you must first imagine yourself as a finite subject. Consciousness cannot know a finite object directly because Consciousness is infinite.  Therefore "I am this body" is a false thought (the true 'I' which is Consciousness is falsely identified with an insentient body); but because it is taken as true, it is possible for other thoughts to arise.  This (false) first thought is the ego, the thinker.  The ego or the thinker is what perceives the other thoughts, and by perceiving them it creates them.  So the mind is just an outgrowth of the primary ignorance (misunderstanding, forgetfulness) and is, therefore, not-real.

Take, for example, hurtful words. Obviously hurt is not inherent in the words. Who is hurt by these words? Consciousness cannot be hurt as it is an open, aware, space-like element that offers no resistance. Thoughts, feelings, images, sensations and perceptions (which is mind) cannot be hurt as they are forms of energy and insentient. Thought is known. We can express the hurt by a thought but a thought or an image can never be upset by the words. Body (matter) may show the after effects of hurt but cannot itself feel the hurt as it is inert. An eye or a cheek or an ear cannot get upset when we hear the words. What else is there in the world other than matter, mind and Consciousness?  Individual self is, thus, nowhere to be found.  The ego is a by-product of the illusion that whatsoever we are seeing is true/real including our body.  Ego is the ghost in the system that is not really there, on behalf of which we spend most of our lives thinking and feeling!

When a question is asked, would you like a tea or a coffee?...It is a thought, say thought no.1. Pause....You answer, coffee. That is thought no.2. So the choice takes place in between those two thoughts. The choice has already been made. And what is present between those two thoughts? It is Awareness. So, there is no separate chooser of the coffee thought. Now a third thought may appear, "I chose the coffee." The chooser 'I' is imagined with that third thought. There is nothing to the chooser other than that thought because all thoughts appear in the 'now.' This 'ego-I' is not present anywhere during this chain of causation. Therefore, there is no such thing as choice.  There can only be one thought at a time. There is no causal connection between two thoughts, thought no.1 and thought no.2. But then thought no.3 comes along and says "I have decided coffee." So, thought no.3 imagines a chain of causation between thought no.1 and thought no.2 and calls it a choice and the agent/doer/decider of that choice as 'ego-I.' "I (ego) made that choice."

It is the background of Awareness that links all the thoughts, not an imaginary 'I,' or the ego-I. Awareness is the true 'I.'  The notion of a chooser, thought no.3, is simply itself a thought which appears retrospectively.  It claims the responsibility after the fact. There is a choosing thought, but no chooser.  Chooser is a filler thought.  Thought no.4 now comes along which imagines that the chain of causation exists in time. Since thought no.4 cannot see the Awareness (although it is made of it), it imagines eternity as time. It thinks that there must be a causal link between all these thoughts and they take place in time.  So the whole idea of time, causality and choice is mind's childish way of trying to make sense of something that it cannot know about. There is no time, choice or cause in eternity.

The finite mind is looking at the Reality through its own limitations and projects its own limitations on to the Reality. Time is like the glasses the mind wears through which it looks at the world. Time is in the glasses, not in the world. What is really there in and as the world is Awareness.  Mind can only access experience thought by thought, because it is not possible to have more than one thought at a time. Consciousness has no such limitation (it is dimensionless), so all seven billion thoughts occur at the same time which is always 'now.'  Time is not a continuum. It is an element of relativity that exists vertically, not horizontally.

Think of time as a spindle, representing the Eternal Moment of Now.  Now picture leaves of paper on the spindle, one atop the other. These are the elements of time. Each element separate and distinct, yet each existing simultaneously with the other. All the paper on the spindle at once! As much as there will ever be—as much as there ever was; All of It! There is no Beginning to this, and there is no End. It—the All of Everything—just IS.  It is like a book vs. reading the book. While all the story of hundred years life is right there in your hands, you (as mind) are only reading one segment/chapter at a time.

All things happen in Consciousness at the selfsame instant; experienced simultaneously and sequentially--with each new experience ‘erasing’ the old. And so it is as if the old never happened.  You ‘are’ what you ‘are’ Right Now, and it is very much as if you never were anything else.  The experience would be difficult to explain in human terms. We may say that things happen 'sequentaneously!'  There is only one moment, the Golden Moment of Now. Everything that has happened, is happening now, and ever will happen--is happening Right Now.

In order to experience a finite world, Reality has to apparently ignore Its infinite and eternal nature and take the shape of perception and thought.  The Ultimate Reality, 'SathChithAananda' – when manifested – becomes perception, thought and feeling (name and form), the three channels of experience corresponding to the three centers of mind: ahamkaara/ego, buddhi/higher-intellect and manas/lower-intellect.  This will cause an apparent world (object) and an apparent separate-self/ego (pseudo-subject) to be born with the third aspect, 'feeling/love,' apparently veiled. Oneness is, now, apparently split into two with love/peace/happiness missing. Reality ignores its Aananda or Infinite aspect to imagine itself as a finite subject.

Perception (senses) brings the matter out of Pure Being into seeming existence. Thought brings the mind out of Pure Knowing into seeming existence. Matter and mind are manifested at the same instant.

Once matter (form or rupa) and mind (name or naama) come into apparent existence, their background which is Being-Knowing-Loving (Sath-Chith-Aananda) seems to be veiled and as a result of that veiling, matter and mind seem real. They borrow their reality from their now invisible background.  But thought cannot see the true background, so it manufactures space as the background of matter and time as the background of mind. In other words, space and time are these two empty containers that house matter and mind which form a pale reflection of the Absolute.  These two containers of space and time are what the Infinite and Eternal Reality of Pure Being/Knowing looks like when viewed through perception and thought. Space is Infinity when viewed through perception; time is Eternity when viewed through thought.

All you know about space is the experience of seeing. Objects and space are both part of seeing (or experiencing). Seeing takes place in Consciousness; seeing cannot take place in space. Therefore, space is just an idea.  Past and future are also both concepts that exist only in the present ('now'). Time is, thus, an illusory relationship between the memory of the past, and the perception of the present. No one can go either to a past or a future experience. Whatever experience you have can only occur in the present 'now.' Time cannot exist independent of objective experience. Time is quite arbitrary.  Experience does not happen in time (past or future), time happens in experience ('now').

So the time, space, separate-self, choice and causality we seem to experience in the phenomenal world are the reflections of the limitations of our mind, not what is really there! All This is Maya, Mind is Maya - not really real!

The separate, limited self after apparently splitting Oneness... being-knowing-loving... into two entities - a pseudo-subject (knowing) and an object (being) thinks that the peace/happiness (or loving, which is inherent in the Oneness) is missing and goes out searching for it in the world which itself has created!  This splitting of Reality creates the illusion as the 'present-everywhere' of eternity-infinity is split into 'past' and 'future' in time and 'here' and 'there' in space. Present of eternity is the same as 'pre-sent' or 'always-here' moment! Everywhere of infinity is the same as 'nowhere' or 'now-here' place!  Thus, the separate-self ends up searching for Aananda/Peace in time and space! Ego/separate-self needs to realize that...Present of eternity is the same as 'pre-sent' or 'always-here' moment! Everywhere of infinity is the same as 'nowhere' or 'now-here' place!

As long as a separate-self clings to the belief in causality, samsaara (the phenomenal or imaginative world with never-ending birth and death; samsru=going round and round) will continue to expand for him. But when this attachment for causality wears away, samsaara becomes non-existent. Causality rises and falls with the ego.  Give up causality, and you shall have the One, the Non-Causality! Therefore it is a better position to accept causality in actions or happenings as part of impersonal functioning, but not for a separate-self - because the separate-self is a phantom.

Ego is the Consciousness pervading a body-mind-complex with a sense of personal-doership.  The Consciousness-part of the ego is commonly known as the soul/spirit (Reflected Consciousness, 'Chidhabhaasa') and the material-part as the body/mind.

Since this ego can rise only by attaching itself to a body, it cannot seem to exist without experiencing a body as itself, and hence it can be described as chith-jada-granthi (the knot that seems to bind ourselves, who are chith, and this body, which is jaḍa, together as if we were one).  Therefore the body we identify as ourselves is the reflecting medium or surface (like a mirror), our ego is the reflection in it, and what is reflected in it is ourselves (the original face or the Pure Consciousness). In other words, we are the original/pure, our ego is the reflection, and the surface/mirror in which this reflection appears is our body.

This ego, which rises in the form “I am the body,” lives only by usurping as its own both Self’s nature of Consciousness and the body’s nature of insentience. In this feeling, “I am the body,” the Consciousness “I am” is truly Self’s own Knowledge, whereas the ego’s quality of rising and subsiding is the base nature of the body.  What is truly sentient is only chith, which is Consciousness uncontaminated by any jada adjunct, but this ego seems to be sentient because it rises as a confused mixture of chith and jaḍa.  And because this ego rises by grasping the jaḍa form of a person as itself, that person seems to be sentient, and hence all the other people seen by this ego also seem to be sentient!

Though our ego is just a thought — our primal thought called ‘I’ — it is quite unlike every other thought, because no other thought is aware of anything, whereas this ego seems to be aware of both itself and every other thought at the same time. That is, this ego is chith-jaḍa-granthi, the knot (granthi) formed by the seeming entanglement of ourselves, who are Pure Consciousness (chith), with a set of adjuncts, which are all insentient (jaḍa). This set of adjuncts, which together constitute whatever person we currently seem to be, are all thoughts or ideas (as are all phenomena). Since our ego is a confused mixture of Consciousness and body, it is itself a thought, and cannot stand independent of thought. Ego is the root of all thoughts.

Just as this ego cannot stand independent of thought, no thought can stand independent of ego, because ego is the root of all thoughts (which is a term that is used in a broad sense to mean every kind of mental phenomena, including all our sensory perceptions, which means that all phenomena that seem to be physical are actually just thoughts or ideas).  That is, this ego is not only what is (seemingly) aware of all thoughts, but also what forms or projects them all. Its forming and its being aware of any thought occur simultaneously, because it is only by being aware of that thought that it forms it, and it is only by forming it that it is aware of it, so there is actually no distinction between being aware of a thought and forming it, because they are a single process (called dṛṣṭi-sṛṣṭi, ‘seeing-creating’ or creating by seeing).

Whereas the Original Light that we actually are - is never aware of anything other than itself, the reflected light called ego is never aware of itself alone, but is always (seems to be) aware of itself only in the presence of other things.  Other thoughts have no inherent power because whatever power they seem to have, they derive only from the ego. But the ego does have inherent power, because as chith-jaḍa-granthi - the knot formed by the entanglement of Consciousness with an insentient body - it is binding them together as if they were one, so though it is not real as such, it does contain an element of reality, namely Consciousness (chith), from which it derives its seeming power.

Ego's nature, thus, is of two-fold: ego (separate-self) and the Witness (Saakshi, Aathma). The apparent existence of a conscious, witnessing faculty is made possible by the ego's double nature (because the ego is superimposed on Saakshi/Consciousness). The ego, or I-thought, which is engendered by an illusory combination of the Self and the body, partakes of both, claiming sometimes to be the one and sometimes the other.  When it claims that which belongs to the body, it causes the Self to appear as active (I am the doer, the thinker or the enjoyer). When it claims that which belongs to the Self, it causes the latter to appear as inactive (I slept soundly and knew nothing, or I was unconscious). But the Self transcends both action and inaction, since it transcends the individual. And that is why, whenever individuality appears, the Self assumes the role of an impassible Witness.

To understand the relationship between consciousness and mind here is an analogy. The mind is charged with Consciousness, as a copper wire may be charged with electricity. The wire becomes live when it allows the movement of electric energy through it. Likewise, the mind becomes live, and one says "the mind moves."  The mind knows in the same way as a wire is to electricity. The electricity is not wire; even so, Consciousness is not mind. Yet, when one touches the wire, one receives a shock, because the force and the medium cannot be separated from each other.  In the same way, we may say, the mind is Consciousness. It is not Consciousness in one way, and it is Consciousness in another way.

Ego causes the world to appear (as matter). No rising of ego, no world. When the world appears, Self does not appear; when Self appears (shines), the world does not appear (as matter and mind).  Therefore, the ego is not only a root-thought but also the (apparent) thinker of all other thoughts. So long as we experience ourselves as this ego, we will seem to be the thinker of all thoughts (the doer of all mental actions) and hence the doer of whatever bodily or vocal actions result from our thinking.  Therefore we cannot relinquish our sense of personal doership without understanding our ego.

However, ego is our chief tool in creating this illusory world.  It is that device which allows us to imagine our self as separate from All the Rest of us. It is the part of us that thinks of us as being an individual.  We are actually not individuals, yet we must be individualized in order to comprehend and appreciate the experience of the whole. And so in this sense, it is 'good' to have an ego, an 'impersonal' ego. Given what we are trying to do, it is 'good.' Ego that propels us is 'good' and the ego that controls us is 'bad.'

Actually egoism, a misunderstanding about who we are, not ego, is the problem. An ego is just embodied Consciousness. Do not see ego as a mistake or a problem; see it as a limitation on your true nature. Awareness knowingly and willingly limits Itself in order to assume the form of a finite mind around whom the ego revolves in order to bring Manifestation into existence. Awareness gives birth to the world within itself and loses itself in that world, becomes an ego in that world, and then extricate itself from its own creativity. It is all part of the game. Don't we all do that to bring about a dream to enjoy the world as a dream ego? Look - if the world shouldn't have happened, it would have never happened!

Ego should be used as the power and the source of your 'sense of self,' and the wonder and majesty of that. Yet not as that which separates you from another, or causes you to feel 'superior' to another, but rather as that place of deep awareness within you that allows you to sense the wonder and the majesty of everyone else as well, and puts an end, forever, to any thoughts you may have of being 'better.' Ego is a perception tool, a role-playing tool, not a master.  The smaller self must be used as a device with which to see the larger self.  Go from dualism to duality to not-duality and to non-duality; or 'that is mine' to 'I am this body' to 'I am' and to 'I.'

Ego was never meant to separate you forever from the Universal Self, but, indeed, to make you more aware of it.  What you are trying to do is use the illusion of separateness to better comprehend and appreciate the experience of Oneness, which is Who You Really Are. For you are a candle in the sun, and cannot know yourself as the light when you are amidst the light. Yet you must separate yourself from the light that you might know yourself as Who You Really Are.

When the ego becomes so personal and enlarged (egoism, separatism) that all we can see is the separate-self, all chances of experiencing the Universal-Self is gone, and we are lost. When it runs amok, it separates you from the Universal-Self.  It makes you think that you are IT, not that IT is actually YOU. Ego has then confused its job, imagining that it must protect you from knowing your very self. We have literally become lost in the world of our illusion, and we may remain lost in that illusion for many lifetimes, until we finally bring our self out of it, or until somebody else--another soul pulls us out. It may be a Guru, or a Savior, or an Avathaar.

How many egos are there in the world?..........

In the view of this one ego there seems to be many egos. But there is only One Ego which, on investigation, disappears into The One and Only Reality and We Are That!

As this ego we always mistake ourselves to be a person, so since this ego seems to be a person, in its view all other people seem to be egos. Therefore all the egos we see in other people are just a reflection of our own ego, so the only problem we need to deal with is our own ego.  The other persons that were part of the night dream will no longer see the dream world; you just assumed that they were seeing the same dream world as you. That is just a belief. Their assertion of "yes, the world is real" has no bearing on truth since they were all part of the imagined dream. They are now no where to be found.  So there is only one 'I' that was aware of the dream world.

Since this waking world is also like the night dream and once you wake up from this waking-dream, rest of the world will also disappear into the same 'I.'  Again, there is only one 'I' that is aware of the waking world. People's statements that the waking world existed even while you were asleep have no bearing on truth as they are part of the waking world you are doubting and investigating. This 'I' is the One Ego, the Universal Ego, 'Eeshwara.' Upon self-investigation you will find out that this One Ego is non-existent and the reality of this One Ego is nothing but Pure Awareness.

Do not say the world is a creation of my mind, my ego. That is solipsism.

What is the difference between Pure Awareness and ego?..........

The difference between Pure Awareness (Brahman, Aathma, Self) that we actually are and the ego that we now seem to be is that Pure Awareness is aware of nothing other than itself (because it alone actually exists), whereas the ego always seems to be aware not only of itself but also of other things (at the same time) in the presence of other things (which are all its own projections and therefore unreal like itself).

The Self is Formless-Awareness and the ego is Awareness-in-a-form. Awareness-in-a-form is Awareness, in the way a wave is to water, an ornament is to gold. Wave is water with a name and a form; an ornament is gold with a name and a form.

What are the types of egos?..........

What is an ego?  Ego is a temporary limitation and an apparent activity of Awareness (or 'Aham' or 'I'). That's why it is called 'aham-kaara' is Sanskrit; an apparent limitation and activity of Aham. In other words, ahamkaara is an 'I-notion,' or 'I-thought' or 'aham-vritthi.'  Ego may be classified into two types; Impersonal ego (working ego, being ego, 'avyakthi ahamkaara') and Personal ego (thinking ego, egoism or knowing ego, 'vyakthi ahamkaara').

Impersonal ego is "I am" and the personal ego is "I am this."  A baby is born with no ego and develops personal ego in about two years. That is the reason he cannot remember anything under two years, because if there is no ego there would be no memory (memory needs a center on which to hang). Impersonal ego is the ego that is centered in its Consciousness part whereas the personal ego is the ego that is centered more in its material part (body-mind). An animal also has no ego, it has an ego only in a prey-and-predator type situation.

Thinker-mind is a conceptualizing-mind, the "me." What is absent after "Enlightenment" is the Thinker-mind, the "me" distinguishing itself from the other. The conceptualizing Thinker-mind, the mind which draws upon memories and projects fears, hopes and ambitions: that is absent. The Working-mind is what remains.  Working-mind is merely concerned with what is happening, with what it's doing.  The Thinker-mind is what creates problems. The Thinker-mind works either in the past or the future. The Working-mind/Soul/Impersonal-mind/Spontaneous-mind is concerned with the present moment (thinker-mind contains knowledge, but it will not contain wisdom; wisdom lies outside the thinker-mind; wisdom resides within the soul).  The Working-mind may draw memory for its present work but it doesn't project anything into future. It draws on the memory only to the extent of the job at hand. Memory for a gnyaani is mere data/information; it is disassociated with a "me." That is the big difference.

Consider an animal in danger. As soon as there is danger, the animal senses that danger and reacts to it. Once the danger is over, the animal mind doesn't think "Such a thing might arise in future, what evasive action should I now take?" The danger is over and the matter is finished. This is Working-mind. In Working-mind, the identification with the body is there; it is absolutely necessary. If you are identified with your body, with the sense of personal doership and think that you are the experiencer, that you are the doer, that you are the knower then there is bondage and the Thinker-mind gets involved.

Personal ego, Thinker-ego or Vyakthi ahamkaara is of eight types. In Sanskrit, these are known as Gnyanam, Poojyam, Kulam, Jaathi, Balam, Vridhim, Tapo, Vapu...Superiority based on Knowledge, Respectability, Class, Race, Power, Riches, Spiritual Power and Beauty. Ego based on the superiority of knowledge is the subtlest of all and is the most difficult one to get rid of.

Personal egos may be classified as worldly egos, internal egos and religious egos. A man who achieves riches, achieves prestige, becomes powerful, has a worldly ego. A man that is depressed, guilty, sinful has an internal ego. But do not think that a person who is struggling religiously doesn't have one. He may have an even subtler ego - a deeper, a more refined ego, but he has one - a religious ego, an ideological ego. And he will fight with it, and when he wins he has a very egoistic feeling. He feels power. You may have the ideal of egolessness - that doesn't matter, the ideal brings the ego. Your ideal of egolessness will bring subtler, and greater, ego.

Whenever you feel powerful (worldly ego), whenever you feel sinful (internal ego), whenever you feel idealistic (religious ego), you have attained a crystallization of the ego. That power is against Love, against Silence and against the Total. You meet the Total only when you feel yourself to be totally powerless, helpless, no one, nobody.  Hence the emphasis of spirituality is to go beyond the personal ego: only then you are healthy, you are harmonious, you can enter the divine. Remember, going beyond does not mean that you are going against it. No.  The diamond does not have any enmity with the coal, it is only a transformation of the coal!

Who is ego-free?..........

The man who has no ideals is ego-free! How can the ego be created in that situation? - the very energy is missing. The energy comes out of friction, conflict, struggle, will. Have an ideal, and you will become an egoist. The idealist is an egoist. The greater the ideal, the greater the ego. The personal ego is created between the real and the ideal.  You may have the ideal of egolessness - that doesn't matter, the ideal itself brings the ego.

Your idea of egolessness will bring subtler, but greater, ego. The ego is very intoxicating; it makes you unconscious. You become two persons: one voice says "Do this," the other voice says "Don't do that" - then the ego arises. This is the whole mechanism. That is the reason we are all, to some extent, schizophrenic.  If you are real or whole, the personal ego cannot exist.  So the real egoists are those who think and announce that they are humble people, who pretend that they are ego-less. Well. there no such thing as ego-less or ego-death as long as you are with a body, but you can be ego-free as an enlightened being is. The shadow is You, but you are not the shadow; You are free of/from the shadow!

A man with no personal ego or no personal doership will not claim anything good or bad; he will not claim at all.  "The track of the men of knowledge is as invisible as that of the birds in the sky!"

Aadhi Shankaraachaarya: "The knower of Brahman wears no signs!"

Can ego control the thoughts/world it has created?..........

Though this whole world is seemingly created by us as this ego, it is controlled not by us but only by our destiny (praarabdha) and our destiny is determined by the power of Grace. Grace is the infinite love that we we actually are, so the power of Grace which has selected our destiny for our own spiritual development has also given us the prompting to turn our mind back within to see what we actually are.

This can be understood more clearly with the help of an analogy. We all know that whatever we dream is our own mental projection, but while dreaming we generally seem unable to control the world we have created. The reason for this is that while dreaming we do not experience ourselves as the one who has projected the dream, but as one of the people in the dream world that we have projected, so since we experience ourselves as one of the projected phenomena, we seem to be a creature rather than the creator.  As the creator we projected the dream, but as a creature we are just one among the projections.

Similarly our present waking state is just a dream, everything that we experience in this dream is just our own mental projection, but instead of experiencing ourselves as the creator of this world, we now experience ourselves as a small part of this creation. Therefore most of the rest of this creation seems to be beyond our control. If a fierce hurricane is approaching, for example, and leaving widespread destruction in its wake, we cannot stop it at will, because by projecting ourselves as a person in our creation, we have thereby lost the power to control what we have created.

The power to create and control all this lies somewhere deep inside us, but so long as we are looking outwards, we do not have the subtlety and acuity of mind required to turn within and see what it is.

What is the best way to control our thoughts in a night dream?...One has simply to wake up!  The same is true with the waking state which is considered as another dream state. Can an individual self guess what your next thought is going to be?...It is not possible. You may, at the best, guess it at the same time while the thought is being manifested. That is all.

So, just watch your thoughts. Be aware. Watching needs certain distance. The more you watch, the bigger is the distance. The bigger the distance, the less energy your thoughts are getting from you. And thoughts don't have any other source of energy. Soon they start dying, disappearing.  There is an intrinsic law: thoughts don't have their own life. They are parasites; they live on your identifying with them. When you say, "I am angry," you are pouring life energy into anger, because you are getting identified with anger.  The point of watching the mind is not to watch the mind but to become aware of the watcher.

In these disappearing moments of thoughts you will have the first glimpses of no-mind, your true 'I'. You will then realize that the ego, thoughts, world and the Creator never really existed as we thought and that they are only illusory.

Therefore, investigate the root thought 'I' by attending to 'I' alone!

Does 'I' (ego) choose the thoughts?..........

'I' has three meanings: 1. body, 2. universal consciousness, and 3. individual, separate, limited consciousness which is connected to and dependent on body. This is usually known as the ego. Out of these three 'I's, the last one, the ego, is ignorance because it does not exist. Ego exists only as a belief and as a concept.  Why?...Because the ego lives in the tension between what you are and what you want to be.  The ego lives on a base of the past and the future. Ego simply does not exist in the present.  However, present is the only Reality.

Being and Knowing are one; Being-Knowing. Without being we cannot know and without knowing we cannot be.  Ego (in the interest of a discreet experience) separates perception into two entities (one as subject - ego and the other as object - world) and thinks that the subject is knowing from inside the body and the object is independently existing outside the body at a distance. This creates illusion as the 'present' of the eternity is split into the 'past' and 'future' in time. It is like the subatomic particles inside a rock moving in space and time versus the rock, which itself is stationary in now-and-everywhere.

Brain or body cannot create these thoughts as it is not an autonomous, isolated, independent physical system.  It is a part of huge universal machinery. Gross/physical/inert matter producing subtle thought has never been proven. Of course correlation between thought and brain activity can be established. But a correlation between A and B does not mean that A is the cause of B. It may as well be that B is the cause of A. It may equally well be that A and B are the effects of a common cause which is C. This common cause C can explain the correlation between A and B. Thus, consciousness can explain the correlation between matter and mind.

We know that our brain or body is made of wiggly atoms. And these wiggly atoms are made up of mostly void (>99.999999%). Right now your thinking processes are occurring on the background of the interstellar void, which is filling your brain.  Consequently, your thinking consists of modifications in the vibratory processes of the void, or Pure Consciousness. But remember that this void is not your private void. Everybody and everything is made up of this vibrating void, whether you like it or not. Your thinking processes spread out and affect all creation; there is no privacy, and at this point, it is too late to complain.

Also, brain cannot make decisions by itself because it needs heart, it needs lungs, it needs air, etc. It needs cooperation from the universe. Why did I decide to have a beer? Because it is a hot day. Why is it hot? Because it is part of the weather and the weather is a cosmic event. So the decision is a thought that came from outside just like the weather.

An individual self has no control over any outside event or any thought.  Individual ego can never know what his/her next thought is going to be.  If ego could control the thoughts, it could remain thoughtless for a minute. But it is almost impossible. Thoughts and decisions are cosmic events that are generated by the Universal Mind (Maya) which is much bigger than the separate individual we believe to be.

Let us say that thought no.1 is: Do I like to have a tea or coffee? Decision=thought no.2: Tea. Thought no.3='I' chose the tea.  So the choice takes place in between those two thoughts. The choice has already been made.  In between the thoughts no.1 and 2 something was present which chose the thought no.2. That is Awareness. So the chooser as the ego was not there between those two thoughts. Ego just claims that it has made the decision with thought no.3. It is an impostor. A thought, an ego, which is thought no.3, imagines that there is a chooser in the system between these thoughts. But, that chooser itself is thought no.3. The chooser is not there in between the thoughts; the notion of the chooser is simply itself a thought which appears retrospectively. Individual ego is an after thought; it is a filler thought. In actuality, the chooser or the ego is never there. Therefore, ego is an illusion! An illusory person cannot make a real choice!

How many activities or chemical reactions are taking place in our body at a time? Trillions. Lungs breathing, heart pumping, digestion taking place, cells communicating with one another, etc, etc. And this is happening all the time, whether we are awake or in deep sleep. We have no control over any of these trillions of essential activities of the body, but we have control over just one or two things - thoughts and movements?...No. Thoughts are observable, we know our thoughts because they appear to us. They are like objects. That means they must have a background in or on which they appear. Could you imagine having an email without a screen? Or words of a novel without a page? Or a chair without the space of a room? It would not be possible. If we are experiencing these thought objects then, by definition, we are experiencing the medium in which, or on which, these objects are appearing. That is Awareness.

Thoughts arise in and disappear into Awareness just like the email on the screen as there is no place outside of Awareness. Email is not a new substance; it is not put in from outside; it is a temporary coloring of what is already there; it is a temporary modulation of the screen. And when the email disappears, the stuff it is made of - which is the screen - does not suddenly disappear. Similarly when thoughts arise, no new stuff appears. The stuff which is already present, Awareness, takes the shape of a thought.

The only stuff that is present in a thought is Consciousness or Knowing. Thought is just a temporary/apparent modulation of Pure Knowing. All thoughts are apparently made of Pure Knowing. Pure in the sense that it has no limits in itself and therefore it can take the shape of all limited knowledge or thought. So nothing real appears and disappears. What is really real in the thought is the Pure Knowing. When the thought disappears, the Knowing out of which it is made does not go anywhere. It just ceases taking that name and form and takes the next name and form which is the next thought.

Since the reality of everything is Consciousness, thoughts are the expressions or play of Consciousness!

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What is mind?.........

The shape (name and form) that Consciousness seemingly takes to experience the finite world is called Mind. Mind is an apparent localization, activity or modulation of Consciousness (play or 'leela', activity in the sense John Smith playing the part of King Lear).  When Consciousness is aware of an object, it is called Mind.

Infinite Consciousness must rise in the form of a finite mind to seem to know something other than Itself. Mind is like a finite kind of Consciousness. Consciousness can only do this by identifying itself with a finite object called a body. As a body-consciousness it can then know and experience the finite world.  Mind is ego plus thoughts; ego is the root thought.

Seemingly because from the point of view of Consciousness, which is only the real point of view, there is no world but Consciousness. Consciousness is infinite and can never become finite. Mind is real, yet not real.  Mind is the localization or precipitation of Consciousness; it is an apparent activity of Consciousness. It is generally thought that the mind is the part of you that imagines, thinks and forms ideas and that it is a subtle internal instrument which gets activated with the Consciousness of the Absolute. Mind is a tool of Consciousness/Self used to experience the world.

What is called ‘Mind’ is a wondrous power residing in the Self.  Mind causes all thoughts to arise which makes the Real appear as something which it is not. Apart from thoughts, there is no such thing as mind. Therefore, thought is the nature of the mind. Apart from thoughts, there is no independent entity called the world. In deep sleep there are no thoughts, and there is no world. In the states of waking and dream, there are thoughts, and there is a world also.

Just as the spider emits the thread (of the web) out of itself and again withdraws it into itself, likewise the Mind projects the world out of itself and again resolves it into itself. When the Mind comes out of the Self, the world appears. Therefore, when the world appears (to be real), the Self does not appear; and when the Self appears (shines) the world does not appear (as matter and mind).

However, mind is not an entity, it is more like a process, more like an event. If you look for mind, you can only find thoughts.  Thoughts are moving so fast that you think and feel that something is existing there in continuity.  Thousands and thousands of thoughts continually give you the illusion of mind. It is like the concept of 'crowd'. There is no such thing as crowd as a separate entity; crowd is simply made up of individuals. Mind is just a label. 'Mind' is to, 'thoughts' what, 'ocean' is to, 'water.'

Let us label an experience of last night's dinner as Perception A. This morning, an image appears 'in the mind' that is an approximate representation of Perception A. Let us call this Image B. These are now followed by a thought, thought C, that connects Image B to Perception A. In order to connect two non-existent experiences (A and B) together, thought C imagines 'a vast container' in which Perception A and Image B are considered to reside, although at the time of thought C, neither A nor B are actually experienced.

This 'vast container' is called 'mind.' This 'mind' is imagined with the thought that thinks it.  Mind has no existence other than the thought that thinks it! Once the mind as a vast container is considered to represent something that actually exists, thought can have a field day! It can populate this imagined container called 'mind' with all sorts of imagined experiences such as time, space, memory, objects, people, birth, death, causality, etc. etc.

English word mind comes from the Greek 'menos.' The root word for 'menos' is the Sanskrit word 'manas.' Manas in Sanskrit means the faculty of thinking.

Thoughts come and go. They come from the outside (Maya or causal plane). Thoughts are the guests and you are the host. They themselves are beautiful. Watch them, enjoy them.  Thoughts and things are alike. Thoughts are things in a mental form. Things are thoughts in a physical form. Thought is a thing that is moving at a faster rate. Thought/mind is the most amazing tool of imagination.  Use this tool of imagination to remember the Universal-Self, not to get lost in the illusory world. Mind is a double-edged sword!

Therefore, never get identified with your thoughts.  Thoughts are like images on the screen. For a character in the story (individual mind), fighting with his wife is a reality. But all along, the images are just a modulation of the screen. There is nothing but the screen, screen of Consciousness.

To take another analogy...thoughts are like fish jumping in the ocean of Consciousness. This jumping is happening quite randomly and spontaneously as part of Manifestation. You, as an ego, are trying to connect the various points where they jump out and trying to make a pattern out of them. Fish do not leave any traces on the surface of the ocean. You are not only trying to make patterns out of these points but are also making strategies in order to correct these patterns to suit to your liking.

The container of these memories, patterns and strategies is called mind.  The more you do this, the more fish will be jumping. Fish will have a field day to populate your mind continually for ever.  This is an illusion and you will fail miserably in your efforts. What did Pathanjali say in his second sutra?...Yogaah Chiita Vritthi Nirodha-ha. Yoga is getting out of the illusion of connecting and identifying with the thought patterns. If you simply relax, witness the thoughts and don't pay any attention to them, they will not disturb you.

In the triplicity: the known, knowing, and the knower; only the knowing is a fact. Knowing is a reflection of your true nature along with being and loving. The knower-subject and the known-object are added by the mind. It is in the nature of the mind to create a subject-object duality, where there is actually none. In other words, mind separates the "one" being-knowing into "two"...being and knowing or object and subject.  It assumes that the object is out there independently existing in the world and the subject is in here inside the body. This creates illusion as the 'present' of eternity is split into the 'past' and 'future' in time. Mind always jumps from past to future.

The more thoughts you have, the farther you are from your being.  That which separates you from Reality is mind.  Mind is an illusory container of illusory thoughts that stands between you and Reality.

What the mind serves up are the images designed to entertain Consciousness. The mind never sees 'the thing in itself.' The 'thing in itself' has no shape, no form, no color and no properties. This is not to deny its relative reality, but to put things in proper perspective. Science has an abundance of evidence to support this conclusion.

Mind is immaterial when compared with matter but it is a subtle material when compared with Consciousness.  Since mind is an object for a subject (mind or thoughts are known), it is considered non-intelligent or inert.  Mind is not self-revealing.  Mind has its seat in the physical brain, during the waking state, at the location of aagnya chakra between the eyebrows. Its seat in dream state is the throat and in deep sleep it is the heart. However, the brain is not the mind as Westerners think.

Mind gains experiences of the physical universe in and through the vibrations of the brain.  It is mind's function to act as a limiter to the vision of the Self/consciousness so that the experience is experienced vividly. We do this every time we dream by limiting our focus to a singe individual body within the dream to experience the dream world!

What is Understanding?..........

Understanding is the knowing/being of Reality through thought. However, Understanding always takes place in Awareness...Awareness knowing its own being.  Understand means standing-under-you.  Anything that you can make stand under you, that is under your thumb, under your power, under your shoe, you are the master of. Mind is to stand-under or yield to or surrender to or merge/disappear into Awareness.

What are different functional dimensions of human mind?..........

In Vedanthic understanding, there are four dimensions or categories to mind (thought) in its function.  These dimensions of mind are known as ego (ahamkaara), reasoning and determining faculty, buddhi (self-consciousness, higher mind, Working-mind or Soul or Impersonal-mind or Spontaneous-mind), lower mind or intellect (manas) and memory (chittha or chittham).  It is important to note that these are not divisions but functions. The mind is called with four different names depending on the function it performs. In English language, everything comes under one banner called "mind." In Vedantha, this mind is known as 'anthahkarana' - an internal instrument of subtle nature. Anthahkarana is a reflecting medium for Pure Consciousness (Pure Consciousness cannot take part). The Reflected Pure Consciousness that can take part in an individual is called 'chidhaabhasa.' Buddhi (knower/'pramaatha'), ahamkaara (doer/'kartha') and manas (feeler/'bhoktha') are called the three centers of anthahkarana and belong to the subtle body.  The three channels of experience corresponding to these three centers are: thought, perception and feeling.  Chitta or memory resides in the causal body. Mind facilitates relative experience for the soul and safeguards the body (body facilitates feeling for the soul) from the environment.

The part of anthahkarana which has the sense of "I am this" and which feels itself to be a distinct, independent, separate entity is called ego, ahamkaara.  Ego is a mixture of Consciousness and body.  Ego is the First Thought, thought mixed with Consciousness, that is aware of the rest of the thoughts (at the same time).  Ego is nothing more than a thought with "me" attached to it.  Ego comprises of buddhi, lower mind/intellect and memory.

Manas interacts with the external world and takes in sensory impressions and data and processes the data.  Manas questions and doubts; it is intellect.  Intellect is the lower mind which builds up the logical chains.  It is a merry-go-round. It is also the place for feelings or emotions. Some people call it the Heart, the wisdom of which is intrinsic to you. Manas is a layer of mind (like you have an accumulation of vegetable manas, animal manas, as many as different stages of evolution as you have passed). In Sanskrit texts, manas is defined as "sankalpa vikalpa-athmikam manah."

Reasoning (buddhi) is that which resolves contradiction and unifies knowledge. It is the ability to learn, discriminate and to make wise decisions.  Buddhi is not intuition but "that exercise of thinking faculty which distinguishes between error and truth."  Buddhi literally means 'that which distinguishes the ultimate reality from the rest.' When such discrimination between truth and falsehood by the method of reasoning is confined to the empirical plane, it is intellect, logic, but when extended to the philosophic plane (totality) it is reason. In Sanskrit texts, buddhi is defined as "nishchayaathmikam buddhi."

Buddhi is known as the higher mind; it is mind with a direction; it is impersonal. Buddhi is sometimes described as the mirror that is able to reflect Pure Consciousness. If the mirror is dirty, it cannot reflect Consciousness very well. So if buddhi is clouded, then manas has a habit of continuing to question, seeking good instruction. Then it often listens to whatever is speaking the loudest, which is the wants, wishes, desires, attractions and aversions stored in the memory bank.  Buddhi is the judge. Intellect is the advocate arguing his case. Intellect or logic is based on waking state alone whereas reasoning takes into account all three states. A state of strong emotions shrinks/clouds buddhi.

If people ask why should reason arrogate the final appeal to itself: Your use of the word "why" is sufficient proof that you are (or buddhi is) seeking a reason for your (or buddhi's) satisfaction. Thus, unconsciously (or consciously) you make the reason the highest. Reasoning, buddhi - thus - is the universal principle and the highest measure of Reality.  People who translate the word buddhi as "intuition" or "intellect" are wrong. Buddhi is the highest reason, that which discriminates between truth and falsehood.

The memory bank, the storehouse is basically the subconscious/unconscious mind and is known as chittha or chittham. Chittham is called the whole of mind. It is called chittham because it is not part and parcel of the body, but part and parcel of Consciousness. Consciousness in Sanskrit is called chaithanyam, chethana or chith. Because chittha or chittham clings to chethana it is chittham. Chittham (memory) is the place where all streams of thoughts arise and recede back (causal plane or Maya or Universal Ignorance). When mind simply moves about, rambles without any sense of direction; when it is unfocused, it is called chittha.

Brain is a bio-computer. The contents in the brain is conscious mind. The brain is only a container, and each life you get a new container. The old content is shifted as a layer surrounding your consciousness. All these layers form chittham.

Ahamkaara is your sense of identity; sense of "I-ness." There is nothing wrong in identifying yourself with a body-mind mechanism without a personal doership. But this wave of I-ness aligns itself or forms partnerships with the data or impressions in chittha (causing them to be colored), and, in turn, with manas, which then responds to the desires being sought by this seeming individuality.  This ahamkaara has got three personalities: gnyaatha/pramaatha, kartha and bhoktha. In other words, knower, doer/perceptor and experiencer/feeler. This knower, doer and experiencer group is called the "fake-I."

Once your ahamkaara takes on a strong personal identity "me-ness", your buddhi functions only in that context - around that axis and becomes a slave to ahamkaara.  This identity can be of a race, a nation, a community, a religion, etc. It is important to function beyond this type of enslaved or lower buddhi. Thus, it is said that purifying buddhi is the most important task in the path of meditation and self-realization. Although buddhi is used as a tool for deepening experience in meditation, it was buddhi which carved up the universe in the first place, seeing division where there is unity. To discriminate between buddhi and Pure Consciousness is one of the final stages in the meditative journey.

Mind may be classified into two types: Thinker-mind and Working-mind. Thinker-mind is a conceptualizing mind, the "me." What is absent after enlightenment is the Thinker-mind, the "me" distinguishing itself from the other. The conceptualizing Thinker-mind, the mind which draws upon memories and project fears, hopes and ambitions: that is absent. The Working-mind is what remains.  Working-mind is merely concerned with what is happening, with what it's doing.  The Thinker-mind (horizontal-mind) is what creates problems. The Thinker-mind works either in the past or the future. The Working-mind (being-mind/vertical-mind/soul/impersonal-mind/spontaneous-mind) is concerned with the present moment.  The Working-mind may draw memory for its present work but it doesn't project anything into future. It draws on the memory only to the extent of the job at hand. That is the big difference.

Consider an animal in danger. As soon as there is danger, the animal senses that danger and reacts to it. Once the danger is over, the animal mind doesn't think "Such a thing might arise in future, what evasive action should I now take?" The danger is over and the matter is finished. This is Working-mind.  In Working-mind, the identification with the body is there; it is absolutely necessary.  If you are identified with your body, with the sense of personal doership and think that you are the experiencer, that you are the doer, then there is bondage and the Thinker-mind gets involved.

What is the difference between sensation, perception and conception?..........

Sensation ('indriya anubhoothi') refers to the process of sensing our environment through sound, touch, sight, taste and smell ('shabdha' of 'aakaasha' element, 'sparsha' of 'vaayu' element, 'roopa' of 'agni' element, 'rasa' of 'aapah' element, 'gandha' of 'pridhvi' element). This information is sent to our brain in raw form where perception ('indriya gnyaanam' or 'indriya anubhava') comes into play.  Perception (of three dimensions of space) is the way we interpret these sensations using our mind/conception (of one dimension of time) and therefore make sense of everything around us. There is no clear dividing line between sensation and perception. Where sensation ends and perception begins is difficult to determine. Conception ('chinthana', reflection, thinking) is the ability to form ideas in the mind and to develop an understanding. A concept is an idea and/or knowledge about an object (anything objective). This may or may not involve sensation and/or perception. Conception is relative (with interconnected opposites). Perception and conception take place in manas (lower mind). It is Consciousness that is with and beyond the mind that makes this knowing/knowledge possible. This 'Knowing' is the sixth sense!

What is the difference between intellect (manas) and reasoning (buddhi)?..........

Buddhi applied to only waking state is called, logic ('tharka') or intellect. Buddhi applied to all states, waking, dream and deep sleep, is called reasoning ('vichakshana', higher intellect). Life does not consist only of waking state. Life includes all three states; we must investigate and verify all to realize the Truth.

Why do we appeal to reason, and not to intuition, belief, logic, authority etc? Because of its
universality, because all over the world and in all times there is only a single rational truth,
because reason is the only way to obtain worldwide agreement among all peoples, nations, groups etc. Faith, intuition etc. varies tremendously in its imagined doctrines, scripture is interpreted by every man as he likes, but reason cannot vary in its truth.

When mystics/yogis say that reason and intellect should be subordinated to intuition, or ecstasy, we should ask them "What is it that tells you so?" It can only be thinking power, i.e. reason itself. You are unconsciously using reason to decide what shall be subordinated to what!  Therefore, reason is supreme in value as an epistemological source of truth over and above mysticism and yoga.

What are the impurities/obstacles of mind?.........

There are three rare gifts in life: 1. Birth as a human being, 2. Desire for liberation/moksha and 3. Access to a qualified teacher. Mind ('anthahkarana') has three impurities ('malam' or 'doshas'). The impurities are: 1. Inner enemies ('arishadvargas') caused by likes and dislikes ('raaga-dveshas'); Arishadvargas refer to the six-fold mental enemies: lust, anger, attachment/greed, delusion, pride/arrogance and jealousy ('kaama-krodha-lobha-moha-madha-maathsarya') 2. Distraction (scattering mind, mental restlessness, 'vikshepa') and/or lack of concentration (non-focusing mind, 'ekaagra rahitha') and 3. Ignorance ('aavarana', 'avidhya', 'agnyaana').

The six inner enemies are removed by Karma Yoga and Bhakthi Yoga, Vikshepa is removed by Raja Yoga/Upaasana Yoga and the ignorance is removed by Gnyaana Yoga.  The key for the removal of ignorance ('avidhya') is the removal of the two elements: 'realism' (me; claiming the ownership of body, mind and senses; thinking that the world/body/mind is real; 'ahamkaara'; confusion/illusion; ill-vision; misperception due to limited sense organs) and 'dualism' (mine; claiming the ownership of possessions, profession and family; believing that the reality is divided into two - a subject and an object, dual-vision - and that the security and the peace/happiness is in the objects; 'mamakaara'; delusion; 'moha'; identification with body and world; strong belief that the world is other than what it actually is; misbelief). Remember, a baby has neither developed 'ahamkaara' nor 'mamakaara' yet; he is in a pre-egoic or pre-mind state.

What are the inner enemies of mind?..........

The inner enemies of mind ('shadripu'/'arishadvargas') are six-fold: lust, anger, attachment/greed, delusion (lack of discrimination, dual-vision, dualism), arrogance/pride, and jealousy.  In Sanskrit they are known as kaama, krodha, lobha, moha, madha, maathsarya. The first three; lust (desire for sense objects without dharma/discrimination), anger (krodha) and attachment (obsession) are known as the three gates of hell (Krishna in Bhagavad Geetha).  If you can control the first three, you can control the remaining three. What is the cause?...likes and dislikes ('raaga-dveshas'). And what is the cause for likes and dislikes?...Ignorance of one's true nature.

Buddha: "Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; but you are the one who gets burned."

Whenever there is an egotistic/binding desire or lust (kaama), there is the potential for anger (krodha). Anger arises whenever there is an obstruction to the fulfillment of passion. Anger is an obstructed desire. When our desire gets fulfilled, however, it creates a different problem: we want more. There is always inner dissatisfaction and we become attached to the objects of our desire (obsession). This is called attachment or greed (lobha, lobh). Attachment comes only where we expect a return. It is interesting to note that the root word for love is lobh. Common form of love is attachment.  Thus, lust gives rise to either anger or greed.

Anger is reactive, not projective. Once the obstruction is removed, anger disappears.  Attachment is projective. Attachment is a stronger force than anger.  Attachment makes you blind; anger makes you crazy. Attachment or greed is a different state of mind, with a definite qualitative change. Anger is not a qualitative change; it is simply a quantitative change. Kaama and krodha are natural; greed is not.  Greed ruins a person because there is no end to greed; greed is compared to an ocean. The root Sanskrit word for greed is giddh (=vulture). However, anger suppressed can lead to sadness and depression, etc.  Sadness is a negative way of being angry, the feminine way of being angry.

Whenever the mind is under the spell of attachment or greed, it cannot think clearly and that leads to the lack of discrimination or the loss of proper thinking.  This lack of discrimination (lack of buddhi) is known as delusion (moha, dual-vision, dualism, 'aviveka'). Delusion produces loss of memory and imbalance in the three centers of the mind (buddhi, manas and ego). Imbalance can either lead to internal splitting or 'deflating' of the ego or the external 'inflating' of the ego. "I can improve myself by changing the world" is moha. Moha is the belief that there is a second thing that is other than me (='samsaara', the wheel of birth and death).  A person under continual and deeper effect of delusion and loss of memory and who has lost the ability to discriminate is for all practical purposes mad or intoxicated with arrogance or pride ('madha'). Internally this can cause schizophrenia, depression ('maandhyam') or guilt ('aparaadham'). Arrogance is an enlarged or bloated 'mine-ness' (enlarged or inflated 'ahamkaara' or 'madha').

Whenever there is pride, pride, pride; there is immediately going to be jealousy. A proud person seeks security in his or her own achievements. When that person finds a more successful person, his or her own inadequacy becomes manifest and gives rise to jealousy (maathsarya). Jealousy arises because of comparison and your own inadequecy. Jealousy is subtle.

Jealousy is a fear-driven emotion making one willing for the others to have less. It is an emotion ('mine-ness', 'mamakaara', or dualism) often based in bitterness. It basically proceeds from anger and leads to anger. And it kills. Jealousy can kill. Anyone who’s been in a jealous triangle knows it. A common man lives by enlarged-ego/pride/madha and a woman by jealousy. Jealousy is the passive form of enlarged-ego, and enlarged-ego is the active form of jealousy. Jealousy is a mixture of the first five qualities. Jealousy or comparison robs your intelligence. There is no comparison or competition in nature. A tiny ant is as happy and blissful as an elephant. So do not compare; everyone is unique and no one is comparable. Comparison is a disease. Drop comparison and you will drop jealousy. Let A grow in its own way and let B grow in its own way.

These six propensities of mind are considered to be our inner enemies caused by likes and dislikes, 'raaga-dveshas.' Usually, our minds are under their control. An enlightened being ( a sage or a 'gnyaani'), upon Self-Realization through the control of the inner enemies and then Gnyaana Yoga, is in the state of Moksha (=moha+ksha) which means he is free of moha/delusion/dualism and subsequently free of madha (free of arrogance) and free of maathsarya (free of jealousy). He still lives with kaama/desires (but these are non-binding desires only; nish-kaama karmas; if there are absolutely no desires, his body would have to disintegrate or die; also if there is no ego there would be no memory because memory needs a center on which to hang); he still gets angry (as part of natural/cellular arising but he will not project/pursue the anger any further; his body genes cannot be altered, only his mental response or mental entanglement can be altered); he may still have non-binding attachments or impersonal attachments which are for the service or good of the mankind although he is not really "concerned" about doing such good acts (it is only by the way) because he will not be sitting idly; he will do his duty. It is simply natural for him to do such good acts for the benefit of the mankind.

In other words, desire/kaama, anger/krodha and greed/lobha are under sage's control and automatically loses delusion/moha, arrogance/madha and jealousy/maathsarya. The first three impurities are neutralized. Loss of moha, madha and maathsarya is the result of the loss of personal doership in his ego/ahamkaara. He loses the status of the observer-subject of an independent existence and simply becomes the observer-object with the understanding that the only subject with independent existence is God!  Therefore, his ego/ahamkaara (with impersonal doership) must stay with him until he lives in this body so he can perform his activities as an ego, as an observer-object observing an observed-object. He is a witness, 'saakshi.' A sage's mind is called a working/spontaneous mind which is in the 'now,' not a Thinker-mind which is either in the past or in the future. With knowledge, gnyaana, and then losing personal doership, a sage doesn't say "I am this body," he says, "this body is Me but I am not this body!" So, he still has an apparent relationship with his body, as an ego, as an ahamkaara, until the very end of his gross body's life. When someone calls a sage by his name, he responds. A sage is not an ego-less person, he is an ego-free being!

What is memory?..........

Whatever phenomena we experience is memory.  Memory is the current thought; just like the mind.  Memory comes up in the form of thoughts and images in the present moment like any other thought activity which refers to the past. Remember: The past is past only in the present! Memory is called 'chittha' or 'chittham' in Sanskrit. Chittha is the closest thing to 'Chith' or 'Chaithanyam' or Awareness, The Ultimate Reality. Memory, chittha, is one of the four functions of the mind, or 'anthahkarana' in Vedanthic lingo.

Memory seems to be a function that ties together, coordinates and recalls former thoughts. It appears to store concepts and images and bring them forth. Conditioned beliefs, such as the notion of being a separate-self and all the related identifications, survive in this 'apparent' memory. So, in a sense, we can say that all our problems are due to the capacity of memory.

Memory as a thing in itself is hard to pin down. It is like the concept of 'the mind.' Where is 'the mind?' There are thoughts passing through Awareness, but where is 'the mind' apart from thoughts? It is the same with memory.  It just so happens that we label some presently occurring thoughts as memories (past), some as imaginations (future).  Then we assume a past to which those memories refer and assume a future to which those imaginations refer.  In this way, a whole conceptual world is spun up in thoughts.  But they are all occurring here and now in present Awareness. It is castles in air being constructed in thought.  Since there is no memory bank as such, all self-centered thoughts are baseless as there is no "one" or there is no separate-self with independent existence to whom they apply. Our actual identity is that space-like, but knowing, utterly-free Awareness itself.

At the mind’s level, however, we have to take it that the Witness ('Saakshee') silently witnesses the events and subsequently transmits the information to the mind. The mind in its turn identifies itself with the Witness for the time being, and poses as if it were present during the past act referred to.  But, remember, when the mind is engaged in a thought, it is never possible for it to witness the other thought simultaneously. Mind is only one thought at a time. Mind, therefore, is an actor - an imposter! And this very subtle to understand.

What you remember as you is the ego/subject; what you experience as the other is the world/object. But they are all memory. The objective experience of Reality itself is memory; it is not Reality. Experiencing-Knowing without the experiencer and the experienced is God-The Reality.  Maya/Illusion means remembering the wrong things and forgetting the right things. Liberation/Moksha happens (or seems to happen) if you remember the right things and don't remember the wrong things. Anything you experience, apparently other than the Truth, is because of memory and is actually nothing but memory. Anything you experience: yourself/ego, the world and God/Eeshwara separately (one at a time) is not Reality/Truth. If you experience all these three simultaneously as one, is Reality/Truth. This experience of Reality/Truth is also because of memory (like all of life), but is not memory. Memory by remembering which, binds you...is a memory. Memory by remembering which, awakens/liberates you...is not a memory (but knowledge).

Memory is in three layers. First layer memory is presently and readily available. It is like a desk memory, memory that you are handling on a day to day basis ('praarabhdha'). Second layer memory is bit deeper. Little effort is needed, look in and then you will have it. It is like a disk memory or a file memory, memory that has been set aside or filed away for future use. Third layer memory is even deeper. It is the memory of this lifetime when you were born or when you were two years old. It is also the memory of all of your past lives. You need some special knowledge or power to access this memory. It is like an archived memory ('samchittha').

Every experience of all your lifetimes is equally recorded in Maya, The Universal Causal Body, which is Awareness in an apparent or illusory movement. But you have more emotional attachment to your recent experiences. That is the reason they are easily accessible. Your attachment to memories create bondage. However, a memory is not a memory by remembering which it liberates you. So, first drop memories about the world, then drop memories about you, and finally drop memories about Guru and/or God (in that order). With no memories, you are always fresh in the only moment of Now. Life will, then, be blissful.

There are two types of civilizations. One is based on competition and the other one is based on Totality. Civilizations based on competition emphasize memory and the civilizations based on Totality emphasize spontaneity (being complete, subject and object becoming one, in the 'now'). Memory based societies are running into all kinds of psychological problems because of competition for perfection in relativity. They take partial view of life and only consider securing or protecting the interests of body-mind. Spontaneity based societies view life as a Totality with Consciousness/soul/spirituality as the essential part. Soul/Aathma (the essence of you) is secure by nature, so you do not have to compete for protecting your bodily interests. Soul is after Feeling, Feeling+Knowing of Who You Really Are in your Experience. Soul does not care about what you do, but only how you do!

Memory is the last link in the life of an apparent individual, binding him to the apparent world. If you have seen clearly, you cannot remember; because the remember-er is different from the see-er. Wrong memory is bondage and right memory (which is a firm, constant and fast knowledge of Who You Really Are) is liberation/moksha! The right memory, or more precisely the right knowledge, which reminds you not to remember... is God-The Reality!

In conclusion...Memory is a double-edged sword. It is a thought like any other thought, and it is a cheat, outright.  Because memory makes you believe that something that never happened, happened!

How are thoughts recorded in the mind?..........

The mind or memory is nothing but a thought. One thought cannot record another thought. If you think that they are then recorded in the Absolute, the question can not even arise. Because no question of why, where, when and how can ever arise in relation to the Absolute. Between objects themselves the question is quite relevant; but this question refers to some principle beyond the mind, which is nothing but the Absolute.  Any question which has the slightest reference to the Absolute cannot be answered in the relative and the question does not arise in the Absolute.  Therefore it is wrong to assume that past thoughts are recorded either in the Absolute or in the mind!

You stand out as the witness of your mental activities. What is witnessed by the witness cannot be said to be past; because the witness is beyond time. But, as a result of its closeness to the witness, the ego takes up the information from the witness and claims it as a past experience of the ego. The ego twists every information which it has usurped from the witness and gives it an objective expression.

The sense organs can never be witness to anything other than sense objects. In the same manner, Consciousness can never be witness to anything other than Consciousness. Everything recorded in Knowledge/Consciousness becomes Knowledge/Consciousness itself.

If you remember anything, the thing remembered must be changeless, at least between the two incidents. All changes occur in time and space. So the thing remembered, being changeless, must be beyond time and space. This means it is eternal and infinite.  Only the Absolute is such. So you remember only the Absolute. You can understand memory only if you withdraw into the Absolute, into your own being!  You can only re-member!

What are the modes of mind?..........

Mind/nature/'Prakrithi' (pra=totally, krithi=moving) operates in three modes/qualities/energies/modulations/fluctuations: sathva (purity), rajas (passion) and thamas (dullness) and also in combination of these three modes. These are also called ropes or qualities or 'gunas.' There is ignorance in all. Sathva means the closest thing to Sath (pure knowledge) and has the thinnest veil of ignorance.

What are the moods of mind?..........

Mind, which is a Manifestation of Nature, is a composite of the three gunas (qualities or energies or modes) of Nature – sathva (light or purity), rajas (activity) and thamas (dullness).  When these energies - light, activity, and inertia - are undifferentiated, there is no cosmos (a condition or state of perfect potential energy). When disturbed, for whatever reason, the subtle and gross elements come into Manifestation and unfold the universe.

The creation of any object always involves three aspects: knowledge which comes from the light principle, sathva, activity which comes from active or energetic principle, rajas and inert matter which comes from the principle of inertia, thamas. These three aspects are also known as Vishnu, Brahma and Shiva.

Mind may be classified into five moods ('mano sthithis') depending on the fluctuations/modulations of the three modes/gunas:

1. Dull (Mooda): The dull state is dominated by the guna ‘thamas’ in which the mind is dull, sleepy, lethargic and lacking any alertness. When you are mentally fatigued, you may throw up your hands saying, "my brain is fried, I need a break." All you want to do at that time is to be a "couch-potato" for some time. In the dull state no productive work can be achieved.

2. Scatter-Brain (Kshiptha): This is the most common state of the mind that most of us are in during our waking hours. This state is fully dominated by the guna ‘rajas.' In this state, the mind is totally restless, jumping from one thought to another, from one emotion to the next and from object to the next. One oscillates between love and hate, likes and dislikes etc. as a leaf flutters in wind.

During the waking state, one usually alternates between the kshipta and the mooda states. Rajas can propel us to be attracted toward an object of the senses. However, if we are denied that object, thamas can drive us into a state of anger or sadness.

3. Partially-Focused (Vikshiptha): In our pursuits of life, material or spiritual, there are moments when the sathva guna begins to dominate and the mind can find moments of focus and concentration. However, old habits keep pulling the mind away from sathva and back to rajas or thamas. The Vikshipta state represents this pulling away from the partial state of concentration and is brought about by the impediments to concentration. This sate is a combination of the three gunas.

4. One-pointed (Ekaagra): In this state the mind is fully focused and the objects become fully illuminated and completely known. This is the state which can diminish the afflictions, loosen the bonds of karma and brings one closer to the final state. This state is dominated by sathva guna.

5. Fully-Arrested in Concentration (Nirodha): In this state no new impressions can arise. Even though past impressions still remain, they are made ineffective and can no longer cause any afflictions. In the state of Nirodha the mind continues to provide its normal functionality. However, it is now fully under the control of the yogi and all the fluctuations that happen are under the control of the pure, saathvic intellect as opposed to being controlled by the ego. This state of Nirodha is called 'samaadhi,' the highest point in meditation or 'dhyaana.' As Pathanjali said: "Yogah Chittha Vritthi Nirodha-ha!"

When the state of Nirodha is sustained for long times and repeatedly, the mind gets finally merged into a state of equilibrium of the three modes/gunas (or pure sathva) which, then, forms the step/path towards liberation through inquiry and discrimination.

What are the stages of mind?..........

Man is mind.  The root word for 'man' is 'mun' from Sanskrit, meaning "to reflect."  Man in himself is not a being but a passage. In himself man is not a being, because man is continuously a becoming. There is no rest in being a man. Rest is below man or above man.  Below is nature, above is Reality. Man is just in between – a link, a ladder. You cannot rest on a ladder, you cannot stop on the ladder. Man has to be surpassed, man has to be transcended. Mind is a constant tension – to be or not to be, to be this or to be that – a constant fight between the body and the soul, the lower and the higher, unconsciousness and consciousness.  Mind is the link where ignorance can be removed by the knowledge of Reality.

Mind has five stages in its evolution: 1. Pre-Mind, 2. Collective Mind, 3. Individual Mind, 4. Universal Mind and 5. Non-Mind.

1. Pre-Mind: The first state of mind is called pre-mind. It exists in a baby – very primitive, animal-like. Hence the beauty of the babies, and the innocence, and the grace – because that anxiety which we call man has not yet evolved. The baby is at ease. But this grace is going to be lost. This grace cannot stay forever, because it is unconscious, because it has not been earned, because it is a natural gift, and the baby is completely oblivious to it. He cannot hold onto it. How can you hold onto something when you are unconscious of it? It has to be lost. The only way to gain it is to lose it. The baby will have to go into corruption, into perversion. The baby will have to go into the cunningness of the mind, and then the baby will understand that he has lost something – something immensely valuable.

In the first stage of pre-mind, there is no responsibility because a baby knows nothing of duty, the baby knows nothing of values, virtues. This pre-mind is instinctive. It is very intelligent, but the intelligence is not intellectual, the intelligence is purely instinctive.  The baby functions very intelligently but not intellectually. The intelligence that a baby shows is natural, he has not learned it. It is part of the wisdom of his body, it is inherited, it is cellular. Whatsoever he desires, he desires passionately, totally. No problem arises in his mind whether this desire is right or wrong. Whenever he is in a certain mood, he is totally in it – but his moods are momentary. He has no identity, he is unpredictable: one moment he is loving, another moment he is angry. The baby is more like an animal than like a man. The baby is the link between the man and the animal.

2. Collective Mind: The second stage is collective mind. Now the group, the family, the society, the nation become more important than yourself.  A small child is very, very, self-oriented, he thinks only of himself. He does not care for anything else, he is utterly selfish. The second mind starts thinking of others, starts sacrificing its own interests, becomes more collective, becomes more part of society, a clan, a tribe – starts becoming civilized. Civilization means to become part of a society, to become part of many people: to become responsible, not to go on living a selfish existence. Civilization means sacrificing oneself for others.

This second, collective mind has a certain identity. The child has to come from the first to the second, but nobody should stop there. The baby has no responsibility. The second stage has a responsibility, but it is collective. You don’t feel personally responsible for anything, you feel responsible only because you are part of a certain collectivity.  The second mind is non-tense: there is no anxiety in it. There is peace but that peace is not very creative.  America is in a difficulty. America is in great anguish, but that anguish is higher than the so-called peace. That anguish can be more creative, that anguish can bring a higher stage of mind and consciousness into the world than this cow-like peace. To be tense and to be anxious is not something valuable. But, just not to be anxious and not to be tense is not some achievement either.

This state - the second state - is like a patriarchy. Unconditional love is not known. Society appreciates you, respects you if you follow the society. If you go a little bit astray, all respect is taken away and the society is ready to destroy you. This state is very repressive: it does not allow anybody to have his own say; it does not allow anybody to have his own being. People believe in God because they have been told to believe in God. People go to the temple because they have been told to go to the temple. People go on doing things formally, ritualistically. These people are called hypocrites.

3. Individual Mind: The third stage of mind is called the individual mind; Nietzsche calls it ‘the lion.' It is independence, it is assertion, it is rebellion. The ego has evolved. The ego has become very, very, crystallized.  The man is no more just a part of a church, country, tribe, clan, family; he is himself.  The real culture can only start when you have become an individual. The sense of the self is a must, and this is the third stage of the mind. The identity is no more of belonging, the identity is no more that you are a Hindu, or a Mohammedan, or a Christian. The identity is more personal – that you are a painter, that you are a poet. The identity is more creative; it is not of belonging but of contribution – what you have contributed to the world.

The first was a kind of chaos – no order. The second was a kind of patriarchy – an imposed order by the father, by the demanding society and the father-figures. The third is a kind of fraternity: a brotherhood arises. You don’t belong to any crowd; nobody can impose anything upon you, nor do you want to impose anything upon anybody. You respect others’ freedom as much as you respect your own freedom. All are brothers.

Responsibility arises, and a very personal responsibility.  You start feeling responsible for each of your acts, because now you know what is right and what is wrong. Not that somebody says ‘This is right’, but because you feel this is right, because you feel this is good. A greater understanding, a greater consciousness will be needed. There will be more joy because you will be more crystallized, but there will be more anxiety too, because now if something goes wrong you go wrong.

There is freedom, so there is tension. There is thinking, there is concentration – abstract philosophy is born, science grows, and 'no' becomes very important. Doubt becomes very significant. In the collective mind faith was the rule; in the individual mind doubt becomes the rule. It is a very creative crisis because if you go above it, it will be creative.  If you fall from it, you will not fall to the second, you will fall to the first. If you fall from the third, the individual mind, you will go immediately into madness, because the second is no more possible. You have learnt no-saying, you have learnt being rebellious, you have tasted freedom, now you cannot fall back to the second.  That door no more exists for you. If you fall from the third you will fall to the first: you will go mad.

If there is a possibility to surrender the ego, then the ego is of immense value. But the value is in its surrender! If you cannot surrender it, then it will become a load – a great load on you. It will be unbearable. Then the lion will go on roaring and roaring and there will be no other way than to go mad.

4. Universal Mind: This is the fourth stage, Compassionate Mind. Here the ego can be dissolved/transcended because the ego has matured. Don't confine yourself to the ego. The ego exists in you but is possessed by others. It is the subtlest slavery. An egoist can be manipulated very easily. Give him the Nobel Prize, give him a doctorate, and he is ready to do anything.  One has to go beyond the ego and the universal mind has to be created.  The separation with the cosmos has to disappear. You have to become one with the whole.  In fact you Are One, you just think that you are not. That barrier of the thought has to be dissolved. Then there is relaxation, peace, non-violence.  With the universal mind these three things flower: Sathyam – Truth, Shivam – Auspiciousness/Peace/Love, Sundaram – Beauty.

This is the state of matriarchy. The collective mind is patriarchy; the individual mind is fraternity; and the universal mind is matriarchy.  Mother love is non-demanding, so is the love of the universe towards you. It demands nothing, it is unconditional, it is simply showering on you.  The first stage was chaotic, the second was directional, the third was intellectual. The fourth is emotional: it is of love, of the heart. With the third, intellect comes to its peak; with the fourth, love starts flowing. This state can be called ‘God as mother.' When God as father has died, God as mother has to arise. Father is external, mother is internal. When you come to the universal, great creativity is born. Your very touch becomes creative.

In universal mind, there is childhood again, but a second childhood. A man becomes selfish again, but this self includes everything. It is no more like the first; it is not chaotic, it has a self-discipline. It has an inner cosmos, an inner order – not irresponsible like the first, not responsible like the second. A new responsibility, not towards any values, not towards any society, but a second kind of valuation arises because you can see what is right – how can you do otherwise? You see the right and the right has to be done. Knowledge here becomes virtue. You act according to your awareness; your life is transformed. There is innocence, there is intelligence, there is love, but all is coming from your innermost core; your inner fountain is flowing.

5. Non-Mind: And then the fifth, the last, when you go even beyond the universal.  Enlightened/Non-Dual Mind. Because even to think that it is the universal mind is to think. You have some ideas of the individual and the universe still left lingering somewhere. You are still conscious that you are one with the whole, but you Are, and you Are one with the whole. The unity is not yet total, is not utter, is not ultimate. When the unity is really ultimate, there is no individual, no universal. In universality, I and the universe are one. In non-duality, there is no second thing other than Reality. Even the slightest differentiation between I and the universe must disappear. This is the fifth mind: Christ-mind, Buddha-mind, non-mind.

Now these three qualities appear, now these new flowers bloom in your being. You are for the first time a being, becoming is no more. Man has surpassed himself, the bridge is no more. You have come home, you are a being: Sath.  And you are utterly conscious because there is no darkness left: Chith. And you are Aananda, because there is no anxiety, no tension, no misery. All that is gone; the nightmare is over.  You are fully awake. You are Sath-Chith-Aananda.  In that wakefulness is Buddha-hood, or Christ-hood or God-hood!

What are the states of mind/experience?..........

From the perspective of an individual self, there are four States of mind/experience. When the ego is destroyed there remains only one state (or no state as such), the state of Pure Awareness - which always IS.

1. Waking State - It is the experience of... "I exist as the body and mind."  In Waking State, "I" has higher frequency than the thoughts.  The identification with a body/mind organism is so strong. That is the reason we feel that we have control over our thoughts even though it is an illusion.  In Waking State, both body and mind are active and the consciousness is turned outward. Waking State is associated with ignorance and error.

2. Dream State - It is the experience of..."I exist as the mind."  In Dream State, thoughts have higher frequency than "I."  The identification with a body/mind organism is weaker. And that is the reason we feel that we do not have any control over the thoughts or dream activities. Dream life goes as a play, as a drama. In Dream State, body is inactive and mind is active and the consciousness is turned inward. Dream State is also associated with ignorance and error.

3. Deep Sleep State - Deep sleep is an object-less state in which man enjoys peace; no body, no mind and no world. He is thrown back into nature.  From the point of view of experience, it is simply the direct presence of Awareness without the appearance of body and mind. There is no experience of a dark, blank nothingness. Rather, there is only the 'experience' of itself, which means only the presence or being of itself. This is neither deep, dark, blank or asleep. It is dimensionless, present, luminous, alive and awake. That is our natural state.  Deep sleep gives you Aathma/Self, but not Brahman. Deep sleep is a state of perfect Oneness.

In the waking and dream experiences, all perceptions are understood only in relation to their opposites.  This practice has created in man a very strong tendency to superimpose the imaginary opposite of any perception whenever that particular perception vanishes.  It is as a result of this tendency that he ordinarily superimposes ignorance or blank nothingness in deep sleep when all activities cease.

At the lowest level, there are the three states: waking, dream and deep sleep states.  Examining them closely, one finds that there are only two states – the deep sleep and dream states. Examining them still further, one finds that there is only the deep sleep state. Examining deep sleep more closely, it is found to be no state at all. The dream and waking states are only appearances on deep sleep.

In deep sleep, body and mind are both inactive and the consciousness is as IS. From the point of view of waking state, deep sleep state is the experience of..."I exist as blankness." Remember, 'blankness' is also a thought in the waking state!

However, so long as we feel ourselves to be the relative and finite consciousness that we call mind, we cannot know deep sleep as it really is. That is, since we do not experience our essential self-consciousness 'I am' in its true unadulterated form in our present waking state, from the perspective of this waking state we cannot recognize the fact that we did experience our self-consciousness 'I am' in its true unadulterated form in deep sleep.

Therefore, in order to discover what we really experienced in deep sleep, we must experience our fundamental self-consciousness 'I am' in its true unadulterated form in our present waking state.

4. Supraconscious State - Thuriya or Pure Awareness or Brahman is also known as Sahaja Samaadhi or The Natural State or The Being State.  Supraconscious State, however, is not really a state as it is eternal and all other states appear to, rise in and subside into this Pure Awareness.  Thuriya pervades all the three states and forms their substratum.

There are only three states. Thuriya is the dissociation from the three states. Thuriya being all-pervading can never permanently get away (physically or experientially) from anything or any state (like space) including samaadhi. However, this can be accomplished through knowledge or understanding. That understanding is that I am the observer (sathyam) and the world is the observed (mithya). Sathyam and mithya can be together, but they can never be associated. Their association is a seeming one, not factual. After this knowledge takes place, we know that we have always been Thuriya but only playing the roles of the waker, dreamer and the deep sleeper.

There is no differentiation of body, mind or soul in this state, it is just Pure Awareness. This is the state where mind/ego does not rise anymore.  We could say that this state is transcendent, intrinsic to each of the above three states. This is without any attributes.  Supraconscious state is beyond all states and is the condition of Reality.

-Superconscious State - This is a form of Supraconscious state called Meditative State - This is the experience of... "I am present," also known as Savikalpa Samaadhi (Lower Samaadhi). This is the state where your soul resides. Soul knows Reality but does not know itself as the Reality. There is still duality in Savikalpa Samaadhi.  In Superconscious State, body is active and mind is inactive.  Nirvikalpa Samaadhi (Nirvikalpa=no thoughts; Samaadhi=buddhi merged totally in soul/silence/aanandamaya-kosha; temporary absence of 'aavarana' or sleep and 'vikshepa' or projection) is even higher state than the Savikalpa Samaadhi. You experience Self directly while the body is active in Nirvikalpa Samaadhi. Unity/bliss/peace is experienced, without a subject-object relationship, but this state is temporary. How does the meditator/ego know that what he finds in this samaadhi is Brahman/Truth? It is possible to gain inferential knowledge that the ego does not exist, but this does not reveal the nature of the Self (except by implication).  So, this cannot be Pure Awareness or Brahman. Mind/ego is dormant in the Superconscious State. It is a kind of negative enlightenment but without anyone there, except the Self, to enjoy it. It is like seeing the screen without the movie.

You are entering Nirvikalpa Samaadhi (experience of Self, waking-sleep, 'jaagrath-sushupthi') with the ignorance of "I am the body-mind" thought and consciously eliminating the Anaathma thoughts and abiding in the 'saathvik,' "I am" state/thought (this thought will be dropped at a later stage) realizing that you are not-Anaathma ('vikshepa' of Maya is broken but not the 'aavarana') whereas in the natural deep sleep state you are entering dullness/'thamas' with ignorance and waking up with the same ignorance! In deep sleep you are identifying yourself with causal body (an ignorant thought that "I knew nothing") but in Nirvikalpa Samaadhi you are free of causal body (soul) for that period (temporary). That's the difference (moonshine is one with the sunshine but that knowledge has not formed in the intellect because the intellect is not there in yogic samaadhi). Unfortunately, Nirvikalpa Samaadhi is an experience that comes and goes. You now know that I and Aathma were one in that experience, after the fact, by inference. Knowing is knowing the knowing in the absence of objects/world. "I am That" in the absence of objects/world. It is the knowledge of bliss, "I am," just like in deep sleep. From waking state perspective, deep sleep=bliss+blankness and Nirvikalpa Samaadhi=bliss+Aathma, where bliss=Reflection of Aananda which is maximum in these two states. It is only in Savikalpa Samaadhi that knowledge can happen that you, Aathma, are free of causal body (blankness/bliss) and also free of body-mind (experience)! Even though you gradually make the mind pure by abiding in "I am," there can occur no knowledge that you are Pure Consciousness because buddhi is not there to receive it! It is only in Savikalpa Samaadhi, in the presence of the thoughts, that knowledge can happen in intellect - that you, Aathma, are free of causal body as well as the body-mind!

Permanent Self-Knowledge can’t, thus, take place in Nirvikalpa Samaadhi because there’s no one there to receive it.  If the ego is responsible for ignorance, how will the samaadhi remove it if it is not there in the samaadhi?  One doesn’t speak of discrimination in this state because there’s nothing to discriminate. Therefore, should the meditator/ego happen to return to the world he or she will not be enlightened since his or her self ignorance will not have been removed. If the meditator/ego can realize through discrimination that he or she is the Self/Aathma, there will be no need to turn the mind into a void. However, through meditation, watching/witnessing thoughts without any involvement (absence of I like and I don't like) will cause the thoughts/desires/impressions to get burned and no new impressions are formed. This will make the mind pure so Self can reflect more in the mind.

In this sense, Savikalpa Samaadhi is more useful in gaining knowledge because when your mind is in a saathvic state (pure buddhi) with thoughts/objects in an equanimous state and when Self/Aathma reflects in pure buddhi (as Chidhaabhaasa) you must grab the knowledge (not the feeling) by investigation. Knowledge that you yourself are the Self, the knower (without a knower-status) of that happiness/feeling or silence. Self reflects both as knowledge and as feeling. Knowledge always comes in as a thought, feeling as an experience or sensation. Experience is in duality which comes and goes. Knowledge is permanent. One must grab the knowledge alone. However this yogic method is also indirect in that one will not grab the knowledge but will go for the blissful experience, almost always. That is the trap.

Ignorance cannot disappear through merely experiencing Aathma, for it is experienced in deep sleep and in Nirvikalpa Samaadhi. Ignorance can disappear only by knowing Brahman. If you can say that in your yogic samaadhi you saw the wall and knew it as Brahman, we could agree that yoga leads to truth, but in samaadhi you are unaware of the wall and of the universe, and hence of Brahman.

Nirvikalpa Samaadhi can only lead to temporary happiness/bliss.  Even Aananda, uncaused bliss, is imagination. Therefore the Upanishads call it a kosha, Aanandamaya Kosha.  It is not enough to see a mere blank, Nirvikalpa. You have to see that you are the universal self. You are free from ignorance not when you see nothing at all, as in yoga/samaadhi, but only when you see all this universe as yourself. Hence you must ask the question “What is this universe?” The attention must be drawn to the outer world. Thus gnyana will make you feel for the universal welfare. This is the highest aim and test.

When you see a second thing and through seeing it know it to be none other than yourself/Brahman, then you discover Brahman! Nirvikalpa Samaadhi is the non-seeing of a second thing; hence cannot yield total realization. It is like watching the screen with the movie switched off. Man who realizes Brahman is watching the movie with the understanding that the movie is just a modulation of the screen which is only real.

Man who realizes his own Aathma is indifferent to (world's) pleasure or pain, whereas man who realizes Brahman i.e. whole world, feels the pleasure and pain of the world (as his own) but knows that they are transient. Man who realizes his own Aathma realizes peace in the flow of life, whereas man who realizes Brahman realizes peace in his attitude towards life (life is absolutely non-dual for him).

The whole universe that you see is Brahman. Unless the world is there in your realization, there is no Brahman.

Sleep involuntarily and you will be taken to the ignorant man’s deep sleep.  Sleep voluntarily and you will be taken to Nirvikalpa Samaadhi. Sleep knowingly and you will be taken right to your real nature of Supraconsciousness (your natural state or Sahaja Samaadhi) beyond all states.

Sahaja Samaadhi is to be peaceful, comfortable and happy in an unshakable fashion in any situation or state (to be abiding in your true nature knowingly).

In truth, you do not have or know the states. Take for example the waking state. You know the objects in the waking state. But do you know the knower of the objects? No. Remaining as part of the waking state, you can never know the waking state as a whole. So the waking subject can never know the waking state (or the reality of). The transcendental principle beyond all states, Consciousness, can alone know it. That principle, however, cannot know anything other than itself because there is no second thing other than itself for it. So nobody knows the states. Therefore the states are not. (A separate-self seems to know the states, but it is a false claim. All there is, is Consciousness.)

If you have had the experience of your waking state identity in the dream state, then you have the intensity in seeking. During a nightmare, a very wild dream, just one thought or one click such as, ‘Hey, I am not this body and this is a dream’ is enough. You will be awakened. You will be out of the dream. It will be impossible for you to be continuing the night dream. In the same way, if you are intense in this dream you are living, called the waking world, then one click is enough and you will be out of this waking dream! The one click is remembering your true nature, your true identity.

If the body/mind identity is less and less, you can watch the life as a play and enjoy. Dream can be a proof of this. That is what lucid dreaming is. "You can be in the world but not of it."  This is the spiritual value of the night dream state.  Reality is a gentleman. He never interferes with your freedom. If you choose to remain asleep, He will simply wait till you wake up. He respects your freedom. Till you are bored and realize the futility of the fantasy world you are in, He will patiently wait.

(In Vedantha, these three states of mind are known as jagrat (waking), swapna (dream) and sushupthi (deep sleep). The ego in waking state is identified as Vishwa (Viraat in macrocosm), in dream state as Taijasa (Hiranyagarbha in macrocosm) and in deep sleep state as Praagnya (Eeshwara in macrocosm). The ego in waking state is limited by ignorance, subtle body and gross body. The ego in dream state is limited by ignorance and subtle body. The ego in deep sleep state is limited by ignorance alone.)

Are the three states of mind/experience independent of each other?..........

Yes. There is no common order of time governing the three states. Time is the parent of the law of causality, and therefore there can never be a causal relationship existing between the three states.

Is mind same as the brain?..........

Mind is not the same as the brain.  The brain is a part of the body. Every child is born with a fresh brain but not with a fresh (conscious) mind. Mind is a (seeming) layer of conditioning around the Self/Consciousness.  You will not remember all of it; that is why there is discontinuity.  Mind has no beginning; it has been always there with you.  Then at a certain moment in a certain life you drop it. The end of the mind is Enlightenment. Then Enlightenment continues. Enlightenment has a beginning but no end. Together they cover the whole eternity, from the past to the future.

What you call the mind is really an energy. It is...thought. And thought is an energy, not a gross object.  Your brain is a gross object.  Brain is a physical, biochemical mechanism—the largest, most sophisticated, but not the only—mechanism in the human body, with which the body translates, or converts, the energy which is your thought into physical impulses.

Your brain is a transformer. So is your whole body. You have little transformers in every cell. Biochemists have often remarked at how individual cells—blood cells, for instance—seem to have their own intelligence. They do, in fact.  That goes not just for cells, but for larger parts of the body. Every man on the planet knows about a particular body part that often seems to have a mind of its own!  So the mind is in every cell. And there are more cells in your brain than anywhere else, so it seems as though your mind is there in the brain. Yet that is just the main processing center, not the only one.

But the brain is born every time you enter a body and it dies every time you leave the body. But its essential content - that is the conscious mind - does not die; it remains with the Consciousness.  In each life when a person dies, the brain dies; but the essence of the mind is released from the brain and becomes a layer on the Self/Consciousness.  It is subtle material; it is just a certain vibe.  That's why it is possible to remember your past lives - even when you were animals or trees or rocks. All those minds are still with you. But because psychology makes no distinction between mind and brain, and science accepts no distinction...in the English language mind and brain are almost synonymous.

What is a thought?..........

Thought or imagination is the focusing of Consciousness upon anything other than itself. An apparent activity of Consciousness that separates Reality into two entities, a subject and an object, for the sake of experience (to experience love knowingly, to experience the magnificence of itself) is called thought. That's the reason why thoughts arise, for the Consciousness to experience its own magnificence.  Consciousness apparently limited, apparently in movement is thought.  Thought is known as 'vritthi' in Sanskrit, meaning 'whirlpool' - a disturbance in the medium of Consciousness.

Thought=Consciousness+Object. Thought is an energy/power.  If there is no object, there is no thought; object can be either external or internal. Since Consciousness/Truth is not an object, thought - in other words - is the art of concealing the Truth. Whatever is conscious must be self-conscious (if not, there is another consciousness that knows this consciousness). Thought (energy) is not self-conscious. Thought cannot know independently, it is known. It seems to know an object. Thought does not know a second thought. Thought does not even know itself as it is changing all the time. It is the soul (Reflected-Consciousness in an individual) that knows! Soul experiences an object through thought/mind. Mind is an internal instrument for the soul ('anthahkarana'). Only an unchanging principle can know a changing thought. And this is Consciousness. Consciousness, apparently, is not only conscious of objects through thought/mind but is also conscious of itself, always. Your totality of experience is the three states of waking, dreaming and deep sleep. Are you not conscious of these three states coming and going - all the time? However, thought is creative; it creates experience. Thought, in fact, creates all of experience, everything. But, what creates thought?...Perspective!. Perspective creates thought! So, if you want to control your thoughts, want to be a master of your thoughts...change your perspective! Move to a higher perspective!

Desire is the Impulse for Self-Love.  When Self-Love/Consciousness, which is not a thought, seems to forsake its own real nature of mere being and springs towards objects in the form of desires (to experience the world knowingly), it becomes a thought...a first thought of, "I am this body." Because, in order to attend to a finite object you must first imagine yourself as a finite subject. Consciousness cannot know a finite object directly because Consciousness is Infinite. This is very much similar to your personal night-dream where you identify yourself with a character-body inside of that night-dream.  However, "I am this body" is a false thought. The true 'I' which is Consciousness/Peace is falsely identified with an insentient body in ignorance.  The mixture of Infinite, Sentient Consciousness and a finite, insentient body is like a knot formed by two ropes; the knot is insubstantial. And that is mind. But, because this false thought of a body (ego) is taken as true under ignorance, it is possible for other thoughts (duality/experience) to arise. And that's what exactly happens.

This (false) first thought is the ego, the thinker (ahamkaara).  The ego or the thinker is what seems to perceive the other thoughts, and by perceiving them it apparently creates them (at the same time). Thoughts arise because of a seeming thinker or ego but they always come from outside, spontaneously! That's how! You cannot will a particular thought to arise nor can you keep it from arising (or an emotion or a desire or a feeling, for that matter)  And what is mind? Mind is nothing but the flow of thoughts; if individuals are thoughts, then the concept of 'crowd' is called mind. Consciousness focused on an object is thought (in vertical time or spontaneous or in now-here) and mind is thinking or the process of thinking (in horizontal time or in past and/or future). Mind is nothing but a sophisticated software/computer or a mechanism that can think and generate solutions. Remember: thought-mind and object-matter rise and sink together and are dependent on each other and, hence, illusory (like a knot formed by two ropes). Deep inquiry results in ego being a no-show. The ego/thinker is just another thought which apparently connects all other thoughts as the thinker, feeler, emoter, doer, enjoyer and perceiver of experience. The true experiencer is the soul/spirit or Reflected-Pure-Consciousness or Identified-Consciousness ('Chidhaabhaasa').

Being and Knowing are One; Being-Knowing. Without being we cannot know and without knowing we cannot be. Thought, ego, apparently separates Reality into two entities (one as subject and the other as object) and thinks that the subject is knowing from inside the body and the object is independently existing outside the body at a distance. This creates illusion as the 'present-everywhere' of Eternity/Infinity is split into the 'past' and 'future' in time and 'here' and 'there' in space. Thought/mind, thus, manifests life as we know it. Mind is a marvelous mechanism!

Thoughts are of two types: involuntary thoughts and voluntary thoughts. Involuntary thoughts (=desires) are based on your impressions (vaasanas or tendencies or hidden desires) and appear in vertical time. They arrive on their own from your causal body (Ignorance/Maya), choose to stay, decide whether they should allow you to do what you intend to do. Vaasanas are past thoughts/impressions registered in the causal plane (chittham). These vaasanas/desires alone come in the form of involuntary thoughts in vertical time (in now-here). They manifest in the brain and then brain reacts to those thoughts according to the body-mind-complex's genes and conditioning and acts/responds naturally as part of the vertical/spontaneous happening (this is called the working-mind). But then, ego comes into picture and assumes personal doership, asserts the responsibility and claims all actions are done by itself. Ego converts/stretches the thought which is in the 'now' into thinking in the duration of time which is either the past or the future. With this, the thinking mind apparently creates voluntary thoughts in horizontal time. Voluntary thoughts are deliberate, created newly but apparently by your mind/ego by reacting to or involvement with the involuntary thoughts. Voluntary thoughts, again, are in horizontal time in a projected past and/or future and occur apparently on behalf of the ego/separate-self inline with the ego's conditioning. Remember, ego itself is a non-entity. So, it cannot really create any thoughts. All thoughts come from outside (your causal body/ignorance/maya) spontaneously and arise in the mind! Mind is the thought!

Ego will try to maintain a constant stream of voluntary thoughts for its existence as a separate and independent entity away from the whole. Ego thinks/imagines that the world has independent existence and it is independent of that world. Horizontal involvement with these outside thoughts is the cause of suffering because these thinking/conceptual thoughts become the source of your fake identity. Learning to control or handle all thoughts is very important for a person in the pursuit of truth. The best way to handle the thoughts is to watch them, witness them. They will disappear on their own. Investigate whether they belong to a separate-self or the True-Self (these are the only two possibilities for the origin). Ignore the thoughts representing the separate-self or ego. They will get cut off with practice. How these thoughts arise in the mind is not that important to know, how these thought can be witnessed is important. And what cuts the involvement with the horizontal thoughts or thinking?...It is the understanding in action which happens spontaneously coming from the Source/Awareness. As the understanding gets deeper and deeper, the unnecessary thoughts will be cut off faster and faster! A sage does not witness thoughts, but thoughts simply get witnessed (just like our night-dream happens on its own and gets witnessed; there is no witnesser/experiencer in that experience)!

A thought operates in three modes: 1. purity (sathva), 2. passion, (rajas) and 3. dullness (thamas) and also in combination of these three modes as five moods/fluctuations. These three modes are also called as ropes or qualities or 'gunas.' There is ignorance in all these modes and moods. Sathva means the closest thing to Sath (pure knowledge) and has the thinnest veil of ignorance. The five moods are: 1. Dull (mooda), 2. Scatter-Brain (kshiptha), 3. Partially-Focused (vikshiptha), 4. One-Pointed (ekaagra) and 5. Fully-Arrested in Concentration (nirodha). These five moods are in varying degrees of purity (sathva), the first one - dull - being the farthest away from purity.

A thought has four characteristics: Thoughts may also be classified in four different ways as four different Responses:
1. Impulsive/Instinctive. This response is from the cellular memory, automatic.
2. Mechanical/Reactive. Conscious thoughts but uncontrollable because they are produced by the binding desires or binding vaasanas. Reaction is acting like before based on the conscious memory. Responses are thought out. That is, thoughts pushed outward.
3. Deliberate/Creative. Thoughts subjected to discrimination that are accepted or dismissed with reference to one's value structure or dharma (of what is right and what is wrong).
4. Divine/Spontaneous. Thoughts that automatically confirm to universal values (of what is real and what is not-real/mithya). This kind of thinking applies only to those for whom self-knowledge has destroyed binding desires or binding vaasanas and, thus, negated personal doership.

A thought exists in five states: 1. waking (body active, mind active), 2. dream (body inactive, mind active), 3. deep sleep (body inactive, mind inactive, I AM but knew only blankness), 4. super conscious or meditative (body active, mind/buddhi inactive; stillness or no-mind or no-buddhi; samaadhi; mind in sathva mode/quality; manas can feel the bliss, I AM) and 5. enlightened (non-mind or I AM THAT irrespective of any of the previous four states one is in). Any other state of thought can be included in one of these five states. Supra Consciousness is a Pure State of Pure Awareness which is not really a state; it is a stateless state; unmanifested; Consciousness at rest. So, you can never get away from thought as long as your are in a body (whether gross, subtle or causal). No-mind state or deep sleep state is still endowed with thought (a subtle thought) because thoughts are dormant, or hiding in a seed form.

So, then, what is the reality of a thought? Thought rises in Consciousness, rests in Consciousness, sets into Consciousness, made out of Consciousness and, finally, known by Consciousness. Therefore, thought (ultimately) is nothing other than Consciousness!

In conclusion...Thought can be thought as an Expression or Play of Consciousness which apparently desires to know and feel itself through experience, through something seemingly other than itself!

Can brain or mind produce Consciousness?..........

No. Brain or mind can never produce Consciousness. Brain or thought is experienced; it does not do experiencing. How could something which is perceiving (like Consciousness) be made of that which is being perceived (like brain or thought)?

How could something which is intermittent (like brain or thought) can give birth to eternity (like Consciousness)? How could something which is changing (like the limited brain or thought) can produce a thing that is changeless (like the Unlimited Consciousness)?

Kena Upanishad, 1.5: "Mind cannot think Brahman, Brahman is what makes the mind think!"

Can brain produce thoughts?..........

Brain is inert matter and can never produce thoughts which are subtler than itself. Gross/physical/inert matter producing subtle thought has never been proven.  An effect (such as brain) is a grossified cause. An effect can never illumine its cause.

Of course correlation between thought and brain activity can be established. But a correlation between A and B does not mean that A is the cause of B. It may as well be that B is the cause of A. It may equally be as well that A and B are the effects of a common cause which is C. This common cause C can explain the correlation between A and B. Thus Consciousness can explain the correlation between matter and mind. Ten people with ten different brains perceiving the same flower in a similar way in a night-dream is attributed to the One Consciousness/Mind that they all share.

Brain cannot create any thoughts as it is not an autonomous, isolated or independent physical system.  It needs heart, it needs lungs, it needs air, etc. It is part of a huge universal machinery; it needs cooperation from the universe.  Thoughts are subtle objects that are known. Whenever you have a thought, you are knowing something. Thoughts appear and disappear from within the Consciousness and are made of Consciousness or Knowing.  Consciousness apparently modulates itself to take the shape of a thought.  So, thought is not really a thing in itself.

When the thought disappears, the stuff with which it is made of, which is Consciousness, does not go anywhere. Consciousness just ceases taking that name and form and then goes on to take the next name and form, which is the next thought. Thought is known as 'vritthi' in Sanskrit, meaning 'whirlpool' - a disturbance in the medium of Consciousness.

Nobody can answer the question "How does the brain produce thoughts."  Why? Because they make the mistake of believing that the physical brain comes first. If the brain were the cause of thoughts, it would be possible to show the connection, but that has never been proven.  Brain can only decode, process and react to thoughts which come from the outside (causal plane or Maya) and then get involved according to the individual genes and conditioning. Brain is a tool of the mind and mind is a tool of the soul/Consciousness. Thoughts are cosmic events just like weather, wind and earthquake.  Our subtle and causal bodies implant subtle impulses in our brains.

Why do thoughts arise?..........

Thoughts arise because of our apparent and false identification with a body-mind complex (or ignorance). The mind is nothing but the stream of thoughts that passes over Consciousness. Of all these thoughts, the first one is the thought "I am this body."  "I am this body" is a false thought (the true 'I' which is Consciousness is falsely identified with an insentient body); but because it is taken as true, it is possible for other thoughts to arise.

The ego or individual mind is what makes thoughts seem to exist because they seem to exist only in its perception. If they were not perceived by it, they would not seem to exist at all, because to whom else do they seem to exist? To no one and to nothing. The ego or personal mind is what seems to perceive the other thoughts, and by perceiving them it apparently creates them (at the same time).

Why should we believe that any thoughts or phenomena exist independent of our perception of them? In a dream we perceive thoughts and phenomena, but on waking we recognize that they did not actually exist but seemed to exist only because we perceived them.  When we dream we perceive a dream world, but that doesn’t mean that that world was already present there for us to perceive it. It seems to be there only because we perceive it, and if we didn’t perceive it, it would not be there at all.

Likewise, if you mistake a rope to be a snake, that does not mean that the snake was already present there. There is actually no snake there at all, so it seems to be there only because of your misperception of the rope, and hence it is created only by your perception of it.  It is the nature of the ego or mind to believe in the reality of its own creation, as it does while dreaming, but if we consider this subject critically, it is clear that we have no adequate evidence — and never could have any adequate evidence — that anything exists independent of our perception of it. It is only because we perceive thoughts or phenomena that they seem to exist.

The ego seems to exist only because we attend to other thoughts instead of to ourselves alone, and thoughts seem to exist only because we (as this ego) perceive them. They have no independent existence, so if we eradicate the ego by investigating what we actually are, they will cease to exist along with it.  Excluding thoughts there is no such thing as mind; that thought alone is therefore the nature of the mind; that the world is nothing but thoughts; and that the mind projects the world from within itself and again dissolves it back into itself, just as a spider spins out thread from within itself and again draws it back into itself.

Thoughts come from the outside - from your subconscious mind or causal body (ignorance/Maya) - in a code form, and the brain decodes them, processes them, amplifies them and reacts. These reactions of the brain and the body are the result of the outside thoughts inducing vibrations in and through the brain inline with your present awareness.  These reactions come from your inner truth. And the inner truth comes from your prior data, genes and conditioning.

A thought of flower comes from outside involuntarily (from your causal body/tendencies). If you simply look at a flower, no additional thought will be manifested. But if as soon as you look at it and feel it or say, "It is a very beautiful flower," another thought has been manifested.  With the expression of experience through the symbols of words, thought comes into being.  A feeling in imagination or in words is a thought. This is the way a voluntary thought is manifested. Once a thought has been manifested, it is stored in your conscious and/or subconscious mind (causal body). Thoughts/thinking is, of course, required in life. Thought is necessary for three reasons: i) to attend to practical situations (if an animal jumps in front of our car, we need to think about a proper action and to respond with intelligence and love), ii) to explore the nature of our mind or being and iii) to celebrate life. If thoughts are not rising for any of these three reasons, then they must be rising for an illusory separate-self (in which case you must question these).

How do thoughts arise?..........

Thoughts arise because of the thinker. Thinker seems to create the thoughts simultaneously by perceiving them.

When Self-Love (Awareness), which is not a thought, seems to forsake its own real nature of mere being (which is called ignorance) and springs towards other things in the form of desires (to experience the world), it becomes a thought...a first thought of, 'I am this body.' However, 'I am this body' is a false thought (the true 'I' which is Peace/Consciousness is falsely identified with an insentient body); but because it is taken as true, it is possible for other thoughts to arise.

This (false) first thought is the ego, the thinker.  The ego or the thinker is what seems to perceive the other thoughts, and by perceiving them it apparently creates them.

When Buddha was asked why thought arises, he answered it with a parable: Imagine a man that has been pierced by an arrow well soaked in poison, and his relatives and friends go at once to fetch a physician. Imagine now that this man says, "I will not have this arrow pulled out until I know all about this man who shot it and why he shot it." Well, that man would die but he would die without having found out all these things. So, Buddha's indirect answer was to remove the suffering by removing the arrow and not to bother about knowing why and by whom the arrow was shot...It is not important to know why thought arises, because it is a barren women's son.

Karma is caused by desire. Desire is caused by ignorance. And ignorance is beginningless and causeless. (Q: Do you know Spanish? A: No. Q: Since when did you know that you do not know Spanish? A: For ever.)

Simply investigate the 'I' for whom these thoughts arise!

Where are thoughts created?..........

Thoughts are seemingly created by the Universal Mind/Causal Body or Maya and manifest in our individual mind (subtle body) only with the consciousness or perception of them.

Therefore they do not exist independent of our perception of them, so our perception of them and their creation occur simultaneously (which is why it is called yugapat srishti, simultaneous creation). In fact, our perception of them is their creation, so creation is nothing but perception (or rather misperception, because when we perceive any phenomenon we are misperceiving what IS, which is only Pure Awareness).

Knowledge of objects takes place in the waking and dream states. How does it happen? Programmed by an impression ('vaasana' or 'samskaara'), a thought or feeling arises. When the thought is illumined by Consciousness, the experience of knowing occurs. Knowledge, its dead by-product, is of the content of a mind wave. For example, if anger is rising in the mind, one knows one is angry unless the self's attention is elsewhere.

Similarly, information coming in through the senses will create a mind-wave but no knowledge unless the Self/Consciousness illumines it. After the blending of Consciousness and the mind-wave, the experience of knowing itself becomes a finer wave (memory) and passes out of waking consciousness to be stored as a "seed" or an "impression" in the subconscious or causal plane (Maya).  Owing to the dynamic nature of the subconscious, the memory may be re-experienced when the seed sprouts, manifests in the subtle body, and is illumined by Consciousness once again. If not, it remains in an unmanifest condition.

Can a thought-form be of a gross object?..........

A thought-form (or a subtle object) can never be of a gross object, and knowledge or consciousness can never be of a thought-form; because they are all in three distinct and separate planes of reality, where one plane can never transgress into another without losing its identity.

One plane of reality can never be transcended, by and within the contents of the same plane of reality.  Perception is always in terms of the instrument used and the object of perception is always in the perception itself. The object of perception is dependent on the instrument of perception. Perceptions are concepts in mind and mind is not affected by perceptions. Mind only interprets them as images, thoughts and feelings. The objects of mind are always in the mind itself and they are dependent on the mind. Esoterics/Secrets of a dream can never be gotten by the contents of the dream unless you wake up!

Similarly...the object of knowledge (mind) is always in knowledge, and knowledge is not affected by the thing known. Rather, things are dependent on knowledge or Consciousness. However, Consciousness is changeless, ever-present and infinite. Consciousness is not an instrument; it is pure, free and independent. Consciousness depending on another Consciousness is meaningless.  Consciousness cannot be reduced any further.  So there is knowledge and knowledge alone, without reference to the thing known.  Since Consciousness and objects always appear together, they must be the same in essence. This is the Ultimate Truth, our real nature.  We must remember one basic rule in self investigation.  Nothing can rise higher than its source.  The higher can see and understand the lower and the lower cannot see the higher and understand it.

Objects cannot exist independently of the senses, nor the sense perceptions independently
of the mind, nor mentations/thoughts independently of Consciousness. Therefore all is Consciousness. When a perception vanishes, the object perceived also vanishes and ceases to exist in any form whatsoever: like the objects of the dream that has passed. Therefore, that object can never be connected with any subsequent thought-form.

A gross object is limited by both space and time.
A subtle object is limited by time alone. Space is secondary.

Whenever you take a thought, the corresponding gross object can never come in, because of its space limitation. If it gives up its space limitation, it ceases to be a gross object and vice-versa. Therefore a gross object can never be thought of, and a thought-form can never become gross.  Strictly speaking, you cannot say that an object exists in space, nor can you say that a thought-form exists in time. Because space is itself an object and time is itself a thought-form. You can never perceive two objects or two thought-forms simultaneously, and unless two or more objects are simultaneously perceived, you can never say one thing exists in another.

An object is a gross object when you are a physical being. But that is not the whole truth. You are at times a mental being. Then the object is only an idea. Even that is not the whole truth. You are at other times a conscious being. Then the object also becomes Consciousness.  So a strict and complete examination, of any object, leads you to the Ultimate Truth.

A changeless screen is needed for the Manifestation of forms and their movements upon it. Likewise, a changeless background is needed for the Manifestation of the changing universe upon it. This background is the real ‘I’-principle or Consciousness. If you attempt to seize a person on the screen, it is really the screen alone that is seized and not the person. Likewise when any part of the universe is seized (perceived), it is the background Reality that is seized (i.e. it is Reality that shines).

The witness’s knowing of a thing is ‘being it.' It is the consciousness in the thought or perception of the thing itself that is the witness. The ego knows a thing only as subject and object. The ego is the false identification of the body, senses and mind with the Real Self. The objects of the ego also suffer from the same false identification with the Reality. The purpose of the witness is to reveal this false identification of the object with the Reality.

The witness has been defined as the Consciousness in the object itself. Consciousness
transcends both time and space. As such it can never see the object as separate from it – either in time or space. So it sees the object as itself. Thus it is the ‘being’ in the object itself that is called the witness, in order to eliminate the objectivity of the object. Then the object ceases to be object, as such, and stands as Consciousness.

What is the difference between beingness and thought?..........

Beingness is; thought does!

Beingness is not an action, it is not an undertaking, it is not something that occurs. Rather, it is an "is-ness." It is what is. It is a so-ness - it is what is so. Beingness is a stateless state of Awareness. Thought is a process, a "doingness," something that happens. Anything that "happens" takes time. It may happen very fast, like thought, but it still takes what we call time. Something that "is," however, simply is. It is right now. It's not "going to be"; it is right here, right now. In short, 'is-ing" is faster than "doing," and "being" is therefore faster than 'thinking."

Beingness is the fastest method of creation.  Thinking is not.  Don't you perform all of your body's most important functions without thinking about it? You don't think about blinking an eye, or taking a breath, or beating your heart. These things just happen because you are a "being." When you are thinking you are creating, of course. Every thought is a creation. So when you are thinking about a problem, you are seeking to create a solution. You can either seek to create a solution, or you can simply become aware of that solution that has already been created since all things exist in the eternal moment of Now.

In truth, there is nothing for you to have to create. All that is necessary is for you to become aware that everything you wish and everything that you seek has already been created. Your mind must have data to create. Your being needs no data at all. That is because data is the illusion. It is what you are making up, rather than what is. That is why all the great insights come from the state being, not from the state of thinking. Have you not heard the truly great creators, the truly great problem solvers, say, when you give them a problem, "hmmmm...let me be with it for a while?..."

Being is the first cause. What you are "being," you experience. Being apparently causes thought. What you are being affects how you think.  But thought about Reality can never create Reality.  Thought about Reality merely creates your own experience of Reality.  You reach into Reality to create whatever experience of The Reality that you choose. All of it is already there. You are not placing it there by thinking about it. Yet by thinking about it, you are placing in your experience that part of the Reality about which you are thinking.

Your True Being, which is Who You Really Are, precedes everything. When you think about who you wish to now be, you are reaching into your True Being, into your Total Self, and focusing on a part of your Total Self that you now wish to experience. You are What You Really Are, no matter what you think about it!

Are we the doer of our deeds?..........

No...Thoughts come and go, while we remain conscious of them before, during and after their occurrence. As the ‘subject’, watching thoughts, ‘objects’, we learn they are not what we are.  Watching these thoughts closely, realizing they are not ours, we try this test: we attempt to predict our next thought. Of course, we can not. At very best, we can simultaneously announce the thought as it occurs; we are not the creator of the thoughts that appear to us.

This is a huge discovery that strips away layers of illusion that keep us married to Maya. For, if we are not the creator of our thoughts, then, we are not the doer of our deeds, a profound conclusion illuminating the truth within the dream, which we call the waking state.

Does Consciousness depend on the brain?..........

No...The brain is a phenomenon known only by our mind, and our mind seems to exist only in waking and dream. In waking we as this mind experience ourselves as this particular body, whereas in dream we as this mind experience ourselves as some other body (subtle body), so since these are two different bodies they have two different brains, and hence if it is argued that Consciousness depends on the brain being active, we would have to ask which brain: the brain of this body or the brain of our dream/subtle body?

What are different stages of brain development? How do you differentiate reaction, response, creation and re-creation?..........

A reaction is something that one chooses instinctively. A response is something that one chooses deliberately (upon debate or comparison). A creation (a creative response) is something that one chooses proactively.  A re-creation is a spontaneous response from your present awareness.  A reaction comes from the reptilian brain, a stored response comes from the mammalian brain, a creative response comes from the human brain, and re-creation comes from the enlightened or divine brain.

The brain of human beings is developed in stages. The first stage of development is the reptilian brain. It reacts to exterior data taken in by the body. It does not store the data (reptiles have no memory), it does not analyze the data (reptiles have no emotions, a snake knows neither anger nor happiness), and it does not call the data forward and recommend alternative responses (reptiles do not ponder their decisions, nor are they ever confused). Reptiles merely encounter data and react to them. Reptilian reaction is instantaneous and instinctive, based not on evaluation of prior experiences, but on cellular/biological encoding. Therefore their reaction is also identical and predictable, given identical exterior stimuli. Snake represents the highest form of evolution as far as the reptiles are concerned.  Reaction means to act as you did before! It is hardwired/programmed into the cells (biological).

The core part of our brain is a reptilian brain. It helps us to survive, fix boundaries, fix bonding.  Most people are looking in their lives for bonding: for accumulation of things, properties, people, etc. This is their reptilian brain. The smallest expression of a reptilian brain is a family and the largest is a nation.  Both are boundaries.

When our cerebral cortex - the part of the brain that makes us human - is active, people will be looking for liberation. That is why a snake is used as a symbol for spirituality as the rising of a snake (reptilian brain) takes you to higher and higher levels of consciousness (divine brain).  It is the symbol of mysticism in all the world traditions. When the snake starting at the lowest chakra at the base of your spine reaches to the highest chakra in your head, it is the ultimate. Hindu God Shiva is depicted with a snake on his head for this reason. This is, of course, symbolic.

The mammalian brain is the second stage of brain development. Elephants are reputed to have a long memory. Lions can become angry (A snake cannot). That is because mammals store data and call it forward the next time similar data appears in their environment.  Mammals then compare present data with past data, and if the comparison brings them unwelcome information, they become angry. Or scared. Or happy. Whatever the case may be.  Mammals react and also respond, reptiles can only react.  A response is a reaction tempered and influenced by past data. This is all the work of mind, not of Self. This response based on past data/memory is psychological.  Responses are thought out. That is, thoughts pushed outward.

The human brain/conscious brain is the third stage of brain development. Humans not only store data and bring data forward and compare data, humans also analyze data. That is, they can think about what they think about and can respond creatively or consciously. A creative act is joyful, loving and without any personal or economical tones to it. A creative act is growth oriented. Humans think about future. "Should I do this, or do that...?" A lion does not ask itself, "Should I roar now?" Humans also reflect upon their decisions. This is humanity's great gift. It is this ability to analyze data and create rather than react or respond that marks a more highly evolved species. It is this skill that gives humans their power; the power to create their own reality. This response is creative based on past and future (intellectual).

If humans choose to create their own reality, they have two ways to do this: (1) by using the mind; or, (2) by using the mind and the soul at the same time.  The brain using the first method is called the human/creative brain.  In actuality, there is no such thing as creation. Because in spiritual world there is no space and no time. Everything that existed, that exists, and will exist in the future is all there at once here and now. Act of creation is really the act of noticing that something already exists; it is an act of perception. The individual soul (since it does not know that it is the Universal Soul itself) imagines that it is creating, rather than re-creating, itself in each moment. This is its conceit. Enlightenment is dropping of this conceit, dropping of this veil.

What people are really trying to create is an internal experience, not an exterior reality.  The Totality of Your Being came into the Physical Realm, dividing itself into body, mind and soul, so that it might know itself in its own experience - and thus - that divinity might be realized, in, through, and AS you.

The brain using the second method (mind+soul) is called the enlightened or divine brain. It is a spontaneous response, not from your memory alone, not from your analysis alone, but from your Working-mind or present awareness.  Life is not a process of discovery. It is a process of creation, or rather, re-creation. You are not learning Who You Really Are, you are re-creating Who You Really Are, by remembering all that you have always known, and choosing what you now wish to experience of your Self. Divinity can also re-create itself anew in the next grandest version of the greatest vision ever it held about Who It Really Is. This divine response is instantaneous but is also spontaneous out of love. This can automatically move only in the direction of love like a sunflower moves in the direction of the sun!

This act of re-creation is Reality's Greatest Joy. That is why it is called "recreation," fun. And Hindus call this "Leela", a divine play, a Play of Hide and Seek! And the players? Merely, Consciousness!

If the mind travels with the soul between lifetimes, why can't we remember our previous data?..........

The mind of all human beings is reset to zero at the moment of birth. All previous data is deleted. And so, while on your first day of birth your soul held an Awareness of All, your mind held nothing at all. This is not by accident. Life is designed to give the Totality of You a fresh start with every incarnation. In this way you can re-create yourself anew in the next grandest version of the greatest vision your soul ever held about Who You Are.  Also, your mind can't be burdened with enormous amount of data which will make you go mad. Your mind can't even remember more than 90% of this lifetime's data. It simply cannot handle it.

The slate is, therefore, wiped clean as part of Reality's biggest gift: Freedom.

Life wants you to have the freedom to make today's choices as you wish, unburdened by the decisions of your past, unlimited thanks to the promise of your future, unfettered by the conditions of your humanity, and unleashed thanks to the glory of your divinity. Rising above any old thought that your mind may have harbored about your inadequacies of failures, your refreshed mind opens at each birth to the Consciousness that your soul has always held: that you are magnificent.

Does this mean that we are born every time with a new mind? The answer is no. For your mind is indeed like a computer - only much, much better. On a computer you cannot permanently erase any data. You can send data to 'trash' - that is, you can 'delete' it - but the word 'delete' is a false promise. You have simply sent data to a separate location on your hard drive. This is a location that your operating system is programmed not to scan every time you give it a command, so the system runs faster. For this reason it's a good idea to send unneeded data to the 'trash bin' ... but it's also a good idea to know that it resides there forever.

In short, you cannot permanently 'shred' the data of the mind. This means that while, yes, you begin each new physical life with a 'clean slate,' giving you the freedom to make here-and-now choices unencumbered by your choices in the past, your mind can still access prior data from previous lifetimes when the mind determines it is beneficial, and not a hindrance, to do so. Anything that stops growth is considered a hindrance. Anything that serves the continuation of life is not.

Hence, we've all heard stories of the person who suddenly "knew" how to swim because a child desperately thrashing about in the lake needed saving, or who suddenly "understood," with zero present-life training in advanced psychology, the exact right thing to say to talk to a man out of jumping off a bridge.

The closer you are to birth, the closer you are to the truth of your being. With your memory cleared of all your previous life experiences in the body, you can be a new mind about things.

And so it is that you have been wisely advised: "Be ye as little children!"

What is stillness?..........

Stillness is Absolute Silence.

Stillness, mainly, has two dimensions to it. The first dimension is (no) sound. The second dimension is (no) movement.

Basically, mind is movement. Outside movement is in space. If there is no sound, mind cannot move outside. Inside movement is in time. Time is inner space; it is subtle. If there is no time, mind cannot move inside. No-time is possible only in "here and now", or in Awareness. So if you are aware of your silence, you are in Stillness.

Stillness is meditation, no-mind. Enlightenment is non-mind. Non-mind is the falsification of mind but includes mind. Enlightenment means, "Mind is me, but I am not the mind!"

Can we control the mind?..........

The mind cannot be controlled by one that takes it to be something that really exists; in that case the mind behaves like a thief pretending to be a policeman running after the thief; efforts made in this way only serve to give a new lease of life to the ego and the mind. The right method is the inquiry into the truth of the mind and the ego.

Mind is no more than the series of thoughts. And if you try to stop thoughts they will never be stopped, because the very effort to stop it is, itself, a thought.  And how can you stop a thought by another thought? Then you will be clinging to the second thought. And this will go on and on, ad nauseam; then there is no end to it. This will drive you insane. Forced stillness is not stillness.  The best way to stop identifying with thoughts is to find the mind’s Source and keep hold of It.  Then the mind will fade away of itself.

Another way is to watch the thoughts!  This is akin to surrendering your thoughts to a Supreme Power. By doing thinking, you are only giving energy to thoughts. Do not give them any fuel, any energy to thoughts. By constant practice, the life of these thoughts will begin to grow weaker, they will become more and more lifeless. You will be one as the witness behind these thoughts. Finally your mind becomes non-mind to realize Pure Awareness.

Can we know Reality through the mind?..........

Mind is finite and Reality is infinite. Mind is one dimensional and Reality is dimensionless. Mind works in and understands only duality whereas Reality is Non-Dual. Mind sees time (past and future) in eternity (present). So mind cannot reach there. Mind is an ever-changing flow; it is not possible to know the one that never changes, i.e., Reality, through the mind.  Anything known through a changing medium will also be seen as changing, because the medium used for knowing is being imposed on all that is to be known. It is as if you were wearing sunglasses whose color went on changing.

Mind is also quite an unreliable instrument. Take an example. You are looking at a tree. Tree is green and at a distance from you. In actuality, tree is anything but green. Tree processes the white light and rejects green and keeps the remaining six colors. It is made of the remaining six colors but not green! On top of that, human eye can only see 0.0035% of the electromagnetic spectrum. So, the mind is not capable to see the actual tree in its total form and color. Who knows what it is like?

Mind sees the tree at a distance. But the tree is an image in our Consciousness, and so is our body. They both are appearing on the screen of Consciousness. The depth is an illusion created by our eyes.  Humans enjoy stereoscopic vision, because our eyes are separated horizontally.  Images we see in the two eyes are slightly different and the difference is proportional to the relative depth. The visual areas in the brain measure these differences, and we experience the result as stereo—what we all have enjoyed as children playing with View-Master toys. By the same token, mind is unreliable when it comes to internal knowing. What you think you are is not you. And what you think you are hides the real you from you!

Reality is Pure Light. Mind can only see the reflected light. Reality is beyond the mind.

How can mind itself help in going beyond the mind?..........

Yes, mind can help itself going beyond the mind; mind can help itself in committing suicide.  Mind is falsehood; falsehood can only be neutralized by another falsehood. Remember, if any imaginary thorn has pricked your foot, don't try to remove it with the help of a real thorn; it would be dangerous. First of all, the imaginary one will never be removed, and furthermore, the real one will hurt your foot. A false thorn has to be pulled out with the help of a false thorn.  A dream thirst can only be quenched with a dream water.

Self-Realization seems to be a difficult process because it's a catch 22-process. The Self has to be set free from the Body-Mind-Buddhi (BMB) using the BMB itself. Self is the creator and BMB is the creation. But like a spider gets caught in its own web, the Self gets caged in its own BMB. Self had to forget itself in order to experience the relative world. And when that happens, the BMB has to work hard to set the Self free - to remember itself as Self.

Why?...BMB has to work hard because we ourselves are a part of the dream world and we firmly believe it to be real.  The reason for this is that while dreaming we do not experience ourselves as the one who has projected the dream, but as one of the people in the dream world that we have projected; so since we experience ourselves as one of the projected phenomena, we seem to be a creature rather than the creator.  As the creator we projected the dream world, but as a creature we are just one among the projections. Our power of imagination is so intense and vivid that whenever we imagine something, we become ensnared in our own imagination. Our night dream is a clear proof of this.  You are not a body having Awareness; you are Awareness having a body!

This process can be compared to NASA sending space shuttles. Earth pulls the space shuttle to the ground by its force of gravity. A tremendous force has to be applied to throw the space shuttle out of earth's gravity and send it to the space. To push anything out of earth's gravity, force from the earth itself has to be used. The idea that "I am not enlightened" is the problem of the mind to begin with anyway!

If the process of thinking becomes less dense, is decreased, you are helping yourself toward no-mind. Because really, mind is what you are doing with your Consciousness this very moment. If you leave your Consciousness alone, without doing anything with it, it becomes meditation. Deep down mind is like space occupied by thoughts. If you remove some thoughts, space is created - or discovered, or reclaimed.  In fact, space was never created by removing thoughts, the space was already there. It is only that the space was occupied by the thoughts. You have removed the thoughts, and the space is recovered. This space is meditation. Self-inquiry will hasten this process.

What is the difference between mind and soul?..........

Soul is Pure Consciousness in an apparent movement or Pure Consciousness reflected in a body-mind complex; an apparently or seemingly enclosed Consciousness. And mind is the shape Consciousness apparently takes to experience the world/object which is seemingly other than itself. Mind's job is to help us survive and the soul's job is to help us evolve. Pure Consciousness has apparently involved in life, so it has to evolve out of life! Simple!

Mind is a device, an instrument useful to survive in the outer world; it is not needed within. Soul holds Knowledge while the mind facilitates the Experience of what you call Reality.  Soul is the sum total of every feeling we have ever had (created). Mind's experience (from which it apparently creates your reality) is based on data, data based on every experience your body and mind have ever had. Mind does not deal with what is really real, it deals with what you think is real. Indeed, it tells you what to think.

Your mind is telling you what to think, based on the evidence at hand.  The soul's experience is based on Consciousness/Awareness.  The soul does not possess data. That is the job of the mind. The soul possesses awareness. Mind's data is physical and produces desire, a yearning for more experience. Soul's data is metaphysical and reveals intention, a yearning for a particular kind of experience - based on knowledge, not prior experience. If you want your reality to shift, you must change your data.

This you can do, by expanding it. Expand your data to include the perspective of the soul and you will have found the pathway to eternal peace.  Enlarge your data to include the perception of the soul and you will change everything about the way you think about life. And about any event in life. Mind can turn anything to anything. That is its magic. That is the magic of the mind. Mind or Maya makes the impossible possible...life!

However, the human mind cannot compute the data that it is seeing fast enough to keep up with the new data it is seeing. The data stream is faster than the mind's ability to analyze it. Therefore, the mind does not know what it is seeing. The world is much less than one percent matter and the rest space, but it looks to us "for all the world" as if it is exactly the other way around. The mind is a device beautifully designed to analyze a limited amount of data from an unlimited source. It was never intended to comprehend all of it at once. That is the job of the soul.

The difference between awareness and data is like the difference between having a sexual orgasm and reading about it.  Soul does not care what we do but only how we do.  For the soul, survival is not an issue, it is a guarantee. Soul knows that it is an individuated part of God-The Reality. It is not an intellectual understanding, but a cellular knowing. It is a non-conceptual understanding. Soul means joy, soul is joy. What brings us the highest joy is self expression. For it is through the fullest expression of self that the fullest experience of Who We Really Are is achieved. And that experience is what the soul is after!

So our mind and soul are coming from two entirely different places as they move through the days and times of our lives. Mind holds limited knowledge and data of the present lifetime while the soul holds wisdom and perspective of endless lifetimes and understands everything because mind lives only in the Realm of the Relative while the soul lives in all realms eternally.

Mind lives in the past and future while the soul lives in the Now-and-Here.  Mind needs time and space while soul is spontaneous. All experience takes place in the mind; mind facilitates experience. Experiencer is the soul. Mind talks, soul listens.

In truth, we are three-aspect beings consisting of body, mind and the soul. We have a body, we have a mind and we have a soul.  Body facilitates feeling, mind facilitates experience and soul knows/conceives.  This is our daily experience through the three states of waking, dream and deep sleep. Our Being is a combination of these three aspects, and each of these aspects of ours has a purpose and a function, but only one has an agenda: the soul.

Because your mind has been given little - or worse yet, totally inaccurate - information about the Soul's Agenda (which is Life's agenda), neither your mind nor your body can very often serve the agenda of the soul well - unless it is working in conjunction with the soul. And how and where do you meet the soul? In meditation, in joy, in compassion, in love!

How do mind and soul combine to produce joy?..........

Joy is produced by adding mind's experience with soul's wisdom, awareness and total knowing.  What the mind holds is experience. What the soul holds is knowledge.  The mind bases its understanding on the present moment on a very limited storehouse of data, called Prior Experience. The soul, on the other hand, holds the knowledge of All Experience. Put simply, the mind is time limited, the soul is timeless. The mind is temporal, the soul is spiritual. The mind's experience is finite, the soul's knowledge is infinite. Limited experience produces assumptions, unlimited knowledge produces wisdom.

If you base your decisions and responses and choices on finite resources, your actions will emerge from your experience, which produce assumptions. Much of the time your assumptions are very astute and quite correct. So your mind serves you well. Its job is to guarantee your physical and emotional survival, and it does that well. If you base your decisions and responses and choices on infinite resources, your actions will emerge from your knowledge, which produce wisdom. This creates an entirely different expressions of life.  Put the mind and soul together and you have a powerful combination.

How do you get to the soul? The only way to get to the soul is through the mind. The mind is the doorway to the soul and the only way to get to the soul.  Sometimes we sidestep the soul and go directly to the Reality. So we use our mind to go around the soul. One way to do this is by praying. You can get to Reality that way, but it's the long way around. Using the soul can get us to the Reality much faster. This is because the soul is our direct connection to Reality. Soul is part of Reality that resides in us. So when we connect to the soul, we connect with Reality at the same time.

What are the steps on the path to the soul, then?...

1. Step out of the mind.  The mind must agree to step out of itself. Yet, don't abandon the mind. Be there with it. Focus your mind away from your story, away from your data, away from your history, away from your experience.

2. Now, focus on a state of being; any state of being.  However, you must have a huge desire to choose that state of being. The higher or deeper the desire, the lower the mind's resistance. It is axiomatic/unquestionable. The place of being is where the soul resides. The soul is being love. It is being compassion. It is being forgiveness. It is being wisdom. In spontaneous moments in our lives the mind is totally out of the way. This all happens lightning fast...like when a man jumps in front of the car and pushes the kid out of the way. So if we choose a high state of being, the mind can and will get out of the way very quickly. Holiness is one of the best such states.

3. Expand consciousness.  Pay attention to what you are aware of. You are always aware, but now you are paying attention. But it's not what your mind is aware of, because now you are in the beingness of holiness. You pay attention to what holiness is aware of. The way to get to your soul is not to stop thinking, but rather, to start thinking of what your soul is knowing at any particular moment.

What are the roles of body and mind in creating karma?..........

No matter where we are spiritually, the actions of our bodies can never create any karma!

Future-karma (aagaamya-karma) is created by the mental activity of the mind, NOT by what the body is doing i.e., present-life-karma (praarabhdha-karma) lets the body eat meat, but your mind can react to it and judge that as good or bad. That reaction creates aagaamya-karma, but not the action of the body of eating meat. However, the fruit of any aagaamya that we do now will NOT be experienced by us during this lifetime. It will be stored in a bag of karmas, known as sanchita karma (complete store-house of karmas of all lifetimes). Creator, Eeshwara, will then choose certain karmas (praarabhdha) inline with one's spiritual advancement for a body/mind organism to experience in a future life. That is how the life (samsaara) continues (which is, ultimately, an illusion)! As a reminder...Karma and Reincarnation is taught in the early stages as a step towards the Absolute Truth which will then be negated and withdrawn at a later stage. And that way it is helpful.

Any essential action of the body, anything from the birth of the body until it dies, is mostly destined. Therefore, the job of the jeeva (subtle body+reflected consciousness) is to not get attached or involved with anything mentally. This is an enlightened view of life. If your mind believes that a vegan diet is superior to any other diets, it has not only created an attachment, but it also creates fresh karma because now you have to have another life (or lives) to fulfill the desire for vegan food. If praarabhdha gives you meat for a meal and your mind judges it as bad, you are creating fresh karma and samsaara keeps going. If you just eat the meat without judging it as good and bad and when in the next day you get rice and beans and you are oblivious to that too (without missing the meat) then you are on the right track.

As long as a separate-self seems to exist, its relationships and the world are as real as the separate-self, so you should behave with the world accordingly.

What is a desire? And why do desires arise in the mind?..........

Desire is the Impulse for the knowing+feeling of Self-Love/Peace/Completeness or Aananda through experience.  Desire is the shape that Self-Love or Awareness takes when it seems to forsake its own real nature of just being and springs towards objects. Non-Dual Love is Pure-Love and desire is dual-love. That's the difference.

What is an Impulse? Beingness is the Reality's highest state of existence. Reality seeks to realize its highest state through action or experience.  The urge to do this is called Impulse ('Aakaamksha'; personal desire='kaama' and passion='kaamksha' meaning 'kaama'+'ksha'=devoid of personal desire; itchha; kaama comes out of lack and looking to fulfil itself personally whereas kaamksha comes out of happiness/fullness and looking to express and celebrate; kaama is taking and kaamksha is sharing).  Impulse itself is Reality; Reality is not separate from Impulse.  Impulse means a great longing to express, expand and re-create Who You Really Are.  Kill Impulse and you kill Reality. Impulse is Reality/God wanting to say “hi.”  This passion of the Awareness-in-Movement to Express and to Know itself in its own Experience is called the Impulse of Reality.  Impulse is the beginning of all creation. It is the first thought. It is the pure thought. Impulse is a grand feeling within Reality. It is Reality, choosing what next to create! Passion also exists in all of us. You kill passion, you kill God!

Since Reality is Everything, seen and unseen, there is nothing which IS that Reality could want. There is nothing that Reality could intend except more of itself. That is because there is nothing else to intend. When there is nothing in existence but You, there is nothing for you to intend except more of You. In order to express and experience the magnificence of Reality, it seemingly becomes finite which has to be an illusion. That is the only way Reality could create something seemingly other than itself so it can experience itself.  Out of (apparent) separation from Reality, the desire arises in the ego (which is the Source/Reality in disguise) to fall back into the Source/Reality.  Impulse not only exists in Reality, but also in us and in everything as passion and/or desire.  Desire, in that sense, is beautiful. There is nothing wrong in it. But the problem here is that we completely forget our true nature and then search for peace/happiness in persons or selves and/or objects!

Again...What is called “True-Love” or "Pure-Love" is truly nothing but the Non-Dual Love, which the Real Self has for itself in the state in which it alone exists and shines. And what is called “desire” is nothing but the dual-love, which springs towards other objects in the state in which the One Real Self seems to be many objects. Human desire is yearning for more experience, not based on knowledge but based on prior experience.

A desire (a separate-self's desire) that is goal-oriented, that is object-oriented, a desire that is motivated - becomes impure. The desire for pleasures/comforts, the desire for money, the desire for power, the desire for prestige are some examples of human/personal desires. A human desire is called 'kaama' in Sanskrit ('ka'=wanting for, 'ma'=me).  Desire is the tension of the mind for the future.  Desire is wanting of something you think that you don't have. A human desire, 'kaama,' is longing for a certain outcome, certain preference. It is forgetting of your inner self. It means that you are not in the present moment, and all that is there is only the present moment. You are somewhere in the future, and the future is not.

Why do desires arise? Desires arise because of lack of peace/happiness/completeness which resulted from ignorance - ignorance or forgetting of our infinite nature of our true-self or erroneous identification with a limited body-mind. The three natural desires in all human beings are classified as: 1. desire for existence, 2. desire for knowledge and 3. desire for peace/happiness or completeness. All other desires are included in these three fundamental/natural desires. Why natural? Because, consciously or unconsciously, we are all seeking what is natural for us. For example, when we have a headache, why do we wish to be free of it? Because a headache is not natural to us. We cannot feel entirely comfortable or happy with anything that is not truly natural to us. That is why we never feel perfectly happy, in spite of all the material, mental and emotional pleasures that we may be enjoying. All such pleasures come and go, and hence they are not natural to us. Sath, Chith, Aananda are what everyone loves the most, our natural desires. This is what everyone seeks - desiring and striving for...Reality! So, our ultimate goal must be for objectless happiness or, more precisely, a desire-free condition. Desire you may, but only don't forget the ultimate goal!

When our mind and all its thoughts are absent, as in deep sleep, we experience perfect peace. The rising of our mind with desires and thoughts is what obscures our natural state of absolute peace. Thoughts emerge from desires and desires emerge from thoughts. They feed on each other. You see a woman and a desire arises. A Buddha will say, 'woman.' Finished. But you say, 'what a beautiful woman,' then a desire takes possession of you. Now so many thoughts will arise. Buddha says desire is like oil in a lamp: if the oil is no more, the flame (mind or a separate-self) will disappear on its own! The wheel of Samsaara consists of vaasana-kama-vritthi-karma-vaasana (impression-desire-thought-action-impression). I have the impression, then the desire arises, and then thought arises, and next the action connected to the thought happens. When you get the action/karma, what do you get? A new impression! Now I have another desire leading to another thought/action, and to another desire, and it just keeps going. These are the pillars or corner-stones of the edifice of mind. They are the links of the mind/samsaara-chain. In Vedanthic tradition, it is called 'desire-action-ignorance' or 'kaama-karma-avidhya' cycle. Destroy any one of these links; the whole chain can be broken! Then, if desires arise out of Aananda it is okay; desires arising for Aananda using objects and persons is not!

Remember: Divinity's passion is to distribute (from itself) and humanity's desire is to gather (to itself). The seat of desires is the causal body. They exist there in the form of seeds ('vaasanas' or 'karmas') and manifest in the mind-lake. Mind will stay alive as long as there are desires in the mind/soul. Desires become waves in the mind-lake. Thoughts exist because desires exist. Unless you understand desire and transcend it, you will not be able to drop the binding thoughts. Remember, desire has not to be destroyed, it has to be purified. Desire has not to be dropped, it has to be transformed like a coal gets transformed into a diamond. Binding desires/thoughts can be neutralized by i) the practice of discernment or the power of discrimination or 'viveka' (vi=special, vika=discrimination/investigation, viveka=investigation with true knowledge; viveka=to discriminate between the nature of the being and the being of the nature), ii) the restraint of senses or 'prathyaahaara', iii) meditation, 'dhyaana' and iv) Self-Inquiry, Aathma Vichaara.

With freedom from selves and objects, desire is divine! And what is the greatest and the subtlest desire?  The greatest and the subtlest desire of a human being is to have no desire at all.  That is the condition of God-The Reality.  You are so fulfilled in your desire that you are no more desirous. Desire-free-ness (not desire-less-ness) is the only thing that can bring you permanent joy/peace/completeness!

What is the easiest way to get detached?..........

The easiest way to get detached with people and/or things is to get strongly attached to only one thing, Reality! It is extremely difficult to practice detachment.

What is the greatest desire?..........

The greatest desire of a human being is to have no desire at all.  That is the condition of Reality.  You are so fulfilled in your desire that you are no more desirous. Desire-free-ness can only bring you the permanent joy/peace!

What is a feeling?..........

From a common perspective, a feeling is a conscious, subjective experience and expression of emotion (emotion is energy in motion). Feeling is a sensation but with an added separate-self charge. Feeling=Sensation+Thought. Sensation is always of the body (internal) and perception is always of the world (external).

There are five natural emotions ('aaveshas' or 'bhaavodvegams'): grief (sadness), anger, envy, fear, and love.  And within these also, there are two final levels: love and fear (there is nothing else from which to choose).  All human actions are motivated at their deepest level by one of two emotions—fear or love.  In truth there are only two emotions-only two words in the language of the soul. These are the opposite ends of the great polarity.  These are the two points—the Alpha and the Omega—which allow the system we call “relativity” to be.

Without these two points, without these two ideas about things, no other idea could exist.  Every human thought, and every human action, is based in either love or fear. There is no other human motivation, and all other ideas are but derivatives of these two. They are simply different versions—different twists on the same theme.  Think on this deeply and you will see that it is true. This is what is called the Sponsoring Thought. It is either a thought of love or fear. This is the thought behind the thought behind the thought. It is the first thought. It is the prime force. It is the raw energy that drives the engine of human experience.  In love one expands, in fear one shrinks.  Fear holds close, love holds dear. Fear grasps, love lets it go. Fear rankles, love soothes. Fear attacks, love amends. The other three of the five natural emotions are outgrowths of these two. And, in the end, there is really only one emotion. Love. Natural emotions that are not properly expressed may become depression, rage, jealousy, panic and possessiveness/greed.

Therefore, all the so-called different forms or expressions of feeling rise in Love, exist in Love and vanish into Love. Love is not the absence of an emotion but is the sum total of all feelings.  Every feeling is an obstructed Love. So, see every feeling as an obstructed Love and fix your attention on the Love part, and you will be free! When you understand that the separate-self with a sense of personal doership is an illusion or a phantom, feeling becomes a neutral sensation that expresses Pure Love/Pure Being. Feeling may be re-defined thus:  Feeling is a sensation or a response that is an expression of what you are "being!"  Awareness is a state of being. You are "being" aware.  From this state of awareness, you can choose any other beingness.  Beingness or Being is simply a choice!

For the soul to experience perfect Love, it must experience every human feeling.  How can you have compassion on that which you don’t understand?  How can you forgive in another that which you have never experienced in yourself? So, we see both the simplicity and the awesome magnitude of the soul’s journey. We understand at last what it is up to: The purpose of the human soul is to experience All of It—so that it can be All of It!

Feeling is your first thought, your pure thought. A feeling is a wordless thought, it is the language of the soul! It is the subtlest thought, a hidden desire.  Feeling conveys a great deal without 'saying' anything. The energy that you sense is called feeling. When you move from the conscious mind to superconscious awareness, you will find in that place that there are only feelings or vibrations.

Thoughts are of the mind and feelings are of the heart.  And feelings are the language of the soul. And your soul is your truth. Soul is an expression of Being, expression of Truth, expression of Pure Love, expression of God.  What the soul is after is - the highest feeling of Love you can imagine. This is the soul's desire. This is its purpose. The soul is after the feeling, the feeling of love. Not the knowledge (it has the knowledge), but the feeling. It already has the knowledge, but the knowledge is conceptual. Feeling is experiential. The soul wants to feel itself, and thus to know itself in its own experience. Knowing+Feeling! Knowing+Feeling=Aananda!

A Sufi saying: "When you go inside yourself you find the world. When you go out into the world you find yourself!"

It is always appropriate to express feelings. Feelings are neither negative nor destructive. Feelings are simply truths. They are the reality that senses bring in, not the mind. (Remember: Come to senses!) How you express your truth is what matters. When you express your truth with love, negative and damaging results rarely occur, and, when they do, it is usually because someone else has chosen to experience your truth in a negative or damaging way.  In such a case, there is probably nothing you can do to avoid the outcome.  Certainly, failing to express your truth would hardly be appropriate. Yet people do this all the time. So afraid are they, to cause or to face possible unpleasantness that they hide their truth altogether.

Remember this: It is not nearly so important how well a message is received as how well it is sent.

So yes, express what you call your most “negative” feelings also, but not destructively. Failure to express (i.e. push out) negative feelings does not make them go away; it keeps them in. Negativity “kept in” harms the body and burdens the soul.  All negativity need not be shared with the person about whom it is felt. It is only necessary to communicate these feelings to the other when failure to do so would compromise your integrity or cause another to believe an untruth. However, you must make sure you are listening to your true feelings and not some counterfeit model constructed in your mind.

What you are feeling is what you are "being." Your feelings never lie. They do not know how to. They tell you exactly what you are being in any moment. And you can change how you are feeling by simply changing how you are being! The way you feel is a response to the way you are being. And you can control that. "Beingness" is a (stateless) state in which you place yourself, it is not a response. "Feeling" is a response, but "being" is not. Your feelings are your response to what you are being, but your being is not a response to anything.

Awareness is a state of being. You are "being" aware. From this state of awareness, you can choose any other beingness. Beingness or Being is simply a choice!  You can choose to be wise, or to be wonderful. You can choose to be compassionate and to be understanding. You can choose to be patient and to be forgiving. Choosing is quite arbitrary. And what you are being, gives birth to what you are thinking or doing. Thinking is another form of being in a dream state. Because what you are thinking about is the illusion. And it is okay. You are living in the illusion, you have placed yourself there, so you should give it some thought. But remember, thought creates your reality, so if you've created a reality that you don't like, don't give it a second thought!

Words are second thought. They are your attempt to conceptualize your feelings by translating them into audible utterances.  Words are the language of the mind.  Actions are our third thought, and are often an afterthought. They are your attempt to physicalize what you have conceptualized. Actions are the language of the body.  By the time you put feelings into words and words into action, you may have lost a lot in the translations. The master knows this, which is why the master is very careful and moves with great deliberation from one level of experience to another - if he moves to another level at all.

What are the functions of the head and the heart?..........

The head and the heart are not water-tight compartments. They complement each other. It may be said that "It is a harmonious blending of the head and the heart in the Ultimate Truth that is called realization."  It may generally be said that one gets awakened through the head, and gets established in the Truth through the heart.

A thought, when it is deep, becomes feeling or in other words descends into the heart. Deep knowledge or objectless knowledge is ‘Love’. Love always gives and never takes.

The subject-object relationship is the characteristic of perception. This relationship is clearly evident in the case of all mental knowledge; and it is indistinguishable in the case of feeling, though not dead.  One prefers feeling to knowledge because one really wants the subsidence of the subject-object relationship without one’s knowing it. It is the deep urge from one’s own being. This is partially satisfied in the case of feeling, by the temporary subsidence of the subject-object relationship. But this by itself does not help one. It is no better than the ignorant man preferring deep sleep to the waking state.

But, on the other hand, when you go from knowledge of object to feeling, the subject-object relationship alone should be allowed to fade away, and the knowledge part should be kept alive, in the form of right discrimination or higher reason. The content or significance of feeling should be discovered with the aid of this reason; and the absence of the subject-object relationship in apparent phenomenal knowledge should also be visualized, in order to make one’s experience complete. Remember: What is in your mind has been put there by others; what is in your heart is what you carry with you of Reality.

For the ordinary man, knowledge is represented by the head (or reason) and feeling is represented by the heart. But it is only a harmonious blending of the head and the heart that may be called realization. Therefore, an academic and one-sided development of the head alone makes one a dry pundit, and a similar development of the heart, divorced of the head, makes one an ecstatic devotee; both being far away from the Truth.  As regards reason and feeling, the former must always be there to guide the latter.

What is an emotion?..........

Emotion is energy in motion. Emotion is an experience that is chosen, not an experience to which you are subjected. You can take this energy and give it a promotion, or a demotion. Emotions are costumes of the mind. The mind decides to feel a certain way. Your mind moves you very quickly into an emotion, based on a thought that it has formed. Mind's decision is so fast that it can seem as though you have no control over your emotions at all. Thought is energy, and your mind's job is to move that energy into motion (e+motion).

Emotion is an intense/amplified thought with feeling!

What are natural emotions?..........

There are five natural emotions. These are: grief (sadness), anger, envy, fear, and love. Other natural emotions like hate, surprise, shame, joy, happiness, romance, laughter etc are combinations of these five emotions (for example, hatred is a combination of fear and anger). In Sanskrit, emotion is called 'aavesha,' 'vesha'=external appearance or expression; 'aavesha'=external expression of an internal condition. Natural emotions are hard-wired, cellular, biologically driven, automatic. When these natural emotions get either suppressed or extended/prolonged, they become patterns or manufactured emotions or behaviors and often destructive behaviors. And within these also, there are two final levels: love and fear. This is the great polarity. This is the primal duality.  In love one expands, in fear one shrinks. In fear one becomes closed, in love one opens. In fear one doubts, in love one trusts. In fear one is left lonely, in love one disappears.  The other three of the five emotions are outgrowths of these two. And, in the end, there is really only one basic emotion. Love.

All human thought, word or deed at their deepest level is based on either love or fear. We have no choice about this, because there is nothing else from which to choose. There is no other human motivation, and all other ideas are but derivatives of these two. They are simply different versions - different twists on the same theme. That is what is called the Sponsoring Thought. Sponsoring Thought is either a thought of love or fear. This is the thought behind the thought behind the thought. It is the first thought. It is the prime force. It is the raw energy that drives the engine of human creation or experience.

This polarity was created by Reality when it apparently produced this universe. These are the two points - the Alpha and the Omega - which allow the system we call 'relativity' or 'duality' to be. Without these two points, without these two ideas about things, no other idea could exist. However, as an individual, we have a free choice (apparently) about which of these to select!

Grief (sadness, 'shokam') is that part of you which allows you to say goodbye when you don't want to say goodbye; to express - push out, propel - the sadness within you at the experience of any kind of loss. Grief continually repressed becomes chronic depression, a very unnatural emotion ('maandyam').

Anger ('rowdhram') is a tool you have which allows you to say, "No, thank you." It does not have to be abusive, and it never has to be damaging to another. Expressed with love, anger is the discharge of disharmony, not the creator of it.

There are many ways in which anger may be released that do involve no violence whatsoever, neither physical nor verbal. Anger releases negative energy. That makes it a positive emotion, because it helps you get rid of something you don't want, and live a harmonious life. Anger that is continually repressed becomes rage, a very unnatural emotion ('bheebathsam'). Anger is active sadness; sadness is inactive anger. They are not two things. Sadness is a negative way of being angry, the feminine way of being angry. You find yourself sad only in situations where you cannot be angry. A momentary flare-up simply shows that you are not dead, that you respond to situations and respond authentically. Similarly, the emotion of hate is natural. Once extended, it grows into violence.

Envy ('asuya') is the natural emotion that makes you want to try again, try harder until you succeed. Envy that is continually repressed becomes jealousy, a very unnatural emotion ('maathsarya'). Jealousy is a fear-driven emotion making one willing for the other to have less. Jealousy kills while envy gives birth.

Fear ('bhaya') is an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat. Fear is of two kinds: bodily (built-in) fear and psychological (egoic) fear. When the integrity of the separate-self is threatened, the separate-self contracts in resistance in psychological fear.

In truth, the experience of fear is the emotion of love, distorted. A good example would be saving your child from an accident crossing a road for the fear of his death but at the same time risking your life to save him for the love of your child. Fear in its highest form becomes love.

Fear that is continually repressed becomes panic, a very unnatural emotion ('bheethi' or 'bhraanthi').

Love ('prema') when expressed naturally becomes joy, peace (which is the soul's purpose). Love is sufficient unto itself. Love runs the universe. The only law of Reality is love.  Love that is continually repressed or narrowed-down becomes possessiveness or greed, a very unnatural emotion ('lobha').

Life is made up of emotions. The problem is that when they go beyond a certain range, they create burden, misery, problems. We require a mechanism to maintain the emotions within a range. And that mechanism is 'para vidhya' or Self-Knowledge!

<<<According to Hinduism, life is an amalgam of the following nine emotions ('nava rasas'): 1. Beauty/Love ('shringaara'), 2. Laughter ('haasya'), 3. Disgust/Aversion ('bheebhathsa'), 4. Anger ('rowdhra'), 5. Serenity/Peace ('shaantha'), 6. Heroism/Courage ('veera'), 7. Fear ('bhaya'), 8. Compassion/Love ('karuna'), and 9. Wonder/Surprise ('adhbhutha').>>>

What is fear?..........

Fear is the lack of complete knowledge, lack (veiling) of love, lack of one-ness, lack of non-duality! The experience of fear is the emotion of Love/Aananda, distorted.  And what is Aananda?  Aananda is Consciousness becoming aware of itself through objects/world. When the Unchanging Consciousness meets the Unchanging Existence (Is-ness), Aananda results (like in Sath-Chith-Aananda). When Chith apparently splits with Sath (for the sake of experience), Aananda is lost causing a 'lack.' In other words, duality/dualism causes a 'lack.' This apparent 'lack' of Aananda/Love is fear.  Aananda means fullness, completeness, uninterrupted peace; knowing of your own being as it is, your true and limitless nature. The root cause of fear is ignorance of your true and limitless nature (incomplete knowledge) and consequent identification with an illusory and limited/separate-self. Let us investigate into fear.

Fear is of two kinds. Bodily fear and psychological fear. The bodily fear is natural to the body which is wired into it in order to protect itself from danger. It is an expression of the intelligence of the body. Bodily/natural fear is that part of you which helps build certain caution and caution is a tool that helps keep the body alive. It is instinctive.  Then there is another kind of fear whose function is to protect the separate-self/ego that we (falsely) believe ourselves to be. This is psychological fear or egoic fear. And when the integrity of the separate-self is threatened (the layers of beliefs over beliefs are threatened), the separate-self contracts in resistance. Psychological fear is an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is threatening you/your ego/your ideology.

Psychological fear is an imaginary mechanism the separate-self/ego uses to defend itself against the implications of threatening situations to safeguard its identity.  Fear is based on the illusion of personality, the ego.  Separate-self is characterized by lack of love/peace (or desiring to be happy) and fear of death which are a direct result of ignorance - ignorance of its essential qualities of infinity and eternity.  The root cause of psychological fear, therefore, is the false identification with a body-mind as the doer/enjoyer, limited in time and space (due to the ignorance of our true eternal and limitless nature), which will then result in fear of death (due to time limitation) and lack of peace (due to space limitation).

Lack of love/peace/happiness turns into desire or hope for love/peace/happiness. Deep in the heart of the separate-self/ego is the true-self which is innate freedom. That is why separate-self longs for freedom, desires for freedom. Freedom, love and/or peace is its nature. That is what it is, already. But the separate-self as Consciousness forgets its nature in the interest of experience. Therefore there is always this struggle going on within the separate-self to maintain its status quo and its longing for freedom. Thus, it goes out into the world of objects in an endless search to attain eternity and infinity. Desire (I want this, 'raaga') and fear (I don't want this, 'dvesha') are the hallmarks of a separate-self/ego.

Desire and fear are in fact not two different things, but just two aspects of the same one thing. So long as we desire whatever things appear to contribute to our happiness, we will inevitably fear whatever things appear to detract from our happiness. Fear is therefore simply the converse side of desire. Desire and fear co-exist; they are twin sisters.  They are the two sides of one coin.  These two forces, attraction and repulsion, attachment and aversion, like and dislike affect every aspect of life of a separate-self/ego.

Though it usually remains in a dormant form, our fear of death is in fact the greatest, most fundamental and most deep-rooted of all our fears. We fear death because it appears to us to be a state of no-existence — a state in which we ourselves will cease to exist, or at least cease to exist as we now know ourselves.  Since we love our own being/existence more than we love any other thing, we fear to lose our own being/existence more than we fear any other thing. In other words, our fear of death is rooted in our self-love — our basic love for our own essential self or being. That's why a man tries his level best to preserve his body-mind. All other forms of fear are traceable to this cause, the fear of death. The worst one, worry, for example, known as the first cousin of psychological fear, is an announcement that you hold, a belief, that something other than what is best for you could happen.  Obviously, fear is an inbuilt mechanism that warns us to be alert: danger could be at hand. So it is not something to be ignored. However, when fear threatens to overwhelm us or when we are chronically anxious, fear is counter-productive.

So how do you get rid of the fear? Do not reject, avoid or resist the fear. Fear wants you to go outwards and seek relief/refuge in an object/person. Do not buy into this. Investigate what is behind the fear; make that your topmost desire. Obviously, fear is known by something. Allowing and witnessing the fear neutralizes the fear. In this neutralization, its background becomes more evident. Its reality shines. Look, there is only one Energy, thus, there is only one Energy in motion all the time (e+motion). And that one Emotion is called Love.  In truth, the experience of fear is the emotion of Love, distorted.  Absent Love, fear is not.  Fear in its highest form becomes Love.  Fear in itself without any resistance is simply neutral. That resistance is the single thought of a separate entity or ego with a personal doership.

Fear is based on the appearance of things, which is limited data. It has nothing to do with Ultimate Reality. So, expand your data.  There are several ways to expand your data and eliminate fear: 1. Watch fear - be a witness, do not fight with it; 2. Stay in the present/now; 3. Meditate and 4. Inquire - get closer, investigate, shine light on the separate-self.  When you understand your true nature that you are the totality of your being - body, mind and soul combined - that you are the Impersonal Presence of Intelligence/Awareness - the separate-self/ego dissolves. And with it, the fear. Separate-self and fear were never really there. It is something you are making up in your mind.  FEAR is a False Evidence (or Fiction) Appearing Real!  Deep down, fear is Love. All there is, is only Pure Love, Aananda, your true nature!

How do we best manage the three personality tools of creation?

We have three tools to create (or, rather, re-create): thought, word and deed (manthram, thanthram, yamthram). The deed/action is important and, so, preserve your health. Take good care of your body ('kaayikam'). The next layer of personality tool is word/speech ('vaacha'). Watch four parameters for your speech discipline: 1. Sathyam. Speak truth. 2. Priyam. Speech must be pleasant. 3. Hitham. Speak whatever is good to the listener. One of the subtler forms of violence, verbal violence, is talking to a person who is not interested in listening to you.  So therefore, make sure that the other person is interested in listening to you and it is useful to him. 4. Anudhvega. Must not be hurting. For example, never tell a person that he is wrong even if he is wrong (especially in front of other people). If you find you cannot avoid it, you may have to hurt, there is no other way, then you should know how to do it so carefully that the hurt is minimized or neutralized. The third layer of personality tool is thought/mind ('anthahkarana'). Meditation is the key here. Body-conditioning and speech-conditioning is a stepping stone for the mental-conditioning. Karma Yoga (proper action with proper attitude), Upaasana Yoga (meditation, no-mind or still-mind) and Gnyaana Yoga (self-enquiry) will lead you to non-mind or a desire-free mind!
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What is Consciousness?..........

Consciousness is Awareness-at-Rest ready to appear as Awareness-in-Movement. Consciousness is that by which "I know that I am."  Consciousness is (a seemingly) Individuated Awareness and is Impersonal.  Consciousness is "I AM," Aham-Asthi, Saakshi, Pragnyaanam, Self-Awareness.  I AM is neither exclusively a thought nor exclusively Pure-Consciousness.  Consciousness is the the expression of Self-Awareness in anything that exists.  Mind facilitates Experience. Soul holds Unlimited Knowledge. The sum of these two 'data banks' is what we call Consciousness.  Soul=I AM, is the unchanging, continuous and the impersonal aspect/content of an individual.

Awareness is Consciousness without thinking or focusing, being alert with no thought. Therefore, Complete Consciousness is Awareness.  Consciousness is always conscious of something, and there is always someone who is conscious.  That which you know best in the world, that which is nearest to you, that of which you can never be free, whose existence is supremely certain, is your Consciousness.

Consciousness has two distinct forms: Our fundamental Being-Consciousness by which we know 'I am,' and our superficial Knowing-Consciousness (mind), by which we know everything else. These are not two different Consciousnesses, but just forms of one and the same Consciousness - the one and only Consciousness that exists. The relationship between these two forms of Consciousness is similar to the relationship between the illusory appearance of a snake and the rope that underlies and supports that illusory appearance.

Because we commonly experience our Being-Consciousness as a Knowing-Consciousness, we fail to know our Being-Consciousness as it is, and hence we mistakenly think that the only form of Consciousness that exists is our Knowing-Consciousness. Since our Knowing-Consciousness appears in waking and dream but disappears in sleep, it is impermanent, and hence it cannot be our real self - our true and natural form of Being and Consciousness. What seemingly prevents us from knowing our real self, our mere Being-Consciousness, is our 'doing,' our rising to know things that we imagine to be other than ourselves.

What is the proof of Consciousness?..........

That very question is the proof. That question is lit up by Consciousness.

The outer light, lighting up objects outside, and the inner light of Consciousness have something in common in their characteristics. Both are imperceptible to the sense organ or the mind. The existence of the outer light is affirmed by the fact that objects are manifested in its presence. It is a scientific fact that we never see the outer-pure light, we only see the reflected light. Similarly, the light of Consciousness is proved or implied by the fact that objects are lit up (or known) in its presence. By seeing what, you know that you have eyes?...By seeing (simply)! You are a seer by seeing. Similarly, constant conscious experience proves that you are Consciousness. You are "Awarer" by "awaring." You are Awareness by being-aware (only Awareness can be aware)!

The self is proved when you see something else, for that other thing reminds you of it. Consciousness is like a lamp; it lights up objects and at the same time lights up Itself.  The very fact that you say, "I am not " shows that you are there. The denial of self becomes the proof of the self.  Thus Consciousness never calls for a proof to establish Itself; and Its existence in Its own right can never be denied, even in thought.

Is Consciousness located inside the body? Is Consciousness a property of the body?..........

We are deeply conditioned to believe and feel that I the body is the one that is aware. We think consciousness resides behind our eyes in the brain somewhere. But it is I the Awareness that is aware. A body does not have awareness. Awareness, from time to time, has the experience of a body. It is our experience that we are continuously aware. We had never known the absence of Awareness. But we are quite often not aware of our body.  Body is an intermittent experience. It comes and goes. How could something that is continuous (like Awareness) be a byproduct of something that is intermittent (like body)?

Awareness is made of knowing. It does not need a mind or a body to know Itself. The knowing of itself is what it is, not what it does. Body is experienced; it does not do experiencing.  How could something which is perceiving (like Awareness) be made of that which is being perceived (like body)? Imagine Mary is dreaming while sleeping in his bed in Los Angeles. She dreams as Jane walking on the streets of New York. She sees the streets, whatever is in front of her eyes. When she closes her eyes the streets of New York vanish. So she quite reasonably assumes that the consciousness with which she is experiencing the streets of New York lives just behind her eyes.

But where does Jane's consciousness reside? In Mary's mind in bed in Los Angeles. The illusion from Jane's illusory point of view that the belief that the knowing with which she knows her experience lives inside her head is so strong that her entire experience of the streets of New York seems to confirm her belief.  But Mary's mind was there first or prior to Jane's body. Why couldn't exactly be true of the waking state? Our experience suggests that Awareness is there first or prior to body or world and it is continuous or ever present.

How are instinct, intellect, intuition and Intelligence/Consciousness related?.........

Intelligence/Consciousness/Awareness ('Chaithanyam') can be divided into three aspects: the lowest and the first is instinct ('sahaja pravritthi', 'vaasana gnyaanam'); the second, the middle one, is intellect ('lower-buddhi', 'vivechana gnyaanam'); and the third, the highest one, is intuition ('prathibha'=shining forth, 'higher-buddhi').  Intelligence is the inborn capacity to see, to perceive; inborn capacity to live life; inborn capacity to act spontaneously from your being. Intelligence/Awareness is of being. Intelligence or Thuriya is the substratum/background of waking, dream and deep-sleep states and pervades them all. Intelligence is to instinct, intellect and intuition in the same way as Thuriya is to waking, dream and deep-sleep states. Intelligence is the "knower" of instinct, intellect and intuition (more precisely, Knowing).

Instinct is an involuntary prompting to action, it is an automatic action by the body and functions through your unconscious mind (Rudimentary or Being-Consciousness). Instinct is the world of animals; it is simply biological. You are a robot in the hands of nature.  A child is intelligent, but the Intelligence is not intellectual, the Intelligence is purely instinctive.  The Intelligence that a child shows is natural, he has not learned it. It is part of the wisdom of his body, it is inherited, it is cellular. Because a child lives in the present and unconsciously, his life cannot have a discipline, an order. It is chaotic, it is anarchic.  The child has a mind but has no identity. He has no responsibility.  Instinct functions through your gross body.

The second rung, intellect, gives you something higher than biology, chemistry, the animal nature.  Intellect gives you reason, argument, logic and comes from your conscious mind (Thinking-Mind). But conscious mind is only one tenth of the unconscious mind. And the most intellectual person in the world uses only fifteen percent of this conscious mind.  However, mind is not your Intelligence (as we normally assume). It may sound strange but this is truth, that mind is not your intelligence. Mind can be intellectual, which is a very poor substitute for intelligence. Intellectuality is mechanical. You can become a great scholar, a great professor, a great philosopher - just playing with words which are all borrowed, arranging and rearranging thoughts, none of which are your own. Intelligence which is actualized and expressed with a certain form is intellect. Actualized intelligence is intellect. Knowledge is intellect, Knowing is intelligence. Being capable of knowing, living life is intelligence. The ability to acquire/keep knowledge through analysis, is intellect; a knowledgeable person is an intellectual. Knowing is much, much greater than intellect.  The intellect has nothing of its own, all is borrowed. And that's the difference between Intelligence and intellect. Intelligence is your own.  This does not mean that you cannot use intellect or you have to discard intellect, you only have to transcend it.  Intellect functions through your subtle body.

Intuition functions in a quantum leap and comes from your heart/soul, it is the action of your soul (Working-Mind or Enlightened-Mind). It has no methodological procedure.  Intuition is the ability to see things/knowledge clearly and instantaneously which you cannot intellectually infer. It simply knows.  Intuition is of your heart/soul. Intuition is the spiritual faculty of the mind. It is a gut-feeling. Intuition is clarity without any calculation/questioning. Intuition is working-mind in the now-here (no sense of time and space), a spontaneous happening. Experience happening in sequence and instantaneously - 'sequentaneously.'  Intuition functions through causal body (Universal Mind).

Intuition may give you answers for ultimate questions-not verbally but existentially.  Intuition transcends reason but does not (usually) contradict it.  However, you need to question intuition also. It may not be right all the time. If it is against dharma, you should not listen to intuitive feelings.  You need not ask: "What is Reality?"  Instinct won't hear, it is deaf. It has no ears, no eyes and no legs. Instinct works as programmed. Intellect will hear but it can only philosophize; it is blind, it cannot see (it has ears and legs but no eyes). Intuition is a seer, it has eyes and ears (but no legs).  It sees the Reality in its own way-there is no question of thinking about it.  Working-Mind or Intuitive-Mind will not tell you anything, it will simply act in the moment - instinctively.  Remember, Intelligence/Awareness/Consciousness is not intuition.

Intelligence (Awareness) is a response to a new situation, a response not from your past memories but from your present awareness. It is a spontaneous action or responsibility of your being.  The more you are in the past or are in the future, the less intelligent you are. Intelligence is intrinsic to life. It is a natural quality of life.  Just as fire is hot and air is invisible and water flows downwards, so is life intelligent. Intelligence is not an achievement; we are born intelligent. Trees are intelligent in their own way, they have enough intelligence for their own life. Birds are intelligent, so are animals. Have you ever seen an animal you can call idiotic?

Knowledge resides in your mind while Consciousness resides in your soul.  Mind holds Data. Soul holds Consciousness - perspective of endless lifetimes - and understands everything.  If your perspective is created by your mind and your soul, working co-jointly, it will create wisdom (vignyana). Wisdom is knowledge in the context of the whole. Wisdom is knowledge applied.  Knowledge without object is wisdom; it is the knowledge of the subtle. Wisdom is knowing real as real and not-real as not-real.

When your mind/soul is without any dust of knowledge, when it is just a mirror, it reflects that which IS. Knowledge can be taught. Wisdom can only be caught, it is like an infection, it is contagious: you have to move with the wise, and only then will something start moving inside you.  Intelligence comes from your being - mind is only a vehicle. Intelligence is the quality of the Witness, Saakshi; it watches the mind and gives directions to the mind. Right now, whatever you have in your mind has come from outside.  Intelligence comes from your inside.

Instinct and intuition are both independent of (the individual) you. Instinct always leads you to the other. Intuition leads you only to yourself. With the unconscious you are animal. With the conscious you are no longer animal. With the super-conscious you are a man fully flowered.

What is the difference between the consciousness of a stone, an animal, a man, and a sage/Buddha?..........

Life is aware of itself in different degrees. These degrees of awareness are called levels of mind/consciousness. A stone exists, but it has no consciousness of its existence.  It is consciousness asleep, not yet awakened. There is no life as we know, it is in a state of pre-life.  A stone or matter has no visible mind, no freedom; it is below mind and below time. The state of a stone is comparable to man's state of deep sleep except that its quality is less because the Reflection of Consciousness is not full due to the gross nature of its physical body. The stone cannot move and has no knowing-consciousness. Only the Existence aspect of Existence-Consciousness-Aananada is manifested.

An animal is conscious of its existence, but not conscious of its consciousness.  An animal has more life and more freedom. It can move. Consciousness is coming like a dream. An animal is in a pre-consciousness or pre-egoic state.  The mind is not yet fully developed. It has a loose or fluid ego. An animal lives in the past, has no idea of the future. Its experience is of undifferentiated mass. It is not separated out as the "me" and the "other". It knows itself and others only as a prey and predator.

In man - mind, intellect and self-awareness arise. He is in an egoic state.  Man can exist, he can know that he exists, and he can also know that he knows that he exists.  A man is conscious of his consciousness. He is self-conscious, self-aware. But there is a calamity with it - the ego. With thinking and personality comes future orientation; a man basically lives in the future. He is aware of past, present, and future. Consciousness is now awake but underneath it, dreams are still floating.  Man's wakefulness is not the same as Buddha's wakefulness. There is lot more freedom of course, but it is a pseudo kind of freedom. Because this freedom of choice is influenced by his genes and conditioning. A mind which is full of thoughts of objects cannot be free. He is in illusion, he is in ignorance.  The man has not recognized the reality of consciousness yet.

A sage/gnyaani/Buddha belongs to the fourth state.  A Buddha is in a post-egoic or enlightened state.  He is also in a state of no-mind like a stone, but with a vast difference. His no-mind state is, actually, a non-mind state. He is at rest, he is relaxed - but his relaxation comes from dropping the time itself. His mind is calm, ripple-less lake - but not by remaining below mind but by going beyond mind or by transcending the mind.  Buddha has become fully conscious that the mind is not needed (as we know), or we can say that his mind is pure. A pure mind reflects consciousness in its entirety.  Buddha has recognized the nature of experience as Awareness.  The stone is so unconscious that the the mind can barely exist. The stone knows no past, no present, and no future. And so is the case with a Buddha - he lives in eternity. He knows that past and future (mind) are mithya, a dependent reality. Freedom enters only as a shadow of consciousness; the more conscious you become, the more free. A stone is bound. An animal is also bound (Sanskrit name for animal is 'pashu' meaning bound by a 'pasha,' or rope).

Take a a beaded necklace analogy, in which, the stone is not aware of anything, the animal is aware of beads as a collective unit, the man is aware of beads as separate units and a Buddha/sage is aware of the beads with the underlying thread that connects it all (a oneness connecting the all)! The thread in this analogy is Consciousness or Awareness.

In conclusion...A stone is utterly in bondage, an animal is mostly in bondage, Buddha/sage/gnyaani is utterly free (or more precisely, freedom himself or herself) and a man is in between! So, realize Buddhahood or Aananda or Completeness!

What is the difference between a baby and an enlightened being?..........

The physical universe is created for us to transcend.  Otherwise, we will never know what transcendence is. We can remain blissful, but we will not know what bliss is. This is the condition of a baby, consciousness merging (getting lost) in objective experience (of diversity) resulting in innocence but disorder! A baby identifies himself with the objective experience.

Experience has two parts: true or consciousness part (SathChithAananda or Reality) and apparent or appearance part (Maya/Mind or 'Naama-Rupa' or Names and Forms). A baby's consciousness part is lost in appearance part. All experience happens as an undifferentiated or homogeneous mass of appearance without me-and-the-other; only an observer object perceiving an observed object.  A baby is conscious but not conscious of his consciousness.  He is not self-conscious.  He is certainly innocent and blissful. But to remain blissful without knowing what bliss is, is not worth it.  He doesn't know that the bliss is coming from Consciousness, his Self.  And this knowing is possible only through the opposites - only through the mind. His bliss came to him without an effort, he would not know its value. A baby is ignorant, he sees a snake for a rope but he does not know it is poisonous; a common man also sees a snake but thinks it is real and poisonous; a sage sees a snake but knows it is not-real.

Knowledge is the grasp of what is.  Experience is the direct perceptual participation in an event. Experience can lead to knowledge. When you have knowledge it includes perception - it includes experience. But experience does not have to include knowledge. Experience may or may not coincide with knowledge.  Experiences can be contradictory. Knowledge/Truth cannot be contradicted.  A baby lacks the knowledge or truth of the experience.

The condition of an enlightened being (sage) is this: he has gone through the mind and then beyond the mind into non-mind, experience (of diversity) merging (getting enlightened) in (One) Consciousness resulting in peace and order.  Peace is a state of being in which happiness and misery (interconnected opposites) are equally acceptable.  He has recognized the nature of experience as Consciousness. His identification is with Consciousness, not with experience. He is simply a Witness, Saakshi.

He has gone through a full circle. He is now totally conscious. He remains awake, he remains knowingly blissful/peaceful at all the times.  A sage recognizes that the Awareness is the only element that is present in all experience irrespective of the particular character of each experience and that it is the only thing that remains over when individual appearances of the body, mind and world disappear. World becomes self-luminous and shines as its background - the Reality.

In the eyes of a baby the world appears as one integrated whole, where things are all mixed into each other and nothing can be separated. It is indivisible. Their sense of perception does not distinguish one form from another, one object from another.  The child is intelligent, but the Intelligence is not intellectual, the intelligence is purely instinctive.  The intelligence that a child shows is natural, he has not learned it. It is part of the wisdom of his body, it is inherited, it is cellular. He is more like an animal than a man.  Because a child lives in the present and unconsciously, his life cannot have a discipline, an order. A child's life is free but it is chaotic, it is anarchic.  The child has a mind, but has no identity. He has no responsibility.

The enlightened one, that who has again become child-like, has such experiences where everything becomes one - one thing joins with the second, the second joins with the third, and so on.  A sage's innocence is earned; baby's innocence is nature's gift.  A sage is fully conscious. A sage's life is free but he is disciplined; his life has an order. His understanding is intuitive. He also has no identity as a separate person like a child, but he has tremendous responsibility. It is like this: In a beaded necklace we are able to see only beads as separate units. The intellect sees only the beads.  A baby sees the beads in a necklace as a collective unit with no separation. A common man sees the same necklace as consisting of separate beads (beads only). An enlightened being sees the hidden thread also that is running through the beads, the oneness that connects all the beads. So, yes. There is a similarity between a baby and a sage. They both see "Oneness:" Experience or Consciousness.

A baby is innocently happy (emotionally happy); a sage is knowingly happy (emotionally as well as intellectually)!  Krishna in Bhagavad Geetha says: "A sage sees God in all beings and also sees every being in God!"  So, a baby is naturally/instinctively innocent, a sage is knowingly innocent.  A sage has become a baby again in one sense.

Jesus Christ, Bible/Matthew 18:3-5: "Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven!"
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What is Awareness?..........

Awareness is the Eternal, Independent, Infinite, Intelligent Principle that is aware!  Awareness is that unlimited, open, empty, space-like field or presence in which all experience appears, with which all experience is known and out of which all experience is made.

Awareness is the Undeniable/Uncontradictory Reality/Truth that cannot be externalized.  According to Vedantha, whatever you can imagine and be aware of - is not Awareness!  What can we say for certain about ‘I,’ our self, the subject, the one that knows experience? The first thing is that I am obviously present – I am. If I were not present I wouldn’t be aware of these words. And the second self-evident fact about our self is that I am aware. If this were not true I would not be aware of thoughts, sensations or perceptions.

In other words, I am and the ‘I’ that I am, is aware that I am. This knowing of our own being – its knowing of itself – is the most familiar, intimate and obvious fact of experience and is shared by all. This present and aware ‘I’ is sometimes referred to as ‘Awareness’, which means the ‘presence of that which is aware.' It is a word in which the two fundamental qualities of our self – being and knowing – are recognized as one.

As such ‘I’ could be likened to an open, empty space to which or in which the objects of the mind, body and world (thoughts, sensations and perceptions) appear. And just as empty space, relatively speaking, cannot resist or be agitated by the appearance or activity of any object within it, so the open, empty space of Awareness cannot resist or be disturbed by any appearance of the mind, body or world, irrespective of their particular quality or condition. This inherent absence of resistance is the experience of happiness; this imperturbability is peace. This happiness and peace are not dependent upon the condition of the mind, body or world and are present in and as the essential nature of Awareness under all conditions and in all circumstances.

Thus happiness and peace (or loving), as well as being and knowing, are essential to Awareness which is our true nature. Awareness=Being-Knowing-Loving!

Since the Reality can only be One, the Consciousness that is perceiving through all the minds must be the same as this Awareness. Since the Reality can only be One, the universe must be a product of this Awareness. Do not think of Awareness as part of your mind alone. It is universal and devoid of objective qualities.

Awareness is Consciousness knowing none other than Itself!

Consciousness is that by which "I know that I am."  Awareness is simply "I."  Thus the Awareness is there before the "I am" (Mind-Consciousness) appears, and is there after the Mind/Consciousness disappears (like in deep sleep or death of the gross body).

Awareness is realized or claimed through the Complete Feeling of Knowing Who You Really Are; Awareness is the Feeling of what you have Known and Experienced.  It is one thing to know something, it is quite another thing to experience it, and still another to feel it. Only feeling produces full Awareness. Knowing, alone, can produce only partial awareness. Experience, alone, can produce only partial awareness. You can know that you are loving, but when you experience your self being loving, then your awareness is made complete through the living of that feeling. Feeling is the language of the soul.  Your soul cares only about what you are "being" while you are doing whatever you are doing.  It is a state of beingness the soul is after, not a state of doingness. Soul is after the feeling of love!

So, Awareness of the self is achieved through the Complete Feeling of your self being Who You Really Are - Being plus Knowing. As Awareness is a twofold process, there are two paths by which it is reached. A soul arrives at Complete Knowing along the path of the spiritual world, and at Complete Experiencing along the path of the physical world. Both paths are needed, and that is why there are two worlds. Put them together, and you have the perfect environment within which to create Complete Feeling, which produces Complete Awareness. What is Complete Awareness?...Being-Knowing-Loving. So, Awareness is not merely observing, but noticing at a very high level of consciousness exactly what is happening and exactly what is "so"...Right Here, Right Now; not only around you, but within you as well. Awareness is to be fully aware of being un-aware.

Awareness is Consciousness without thinking or focusing, being alert with no thought or free of thought. It is the Consciousness of all that is happening.  This is like walking a tightrope up high, from the top of one building to another, let us say. It is good to be aware that you are on a tightrope. You can keep your balance when you are aware. You can make it across to the other side. It is also good to be un-aware (not to experience) of just how high up you are. Or at that you are high up at all. That is why all tightrope walkers are told, "Don't look down." Because once you are conscious of something in particular on the ground, you have fallen to the ground!

What are the main features of and clues to Pure Awareness, your Real-Self?..........

Awareness is the Eternal, Independent, Infinite, Intelligent Principle that is aware! Awareness is another name for 'Sathyam-Gnyaanam-Anantham' and/or 'Sath-Chith-Aananda' of Vedanthic tradition.  There are six main features of and also six main clues (at least six) to Pure Awareness: The six features of Pure Awareness are: 1. Awareness is Consciousness or Spiritual Principle (non-material); different from mind-matter and which is not a part, product or property of the mind-matter. 2. An independent, self-shining, knowing principle which pervades and enlivens the body-mind. It is 'in' the body-mind but not 'of' the body-mind. 3. Not limited by the boundaries of the body-mind. It is space-like Awareness which is Attributeless or Property-less. Awareness, like pure light, has no dimensions so it can assume any dimension. 4. Survives the death of the body-mind. Awareness has nothing to do with the brain; brain cannot generate Awareness. Awareness is Eternal, never born, never dies.

5. Awareness is All-Pervading. That means, you cannot physically separate Awareness from any medium. Why?...Just as no physical thing can be separated from space, space being all-pervading, similarly you can never separate micro-medium or macro-medium from Awareness. So, Awareness is not available for transaction in the absence of a body-mind complex. After death and/or dissolution or 'pralayam,' non-transactional Awareness will continue. 6. Awareness is Non-Dual. It is Unlimitedness in object-ness or property.  Object limitation means this is the object and there is nothing else like this in the whole cosmos. Unlimitedness in object means there is nothing in the cosmos which is different from it (meaning it is Non-Dual). Again, the bio-data of Pure Awareness is: 1. Consciousness/Spirit, 2. Independent/Self-Knowing, 3. Attributeless/Propertyless, 4. Eternal/Permanent, 5. All-Pervading/Infinite and 6. Non-Dual/Advaitham.

Language can be used in three different ways: 1. To describe an object while you are experiencing it but is away from you, 2. To describe an object while you are not experiencing it and is also away from you and 3. To describe the Self/God/Awareness while you are experiencing it which is with you and you yourself are it. The third way is the most difficult. That's why clues or koans are very important to point to that Pure Awareness, which you yourself are!

The following six are the clues to Pure Awareness: 1. Do you need any effort or mediation to be aware? No...That means Awareness is your intrinsic nature. 2. Your 'I-sense' has not changed throughout your life experiences. Memory is only possible if there is an enduring/unchanging knowing element which is common to both the experiences. 3. What are thoughts, feelings, sensations and perceptions moving in and out of? Awareness...You, as the knower of thoughts, feelings, sensations and perceptions, are Awareness. Awareness is the only "one" that stays with you at all times. That's the reason you never doubt or never ask if you exist or not because you always are. 4. 'I' is the unchanging, underlying, common factor for all the three common states of experience - waking, dream and deep sleep. That 'I' is not any body-mind (because you are aware of the body-mind); that 'I' is Awareness. 5. Whatever experiences itself as ‘I’ (or whatever is self-aware) is something that is aware or Awareness. And you are self-aware! 6. You cannot literally see your eyes with your actual eyes. To see your eyes you need a mirror. But to know that you can see, all you need is seeing. You can see means you are a seer. Similarly, you are aware means you are awarer, or more precisely, Awareness!

With this background, contemplate on the following: 1. In waking state, body is active and mind is active; a subject experiencing an object. 2. In dream state, body is inactive but mind is active; again a subject experiencing an object. 3. In deep sleep state, body is inactive and mind is also inactive; subject experiencing the subject. 4. In meditation/samaadhi, body is active but mind is inactive; subject experiencing the subject which is qualitatively a bit different and higher than the deep sleep state. 5. The enlightened state is when you firmly claim that you are the infinite and continuous knowing element/presence of any and/or all experience. There is still the presence of an impersonal 'I-sense.' The Awareness that says "I am this body" is the ego, the Awareness that says "I am" is the soul, The Awareness that says "I am that Limitless Awareness" is the Awareness as a sage/gnyaani. 6. Pure Awareness is pure and, thus, uncontaminated/untangled or unassociated. There is not even any slightest sense of 'I-sense.' It can only be "claimed" while in a body. Pure Awareness is the absence of both: the presence of sense-of-presence and the absence of sense-of-presence!

What is the relationship between the True'I' and Awareness?..........

True 'I' is the Awareness! Anything that is not aware (like matter or mind) does not experience itself as ‘I,' because only something that is aware can be aware that 'I am present' or 'I am.' So, whatever experiences itself as ‘I’ (or whatever is self-aware) is something that is aware. Just by being yourself, you are knowing yourself. Being and knowing are one and the same. You cannot "be" without knowing and you cannot "know" without being. This is everyone's experience. Q: Do you exist? A: Yes. How do you know that you exist? A: I know, it is my experience - just by being (I do not need to be aware of any object to know that I am aware; I do not need to see anything specific to know that I can see, just by seeing I know that I can see).  Well, that is Awareness' experience of its own being (without the agency of any body-mind or objects; it is a direct knowledge; there are no two "things" there) because Awareness, "I," is the only one that is aware (body and mind are inert, inert means having no consciousness and having no ability to produce consciousness='jada').

Krishna (Bhagavad Geetha, 2.16): "The one who knows Me (Awareness) is Me (Awareness) alone!"

In other words, whatever is aware is always self-aware, so self-awareness (awareness of itself as ‘I’) is the very nature of whatever is aware. Therefore whatever is aware is that which is aware of itself as ‘I,’ so what is called ‘I’ is whatever is aware. In other words, experiencing oneself as ‘I,’ the first person, is an essential characteristic of the experience of being aware. Therefore awareness and ‘I’ are inseparable, because unless we are aware we cannot be aware of ‘I,’ and if we are aware we cannot but be aware of ourselves as ‘I,’ the first person, the one who is aware.

Moreover, whatever is aware will always be aware of itself as ‘I,’ the first person, whether or not it is aware of anything else, because it cannot be aware without being aware that it is aware, and being aware that it is aware necessarily entails being aware of itself, its own existence.

Therefore being aware is the very nature of ‘I,’ and ‘I’ is the essential nature of being aware. Hence, if what we call ‘I’ does exist in sleep (or in a state of complete anesthesia, coma or whatever), it is certainly aware of itself as ‘I’ in that state, whereas if on the contrary it were not aware of itself in sleep, it would not exist then, because it cannot exist (that is, it cannot be ‘I’) without being aware. That is, since ‘I’ would not be ‘I’ if it were not aware of itself, it cannot exist without being aware of itself.

Are you convinced that you do exist when you are asleep (and that likewise you did exist when you were in a state of general anesthesia)? If you are convinced that you do not cease to exist in such states, then you should be equally convinced that you do not cease to be aware of yourself as ‘I’, because what you essentially are is something that is aware of itself as ‘I’ — something whose very nature is to be aware of itself as ‘I’.  If you ever ceased to be aware, you would cease to be ‘I’, so you would no longer be you. Since you cannot not be you, if you ever ceased to be aware, you would cease to exist.

Since you are the same 'I' that existed continuously, 'I' must have been continuously aware!  An unaware ‘I’ is self-contradictory concept.

What is the continuous element of our experience, the Awareness or the world?..........

Everyone's experience of the world is private. It depends on your perception. It is the Awareness that we share, not the outside world. Because the mind has no knowledge of Awareness, it cannot see it, it cannot know it, the mind looks around to something to explain the apparent continuity of experience and the only place mind can look is to objects.

Mind itself is not continuous, the body (in the mind's view) is fairly continuous and therefore the world is obviously the continuous element as far as the mind is concerned. So the mind conceives of a permanent space/world and a continuous time. Because the mind cannot see Awareness, it overlooks the presence of Awareness and attributes the apparent commonality or continuity of the experience to the world in time.

Imagine you are having a dream with twelve people looking at a flower and describing their views of the flower. Their views may not be identical but very similar. Now you wake up. What is it that accounts for the similarity of everyone's description? It is your mind. Because it was only one mind that was having the dream. What about if exactly the same thing is true in the waking state?

Twelve people are sitting around the table and everyone describes not an identical but a similar picture and this is enough to convince everyone that there is a real independently existing outside world which each one is getting a slightly different view of. Could it not be that what gives everyone the sense of commonality to this experience is because, just like in the dream, there is one thing in common to all in that all twelve people are born out of the same Awareness?

What is the difference between Consciousness, Witnessing and Awareness?..........

Witnessing is a relationship between a subject and an object. Awareness is absolutely devoid of any subjectivity or objectivity. It is a total act, integrated; the subject and object are dissolved. Witnessing implies a doer in the initial stages but then turns into a spontaneous happening (vertical time) - watching without any involvement or judgement in horizontal time. Awareness is a deeper non-doing or non-witnessing.  But through Witnessing, Awareness is possible. Witnessing is a technique, a method towards Awareness. Witnessing is meditation.

Thinking has to be stopped in meditation, but not by becoming unconscious. Thinking has to be stopped through becoming a witness to the thought process.  With constant practice, thoughts start disappearing. A gap comes, an interval. Clouds disappear and blue sky is seen. Witnessing then becomes the absence of involvement that comes from the deeply ingrained belief that I am the doer.  Your true identity, Awareness, is then revealed through understanding.  Witnessing bereft of objects (or the other) is Awareness. Consciousness has a nature - if it cannot find any object which prevents it, then it goes round and comes back to you. In existence everything moves in a circle, nothing moves in a straight line. If there is no obstacle, the Consciousness comes back to its own source - Awareness! Witnessing happens in no-time meaning no-space also. Witnessing happens in now-here and, therefore, impersonal whereas observing happens to an ego. Witnessing is working-mind/intuitive-mind, not thinker-mind.  Working-mind will not tell you anything, it will simply act in the moment - instinctively. Witnessing is understanding in action without any judgement for personal reasons. There is an individual in observing and judging but there is no individual judging anything in Witnessing. A good example for Witnessing is a baby. She will respond or react to actions according to her programming but there is no judging (that someone is good or bad).

Most teachers use the words Consciousness and Awareness interchangeably. According to some teachings, however, there is a subtle difference between Awareness and Consciousness. And they argue that this discrimination will be helpful in understanding the Absolute or Supreme. Consciousness is a quality of your mind, but is not your total mind. Your mind can be both conscious and unconscious; but when you transcend your mind, there is no unconsciousness and no corresponding consciousness. There is Awareness. Awareness means that the total mind has become conscious. Awareness is a quality of your being.

Awareness means transcendence of the mind, so it is not the mind that is aware. Mind is the medium of duality, so Consciousness can never transcend duality. It is always conscious of something, there is always someone who is conscious. There can be no Consciousness without Awareness, but there can be Awareness without Consciousness, as in deep sleep. You may be unconscious of objects in deep sleep but you are aware of your unconsciousness of the world. Awareness is Non-Dual, a state of non-mind. Consciousness/Mind has states; Awareness has no states. There is always an 'I' in Consciousness, but Awareness simply 'IS.' Awareness is Pure.

Consciousness is Awareness plus objects; Awareness is Consciousness minus objects. Consciousness is Transitive Awareness. Awareness is Intransitive Consciousness. Consciousness is Awareness in an apparent movement. Awareness is Consciousness at rest.

In other words, Awareness is Consciousness without thinking or focusing, being alert with no thought. It is the Consciousness of all that is happening. Consciousness + Non-Consciousness equals Awareness.

Awareness is to be fully aware of everything but at the same time conscious of nothing - nothing in particular. Attaining a state of Non-Consciousness is about the shift from the mind to the soul; from data to wisdom. This is like walking a tightrope. It is good to be aware that you are on a tightrope. You can keep your balance when you are aware. You can make it across to the other side. It is also good to be non-conscious (not to experience) of just how high up you are. Or at that you are high up at all. That is why all tightrope walkers are told, "Don't look down."

Therefore, Witnessing is a state, and consciousness is a means towards Witnessing. In Witnessing, a moment finally comes when you can watch even your sleep. That is the ultimate in Witnessing. The body goes to sleep and there is still a witness awake, silently watching the body fast asleep. That is the ultimate in Witnessing. Right now just the opposite is the case: your body is awake but you are asleep. Then you will be awake and your body will be asleep. Your Consciousness is Consciousness; it is alertness, that is its very nature. If you begin to be conscious, you achieve Witnessing. Witnessing comes as a consequence of Consciousness. You cannot practice Witnessing; you can only practice Consciousness. Witnessing comes as a consequence, as a shadow, as a by-product.

So, Consciousness is a method to achieve Witnessing. Witnessing is a method to achieve or realize Awareness. Consciousness without any center is Awareness. So you move from the unaware existence that is matter or Prakrithi or Maya, towards Awareness. Between matter and Reality/Awareness, the difference is always of Consciousness. Ultimately, Awareness realizes Awareness! And the game it plays is called Life!

<<<Most people use Consciousness and Awareness as interchangeable words.  They argue that how can the Consciousness that is conscious of apparent objects be different from the Awareness that stands as the Awareness on its own, when no apparent objects are present. Such a position would be equivalent of suggesting that the screen that is present when the images of the film are present is a different screen that is present when the TV is turned off.  There are not two different kinds of Consciousness. Consciousness-at-rest and Consciousness-in-movement are not two different states. Consciousness-at-rest apparently gets activated and modulates itself as Consciousness-in-movement. There's only One Consciousness, either at rest or in an apparent movement.  As long as the terms are defined up front there is no problem, for language depends primarily on a consensus of meaning.>>>

How and when was the world created?..........

The purpose of Creation as in 'how' and 'when' can be asked provided there is a beginning. Something that has a beginning is an effect and so there can be a cause.  But Reality, as the only permanent entity, is Eternal meaning time, change and cause don't exist in Eternity. Eternity cannot be the cause for anything. So, there cannot be any cause for the Creation as such.

The question as to how and when was the world created is like a dream character asking how and when did the dream start. The dream started apparently in deep sleep when there was no time. The element or concept of time is only in phenomenality and part of the dream.  The rational mind sees Reality in terms of cause and effect, so it presumes that the cause and effect is true of Reality also. Mind does not realize it is just the way it perceives. So the cause and effect that seems to be true from the point of view of the mind does not apply to Eternity/Reality/Awareness.  The laws that operate in mind's world don't operate in the spiritual world.

Causation does not apply to Reality/Awareness because there are no two things there, one to cause another. So Reality can never ever "cause" a Creation!

Since we cannot deny the experiencing of the world, we can understand Creation in a different way...

To have a creation you need a cause. For example, to make a pot you need clay and a potter, someone with an idea and the energy to turn the clay into a pot. When we speak of the whole of Existence we say that the Cause is Reality/Awareness. But our metaphor breaks down when we try to apply it to Awareness and Existence because Awareness is Limitless or Non-Dual. In our example the potter and the clay are two different things. One supplies the substance and the other the intelligence and the energy.

But the Unchanging, Actionless Reality/Awareness cannot be split into two. It is not possible for anything to change its intrinsic nature. How can fire produce/become cold? Infinity can never "become" finite. So, it has to create in another clever way.

Reality/Awareness has to be both the cause and the effect, the potter and the pot. Normally, when we create something the substance undergoes a change. If we want to make cheese we start with a sweet liquid, milk, and end up with a sharp tasting solid.  But Reality/Awareness has to create by assuming another form without surrendering its intrinsic nature as Awareness. And this is possible only by dreaming/imagining.

For instance when you dream you remain the same and you create the dream world out of your own mind/Consciousness. You are the substance of the dream, you are the intelligence that creates the dream and you are the energy that makes the creation happen.  You are both the subject and the object, the cause and the effect.  The beauty of it is that because you are the apparent cause you are not affected by the effect.  The effect depends on you but you aren’t affected by it. Isn't it cool? It is like this: You may get cut in your night-dream but you are not affected by it in any way.

A spider’s web is the spider but the spider is not the web. The clay is always free of the pot but the pot is not free of the clay.  As the rope appears in the form of a snake in twilight and as the sleeping man appears to be doing in a dream world, so also Reality appears in the form of the world.  The gold doesn’t become a substance called ornament because the ornament is only an appearance with no actual existence. And before, during and after the appearance of the ornament, the gold remains the same. It is the same with Awareness.

So...In the highest understanding, Reality does not create or become the world but appears as such on account of the apparent limitation put on it by the mind in ignorance.  Creator/Creation is a need for the mind, because the mind cannot conceive Infinity and Eternity. Mind sees Eternity as time, Infinity as space and Reality as matter.  Reality/Awareness as Maya makes people (in their dreaming state) experience things in dreams without actually creating those dream objects. Similarly, Reality/Awareness as Maya also makes people (in their waking state) experience this waking world without actually creating the world! Maya, as you know, is the power within the Reality/Awareness that makes the impossible possible - which is life.

Since we cannot deny the hidden reality of the phenomenal world, here is an enlightened perspective...From the absolute standpoint of Awareness, there is nothing other than itself. From the relative standpoint of mind, the world is an appearance; it is a temporary modulation of Awareness. In Vedanthic tradition, it is called 'mithya,' meaning apparently real or dependently real. In actuality, world comes into existence every time a thought rises and goes out of existence every time a thought subsides! Mind/thought masterfully (and apparently) divides Reality in to two for experience! What a wonder! Therefore, it is more appropriate to call this so-called Creation as manifestation or projection or dream or superimposition. But remember: Even though the world is a relative or a second order reality, relative world has relative laws. So, respect those laws. If you run into a wall in your night-dream, you are going to get hurt as long as you are in that dream!

So...In your own knowing-experience/realization of Eternity (or when you wake up from this waking dream), you will know that nobody has created this world! Taking a famous metaphor from the Vedanthic tradition, the world is like a rope in twilight - appearing as a snake. God seen through a mind is the world and the world seen through Love is the God!

Does mind have a direct access to Awareness?..........

Mind has no direct access to Awareness!

- (From the aspect of Being or Sath) Nothing can rise higher than the source.  The higher can see and understand the lower and the lower cannot see the higher and understand it. This is one of the basic laws of Life. It is like mind can see an eye and eye can see an object; but an object cannot see an eye and eye cannot see the mind. So, Awareness can understand the mechanism of the mind but the mind cannot understand the nature of Awareness.  Because Awareness is prior to mind and (apparently) produced it. If Awareness was produced by mind, then it would have to have a beginning. But Awareness having a beginning (or even an ending) is never our experience and can never be our experience.

Mind is, thus, a subset of Awareness (a derivative or limitation of Awareness), not the other way round.  Mind cannot understand that from which it was born, being only a part of the whole.  Mind is within Awareness. It is like this: A three-dimensional cube cannot be accommodated into a two-dimensional plane. A two-dimensional plane cannot be accommodated into a one-dimensional point. Mind is one dimensional. Its dimension is time.  Awareness has no attributes; it is dimensionless. How can mind be accommodated into Awareness?

- (From the aspect of Consciousness or Chith) Mind is an ever-changing flow. It is not possible to know the one that never changes, i.e., Reality, through the mind.  Anything known through a changing medium will also be seen as changing, because the medium used for knowing is being imposed on all that is to be known. It is as if you were wearing sunglasses whose color went on changing.

- (From the aspect of Infinity or Aananda) Mind is in duality and the cause and effect relationship does not apply to the Absolute. Reality is Eternal and Infinite. Mind's capacity is limited. Mind cannot conceive eternal, infinite things.  When mind looks at the world through its own limitations of thought and perception, it sees eternity as time and then imagines causality, duration, choice, etc. and it sees infinity as space and then superimposes three dimensions on to the Reality. In Reality, contradictories become identities. Human reason cannot grasp Reality because it is crippled by the law of non-contradiction. Reality is not a person, but an Eternal Presence. Reality is Pure Love.  If we were to ask Reality why this Universe had been created, Reality would say that there is no desire, no Universe and no 'you' and there is nothing other than Reality.

Why?...Because how could an infinite being knows something that is finite? If it knew, the finiteness would displace the infiniteness of Reality and Reality would no longer be Reality. H2O, the essence of water, knows itself only as H2O irrespective of its forms - whether it is ice, water or steam.  So, the world exists for mind only.

Therefore, mind has no direct access to Awareness.  Mind converts everything into its own media. Mind sees eternity as time, infinity as space and Reality as matter.  Only still mind or no-mind can experience the Absolute.  What is a still mind? A still mind is the one that is aware of silence; being alert with no thought. And in that moment, 'why' question will be dissolved. Not that you will get an answer, but the question itself will disappear. And the ultimate (=non-mind) is when you "know" yourself as the Reality!

How is Reality in the objective world established?..........

Reality is established in the objective world in two ways:

1. By examining the objective world in an ascending order from the gross to the Absolute. When the gross is examined, it is reduced to mere thought forms, and thoughts in their turn are transformed into Pure Consciousness. Thus the world is nothing but the Absolute.

2. By tracing the expression of the Absolute down to the gross world, in the descending
order.  In this process, yourself, the One Reality, seems to split itself into two – namely
generic thought and Consciousness, the perceiver of the thought. At this stage there is no bondage, because there is no other thing in existence except yourself and thought, and your experience is only that you know.  You see yourself as thought, I AM. It cannot actually be called a thought either, because from the standpoint of Consciousness, there cannot be anything other than Consciousness, and hence there is no thought.

A thought to be a thought must have an object, and therefore thought can exist only in the mind’s realm. In the plane where the generic thought is supposed to exist, Consciousness alone obtains to provide an object to thought. But it is called a thought only when looked at from down below.  This generic and subtle thought (I AM), which is not thought by itself, next begets I AM THIS (identifying with a body-mind-sense complex) which then leads to innumerable other thoughts and thus the world comes into existence, out of this Pure Consciousness.  Therefore, looking from the top or from the bottom, the world is found to be nothing but the Reality.

Aathma: The unconditioned ‘I’ or Awareness.
First emanation: ‘I know I am.’ The most generic thought. Here I am the witness ('saakshi') of the generic thought.
Second emanation: Then you come to the particular thoughts – including time, space and causality – establishing the whole realm of the mind. Immediately, you become the ‘thinker’ in the triad (triputi of the thinker, thinking and thought).
Third emanation: Further down, you become the 'feeler' and the ‘perceiver’, in a world of sense perceptions.
Fourth emanation: Finally, you come down to be a ‘doer’, in a gross world of bodies and actions.

This is the order in which the unconditioned ‘I’ or Pure Awareness apparently manifests itself in different stages.  And to return to the same unconditioned state, you have to ascend in the same order, relinquishing the accretions one by one.

Is Awareness an object?..........

Awareness is not an object, not a person. It is the principle that is knowing an object. Awareness is that which experiences itself as 'I.' Though it is not an object yet it is known, because it is self-luminous. It is like asking, "Can the eyes see themselves directly?" You cannot literally see your eyes with your actual eyes, but still they are present and make all seeing of objects possible. It is similar with Awareness. It is present and making all knowing possible.

The outer light, lighting up objects outside, and the inner light of Awareness have something in common in their characteristics. Both are imperceptible to the sense organs or the mind. The existence of the outer light is affirmed by the fact that objects are lit up in its presence.  It is a scientific fact that we never see the pure light, we only see the reflected light. Reflected light reminds you of pure light. Pure light lights up objects and at the same time lights up itself. It is the same with Awareness.

How does Awareness see the world?..........

As a separate-self, you go out to an object. As Awareness, you let the object come to you, let the experience come to you!

- Sudhakar V Reddy

For Further Reading:

Esoterics of GOD-The Reality! And How to Realize IT?
https://sudhakarvreddy.blogspot.com/2018/04/esoterics-of-god.html

Esoterics of Death and Life After Death!
https://sudhakarvreddy.blogspot.com/2017/12/esoterics-of-death-and-life-after-death.html

Esoterics of the Seven Bodies of Man!
https://sudhakarvreddy.blogspot.com/2013/09/esoterics-of-seven-bodies-mysteries-of_2.html

Esoterics of Mind..........

Let us first define few words before we get into the esoterics of mind. There is lot of confusion in the spiritual circles about the usage of these words, so it is important to clarify them.  What is Awareness? Awareness is the one that is aware, but without the status of an awarer/knower. Awareness is Pure, meaning dimensionless/propertyless. It is Infinite and is at rest. It cannot move, cannot talk; it simply IS. Awareness knows but it does not know itself as "something." According to Vedantha, whatever you can imagine and be aware of is not Awareness! Awareness is "I."

What is Consciousness? Consciousness is Awareness in an apparent movement, it is Awareness seemingly enclosed, a soul. It is a Reflection of Awareness. Consciousness is that by which I know that "I am," or simply, Consciousness is "I am." Consciousness is Awareness that knows/feels itself as "something" which is impersonal. So, Awareness and Consciousness are fundamentally one and the same. These two words are used synonymously.

What is thought? Thought or imagination is the focusing of Consciousness upon anything other than itself. Thought=Consciousness+Object. What is mind? Mind is the shape/activity/modulation (name-and-form) that Consciousness seemingly takes to experience a finite world.  Mind=Consciousness-Localized. Mind=Ego (the first/root thought)+other thoughts (of objects). Mind=Consciousness+Subtle Body+Object. What is an ego? Ego is the mind under the spell of ignorance. Ego is not you, it is an idea of you. Ego=Consciousness+Subtle Body. Ego is "I am this."

And what is Experience? Experience=Consciousness+Mind. Experience just happens in the presence of Awareness. Experience is knowing God in relative terms.

With this background, let us shift our focus to mind. All we have in life is matter, mind and Awareness/Consciousness. Mind is also matter, a subtle matter; both are inert ('jada') by nature. However, mind can reflect and manifest Consciousness unlike matter. That's the main difference. Mind is in between matter and Consciousness.  To understand the relationship between Consciousness and mind here is an analogy. The mind is charged with Consciousness, as a copper wire is charged with electricity. The wire becomes live when it allows the movement of electric energy through it. Likewise, the mind becomes live, and one says "the mind moves."  The mind knows in the same way as a wire is to electricity. The electricity is not wire; even so, Consciousness is not mind. Yet, when one touches the wire, one receives a shock, because the force and the medium cannot be separated from each other.  In the same way, we may say, the mind is Consciousness. It is not Consciousness in one way, and it is Consciousness in another way. Mind seemingly knows.

Ultimate Reality/Brahman is defined as Existence-Consciousness-Infinity/Aananda. Matter (a stone) can only manifest the Existence aspect, mind (a common man) can manifest both the Existence aspect and the Consciousness aspect and an enlightened being or a sage can manifest Existence-Consciousness and the Aananda aspect as well, all together.  That's the difference.  Aananda/Peace/Happiness/Completeness is our nature.  Mind is, basically, a thought, all thoughts. If individuals in a gathering are thoughts, mind is called the crowd. So, mind is a thought which is inert in itself because a thought is known. One thought can never know another thought since they are separate or discontinuous; only one thought appears at one time.  Mind is called 'anthahkarana' in Sanskrit meaning an internal instrument of subtle nature. It is an inert reflector or conductor of Consciousness.  So, mind is a thought that seemingly knows an object! The thought which thinks that it is knowing, is simply another inert thought in succession!

In Advaitha Vedanthic understanding, there are four dimensions or categories to thought/mind in its function.  These dimensions of thought/mind are known as ego (ahamkaara), reasoning and determining faculty, buddhi (self-consciousness, higher mind, Working-mind or impersonal mind), lower mind or intellect (manas) and memory (chittha or chittham).  It is important to note that these are not divisions of mind but functions. The mind is called with four different names depending on the function it performs.

In English language, everything comes under one banner called "mind." Anthahkarana is a reflecting medium for Pure Awareness (Pure Awareness cannot take part). The Reflected Awareness that can take part in an individual is called "chidhaabhasa." Buddhi (knower/'pramaatha'), ahamkaara (doer/'kartha') and manas (feeler/'bhoktha') are called the three centers of anthahkarana and belong to the subtle body.  Chitta or memory resides in the causal body to which buddhi has access to.  The three channels of experience corresponding to these three centers are: thought, perception and feeling. So, what is the main function of the mind?...Mind facilitates relative experience inline with these three centers/channels of thought, perception and feeling and safeguards the body from the environment. And the soul uses mind and body as tools to know and feel God in relative terms! That is the whole game!

The part of anthahkarana which has the sense of "I am this" and which feels itself to be a distinct, independent, separate entity is called ego, ahamkaara.  Ego is a mixture of Consciousness and body.  Ego is the First Thought, thought mixed with Consciousness, that is aware of the rest of the thoughts (at the same time).  Ego is nothing more than a thought with "me" attached to it.  Ego comprises of buddhi, lower mind/intellect and memory.

Manas interacts with the external world and takes in sensory impressions and data and processes the data.  Manas questions and doubts; it is intellect.  Intellect is the lower mind which builds up the logical chains.  It is a merry-go-round. It is also the place for feelings or emotions. Some people call it the Heart, the wisdom of which is intrinsic to you. Manas is a layer of mind (like you have an accumulation of vegetable manas, animal manas, as many as different stages of evolution as you have passed). In Sanskrit texts, manas is defined as "sankalpa vikalpaathmikam manah."

Reasoning (buddhi) is the ability to learn, to discriminate and to make wise decisions.  Buddhi is not intuition but "that exercise of thinking faculty which distinguishes between error and truth."  Buddhi literally means 'that which distinguishes the ultimate reality from the rest.' When such discrimination between truth and falsehood by the method of reasoning is confined to the empirical plane, it is intellect, logic, but when extended to the philosophic plane (totality) it is reason. In Sanskrit texts, buddhi is defined as "nishchayaathmikam buddhi."  Buddhi applied to only waking state is called, logic, intellect. Buddhi applied to all states, waking, dream and deep sleep, is called reasoning.

Buddhi is known as the higher mind; it is mind with a direction; it is impersonal. Buddhi is sometimes described as the mirror that is able to reflect Pure Consciousness. If the mirror is dirty, it cannot reflect Consciousness very well. So if buddhi is clouded, then manas has a habit of continuing to question, seeking good instruction. Then it often listens to whatever is speaking the loudest, which is the wants, wishes, desires, attractions and aversions stored in the memory bank.  Buddhi is the judge. Intellect is the advocate arguing his case. Intellect or logic is based on waking state alone whereas reasoning takes into account all three states. A state of strong emotions shrinks/clouds buddhi.

If people ask why should reason arrogate the final appeal to itself: Your use of the word "why" is sufficient proof that you are seeking a reason for your satisfaction. Thus unconsciously you make the reason highest. Reasoning, buddhi, is the universal principle.  People who translate the word buddhi as "intuition" or "intellect" are wrong.  Buddhi is the highest reason, that which discriminates between truth and falsehood.

The memory bank, the storehouse is basically the subconscious/unconscious mind and is known as chittha or chittham. Chittham is called the whole of mind. It is called chittham because it is not part and parcel of the body, but part and parcel of Consciousness. Consciousness in Sanskrit is called chaithanyam, chethana or chith. Because chittha or chittham clings to chethana it is chittham. Chittham (memory) is the place where all streams of thoughts arise and recede back (causal plane or Maya or Universal Ignorance).  When mind simply moves about, rambles without any sense of direction; when it is unfocused, it is called chittha.

Brain is a bio-computer. The contents in the brain is conscious mind. The brain is only a container, and each life you get a new container. The old content is shifted as a layer surrounding your soul/causal body/the seemingly enclosed awareness. All these layers form your memory. To reiterate, Mind is identified by four different names depending on its four different functions. Again, these are not divisions, but different names for the same mind. Ego, higher intellect, lower intellect and memory. In Sanskrit, or in Vedanthic lingo, ahamkaara, buddhi, manas and chittham. Let us now look at the mechanics or interactions of these four functions of the mind.

Ahamkaara is your sense of identity; sense of "I-ness."  There is nothing wrong in identifying yourself with a body-mind complex without a personal doership. But this wave of I-ness aligns itself or forms partnerships with the data or impressions in chittha (causing them to be colored), and, in turn, with manas, which then responds to the desires being sought by this seeming individuality.  This ahamkaara has got three personalities: gnyaatha/pramaatha, kartha & bhoktha. Knower, doer/perceptor and experiencer/feeler. This knower, doer and experiencer group is called the "fake-I."

Once your ahamkaara takes on a strong personal identity "me-ness", your buddhi functions only in that context - around that axis and becomes a slave to ahamkaara.  This identity can be of a race, a nation, a community, a religion, etc. It is important to function beyond this type of enslaved or lower buddhi. Thus, it is said that purifying buddhi is the most important task in the path of meditation and self-realization. Although buddhi is used as a tool for deepening experience in meditation, it was buddhi which carved up the universe in the first place, seeing division where there is unity. To discriminate between buddhi and Pure Consciousness is one of the final stages in the meditative/discriminative journey.

Mind may be classified into two types: Thinker-mind and Working-mind. Thinker-mind is a conceptualizing mind, the "me." What is absent after enlightenment is the Thinker-mind, the "me" distinguishing itself from the other. The conceptualizing Thinker-mind, the mind which draws upon memories and project fears, hopes and ambitions: that is absent. The Working-mind/Soul is what remains.  Working-mind is merely concerned with what is happening, with what it's doing (Functioning-mind).  The Thinker-mind is what creates problems. The Thinker-mind works either in the past or the future. The Working-mind is concerned with the present moment.  The Working-mind may draw memory for its present work but it doesn't project anything into future. It draws on the memory only to the extent of the job at hand. That is the big difference. Thinker-mind contains knowledge, but it will not contain wisdom; wisdom lies outside the thinker-mind; wisdom resides within the soul.

Consider an animal in danger. As soon as there is danger, the animal senses that danger and reacts to it. Once the danger is over, the animal mind doesn't think "Such a thing might arise in future, what evasive action should I now take?" The danger is over and the matter is finished. This is Working-mind.  In Working-mind, the identification with the body is there; it is absolutely necessary.  If you are identified with your body, with the sense of personal doership and think that you are the experiencer, that you are the doer, then there is bondage and the Thinker-mind gets involved. So our seeking, spiritual saadhana, must be to go from a Thinker-mind to Working-mind; a knower-mind to a being-mind!

There are few common, but important, questions related to mind that need to be answered here to clear any misconceptions...1. Is mind the same as brain?...No, mind is not the same as the brain.  The brain is a physical/gross part of the body. Every child is born with a fresh brain but not with a fresh/conscious mind.  What you call the mind is really an energy. It is...thought. And thought is an energy, not a gross object.  Your brain is a gross object.  Brain is a physical, biochemical mechanism—the largest, most sophisticated, but not the only—mechanism in the human body, with which the body translates, or converts, the energy which is your thought into physical impulses.  Brain is a transformer, the seat of the mind. If Consciousness is electricity, mind is the software and brain is the hardware. 2. Can brain produce thought?...No, brain is inert matter and can never produce thoughts which are subtler than itself. An effect (such as brain) is a grossified cause. An effect can never illumine its cause.

3. Can brain or mind produce Consciousness?...No, brain or mind can never produce Consciousness. Brain or thought is experienced; it does not do experiencing.  How could something which is perceiving (like Consciousness) be made of that which is being perceived (like brain or thought)?  How could something which is intermittent (like brain or thought) can give birth to eternity (like Consciousness)? How could something which is changing (like the limited brain or thought) can produce a thing that is changeless (like the Unlimited Consciousness)? 4. Why do thoughts arise?...Thoughts arise because of ignorance, our false identification with a body-mind complex (our first thought or the root thought).  The ego, the first thought, seems to exist only because we attend to other thoughts instead of to ourselves alone, and thoughts seem to exist only because we (as this ego) perceive them.

5. How do thoughts arise?...Thoughts arise because of the thinker. Thinker (ego) seems to create the thoughts simultaneously by perceiving them. It is not important to know why or how thoughts arise.  Simply investigate the 'I' for whom these thoughts arise! 6. What is stillness of mind?...Stillness is Absolute Silence. If you are aware of your silence, you are in stillness. 7. Can we control thoughts?...Mind is no more than the series of thoughts. And if you try to stop thoughts they will never be stopped, because the very effort to stop it is, itself, a thought. The best way to control thoughts is to watch them! 8. Can mind know Awareness?...No, only Awareness knows Awareness. Mind need to be used to remove ignorant thoughts by enlightening/knowledgeable thoughts to reveal Awareness. 9. Is feeling a thought?...A feeling is a wordless thought, a pure thought. 10. Is emotion a thought?..Emotion is an amplified thought. 11. What is the difference between thought and beingness?...Thought does, beingness IS. So, BE yourself, knowingly!

Esoterics of Awareness?..........

Awareness is the Independent, Infinite and the Intelligent Principle that is aware! Whatever experiences itself as "I" (like in "I am" or "I know") is the one that is aware. Awareness is that unlimited, open, empty, space-like field or presence in which all experience appears, with which all experience is known and out of which all experience is made.  Awareness is the Undeniable/Uncontradictory Reality/Truth that cannot be externalized or known in a subject-object relationship. In other words, whatever you can imagine and be aware of - is not Awareness! Since Awareness is Pure, it can take part in experience only indirectly or by reflection. Just like the sun reflecting on the moon and the moon enjoying the world with its moonlight which is nothing but the sunlight.  Since you cannot become infinite while in a body, Infinite Awareness is available only to be claimed as you!

Awareness is not an object, not a person. It is the principle or presence that is knowing the object. Though it is not an object, it is known directly because it is self-luminous. It is like asking, "Can the eyes see themselves?" You cannot literally see your eyes with your actual eyes, but still they are present and make all seeing of objects possible. It is similar with Awareness. It is present and making all knowing/knowledge possible. To be aware is the nature of Awareness. Awareness is on 24/7. If you are aware, you must exist and if you exist, you must be aware.  Since you are the same 'I' that existed continuously (whether in deep sleep, anesthesia or coma), 'I' must have been continuously aware.  An unaware Awareness is an illogical and self-contradictory concept. World minus Awareness is, obviously, no-existence and meaningless. So, you will do better if you think of yourself as Awareness having a body-mind, not a body-mind having Awareness.

The outer light, lighting up objects outside, and the inner light of Awareness have something in common in their characteristics. An important analogy. Both are imperceptible to the sense organs or the mind. The existence of the outer light is affirmed by the fact that objects are lit up in its presence.  It is a scientific fact that we never see the pure light, we only see the reflected light. Reflected light reminds you of pure light. Pure light lights up objects and at the same time lights up itself. It is the same with Awareness. Awareness is always there as you, but you are ignoring it, or ignoring your real-self, to experience the not-real world because you are obsessed with the not-real or the mithya world. We are simply missing the fact, just like we are missing the screen while watching a movie. When you are seeing an object in light, aren't you ignoring the light itself and say that you are seeing the object alone?

Here is a quote from Kashmiri Shaivism: "Our Self/Awareness is the most obvious than the most evident of things and yet most concealed than the most hidden of things!"

Tejobindu Upanishad has defined God/Brahman/Self as Sath-Chith-Aananda or Being-Knowing-Loving.  Awareness means the ‘presence of that which is aware.' It is a word in which the two fundamental qualities of our Self – Being and Knowing – are recognized as one.  And just as empty space cannot resist or be agitated by the appearance or activity of any object within it, so the open, empty space of Awareness cannot resist or be disturbed by any appearance of the mind, body or world, irrespective of their particular quality or condition.  This inherent absence of resistance is nothing but the experience of happiness/peace/love. So, the word Awareness also points to the Aananda or Loving aspect of Brahman indirectly.

Since the Reality/Brahman/Awareness can only be One, the Consciousness that is perceiving through all the minds must be the same as this One Awareness. Since the Reality/Brahman/Awareness can only be One, the universe must be a product of this One Awareness. So, do not think of Awareness as part of your mind alone. It is universal and devoid of objective qualities.  Awareness is Consciousness knowing none other than itself, because all there is, is Awareness!

There are five features of Awareness you need to remember which are just the opposite of the five features of the world. Let us first visit the five features of the world: 1. World is an object of experience. 2. It is material. 3. It is endowed with attributes/qualities. 4. World is subject to change. 5. World is temporary. The five features of Awareness which are just the opposite of the world's are: 1. Awareness is the subject of experience. It is not a part, product or property of the body. 2. Awareness is an independent, self-shining, knowing and spiritual principle which pervades and enlivens the body. It is 'in' the body but not 'of' the body. 3. It is not limited by the boundaries of the body. It is devoid of attributes/qualities. 4. Awareness survives the death of the body. It is non-changing and eternal.  Even after the dissolution of the world or 'pralayam,' non-transactional Awareness will continue. 5. Awareness is all-pervading and not accessible to anyone. That means, you cannot physically separate Awareness from any medium, just like you cannot separate an object from space. This also means that Awareness is not available for transaction in the absence of a body.

How do you, then, claim Awareness?...Awareness is realized or claimed through the Complete Feeling of Knowing Who You Really Are; Awareness is the Complete Feeling of what you have Known and Experienced as Love/Aananda.  It is one thing to know something, it is quite another thing to experience it, and still another to feel it. Only feeling, feeling of love, feeling of oneness, produces Complete Awareness. Knowing, alone, can produce only partial awareness. Experience, alone, can produce only partial awareness. You can know that you are loving, but when you experience your self being loving, then your awareness is made complete through the living of that feeling. Remember: If you like to feel love, let someone else experience the same feeling of love through you. That's the only genuine way for you to experience and feel love. And, feeling is the language of the soul.  Your soul cares only about what you are "being" while you are doing whatever you are doing.  It is a state of beingness the soul is after, not a state of doingness. Soul is after the feeling of love!

So, Awareness of the self is achieved through the Complete Feeling of your self being Who You Really Are - Being plus Knowing. As Awareness is a twofold process, there are two paths by which it is reached. A soul arrives at Complete Knowing along the path of the spiritual world, and at Complete Experiencing along the path of the physical world. Both paths are needed, and that is why there are two worlds. Put them together, and you have the perfect environment within which to create Complete Feeling of Love, which produces Complete Awareness. What is Complete Awareness?...Being-Knowing-Loving. Knowing of your own Being, as it is. So, Awareness is not merely observing, but noticing at a very high level of consciousness exactly what is happening and exactly what is "so"...Right Here, Right Now; not only around you, but within you as well. Awareness is to be fully aware of being un-aware.

In other words, Awareness is Consciousness without thinking or focusing, being alert with no thought or, more precisely, free of thought. It is the Consciousness of all that is happening.  This is like walking a tightrope up high, from the top of one building to another, let us say. It is good to be aware that you are on a tightrope. You can keep your balance when you are aware. You can make it across to the other side. It is also good to be un-aware (or not to experience) of just how high up you are. Or at that you are high up at all. That is why all tightrope walkers are told, "Don't look down." Because once you are conscious of something in particular on the ground (or the "other"), you have fallen to the ground! Complete Awareness is living in Non-Duality, or living in duality with no personal doership or no "other", like an enlightened being, like a sage. A sage is always in the state of being aware of being aware. So, in step 1, know yourself first (which is Self-Knowledge or Aathma Gnyaana, hard and fast knowledge that I am Awareness), and then, in step 2, feel yourself in and through the world as yourself (Universal-Knowledge, Brahman Gnyaana, there is nothing other than Awareness) which creates Complete Feeling of Oneness or Complete Awareness to claim that you are that Pure Love or Pure Awareness! I am Awareness is step 1 and all there is, is Awareness is step 2.

To quote Krishna from Bhagavad Geetha 6.29: "A true sage, with equal eye, sees all beings in him and himself in all beings!" ...That is Pure Love!

The following are some pointers towards a better understanding of Awareness: 1. Your I-sense has not changed throughout your life experiences. That "I-sense" is Awareness. 2. Do you need any mediation or effort to be aware? No...That means Awareness is your intrinsic nature. 3. What are thoughts, feelings, sensations and perceptions moving in and out of? Awareness...You, as the knower of thoughts, feelings, sensations and perceptions, are Awareness. 4. 'I' is the unchanging, underlying, common factor for all the three states of experience - waking, dream and deep sleep. That 'I' is not any body-mind (because you are aware of the body-mind); it is Awareness. 5. Memory is only possible if there is an enduring/constant/unchanging knowing element which is common to both the experiences. 6. The distance between you and Awareness is zero. 7. To see your eyes you need a mirror. But to know that you can see, all you need is seeing. You see means you are a seer. Similarly, you are aware means you are awarer, or more precisely, Awareness! And Awareness is One without a second! Let me ask you this, "Are you aware?" The answer is obviously yes. Now, "Are you aware that you are aware?" The answer is hopefully yes. So, there you are. You are Awareness!

Esoterics of "I"..........

What is "I?" "I" is the most common and the simplest word for the Ultimate Reality, Brahman/Aathma or, simply, Awareness. The religious name for "I" is God. There are basically and apparently three 'I's in our day-to-day life. They are in the forms of I, I AM and I AM THIS; In Vedanthic tradition they are 'Aham', 'Ayam' and 'Ayam Idham.' "I" is the Original/Pure Awareness, the true "I." It is Awareness-at-rest. It is Totality, Reality. I is identical to I.  I is Awareness always aware (just by being) but has no body and not available for transaction. So IT is actually not even an I, because there is no "other" in IT. We are calling IT an I just to talk about IT.  This open Awareness without a body-mind complex, therefore, does not have Self-Awareness.  Self-Awareness is the awareness of itself as "I."  I is aware but not aware as 'something.' I cannot say "I" because there is no other that exists as thou.  In Manifestation, the I apparently "becomes" the I AM. I AM is the reflected aspect of Awareness-at-rest. The Original/Pure I cannot claim/say "I AM Awareness." IT requires thought or mind to claim, know or experience.  It is now Awareness in an apparent movement (Awareness plus energy, we may call this Consciousness or soul).

If I is the pure sun light, I AM is the moon light and I AM THIS is the moon.  Pure light is invisible until it hits an object like moon. I AM is also called the Spiritual or the Absolute Realm where you know anything only in an absolute way. Awareness (which yearns for the experience of simultaneous knowing+loving of Who Really It Is) cannot experience all that Awareness is within the Spiritual Realm alone, because in that realm there is nothing that Awareness is not.  Everything is Light and you cannot experience Light without darkness, for it is Awareness's impulse to experience itself by expressing itself in infinite ways in and as duality.

It is like this. Eyes can see but in order to see, claim or experience themselves, they require a mirror.  Awareness does not require mind to be Awareness but it requires mind to claim that "I AM Awareness."  So, the first and foremost transaction that happens when Awareness is seemingly enclosed within a body-mind complex is “I AM."  The first/seemingly-enclosed Awareness without any subjectivity, I AM, is called Self-Awareness.  I AM is the subjectivity without the slightest trace of objectivity (Awareness now knows Awareness, feels impersonal presence as 'something').  "I AM" is the presence of (an impersonal) sense-of-presence whereas "I" is the absence of both the presence of sense-of presence and the absence of sense-of-presence! Very important to understand!  I AM is Awareness experiencing itself through the subtlest thought called 'pragnya' that produces experiential bliss. Pra-gnya means prior to gnyaana or prior to thought which is the link to the thought-free Pure Awareness/Aathma/Brahman. Pragnyaanam means Complete/Whole Knowledge.  Aithareya Upanishad proclaims: "Pragnyaanam Brahma!"

Self-Awareness is the knowledge that one is aware (or one knows) of being aware. Self-Awareness is Self-Knowledge which does not require any means of knowledge because it is direct.  Self-Awareness is the form with which Brahman/Aananda is experienced directly.  I can only recognize and express itself through a body-mind complex.  I is 'prior' to I AM because it is aware of I AM (just like sun light is aware of moon light). However they are not two, but the same potential. The I AM Awareness is not born out of mind or intellect (mind/thought is discontinuous, I AM is continuous). Remember: The open Awareness without body-mind complex does not have Self-Awareness, but the very same Awareness (seemingly) enclosed in a body-mind develops Self-Awareness, I AM. I AM is the ultimate, continuous and the impersonal sense of presence while in a body!

So, the feeling I AM or I AM PRESENT is also Awareness, Awareness-in-movement. There is no person in just I AM which is strictly impersonal. In the absence of me, I AM is.  I AM is the thoughtless aware state, 'Aham-Asthi.' I AM is not a thought or concept, it is the sense or nature of our being just like our deep sleep. Deep sleep is an I AM state. I AM is the field of 'being' that exists 'prior' to thinking. I AM, 'pragnya-vritthi', is neither exclusively a thought (since thought is discontinuous) nor exclusively Pure Awareness (because Pure Awareness is not even aware of itself as 'something'); but it does point/refer to Pure Awareness. Pragnya, I AM, is Awareness without objects but is endowed with the potential of objects (Pure Awareness has no objects even in their seed form). Pragnya means the source of knowing; a seemingly Enclosed Consciousness.

I AM is the highest form of Truth in Manifestation.  The very first feeling when you wake up from sleep before you identify yourself with a body/mind and then know the world - is I AM. I AM is the portal between Manifestation/Mind and the Ultimate Reality.  I AM is the portal (a dimensionless point) through which Awareness localizes itself as the mind and also the same portal through which the mind passes in the opposite direction as it investigates its essential nature. At the portal/gate of I AM (I know that I AM), through Self-Inquiry, grab the knowledge that I AM Limitless Awareness (I know what I AM)! This is Self-Knowledge, Aathma Gnyaana. The next step is to know that there is only Self, Aaathma, and nothing other than Self, which is Brahman Gnyaana!  Mandukya Upanishad says: "Ayam Aathma Brahman!"...meaning I AM=Aathma=Brahman.

I AM THIS WORLD is Universal Mind/Universal Ego: Creator, Personified-God, or Eeshwara. I AM THIS BODY is the Individual Identified Awareness, 'Ahamkaara', ego with a body/mind organism and having the notion of I as a doer/experiencer. Ego is the first/primary/root thought that Awareness apparently identifies itself with a body. Awareness as mind splits the Impersonal Experiencing into two parts: a subject here experiencing an object out there so it can experience the experience in a much more closer and detailed fashion. This primary thought later substantiates it with further thoughts and feelings which give the impression that this duality is solid, real. By the time one is a teenager, this view of experience (as "I am this body") has been so instilled into him; the mis-identification, then, is unshakeable.

I AM is Peace, I AM is deep sleep, but I AM THIS BODY is illusion/misery, a product of genes and conditioning. Remember: An individual and the Creator-God enjoy the same level of reality as they both are thoughts. When the concept of an individual separate-self or ego disappears, the concepts of the Creator-God and the world also disappear with it. I AM THIS dissolves into I AM and then I AM dissolves into I or THAT. I AM THAT.  Chandhogya Upanishad says: "Thath Tvam Asi!"

To clarify further: 'Prior' to deep sleep, there is the I (I is bodiless Pure Awareness, to avoid some confusion here, let us call it THAT). In deep sleep there is I AM THAT (and there is nothing other than THAT) for a sage ('gnyaani') and I AM for a common man. In waking-dream or in night-dream, there is I AM THAT (and there is nothing other than THAT) for the sage and I AM THIS BODY (ahamkaara, ego) for the common man. Ahamkaara/ego (which is that I am a separate thinker/doer/feeler) is missing in the sage. However, he still identifies with a body for the day-to-day living (I AM) but with an uprooted personal doership. In actuality, when we all say "I," we refer to THAT only because there is only one "I." Most of the times, we do not realize it. That's all!

The sage or the common man cannot "be" THAT as long as they live in a body (whether in a gross body or a subtle body or a causal body). The sage "loses" his subtle and causal bodies upon Self-Realization and loses his gross body when its 'praarabhdha' karma ends, whereas the common man "keeps" the subtle and causal bodies after the physical death of the gross body (which will then apparently "cause" a re-birth). The sage has understood that he is never born and never dies! He has always been Pure Awareness, I, Aham. Aham as in Brihadaaranyaka Upanishad's "Aham Brahmaasmi!"  In other words, the true and the only "I" is the "I" that claims "I AM Brahman!"

Esoterics of Maya..........

Upanishads have defined the Ultimate Reality, Brahman, as Sathyam, Gnyaanam, Anantham or Existence-Consciousness-Infinity. So by definition, Brahman is Changeless or Actionless because if it changes, or disappears and reappears, what it disappeared into would be more real and, therefore, more absolutely true than Brahman would be. Therefore, Brahman, as the Absolute or Ultimate Reality, cannot change and, hence, cannot create the world. Then what does?...Maya, in the presence of Brahman! But, you may ask why? Well, why not? If Brahman was unable to create, we could not say that Brahman is Limitless or Infinity, right? So, why not? Well, then, what is Maya?  Let us dig deeper.  Maya is an important and also an intricate subject/concept to be understood.

Maya is the mysterious power of Brahman which makes the Real appear as something which it is not. Maya is an impersonal, insentient, inert, material principle that is neither existent nor non-existent. So, Maya apparently exists "prior" to Creation with Brahman; the material principle and the Consciousness principle together. They are inseparable even though Maya is a second order or a dependent Reality. You cannot separate ornament from gold, but gold exists on its own without the ornament, that's the analogy. Maya makes the impossible possible. The presence of Brahman plus Maya creates the world out of itself! It is more accurate to say that the world appears in Brahman and as Brahman. Maya is also known as the Universal Mind, the Universal Ignorance, the Universal Causal Body or Nature ('Prakrithi').

Vedantha defines Maya as "Avyaakritha Naama-Rupam," the Unmanifest Names-and-Forms which becomes the cause of the manifest names-and-forms.  You may ask, Brahman should not have any parts at all. How is Maya a part? The answer is that a not-real part or an apparently-real part or mithya-part being mithya is as good as not a part. What is mithya cannot be counted or taken as substantial.  It is experienced but cannot be counted, like the shadow of the body, which is inseparable from the body. Shadow will have all the features of the body but cannot be counted as a second entity. Shadow cannot exist without the body, but body can exist without the shadow. So what is the relationship between Brahman and Maya?...None! Shadow is body but body is not the shadow.

Maya operates in three modes or three energies. These are known as 'gunas' or ropes in Vedantha. The three aspects/powers/energies of Maya are: 1. The power of projection or imagination (Vikshepa Shakthi, Praana Shakthi, Kriya Shakthi, Icchha Shakthi...projection of what is false or error, rajas, the energy principle), 2. The power of concealment, resistance or veiling (Aavarana Shakthi, Dravya Shakthi...concealment of what is true, thamas; aavarana=cloud, the material principle) and 3. The power of grace, the revealing power, the balancing power (Prakaasha Shakthi, Gnyaana Shakthi, Creator, Grace, Eeshwara, sathva, the knowledge principle) which controls the other two powers. Sathva is the guna that hangs on to Sath (Truth). Brahman can only reflect and manifest in sathva mind as existence and consciousness. Brahman can only manifest in matter as mere existence.

The first two powers are part of ignorance ('avidhya') and the last one is part of knowledge ('vidya'). Ignorance and knowledge both reside in Maya/Mind! The projecting power creates everything from the subtle universe to the gross universe and the veiling power hides the truth. This is very similar to our individual dream. Waker's mind is sathva, dream is rajas and the ignorance with which the dream-character operates is thamas. A sage (upon receiving grace through pure sathva) overcomes the veiling power and sees the real as real, but still enjoys the projecting power like a lucid waker. For him, the world is real as Brahman. With respect to the rope-snake example...Failure to see it's a rope is veiling, Aavarana, jumping to the conclusion it's a snake is projection, Vikshepa, and seeing the rope as rope is Prakaasha/Gnyaana.

To dwell on these three forces of Maya...The creation of any object always involves three aspects: knowledge which comes from the light principle, sathva, activity which comes from active or energetic principle, rajas and inert matter which comes from the principle of inertia, thamas.  Thamas - inertia - is the element of resistance. If there was no thamas, nothing in the world remains static.  If you were to throw a rock in the air, it would keep moving for eternity. Rajas is the force of movement, it is the opposite of thamas.  Thamas stops all movement and also conceals the truth.  Rajas generates movement.  Sathva is the third quality, the balancing principle. It is like a triangle with two corners at the base and one above. Sathva is the corner at the top of the triangle. One may say that sathva balances the two corners at the base of the triangle.

Sathva, the balancing force, is referred to as the controlling/sustaining/neutral power (=Vishnu), rajas as the projecting/generating power (=Brahma), and thamas as the concealing/resisting/destructive/rejunivating power (=Shiva) in yogic/religious tradition. GOD stands for Generative, Operative and Dissoluting powers.  Whenever the balance among these three gunas/energies of the Material Principle is disturbed for any reason, Brahman apparently manifests the world through Maya.

Maya functions through two dominant modes of ignorance: root ignorance or simply ignorance ('moolaavidhya', 'kaarana agnyaana', causal ignorance, root ignorance, veiling, caused by 'thamas') and individual ignorance ('sthoola-avidhya', 'kaarya agnyaana', false projection, error, misunderstanding, confusion, lack of clarity, caused by 'rajas'). Root ignorance is the cause of "Creation." Our reactions to external objects are the cause of individual ignorance.

Maya also means appearance, as if something appears to be one way, but is really another. Maya is appearance without any origination or birth.  Maya feels real for those who are in it; is indescribable for those trying to understand it; non-existent for those who have gone beyond it. Maya should fulfill four conditions: that whose existence is negated, that whose origination (birth) is negated, that whose experience and appearance are accepted and the cause of the appearance and existence is the ignorance.  The best example that is given for Maya is darkness. The existence and origination of darkness cannot be established. But it is experienced. Maya and the world are similar.

The literal meaning of the word Maya is 'not that which is.'  Maya is experientially existent but factually non-existent. Maya is little different than illusion (ill-vision, error-vision, misperception due to senses, duality) and also delusion (dual-vision, irrational, 'moha', misbelief, retention of a wrong notion even when you have an opportunity to know the truth or even when you are presented with conflicting evidence, dualism).  Illusion and delusion are both distortions of Reality. In the former case you perceive the world as other than it is because the evidence is deceptive; in the latter case you believe the world is other than it is, despite the opportunity to test the evidence you’re presented with. (To clarify further...It is delusional to think that the illusion in our mind is a reality that is outside of our mind; illusion is misperception and delusion is misbelief; not knowing whether earth goes around the sun or sun goes around the earth is confusion; insistence that the sun goes around the earth is delusion.)

Illusion is more like Maya but Maya is more broader. Maya means mystery. The more you probe into it, the more mysterious it becomes. Examples of Maya are mirage water, blue sky, blue waters of the ocean, sunrise and bent rod in water.  We imagine a snake for a rope in the twilight, only to find that it was a rope that was hard to see at first. This is Maya. When we look at a tree, a tree processes the white light and rejects green and keeps the remaining six colors. It is made of the remaining six colors but not green. But we say that the tree is green! See the trick of Maya?

Meaning of the Sanskrit word Maya is not illusion as it is popularly interpreted. There is no equivalent word for it in English. Maya is real, yet it is not real. It is real in that the Real is behind it and gives it its appearance of Reality. Yet the Reality is never seen; and hence that which is seen is not real, and it has no real independent existence of itself, but is dependent upon the Real for its existence.  Maya then is a paradox--Real, yet not Real, an illusion, yet not an illusion. It is undefinable. It is inexplicable (like darkness). Maya is existent like Brahman, but it is changing unlike Brahman.  Maya is 'what is not' but appears 'as if it is.'

He who knows the Reality sees in Maya not illusion, but Reality. He who knows not the Reality sees in Maya illusion and thinks it is real! For the one who goes beyond Maya, Maya/Universal-Ignorance becomes non-existent. Understanding the concept of Maya is the key to liberation, moksha. The illusion of life is more like a stick that is dipped in water.  In the water the stick will appear bent, but when you remove it from the water, it is straight. If you put it back in the water, it will again look bent.  The stick even appears bent to the greatest of scientists who has experimented and who knows that by dipping the stick in water it does not become bent. Thus, this appearance of crookedness is due to our senses. Our knowledge has nothing to do with it.  Just by your knowing that it is straight, the slanted appearance of the stick does not disappear. But by your knowing, you no longer behave as if in the illusion - that it is bent. You will not believe that the stick is bent, but it only appears to be bent.

So, is the world unreal?...No! The world is not unreal like a square circle. Square circle is unreal, asathya. But there is a reality to the world. The world experienced by the mind is Maya (which is not-real or mithya); the world experienced as Consciousness is Brahman (Real or Sathya).

The eastern teaching that the world is illusory is a great misunderstanding.  The East teaches that the mind - as mind - is illusory.  And the world created by the mind is bound to be illusory because only an illusion can come out of another illusion.  When you look at the world through the mind then you are looking at existence in parts, in pieces. Thinking means analysis, a breaking up into parts. This is what science does - it analyzes to know. You will lose the beauty of a flower when you want to know it by analysis.  The true world - That Which IS - is not illusory. But you have not known it yet. You can know it only when you drop all your dreaming.  It is not the world that we have to reject. The world-ness in the object, the externality in the object and the not-selfhood in the object have to be thrown off. Experience consists of Sath-Chith-Aananda-Naama-Rupa. It is the Naama-Rupa (names-and-forms) aspect that we have to reject; it is the space-time aspect that we have to reject!

How do we get out of Maya, or, more precisely, free of Maya? Any thought or feeling of doubt regarding the illusion has to be met not by seeking an answer for it in the same plane of illusion. Since mind is the only instrument you have, use mind to go beyond mind. One ignorant thought can be eliminated with another wise thought. Going beyond mind is simply eliminating all the misconceptions you have about yourself. Then you stand revealed as the real-you/Brahman. Understand and remember (or wake up) that you are never the mind but always (have been and will be) Brahman/Consciousness! Mind/world is Brahman but Brahman is not the mind/world!

Ramana Maharshi: The world is Maya. Only Brahman (alone) is Real. Brahman is the (reality of the) world!

Thus, the matter is divided into two different levels. On the level of knowing, the stick that is in the water is straight. On the level of seeing, however, the stick is bent. There is no ignorance on either of these levels. Similarly, on the level of knowing, this world/manifestation is Brahman. On the level of perceiving, it consists of objects. Perceiving will not change as our sense organs are designed to experience duality.  Upon Realization or Enlightenment, appearance (projection) stays but ignorance (veiling) disappears; concepts stay but the belief that the concepts refer to reality disappears! Reality/Brahman alone IS without a second!

Esoterics of Ego..........

Ego is Consciousness under the spell of ignorance. Ego is the Consciousness pretending itself to be a separate-self that seems to be aware of objects.

Awareness is simply "I." Impersonal ego is the I in "I am." Personal ego is the I in "I am this,"or "me." What we 'seem to be' is the ego/me and what we 'really are' is the Awareness.  Ego is the part of your mind that thinks that you are your mind.  Ego is not you; it is an idea of you. Ego is the sense of individuality, and a confused mixture of Consciousness plus body.  In Vedanthic lingo, ego is known as ahamkaara (the I-concept; aham means ‘I’ and kaara means the notion or idea about 'I' as a thinker/doer) or chith-jada-granthi, a knot between Consciousness (sentience, 'chith') and material (insentience or body, 'jada'). Ego is ignorance as a confused mixture; it is not an entity with independent existence.

Mind is known as four different names depending on the four different functions it performs: Ego/Ahamkaara (the me-sense), Higher Intellect/Buddhi (the determining faculty), Lower Intellect/Manas (the doubting and feeling faculty) and Memory/Chittha (the conscious and subconscious memory). It is important to mention here that when higher intellect/buddhi gets clouded for any reason, ego takes on a strong personal identity "me-ness", then the buddhi functions only in that context - around that axis and becomes a slave to ahamkaara. This is when the troubles start.  When the ego is impersonal, it is known as soul or chidhaabhaasa (a reflection of Awareness shining in the intellect/buddhi as "I am"; seemingly-enclosed Awareness). Taking Myself to be the subtle body with chidhaabhaasa (as the supporting background) is ahamkaara, "me." It is like taking the image in the mirror to be Myself. Self-Realization is using the very same image and understanding that I am not the image but the original face that is reflected in the mirror of the intellect. Knowledge does not destroy the image; what it destroys is the misunderstanding that I am the image.  Ego is also known as mine-ness ('abhimaana,' 'mamakaara') which is either an overly 'inflated ego' or a lowly 'deflated ego.' Mine-ness is an extension of me-ness.  There are three places where we have strong mine-ness, in family-property-profession and two places where we have me-ness, in body-mind.

Ego is the First Thought, thought mixed with Consciousness, that is aware of the rest of the thoughts (at the same time). Ego is nothing more than a thought with "me" attached to it, an identification with a body.  Ego has nothing to do with Who You Really Are, the Pure Awareness.  The difference between Pure Awareness that we actually are and the ego that we now seem to be is that Pure Awareness is aware of nothing other than itself (because it alone actually exists), whereas the ego seems to be aware not only of itself but also of other things (at the same time) only in the presence of other things (which are all its own projections and therefore unreal like itself).

Our ego seems to be aware because it borrows the light of self-awareness from ourselves (Awareness) by posing as ourselves, so its awareness is a false appearance, being just a reflection, semblance or image of our own Pure Awareness.  The ego seemingly arises or originates from nothing other than ourselves (Awareness) as we actually are, because prior to its rising nothing else exists, and since our Actual Self is not the efficient cause of anything, there is absolutely no cause for the arising of this ego.  The ego is Maya, and Maya is inexplicable, so anyone who tries to explain what causes the ego to appear has not understood its real nature.

Ego seems to be a mixture of sentience/consciousness and the insentient body, but it is not actually either.  Ego is like a knot that seems to exist only when sentience and insentience are seemingly entangled. Knot is a good analogy for the ego.  What is a knot? When two pieces of string are tied together they form a knot, but when they are untied it ceases to exist, because it has no independent existence of its own. It is not either one string or the other, but is a combination of both. Likewise, this ego is neither sentient nor insentient but seems to be a combination of both. Ego is like a wire charged with electricity, a live wire. The live wire thinks that it knows because it has no access to electricity (which is the real knower) and assumes the ownership of the electricity. Thus, ego (I am this body thought) is a pseudo-subject, soul or chidhaabhaasa or Consciousness or Reflected Awareness (I am) is the subject or the Witness or Saakshi and Pure Awareness is the subjectless subject because it cannot take part in experience.  The intellect, as the secondary consciousness, is confused and, as a result, the pseudo-subject/ego, assumes that it is the real subject and takes control of the life. We call this samsaara.  When we actually seek the ego, it disappears!

Take, for example, hurtful words. Obviously hurt is not inherent in the words. Who is hurt by these words? Consciousness cannot be hurt as it is an open, aware, space-like element that offers no resistance. Thoughts, feelings, images and perceptions (which is mind) cannot be hurt as they are forms of energy and insentient. Thought is known. We can express the hurt by a thought but a thought or an image can never be upset by the words. Body (matter) may show the after effects of hurt but cannot itself feel the hurt as it is inert. An eye or a cheek or an ear cannot get upset when we hear the words. What else is there in the world other than matter, mind and Consciousness?  Individual self is, thus, nowhere to be found.  The ego is a by-product of the illusion that whatsoever we are seeing is true/real including our body.  Ego is the ghost in the system that is not really there!

However, in order to experience a finite world, Reality has to apparently ignore its infinite and eternal nature and take the shape of perception and thought.  This will cause an apparent world (object) and an apparent separate-self (ego/subject) to be born. Oneness is apparently split into two for the sake of experience.  Perception (senses) brings the matter out of Pure Being into seeming existence. Thought brings the mind out of Pure Knowing into seeming existence. Matter and mind are manifested at the same instant.

Once matter and mind come into apparent existence, their background which is Being-Knowing-Loving (Sath-Chith-Aananda) seems to be veiled and as a result of that veiling, matter and mind seem real. They borrow their reality from their now invisible background.  But thought cannot see the true background, so it manufactures space as the background of matter and time as the background of mind. In other words, space and time are these two empty containers that house matter and mind which form a pale reflection of the Absolute.  These two containers of space and time are what the infinite and eternal reality of Pure Being/Knowing looks like when viewed through perception and thought. Space is infinity when viewed through perception; time is eternity when viewed through thought. Space is a thought in mind, and when space disappears, time also disappears. Space and time are twin sisters that depend on each other and are, thus, illusory.

The mind is nothing but a stream of illusory thoughts that appear in Consciousness. Of all these illusory thoughts, the first one is the thought "I am this body." This is the root thought, the subject/ego. Because, in order to attend to a finite object you must first imagine yourself as a finite subject. Consciousness cannot know a finite object directly because Consciousness is infinite.  Therefore "I am this body" is a false thought (the true 'I' which is Consciousness is falsely identified with an insentient body); but because it is taken as true, it is possible for other thoughts to arise.  This (false) first thought is the ego, the thinker.  The ego or the thinker is what perceives the other thoughts, and by perceiving them it creates them.  Just as this ego cannot stand independent of thought, no thought can stand independent of ego, because ego is the root of all thoughts. No ego, no world... is obvious.

Egos are of eight types.  In Sanskrit, these are known as Gnyanam, Poojyam, Kulam, Jaathi, Balam, Vridhim, Tapo, Vapu...Superiority based on Knowledge, Respectability, Class, Race, Power, Riches, Spiritual Power and Beauty. Ego based on the superiority of knowledge is the subtlest of all and is the most difficult one to get rid of.

Egos can also be classified as worldly egos, internal egos and religious egos. A man who achieves riches, achieves prestige, becomes powerful, has a worldly ego. A man that is depressed, guilty, sinful has an internal ego. But do not think that a person who is struggling religiously doesn't have one. He may have an even subtler ego - a deeper, a more refined ego, but he has one - a religious ego. And he will fight with it, and when he wins he has a very egoistic feeling. He feels power. You may have the ideal of egolessness - that doesn't matter, the ideal brings the ego. Your ideal of egolessness will bring subtler, and greater, ego.  Hence the emphasis of spirituality is to dissolve the personal ego: only then you are healthy, you are harmonious, you can enter the divine.

So, who is egoless? The man who has no ideals is egoless, or more precisley ego-free.  How can the ego be created in that situation? - the very energy is missing. The energy comes out of friction, conflict, struggle, will. Have an ideal, and you will become an egoist. The idealist is an egoist. The greater the ideal, the greater the ego. The ego is created between the real and the ideal.  You may have the ideal of egolessness - that doesn't matter, the ideal itself brings the ego.  Your idea of egolessness will bring subtler, but greater, ego. The ego is very intoxicating; it makes you unconscious. You become two persons: one voice says "Do this," the other voice says "Don't do that" - then the ego arises. This is the whole mechanism. That is the reason we are all, to some extent, schizophrenic.  If you are real or whole, the personal ego cannot exist.  So the real egoists are those who think and announce that they are humble people, who pretend that they are egoless.

A man with no personal ego or no personal doership will not claim anything good or bad; he will not claim at all.  "The track of the men of knowledge is as invisible as that of the birds in the sky!"  Aadhi Shankaraachaarya: "The knower of Brahman wears no signs!"

When the ego becomes so personal and enlarged (egoism, separatism) that all we can see is the separate-self, all chances of experiencing the Universal-Self is gone, and we are lost. Ego was never meant to separate you forever from the Universal-Self, but, indeed, to make you more aware of it.  What you are trying to do is use the illusion of separateness to better comprehend and appreciate the experience of Oneness, which is Who You Really Are. For you are a candle in the sun, and cannot know yourself as the light when you are amidst the light. Yet you must separate yourself from the light so you might know yourself as Who You Really Are.

Actually egoism, a misunderstanding about who we are, not ego, is the problem. An ego is just embodied Consciousness. Do not see ego as a mistake or a problem; see it as a limitation on your true nature. Awareness knowingly and willingly limits itself in order to assume the form of a finite mind around whom the ego revolves in order to bring Manifestation into existence. Awareness gives birth to the world within itself and loses itself in that world, becomes an ego in that world, and then extricate itself from its own creativity. It is all part of the cosmic play. Don't we all do that to bring about a dream to enjoy the dream world as a dream ego?

Ego is our chief tool in creating this illusory world.  It is that device which allows us to imagine our self as separate from All the Rest of us. It is the part of us that thinks of us as being an individual.  We are actually not individuals, yet we must be individualized in order to comprehend and appreciate the experience of the whole. And so in this sense, it is 'good' to have an ego. Given what we are trying to do, it is 'good.' Ego that propels us is 'good' and the ego that controls us is 'bad.' Ego is a perception tool, a role-playing tool, not a master.  The smaller self (ego) must be used as a device with which to see/realize the larger self (Awareness/Brahman). Use illusion to get out of illusion or free of illusion! Go from dualism to duality to not-duality and to non-duality; or 'that is mine' to 'I am this body' to 'I am' and to 'I.'

Jesus Christ: "Be in the world, but not of it!" Nothing in life is what we imagine it to be. This does not mean that it is not there. What it does mean is that it is not "real." That is, it is not "really" what it "looks like." It is not what we assume it to be. The world is only real as Awareness.  In other words, the world appears in You so You do not live as a man of this world.  Time and space appearing in you is Peace-Happiness and you appearing in time and space is misery-suffering.  Live as a master of this world! Follow non-attachment.  The trick, therefore, is to know how to live with the Illusion, and not within the illusion.

What is the proof of God-The Reality?..........

God-The Reality=Existence-Consciousness-Infinity, Pure and Absolute. God is, thus, neither an object nor a person. This is, obviously, the non-negatable and non-reducible element of life which is agreeable to all as the definition of God-The Reality, originated from the Upanishads!

The following argument is very subtle to understand. So, please pay attention. Ok...All we have in life is Consciousness plus experience. Or, Consciousness+mind+matter. Mind is finite in time and matter is finite in space. The finite-ness of mind in time cannot be known without the Changeless/Timeless Consciousness. Remember: Motion can only be noticed from a motionless point. Memory is also not possible without this motionless element in us. Consciousness of any change/time in life, is the proof of the Changeless/Timeless Consciousness. Similarly, the finite-ness of matter in space cannot exist without the Infinite-ness of Existence. How can a finite object be perceived without the infinite background of space? If the finite-ness is the final reality, there would be no consciousness of that finite-ness. Isn't it?

Therefore, Consciousness is the internal changeless entity or background of the mind/subject. Existence is the external limitless entity or background of the matter/object. Nature or experience, as we all know, is finite and changing all the time. But the contingency/condition of all changing and finite things in Nature (subject/object or mind/matter) - right from an atom to the largest star and cosmos - becomes the proof, as argued earlier, for the existence of that which is Changeless and Limitless (meaning existence beyond time and space). This existence of an Unchanging (Eternal) and Limitless (Infinite) conscious presence behind the phenomena, behind the life, behind the experience, behind the time-and-space is God-The Reality! In other words, Changing and Limited Nature, itself, is the proof for the Unchanging and Infinite Reality! Really...If there is one thing that does not require any proof, whatsoever, then Consciousness is it. Consciousness does not require proof because every thing else is proved by Consciousness! It is as simple a proof as that!

Well, however...One important point here. This does not mean that the phenomena/experience is unreality. No...waves are nothing but water; ornaments are nothing but gold. Phenomena is also Reality, but a second order reality. Phenomena is Reality but Reality is not phenomena. The night-dream ego is you but you are not the night-dream ego! A wave is different than ocean in name and form, but it is the same as ocean in essence - as water. Yes, it is a paradox! Reality is not involved in the process of Nature (participating or doing), but Nature seems to get involved in the Presence of Reality (because Reality is just pure being)! Reality simply illumines the gross, subtle and causal bodies (and gross, subtle and causal universes). These bodies are actually inert matter but they seem to be alive and conscious because they are illumined by Consciousness. Sun doesn't directly participate in the activities of a tree; but a tree simply grows, simply happens in the presence of the sun. Experience belongs neither to Reality/Consciousness nor to the mind-matter. It apparently happenss when Consciousness/Reality shines on the mind! Experience belongs to Maya/Illusion, the inexplicable!

A small story...A disciple was arguing with his guru about the proof of existence. So the guru asked the disciple to fetch him some water to drink. The disciple ran to the river and brought his guru a glass of water. Guru then said, "I have only asked for water, why did you bring me a glass too?" The disciple understood the meaning in a flash! The Formless Existence, as the background, needs forms (perceptions in space) to express itself. The Changeless Consciousness, as the background, needs names (thoughts in time) to express itself....names-and-forms ('naama-rupa') of experience, naama-rupa of life, time-and-space! Thus, Life/Experience/Time-and-Space itself is the subtlest, but the clearest, proof of God-The Reality! The proof is cleverly and openly hidden! So, the statement, "God is everywhere and in everything" is not precise. The question, where and what is not the God,...becomes more relevant!

Esoterics of GOD

Friday, November 10, 2017

Esoterics of Ego, Mind, Consciousness and Awareness

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