Nature Of The Self Session 3 - Synonyms For The Self Part 2

Listen to Ektaji talk about Ramana Maharshi's teachings on non-duality. These teachings are aimed at the experiential understanding of the true nature of the self and that consciousness is the only existing reality.

Transcript

Salaam. Salaam. Salaam. Salaam. Number four, The heart. Sri Ramana frequently used the Sanskrit word Hidayam when he was talking about the self. It is usually translated as the heart. But a more literal translation would be, This is the center. In using this particular term, He was not implying that there was a particular location or center for the self. He was merely indicating that the self was the source from which all appearances manifested. Heart does not mean a location. Now don't start looking. Okay, Where is that feel of nothingness? Can I locate it? Close your eyes and see. Can you locate it? Oh, It's not there. I cannot find a localized position or point. I cannot locate it. All he meant, It is the center or the source from which everything manifests and where everything goes back. Every morning when I wake up, Doesn't everything manifest at that time? The world, The people in my family, The sensations, Thoughts, Feelings, Everything comes up and in the night everything goes away. Every morning everything comes up, Every night it disappears. In deep sleep there is none of this. Oh, It means that this is always there, The substratum of the nothingness is always there in which there are thoughts, Feelings, Perception, Sensation and that is called the waking state. And then there is a state when there is no thoughts, No feelings, No sensations, No perception, But the nothingness is there. Deep sleep is just an absence of all these thoughts, Perceptions, Sensations. So everything arises from it every morning. That is called the waking state and every night in the deep sleep state it vanishes into it. It is the center, The heart, The center. It is used poetically, Not the heart that pumps the blood. I hope that's very clear. Jnanam, I have changed the spelling just to make it easy to pronounce. It's jnan. The experience of the self is sometimes called jnan or knowledge. This term should not be taken to mean that there is a person who has knowledge of the self because in the state of self-awareness there is no localized knower and there is nothing that is separate from the self that can be known. Those who have reached that level in Advaita where we have started discussing about the background and in this background how everything arises and forms, You will also start understanding that only when there is something to witness then I the witness comes up. When there is nothing to witness, Witness the knower also collapses. When the knower collapses and there is no I, Just a sense of being, This is what we are talking about here. This should not be taken to mean that there is a person who has the knowledge of the self because in the state of self-awareness there is no localized knower. And that is why the witness and the witnessed object, This is taught at the first level of Advaita Vedanta. It is said that it is just the beginning step because of the seeker. The seeker only knows I the witness and the object. So that is where we begin at Advaita level 1. But we progress finally to Advaita level 2 and 3 where finally the witness and the witnessed object would drop and there is just the sense of being. So you have to progress to level 3 to get Advaita in its completeness, In its entirety. And when you get to Advaita level 3 which is Ajatavada, At Ajatavada it becomes very clear who there is no knower, No separate knower and object of knowing or object of knowledge. Actually they are the same. For example, When you dream in the night, You become the dream character and you manifest a dream world. That dream character who is flying in space is you only. You are seeing through the eyes of that dream character and you are experiencing space. So space is the object of knowledge and that dream character flying in space is the subject. The one who is witnessing the object of knowledge or the one who is knowing. So I the dream character along with this dream world that is known, Both have to collapse for me to awaken. Is this clear? You cannot say, Oh the dream character has to be there but the objects of knowledge collapse. No, Both collapse, Both are part of the dream. So now draw parallel to Advaita. Advaita level 1, I the witness and witnessing the thoughts, The feelings, The sensations of the body means what? I am still in this waking dream. I am still the waking dream character experiencing the waking dream objects. Both have to draw the I-ness in me. I, I, I, I, I, That ego in me, That which makes me separate, That collapses along with that which I am experiencing, The dream ends and I awaken. That is called awakening. That is called enlightenment. When that happens, That is called true jnan, True knowledge. So there is no localized knower and there is nothing that is separate from the self that can be known. When I wake up from the dream, Was I the dream character, Real, Who was knowing the dream world? Was there something in that dream world really to be known? Oh no, It's all over, Gone. It's the end. So there's nothing to be known. There's no knower also. Just awaken. Now stop imagining this as an out of the world magical experience, No out of the world magical experience. You being in this state can recognize the drop of the I. When we were doing the self-exploration, Did we all recognize for one second the I dropped? Yes, Any experience that feel of nothingness where there was no I, That's it. You got a glimpse of it which proves that you can be in a state when that is permanent and continuous. So there is no localized knower there. True knowledge or jnan is not an object of experience, Nor is it an understanding of a state which is different and apart from the subject knower. It is a direct and knowing awareness of the one reality in which subjects and objects have ceased to exist. Then in that state of knowingness you recognize, Oh in this only the dream character comes up and the dream world comes up and then they collapse away. I, That state of knowingness or more correctly us or we, The universal field of nothingness is always there. It's an absolute reality. There is no understanding of it. You cannot call it a state of understanding really because it is just being. You're just being yourself. So he says it is not a state of understanding. It is not something that you're going to experience. It is not something different and apart from the subject. The knower. It is a direct and knowing awareness. Just a sense of being, A sense of awareness of that absolute reality in which subjects and objects have ceased means I, The witness consciousness and the object that is being witnessed. Drop away. That does not mean that you do not experience the world anymore. No, No. The duality, The sense of I, The witness being separate from the object, That duality has dropped. Now I recognize everything is consciousness. There is no world. Ajat vadam. Brahman satyam jagat mithya. This is the highest understanding or the highest level of Advaita Vedanta. It is called Ajat vadam. Very experiential, Very doable for each one of us. One who is established in the state is known as a jnani. Turiya and Turiyatita. Hindu philosophy postulates three alternating levels of relative consciousness. Waking, Dream and deep sleep. Sri Ramana stated that the self was the underlying reality which supported the appearance of the other three temporary states. Because of this, He sometimes called the self Turiya Avastha or the fourth state. So what are our three states? Waking state, Dreaming state and deep sleep states. These are the three known states. Ramana Maharshi says, Oh, Didn't you notice that this field of nothingness is that in which thoughts, Feelings, Sensations, Perceptions arise and fall? When there are thoughts, Feelings, Sensations, Perceptions, That is the waking state. When thoughts, Feelings, Sensations, Perceptions are absent, That is the deep sleep state. And dreaming state is when there are just images or ideas of the waking state, Thoughts, Feelings, Perceptions and sensations. So Turiya or the fourth state is the substratum or the background in which waking state arises, Stays for a while and falls away. In which dreaming state arises, Stays for a while and falls away. In which deep sleep arises, Stays for a while and falls away. The container, The background, The field in which all this arises and falls, That is called Turiya Avastha, The fourth. The word Turiya itself means the fourth. Now there are ways to teach a spiritual seeker. When he first comes, We teach him, See you know these three states but there is a container, A field of these three states. Yeah, Let's call that the fourth state. Now he understands about the fourth state. After that we lead him deeper into the self-exploration of the nothingness, This field of silence, This field of awareness. And when he stays there, Stays there, This can only be done in self-exploration, Just stay there, Stay there, Stay there, You realise, Oh, Thoughts are made of this nothingness, Feelings are made of this nothingness. This perception, Sensations, All these are made up of the same nothingness. There is no other material that they are made up of. I do not even have proof that this is matter because I do not experience matter. When I touch it, All I can experience is a sensation. The sensation arises, Plays for a while and goes away. What is the sensation made of? Nothing but the same awareness, The same consciousness. I never experience the existence of this iPad separate from my consciousness or awareness. I only experience awareness, I only experience consciousness. How much ever I touch, How much ever I see, Whatever I taste or smell, Whatever I hear, In the end there is just my own awareness or consciousness. I have no proof that something exists outside my field of awareness, Consciousness or nothingness. That brings up a new understanding, This seeker. Oh, So this waking state, Dreaming state and deep sleep state are nothing but the nothingness or awareness or consciousness. Oh, There is nothing else then. So there are no separate four states, There is only one state. That is Turiyatita. That he will tell you in the next slide. He also occasionally used the word Turiyatita, Meaning transcending the fourth to indicate that there are not really four states but only one real transcendental state. Just one out of which everything is made. Turiyatita. We move on to the last one, The seventh one. The other terms. Three other terms for the self are worth noting. Sri Ramana often emphasized that the self was one's real and natural state of being. And for this reason, He occasionally employed the terms Sahajastritti. Sahajastritti means natural state. Sahajastritti. That's number one. Two, Swarupa, Meaning real form or real nature. And he also used the word silence to indicate that the self was the silent, Thought free state of undisturbed peace and total stillness. So when you were in that field of nothingness, Did you notice that the quality of nothingness is to be devoid of things, Devoid of thoughts? Yes, So it was a thought free state. In itself, The nothingness is thought free. That is why silence. And Swarupa, It is my own real nature. This we already did during the self exploration. We recognized, Oh, It is who or what I truly am because I'm not the body, I'm not that mind, I'm not even this world perception of sight, Sound, Taste and smell. So that is Swarupa. And Sahajastritti means natural state. It was my natural state. I'm always in the sense of I am. Take your mind back to childhood. Was the sense of I am there? Yes. In teenage, Was the sense of I am there? Was it there when you became a young adult? Is it there today? Yes. There is no possibility of the sense of I am to not be there. It is that simple. Stop looking for a magical, Mystical, Out of the world experience. It is my Sahajastritti, My natural state. I've always been like this. The ego wants something new, Experience, Some magical light, Some big thing will happen when I will realize the self. It is a very boring, Stale, Same state that you have always been in. The journey was the delicious part. To get to this understanding, You went through a lot of different meditations and lot of different knowledge and you went here, Went there, That teacher, This teacher. That journey was the delicious part. Destination is same old, Boring. Sense of I am has always been there. Saffar khoop suhrat hai manzil se bhi. Manzil is very boring. The destination is the same sense of I am that I have always had since I was a baby. Sahajastritti, My natural state. It has always been there. It will be there. Very clear? All these terms are clear now? Okay. Do you have any questions? When there is an arising, What is there to be conscious of the arising? The consciousness that is called chid. So when there is an arising, Then it is called chid or consciousness. Consciousness means to be conscious of. There has to be something to be conscious of, No? That is why the witness consciousness is termed as consciousness. Yeah? The witness consciousness has an object to witness, Either a physical object or mental object. These are called arisings. When they arise and play and fall away, Then the one that is observing these arisings, The one that is conscious of these arisings is called the witness consciousness. When there is no object, You have that experience every night in deep sleep. There is no object to be conscious of. No physical object, No mental object. So the consciousness nature sets and just the sense of being which is sat is there. Ramana Maharshi is saying you are enlightened. There is no thing to attain, No state where you are going to get enlightened. You are enlightened right now. Really your mind or your manganan kahani, The fabrication of your mind, The story that you have created is not allowing you to see it. That's it. You're pretending to be asleep. Your eyes are tightly shut like that. I'm telling you, Open your eyes. You're awake. You're saying, No, No, No, I'm not awake. I'm not awake. I'm not awake. I'm saying just open your eyes. You are awake. That's all that is happening. You are awake. You are enlightened. Where is the sense of I am then? If you're not awake, How do you have the sense of I am? Then you should say, No, I don't exist. I am not. Can you say that? I am not. Who is saying I am not? Who's saying I do not exist? Are you saying that? It's not possible. There is nowhere to go. There is nothing to achieve. There is nothing to attain. It was all a game. You ran, Ran, Ran. All spiritual teachers, All spiritual masters made you run, Run, Run because you wanted to run. It's not their fault. You wanted to run. You wanted, Okay, It will be some magical experience, Some mystical experience. One day I'm going to get there. Where are you going to get in your dream? How much ever you run, You're still going to wake up in bed only. That is the truth. That is the truth. A spiritual seeker who has just started the path is not ready to swallow this kind of truth. He wants something. His ego is lusting about spiritual knowledge, Spiritual scriptures, Read this, Listen to that, Do this meditation, Do that, This kundalini and that, Yoga and this will happen. Okay, Do. Dance. You want to dance, You dance. Finally you come to an Advaita Vedanta class and you wake up. Oh, What was I doing? No problem, You enjoyed that journey also. Now at least wake up. Stop these eyes tightly shut. It's a pretend. It's really pretending to be asleep. You are awake. It is not special. That is the problem. Your ego wants something special. Have you noticed the ego wants, Oh it should be challenging. So then the ego can claim, See I went and I got this. See I got the most challenging thing done. The ego wants it to be a difficult thing. It's not. Simple boring sense of I am which you have since childhood. Recognize, Oh I am that. I am already that. What am I trying to do? Where am I trying to go? There is nowhere to go. Yes, Ramana Maharshi teaches you though, Only one truth. You are already at home. Just wake up. So when I, The consciousness, The feel of nothingness, God, I forget myself. When God forgets himself or God wants to play with not God, He projects as an I. The I is false. There is no individual personal I. The I is also projection. Basically it's a dream. Like you project your dream in the night. You create a dream character, You become the dream character, You wear that space suit and you are flying in space. So you became the dream character like that. The nothingness or the consciousness. Again and again this is experiential. You forget yourself that nothingness and you become the thought. You become the I thought. That is when I am that ego. And then I want something, I don't want something, I like something, I don't like something. The mind is projected. From that sensations are projected and a belief develops that I have a physical body. And a belief develops that there is a physical world here. Exactly the way it happens in your dream in the night. You believe that to be true. If there is a tiger running behind you in your dream, You actually feel the fear. Exactly the same thing happens here. You really believe that there is this financial problem, This job problem or this problem with the family member. You hold on to it. Then you like it, You dislike it, You create the drama around that belief. So you have become the ego. So now you know only the ego. When you come to Advaita you are told the ego is the one who gets consumed in the drama. Separate yourself from the drama and just be the witness. It's the same ego. Did you realize that? When I'm consumed in the drama, I was the ego. I like this, I don't like this, Don't do this to me, How dare you say this to me. I am greater than you. I am the ego. When I learn to separate myself out and just observe the thoughts and the feelings that are arising, I am the witness. It's the same ego still. This is how Gidatta Maharaj is telling you, Observe the sense of I am, You are observing that ego only and then you take a step back and you witness. You're still observing the ego but now this ego has a different label, It's called the witness. And why is this important? Because this is a stepping stone to dropping the witness and the witnessed object and just recognizing the sense of being. Do you get it? It is so simple. It will drop. Just go look for the I. Can I find an I? Do the self exploration today. Can I find the I? Big I, No? Okay, I the witness, Okay, Chalo, Witness, Let me find the witness. Go looking for that I the witness. Can you find it? You'll notice that it disappears, It collapses into that field of no things. Now you just be there, Stay there, Stay there, Stay there. Staying there, Staying there, You'll become steady, You'll become stronger, You'll start recognizing, See how the I comes up. It's a fraud I. There's no real I, It's a fraud. Chore. Again you observe its disappearance, Again you observe its appearance, Again observe its disappearance. This is called self exploration. Iktah cannot do it for you. Iktah's awakening cannot be your awakening. You will have to make that effort of sitting and doing the self exploration and observing how it disappears, Again it appears, Again it disappears. It plays this drama and the moment it comes up, It attaches to thoughts, It attaches to feelings as my thoughts, My feelings. Then it's consumed again in the world. You meet the self exploration number one priority. Come what me, I'm going to figure this out today. Does the I really exist? Do your own self exploration and recognize that I itself is nothing but the beginning of your dream. How you go into your dream in the night? The dream character comes up. That is the I in the dream. When the dream only is not real, When your dream world is not real, That I in the dream is real. How? What is the logic? See what I'm saying? Yeah, So explore. When you explore, You become very clear. Then you step into the dream knowing it is a dream. And then you play. It's fun. Then it's hide and seek. Then it's really fun. Then you're really living life because now you know it is a dream. Now you don't take it so seriously. Even if the tiger is running behind you, Now you run. Okay, Come on tiger, Come on, Chase me. Let's have fun. You're not breaking your head against the wall and crying and creating drama and becoming whatever. Shashi Kala, Indian actress who creates a lot of drama. You don't become the drama queen. You don't become the drama queen. Just by waking up. Again. You have created your only personal universe. Like you create a personal dream world. In that dream world our friends are there, Our family, Everybody is there. You only created that entire dream world, Whatever space suppose you were with your family and friends. Like that only this is your personal universe, Your personal world. This Nisargadatta Maharaj addresses more than Ramana Maharshi. He calls it a personal world. And we constantly manifest our personal world. It's difficult to see right in the beginning how I manifested the husband, The wife, The child, The friend. First you start with small, Small things. You will notice you have a thought, You hold on to that thought, You believe your thought and then that conditioning becomes your nature. For example, Your spouse enters the house and you see whatever that he's come late or she's come late. In your mind you've already built up a story. This is where he or she went. This is what he or she did. You've already created the story, You've already believed your story and the moment he or she enters the house you start bombarding. And you suddenly realize that your whole story is wrong. It falls on its face. But you recognize that you constantly project and manifest, Project and manifest everything that happens in your whole life. Start with small, Small things, With thoughts, With feelings, With situations. When you start recognizing, Yeah, I project, Oh, I project this, I projected that. Slowly you will start recognizing that if there's an advertisement on TV and the advertisement shows you that you should feel like that, You start feeling like that. Yeah, Suppose an Apple iPhone, Oh, You got to have it. That is the tagline of the ad. You start feeling, Oh, I got to have it. Then you start recognizing, Oh, Mind has this tendency. A story either created by me or a story that comes from the front. In both cases it's just a projection. The mind has a tendency to hold on to the story, To believe in that story and then it becomes my conditioning. It manifests in my world. Then either you went and bought that Apple iPhone or created the drama with your spouse and it landed up in a one month not talking to you situation, Whatever. So you manifest your personal world. This should become clear to you first. When this starts becoming clear, Ah, See, I'm doing this. Then you take a step back. I'm doing this, I'll take a step back. I'm doing this, I'll take a step back. Slowly, Slowly you'll start recognizing, I can withdraw from manifesting. I can withdraw from projecting the drama. Yes? That's when the limiting tendency of the mind, Which Ramana Maharshi spoke about, Starts losing its control on you. It weakens and weakens and weakens. You become stronger. Who's you now, Really? I, The witness, Has become stronger than the object. So instead of getting consumed in the object, I started observing a thought arise, A strong emotion arise, Play and go away. I did not react. Now I started taking that step back. I started being stronger and stronger. And now I recognize, Oh, When I want, I can stop the projection from manifesting into the nonsense. The thought will still come. Thought is because of your past habit patterns or whatever you have fed in the past. The feeling will come, But I'm not reacting to it and that's why I did not manifest a horrible situation in the house which I would have done in the past. So you start recognizing, When you experientially get the taste of this, Then you will understand, Oh, I have created this universe. Despite it manifesting from me, I'm not the creator, But I will get there. You will understand that part also. But I have manifested, I have projected and manifested everything here. This has to be experiential. I don't want to give you any more theory. You do a self-exploration, You really work on yourself, You get it. Then if you think, Yes, I've started to get it, Then we move on to higher levels of Advaita, Which is Ajatavada sessions. You start working. High time, Start doing Atma Pichara. If self is all-pervading and jnana, How come the perception of pain or sensation in other bodies cannot be perceived by the same self, But I can perceive sensations arising in my body? With Siddhis, You can perceive other bodies also. There are yogic trainings. It's not that it's not possible, But it's pointless. You're still lost in this dream world. You're saying, Let me feel the perceptions and sensation of other dream characters. I am saying end the dream. What are you doing? You're analysing more garbage of that same dream world. Okay, Analyse. That is what is yogic training. What is the point? You're still not awakened. You're still not coming to your own real nature. You will get the Siddhis. You can get whatever Siddhis. It will take you 10, 15, 20 years of real intense practice, But so what? You're still stuck in the dream world. This is what you need to recognise. For that you have to really recognise, Yes, This is a dream world. Start doing self exploration. There is no other way. Your own story creation. You have created the story, No? Ask a writer if he writes a book. See how attached he is to his book. Some of you might have some creative hobbies. You might do painting or some music. You create something new. See how attached you get to that? This is your own personal world. You have manifested it. You have projected it. You have created it. So the ego that has created it is very attached to it. It feels it possesses it. The ego feels, Oh, I have built this mansion and now you're telling me this mansion is a dream? I'm not going to believe it. Notice that part of you that does not believe it. If it's not there now, No, It'll come soon after the session. You will notice it. The ego does not want its mansion to crumble. And you are telling the ego, You do not exist and your world also does not exist. So it's going to resist it. That resistance is what you are experiencing. You don't have to experience turiya, Theta in the individual states. You know what you're saying? You're saying, How do I experience the space in this room? These are just intellectual analogies given to the sense of I am. You are. You're saying, How do I experience I am? You are. Who wants to experience I? You're saying, I want to experience I. You're saying you're already experiencing I. Yeah, Turiya, Theta, Big word. It is not a very big thing, Very difficult thing to experience. The same sense of being is there right now. You have the sense of I am. I exist. Do you have that sense? How many of you say I do not exist? You can't say I do not exist. That means you have the sense of I am. I exist right now. Correct? In the dream state, Do you exist? Yes. Otherwise, How would you know you're dreaming? How do you even know that you saw that dream that night? Because obviously, I was dreaming. In the deep sleep state, Are you there? No, You're not there? Then who wakes up in the morning and says, I slept so well last night? Who slept well? Who knows? That means I was there in deep sleep. I experienced the absence of thoughts, Feelings, Perception and sensations. And I just was in ananda. That's why when I wake up in the morning, I say, I slept so soundly. It means I am awake. I am dreaming. I am in deep sleep. I am is there throughout. I am is the substratum. Is there a separate waking state made of a separate material than the I am? Can you separate them out? Like you can separate water and oil. Can you separate out waking state from the sense of I am? No. What? What are you talking about? It is all one. Can you separate out dream state from I am? No. Can you separate out deep sleep state from I am? No. There are no four states. There is just the sense of being. Turiyatita. Itna simple hai. It is that simple. Itna mind complicates. Mind wants to be hard. No. It has to be difficult. How can it be so easy? Like Maharaj's words. This Arjuna maharaj says, It is disconcertingly simple. It's so simple. It's so light in your face that you don't see it. The sense of I am. Today, Just sit and explore. Just sit and explore. You should be able to understand Turiyatita also in your own experience. Not intellectually, Experientially. You should be able to understand Turiyatita also in your own experience. Not intellectually, Experientially.