Subodha Vedanta Class Notes – February 18, 2024
In this section of the text, Pujya Swami Tejomayananda presents the philosophical topic of “What is the Nature of the Self” as a dialogue between a seeker and a seeker’s friend. It’s a playful dialogue which brings us succinctly to the core of the teachings of Vedanta.
Gacchasi kutra tvam mitra? Gurumevaabhigacchaami
Kim pathishyasi tatra tvam? Vedante yat prakaashitam
Friend – Where are you going my friend?
Seeker – I’m going to my Guru.
Friend – What will you learn there?
Seeker – That which is revealed in Vedanta.
There is a lot of symbolism here, in the interaction between the seeker and his friend. Here, the seeker is turning away from the friend and seeking his Guru. It is a symbolic representation since as a seeker we are to turn away from worldliness (the outside) and turn towards the Divine ( the inside). It is not a literal turning away, where we have to leave our job, our friends or relationships. It is merely a matter of where we direct our attention. It is a shift from thinking that all these responsibilities that we are doing are for more resources or security, or to plan for the next vacation or to maximize pleasure, or that our children are happy. It is to shift from that mentality to feeling that these actions are bringing us closer to the Divine or our true Self. It is a turning away from the material world and focusing on the Divine. The seeker responds that he hopes to learn from his Guru that which is revealed in Vedanta. Vedanta is the subject matter of the Upanishads. It is the final teaching in our Vedas.
In the next section of dialogue, the friend’s curiosity is aroused and he asks –
Kimuktam vada vedante? Naaham duhkhamayo jivah
Kathaya tarhi ko si tvam? Aatma nitya-cidaanandah
Friend – Tell me what is said in vedanta.
Seeker – I am not this sorrow ridden individual.
Guruji is telling us here that the essence, or the teaching of Vedanta is that we are not this individual laden with sorrows. This person who we believe ourselves to be is not “I”. If we were to ask Who am I?, who does the “I” refer to? What does the pronoun “I” refer to when we say for example, “I am Shankar”? In a typical sense or in everyday connotation, we associate this pronoun “I” to be this bundle of body, mind, thoughts, desires, hopes, dreams, fears. That whole bundle of things is what we refer to when we use the pronoun “I”.
So the essential teaching of Vedanta is that the reference of this “I” to the bundle of name and form, that is NOT the true meaning of “I”. That is not who we truly are. So how does Vedanta arrive at this conclusion that this body and mind is not really me? This is one of the main focuses that as a seeker our reflections should be directed towards – How is that I am not merely this body, name and form? How can I not just be this body?
Here is one line of logic. Shankarji shared a framework that is commonly and typically used in other Vedantic texts – That which is known is different from the knower. That which is seen is distinct or other than the seer. That which is the object of knowledge is different and distinct from the subject, the knower of that knowledge. So that is the premise, the base rule and from there, we do an analysis of who we believe ourselves to be, as is typically done in Vedantic texts. We start with an object outside of us –
I see this pencil. It is an object of knowledge in my mind. Since it is known, I arrive at this conclusion that I, the knower, must be something other than this pencil. Now if we take this a step deeper –
This pencil is known through my senses. I can see it, I can feel it, I can touch it and can taste it if I want. So the knower of this pencil, for me is I as my sense organs or I as my senses, is the knower of this pencil.
Now if we go deeper than that, I also know my sense organs. I know my sight, I know I’m feeling things. I know I’m hearing things. So now all of a sudden, my sense organs or my body is also an object of knowledge. It is known to me. So who is the knower of my body?
We can answer it by saying that the knower of the body is our thoughts, our mind. In a simple sense, even this body is appearing to me as nothing more than thoughts in the mind. Same with the senses, they are all just electrical signals that are being represented as thoughts in our mind. So now “I”, as the thoughts in the mind, am the knower of this body.
Now Vedanta does an incredible thing and goes another step deeper – Aren’t thoughts also known to me? Aren’t I aware of when I am angry, when I’m hungry, experiencing anything? Those thoughts are also an object of knowledge. They are known to me, so who is the knower of those thoughts? And that knower of thoughts, that is “I”. That is what “I” is referring to.
Now, in the second portion of the dialog in the verse we just chanted, the friend continues to ask –
Friend – Then, who are you? (if you are not this individual, not this mind and body)
Seeker -I am the Atma, the Self that is Infinite Bliss, and eternal, unchanging Consciousness.
When we go back to the analysis of distinction between the seer and seen, knower and known, this knower of thought, that is what we mean when we say Atma, when we say Consciousness. We are referring to this knowing principle that allows our thoughts to be known.
Another analogy that is helpful in understanding this principle is to imagine an old school movie projector, with the lightbulb in the back, the film reel and then the screen in front. The light shines on the moving film reel which has different pictures on it and that light on the film reel projects this image on the screen in front of us and we see it as the movie.
So in this analogy, this lightbulb is like the Consciousness, the Atma. It is always shining or illuminating. The film reel is like the thoughts in our mind. The thoughts are constantly changing, like a constant flow of thoughts. When the light passes through those thoughts, it creates this world that we see around us. So Consciousness is the unchanging eternal light which is always illuminating thoughts in our mind. There is a subtle distinction here, as our natural analysis would be to arrive at – I am merely my thoughts. What I’m thinking is who I am. That is typically how we live our lives. But it takes a lot of introspection to be able to take it one step deeper and to separate and find ourselves as a distinct entity which is able to see thoughts, and to identify with ourselves as the knower of thoughts itself.
Now in the next portion of this dialogue, Guruji says –
Kathitam tatra kimanyat? Atma mamaiva sarvaatma
Ko laabhastava jnaanena? Muktah preenaamyatha sarvaan
Friend – What else is said in Vedanta?
Seeker – That this Atma, this Self that is in me, is the same Self that is in all things that we see around.
That Self, that unchanging Consciousness, that illuminator of thought in me, is the same thing that I see in all of the things around me, that is in all beings and all things around me. So the seer of thoughts in me, is the same seer of thoughts in you. When Shankarji says, “I am Shankar” and Vidya says “I am Vidya”, the “I” that we think we are, is one and the same between all beings.
So this is the final teaching in Vedanta. That not only are we not this body and mind, but that we are this Atma, the eternal, unchanging Consciousness and that Consciousness in me is the same Consciousness in all beings around us. This idea is probably one of the hardest things to come to terms with or grasp in Vedanta, that there is no distinction or separation between me and the other. It is so hard to grasp that as it is so contrary to our everyday experiences. How can I say that I am the same as you? I have different experiences; I am here and you are over there. It doesn’t feel like that is right.
Shankarji shared additional insights which he thought were very interesting, from a podcast of an interview of an evolutionary biologist –
In the theory of evolution, the traits or qualities of a species that maximize that species’ chances of survival, those are the qualities that would survive over time or continue. It is like survival of the fittest. So what this evolutionary biologist’s main claim was that humans didn’t evolve to perceive truth or optimize for truth. Humans evolved to optimize for survival. So it is that optimization for survival which filters the way we perceive the world around us. If we can look at this pencil, it has different faces to it. It is like an octagon. So why is it that when I see this pencil, my brain will automatically say that this whole entity is one distinct object. Why doesn’t it say that this one face of the pencil is one object and the other face is another object and that they are all in close proximity to each other. Why don’t we see it like that? The answer is that our brains have evolved to perceive all of the things around us as tools useful for our struggle for survival. Imagine I dropped the pencil on the ground. Now my senses will say that this is a pencil that is laying on the ground. It is not ground and pencil as one object. There is one object called pencil and another called ground. Or a better example is a plant and soil. Why do we make a distinction that this plant is a distinct entity from the soil in which it is growing? It is all done because the senses have evolved to perceive the world in useful terms for what maximizes survival. It did not evolve to actually perceive the world as it really is. This is a very profound insight as we put so much faith in our senses. We see a pencil there and we see that it exists, but in reality it is an illusion that our senses are playing because that is what allows for our species to survive, treating everything as tools or useful objects.
In summary, the central claim in Vedanta is that the Consciousness in me is the same Consciousness in you. There is no distinction between you and I, no separation. Finally the friend says – You have said that you are not this body and that you are Consciousness and that the Consciousness in you is the same Consciousness in me, so –
Friend – What is the benefit of this knowledge to you?
Seeker – I become free and I delight in All beings.
So the purpose of learning this, is freedom and our ability to enjoy every experience. However, this also is an elusive point – How is it that knowing that I am one with the other, facilitates freedom? Freedom in what sense? So here is a story called “The Princess of Kashi”, a story that is part of our Guru-Shishya lineage that explains this point on freedom –
In ancient times, in the kingdom of Kashi, there was a Queen and she had a young son about 8 years old who was the Prince of Kashi at that time. The Queen one day, decided to have a play held in her court and she hired all these artists to put on a play. Her only request was to have her son to be a part of the play as well. So the artists decided to dress up this Prince as a little girl, as the Princess of Kashi and that was his role in the play. The Queen really loved the play and wanted to remember this occasion forever with her cute little son and so had a portrait commissioned of her son as the Princess of Kashi. So they drew this painting of the prince as a cute little princess and titled it “The Princess of Kashi”.
Many years later, the prince is studying in the library to become the next ruler and in the archives, he comes across this portrait of the Princess of Kashi. He sees this cute little young girl and he starts thinking that the painting looks about 10 years old. He wants to know who this princess is and that he would like to meet her and that perhaps they would be a good match for each other. He keeps on thinking and thinking about it, that this Princess of Kashi would be around his age now and that he would love to meet her. So he decides to ask his advisors to set up a meeting between the Princess and himself. Maybe they will get married! So this desire is growing and growing in his mind, and eventually he goes to his advisors and asks if they could set up an introduction between himself and the Princess of Kashi. But the advisors say that there is no Princess of Kashi and that they do not know what he is talking about. So the Prince takes the advisors down to the archives and shows them the portrait and asks to meet her. So now they realize what had happened and ask him to sit down. Then they reveal to the Prince that the Princess of Kashi is none other than himself as a young little boy, dressed up as a princess and that there is no Princess of Kashi, just him.
Now what happens to the desire that the Prince had to meet the Princess of Kashi? It’s gone! It’s dissolved, just like that. The Prince is not going to feel like he will never meet the Princess of Kashi ever again or she is a fictional character or too far away or that he is unable to fulfill this desire. The desire itself is totally dissolved as the object of desire is already there with him.He is the object of the desire. It is himself and so there is nothing to be gained. That is the type of freedom that comes with realizing this Truth – That the Self in me is the Self in all. All of these desires, dreams and pursuits that we have, they are already fulfilled as we are already the object of our desires. What is more for me to want if I am already everything that there is? That is how that freedom is expressed in a person who has realized this Truth.
Discussion: We came up with one form of logic in class as to why we are not this body and mind.
- Come up with 3 other reasons as to why we cannot be this body and mind.
- What is the practical application of the teaching that “You are not the body or mind?”. How is it useful to us?
RAW: Actively listen to others’ perspectives.