On Seer and Seen

For every seen there is a seer, and every seer is the seen of a further seer, unless that seer is the furthest seer, the witness, the atman, is brahman.

Thus only consciousness is sentient—and the eye, mind, and person is insentient—for all sentient beings are these reflections of consciousness—

that aham present in the waking, dreaming, and sleeping quarters—fusing with a twisted ego—concluding in a red hot mass of consciousness.

Look, there is no mountain but the mountain is. That is, the so-called mountain is pure existence which the mind has formed and named a mountain.

If the rope is pure existence, satcitananda—and the superimposition of a snake upon this rope is the world, namarupa—then ignorance, avidya itself, is the one and only creator.

Maya veils reality and projects the world. As the material cause is the absolute, the efficient cause is ignorance, and the instrumental cause is thought. This is the real trinity in seer and seen.

footnotes

another name for the furthest seer is the witness, the saksin, the ultimate self, atman, parabrahman.

if the body, mind, and ego are seen insentient, and i am sentient, then i am not the body, mind, nor ego.

as only pure consciousness is sentient, i am that.

the i-am, aham, is that mass of consciousness in three states. i am the fourth, that stateless state beyond deep sleep.

look, i'm not in a dream. the dream is in my ultimate self. call me atman. my mind is like a food processor. satcitananda in. name, form, and meaning out.

as the material cause is the immaterial, and as the efficient cause is this inefficient ignorance, and as the instrumental cause is misusing thought, aum.

afterword

drg drsya viveka is revelation—discriminating seer from the seen. the nikhilananda translation is very good with extensive footnotes. the tejomayananda is an excellent translation supplying sanskrit transliteration and inspired commentary. the great dayananda isn't user friendly.