That Tattvamasi

Words are for the world. Dancing is for me.

The principle of existence and the ground of consciousness are silent and still.

Self-awareness is the bell of tattvamasi.

Self-awareness is Bliss

The rishis say the mind knows nothing but existence and itself. Self-awareness is the bliss of knowing that is one.

Without that deep pacific godhead, where would my island be? This universe is the manifestation of that satcitananda.

I started off with transcendentalism but soon I hit the harder stuff: Shankara equals Shankaracharya minus acharya.

It takes an infinity of dreamworlds for that nondual self-awareness. I am happy to play my part. Who am I?

An Ode to Intuition

Reality isn’t objective. Facts are mostly objective. Truth is absolutely subjective.

Intuition is the only known link between this objective world and that subjective self.

This intuitive nonknowing is the other side of effortless nondoing. Nondoing and nonknowing is the way.

Wise minds stopping on the way avoiding decompression sickness building something finer for a deeper neti neti.

If it walks, talks, touches, tastes, or smells like the truth, it isn’t. You can’t feel intuition but you know how it feels.

Shankara on Adhyaropa and Apavada

The most profound knowledge of God is that which recognizes the utter inadequacy of all finite conceptions, and this can only be reached by the ‘Via Negationis’, the path of the negation of all the finite.

But only a few courageous souls can face the aridity of this path from the outset, and for minds of a devotional cast the ‘Via Eminentiae’ may be more appropriate, the path in which laudable characteristics that fall within human comprehension are ascribed positively to the deity, but with the clear recognition that they are but imperfect indications of His nature, since He transcends finite comprehension.

According to a third path, the ‘Via Causalitatis’, the mind fingers, as it were, the various causal principles that it can conceive as operating in the world, and attempts to mount through speculation of this kind to some conception of the deity as the first cause, and yet as that which lies beyond any causal principle that can be determinately conceived and from which all such principles proceed as effects.

According to a fourth path, the deity is sought to be perceived as the light present within the human intellect, illuminating its knowledge of truth.

According to a fifth path, the mind tries to mount up from things that are good and desirable for some particular end to that which is itself the supreme end, lying beyond all particular ends, and which is desirable for its own sake, the highest value and supreme good

Something parallel to, though not identical with, these various paths can be found in Śaṅkara’s texts. As we have already seen, he gives preference to the path of negation and regards it as indispensible for the final knowledge which confers liberation from ignorance and death. ...How tentative, for Śaṅkara, all positive conceptions of the Absolute are.

Śaṅkara conceived the upanishadic wisdom as consisting essentially in negation. The Absolute cannot be denoted through speech, and negation is the fundamental process which leads to ‘viveka’ or discrimination of the true nature of the Self from that with which it is falsely overlaid, the highest goal of the Advaita discipline.

The process Śaṅkara has in mind is not one of brute reiterated negation but of a gradually ascending series of successive affirmations.

The texts of the Upanishads are not exclusively negative. They give many and varied positive accounts of the Absolute and of its relation to the world and the individual, which alternate with passages in which all empirically knowable qualities are denied.

The various positive accounts of the Absolute are only approximations which have the function of bringing it down, so to speak, into the universe of discourse, so that the student can acquire some idea of it which can be corrected in the light of subsequent negations.

If the opening passage of Chapter III of the second Book of the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upanishad teaches that the five great elements that emanate from the Absolute are a reality, then the Absolute can initially be conceived as the cause from which they proceed. 

But the purpose of the passage as a whole is not to teach that the Absolute is the cause of the world. The aim, rather, is to present the Absolute first in the guise of the cause of the world so as to give the student some idea of it.

When some conception of the Absolute is once in his mind, then it can be purified by the later text ‘Not thus, not thus’, which negates all empirically knowable characteristics of the Absolute, including that of being the cause of the world.

As we have already seen, Śaṅkara did not invent this method of interpreting the texts, but inherited it from earlier Teachers such as Gauḍapāda and Draviḍa. It is known as the method of false attribution and subsequent denial (adhyāropa and apavāda).

~Alston, Absolute, 165

On Transcendental Self-awareness

Satcitananda is the principle of existence, the ground of consciousness, and the bliss of self-awareness. These are not attributes of Brahman. That satcitananda is the nondual nature of Nirguna Brahman.

In Saguna Brahman, I Am is the god of existence, I Know is the demigod of consciousness, and I Know I Am is the love song of self-awareness.

This manifestation of self-awareness may feel like samsara and look like space-time to an unwise mind but is actually the nondual nature of that transcendental light.

The Paradox of  Self-awareness

Beyond life is the principle of existence. Beneath mindfulness is the ground of consciousness. Transcending love is the bliss of self-awareness.

Scientific materialism doesn’t have the ground of consciousness to stand on. It’s like this house of cards in the middle of an old-fashioned hurricane. 

Religions give birth to billions of babies while scientific materialism throws out the baby with the bathwater. Advaita liberates that which is unborn, I'm just saying.

Call Me Moby

From existence to awareness happens in the blink of an eye.

In the name of effortless nondoing and intuitive nonknowing.

Call me Satcitananda.

Summary of Shankara's System

The fundamental principle of Shankara’s teaching is that the pure, innermost ‘Self’ is the ultimate reality. This Self (which must not be confused with the ‘ego’) is a spiritual kernel of the same kind as Brahman or Godhead, the ultimate reality.

When a man overcomes ignorance or ‘avidya’ (the word has a very wide connotation which will be explained later) and grasps intuitively that the Universe is merely an external phenomenon, and realises the identity between the Self and Brahman he becomes a ‘liberated’ soul waiting only for his final liberation from the body by death.

The Self or Brahman cannot be described because it has no ‘qualities’ in the ordinary sense though it is sometimes said to be of the nature of pure being pure consciousness and pure bliss.

The material universe of forms and things is grounded in Brahman, but its formation therefrom cannot be described or formulated.

It functions on the basis of the law of ‘karma’ that is of cause and effect; but its ultimate cause is Brahman which has created the material world and started the process of change that we see occurring in that world, all creation is, however, ‘Maya’ or the power of illusion. 

Within the realm of maya the universe exists and can be conceived as a creation of Brahman, who can also be conceived as a personal God; though from the standpoint of ultimate reality even a personal deity is a product of maya.

The causal law itself is ultimately unintelligible, because it is an illusory concept of name and form. There is no more essential difference between effect and cause than between a moulded pot and the clay from which it is made.

The world as caused by Brahman is an illusory superimposition (adhyasa) of phenomenon on the basic reality—like a rope which is mistaken for a snake or the mirage-lake seen on the desert sand.

It follows logically therefore that Shankara should urge the renunciation of transitory things and the acquisition of ‘right knowledge’ as the only means of attaining ‘liberation’.

~Y. Keshava Menon, "The Mind of Shakaracharya" 

Turn, Turn, Turntable

Awareness is pure consciousness. The mind is reflected consciousness like a red hot iron ball.

Any appearance in this lake appears to be real not because of its reflection but for the water in which it is appearing.

Lucid dreaming is like receiving. In manifesting is the giving. The mind is like a needle in a turn, turn, turntable.

Beginningless ignorance and spontaneous revelation are two sides of Maya. Self-awareness is the coin of reality.

Footnotes to a Solar Eclipse

Some say what most know as consciousness is actually reflected consciousness. Some call pure consciousness awareness. All states of consciousness are appearances in awareness. Pure consciousness is nondual.

Attention equals consciousness plus thought. Thoughts comprise the subtle substances of every name appearing in this universal magic show. Which came first: Chicken Little or the Golden Egg?

The shadow is nothing but a cloud. Avidya is like a dirty rotten snake. Accumulation is against the laws of giving and receiving. Insincerity is not impeccable. These dogs of war are in your head.

Dream sleep is mind on. Deep sleep is mind off. Mindfulness is seeing through the mind when on. Enlightenment transcends the mind, off or on.

Senses are the instruments of the mind. Dreams are like sonatas, concertos, or symphonies. Intuition is that corona of the Self.

A Solar Eclipse of Satcitananda

There are no states of consciousness. Like the Sun, awareness always shines.

The Self is self-luminous. There will be clouds.

States of consciousness are states of ignorance. Like cumulus, cirrus, and thunderheads.

The waking state is a dream state too. The mind is turned on asleep or awake. 

Perception is 99% of all illusion. The rest is aura.

Shankara on Name and Form

The explanation follows the line not of the ancient texts that proclaimed that the objects of the world came forth from the texts of the Veda, but the sceptical line of the teachings of Uddālaka. Objects are illusions, entirely dependent on their names.

They are the mere illusory appearance of a plurality of isolated units in the Absolute that results from the arbitrary activity of naming. In this sense, the object is entirely dependent for its existence on, and therefore identical with, its name.

And the name, too, is an illusion. For all modifications of sound are reducible to the one basic sound, OM. And... the syllable OM itself is ultimately reduced to the Absolute, which has no empirical features and certainly does not consist of a plurality of four component elements like the vocalized syllable OM.

So what we have here is not a theory of the creative power of sound in which words are regarded as the subtle vibrations from which gross objects come forth, but a resolute reduction of all plurality to illusion on the lines of Uddālaka.

A similar view is also found at Extract 17, where Śaṅkara reduces all words to the principle speech (Vāc), and reduces Vāc to the Absolute. In this case, what was originally a doctrine describing creation is reduced to a doctrine of illusion.

~A J Alston from 'Shankara on the Creation', p.154

Talking Satcitananda

Veni, vidi, vici. I am, I know, I know I am.

Being is the principle of existence. Awareness is the ground of consciousness.

Self-awareness is the essence of bliss.

The Revelation of Divine Imagination

Awake or asleep, the mind is always dreaming—except in deep sleep when the mind defaults. Trees sleep deep while people are dreaming.

Being, consciousness, bliss, name, and form are maximizing Maya. Satcitananda is the proverbial rope as name and form are making up the snake.

People come with gods and vice versa like a matching set. Any atheist believing in the personal subconsciously believes in some kind of god.

Liberation is a loaded word for clarity. Transmigration is universal dreaming. That is the revelation of divine imagination in this manifestation of self-awareness.

Transcendental Nonduality

The mind is like an island. Folks are always doing or not doing raves on John Donne.

The sea is like a god to us. Depths of effortless intuition fill our prayers.

The absolute being of transcendental consciousness transcends

this universe of space and time. In other words, I am That minus Maya.

Shankara on Vedic revelation

Can any means of knowledge reveal the Self, since to do so is to make the Self an object for a knowing subject. You cannot know anything as an object until you are separate from it and it is standing over against you as an object ready to be known.

Vedic revelation and critical reflection, therefore, as applied to the Self, are primarily negative in character. They do not yield determinate knowledge of the Self as if it were an object:

their function, rather, is to negate that which impedes the self-manifestation of the Self in its true form as infinite consciousness.

Shankara on Cause, Effect, and the Absolute

Śaṅkara is entirely on common ground with the Sūtras when he defends upanishadic monism by declaring not only that the effect is real before its production, but also that it is real before and during manifestation, and even that its future existence is real now and subject to apprehension by a yogin.

It is real, however, not in itself, but only as the cause, as the pot is real not qua pot but qua clay. The doctrine of the Sūtras that the objects come forth from, and return back to, the Absolute is defended.

But at times Śaṅkara goes back behind the doctrine of the Sūtras to certain texts of the old Upanishads and maintains that the effect is strictly nothing over and above the cause. As we already know, if the cause is said to be identical with the effect, this means that the effect has the nature of the cause, while the cause does not have the nature of the effect.

This, however, is to reduce the effect to the cause. If the world has an intelligible structure, and curds can only be obtained from milk and not from clay, this means that a certain power or predisposition to evolve into curds must be in the milk.

But Śaṅkara declares that all objects are non-different from the ‘powers, (śakti) or predispositions from which they proceed, while the powers, in turn, are non-different from the substances in which they lie, and the substances themselves are traceable finally to the great elements from which they proceed and into which they will eventually dissolve back, so that the whole world, beginning with the primordial element ether, is reduced to a mere inexplicable appearance arising on the face of the Absolute, while causality, law and intelligibility still reign within the appearance.

Śaṅkara transforms the older doctrine of Sat-kārya Vāda, the mere doctrine of the reality of the effect before its manifestation, into an instrument for affirming, yet again, the transcendence of the Absolute, which triumphs ultimately over all predicates attributed to it by the human mind.

~A J Alston from 'Shankara on the Absolute', p.126

Shankara on the Deeper Levels

The circumstance which prevents man from realizing his own true nature as pure Consciousness is attachment to the forms set up by nescience, and the deeply rooted habit of taking them for real.

The purpose of all religious practices, when viewed in the context of the path to liberation, is to weaken the hold of the illusory forms by developing a counter-awareness of deeper levels of reality hidden beneath the more superficial forms.

These ‘deeper levels’ of reality are themselves ultimately illusory from the very fact of being accessible to the understanding and will of man. They are, according to the rather drastic formula of Śaṅkara’s Commentary on Gauḍapāda’s Kārikā II.4, ‘false because seen’. 

Nevertheless, the contemplation of the Lord as manifest under illusory forms relieves the mind of its burden of attachment to the grosser and more oppressive phases of the world-appearance, in particular to the objects of crude sense-enjoyment. Thus it prepares the soul for the final rejection of all forms as illusory,

~A J Alston from 'Shankara on the Creation', p.82

Shankara on the Unmoving Mover

The view that the Lord, though pure Consciousness in his true nature, is somehow at the same time an active being manipulating his power of Māyā, is appropriate and useful for the development of the religious consciousness, which is a necessary preliminary before the final stages of the spiritual path for most people. But if it is taken as the final truth, it will imply that the Lord is an agent and is subject to change and is consequently Himself phenomenal.

The stricter usage, therefore, is to reserve the terms Hiraṇyagarbha, Brahmā or Prajāpati for the world-soul and to use the term ‘Īśvara’ (the Lord) to denote pure Consciousness as Witness and that by whose Light the world-soul and all living beings carry out their powers of activity and knowledge within the phenomenal world.

Within the world-appearance there are deities or powers which carry out their cosmic functions owing to the presence within them of the Light of the Lord, who is Himself a motionless, actionless Witness.

So Śaṅkara says, ‘Thus the lordship, omniscience and omnipotence of the Lord exist relative to the limitations and distinctions of nescience only, and in reality there can be no practice of rulership or omniscience on the part of the Self, in which all distinctions remain eternally negated in knowledge’.

Nevertheless, precisely because He is thus pure Consciousness (cit), He is the only effective root of all activity and knowledge, for He is that which alone exists. Thus, although He is in the true sense bereft of all form, body, organs or action, He is in fact the effective controller of the world-display.

For ‘The cosmic powers take up and lay down their activities in a controlled way through the mere proximity of the Lord as actionless Witness’.

Thus the Lord, though without bodies and organs of His own, carries out activities through the bodies and organs of the deities or cosmic powers. The conception of unmoving mover is illustrated by the analogies of a magnet and a king, both of which cause directed activity in others by their mere presence.

~A J Alston from 'Shankara on the Creation', p.80

Shankara on the Absolute as Lord

We have already seen that the texts teach the existence of the Absolute as ‘that from which all this comes forth’. But did they imply that this Being is actively involved in the creation and control of the world, or is it merely conceived as an actionless divine ground on which the world manifests through nescience?

Śaṅkara’s answer is that from the standpoint of the highest truth there is no plurality and no world and no Creator, and only the divine ground exists, if even the notions of existence or ground can be applied to it.

But from the standpoint of nescience the world of duality is a fact. And from that standpoint it is a grievous error to believe that the world-process goes on through the operation of any blind force and without the conscious support and control of an omniscient and omnipotent Lord.

To correct this error, the upanishadic texts speak occasionally of the Lord (īśa, etc.) and imply that He is the efficient and material cause of the universe, the Inner Ruler and Divine Magician who spreads forth the whole world-appearance under His own conscious control as a mere illusion.

~A J Alston from 'Shankara on the Creation', p.8

Shankara on Avidya (nescience)

If, says Śaṅkara, you demand to know to whom this ‘not-being-awake-to-the-Self’ (aprabodha) belongs, we reply, ‘To you who ask this question’.

If you were awake (prabuddha) to this, you would see that in truth no nescience exists anywhere for anyone. 

Śaṅkara argues in a rather similar way in his Gītā Commentary. First he asserts that nescience does not afflict the true Self. 

Then he brings forward a pupil who wants to know what it does afflict if it does not afflict the Self. It afflicts, he is told, whatever it is perceived to afflict.

To ask further ‘What is that?’ is a useless question, since one cannot perceive nescience at all without perceiving the one afflicted by it. 

Śaṅkara so conducts the remainder of the argument that the pupil has to admit that, because he cannot help perceiving the one afflicted with nescience, he cannot himself be the one afflicted with nescience.

Thus bondage is an illusion and enlightenment does not imply any real change of state. Enlightenment does not so much destroy nescience as reveal that it never existed.

~A J Alston fom 'Sankara on the Absolute' p.88

Mechanics of Maya

The world of maya is an illusion which doesn’t look like one because the person looking is illusionary too.

Understanding the metaphysics of maya doesn’t mean ignoring the newtonian ones. Even quantum mechanics doesn’t go there. Everybody needs a bed to sleep on.

Understanding all is illusion is one thing. Knowing it's one is another. The former is mindful and the latter is atman.

2. east and west

All coding appears in the mind. Waves don’t make a sea. DNA may make the mind but the mind is an appearance in consciousness. Like AI.

Spacetime appears in consciousness and not the other way around. They say understanding this is the big difference between east and west. Sunrise appears in consciousness. Sunset appears in the mind.

3. tending to satcitananda

Happiness does not reside in the mind. War resides in the mind.

Desires aren't happiness but it's the only thing the mind has got.

People think they are tending to satcitananda by making a living, bless our little hearts.

4. me, s/he, & I

me is a reflection of I

s/he is a reflection of god

I am Self-luminous

5. talking kena 2.4

Consciousness is timeless.

Existence is spaceless.

Talking right here and right now.

I am the witness consciousness.

In absolute consciousness, there is nothing to witness.

In reflected consciousness, the dreaming is non-stop.

Attention minus thought equals awareness.

Pratibodha viditam.

footnotes

pratibodhaviditaṁ matamamṛtatvaṁ hi vindate, ātmanā vindate vīryaṁ vidyayā vindate'mṛtam.