[Advaita-l] Saakshii-Jiiva-Iswara Analysis - VI

[kuntimaddi sadananda]

Analysis of
Saakshii, Jiiva And Iswara
Based on
Vichaarasaagara of Nischaladaasa - VI
 
Coming back to the
Vichara Saagara text, objector in the text or purvapakshi is making a mistake
of taking saakshii as the vishiShTa chaitanyam than upahita chaitanyam. First,
there will always be mixture that involves aatma + anaatmaa or ahankaara in all
transactions. aatma can exist by itself but cannot communicate or transact.
anaatma can neither exist nor can transact without the support of aatma.
VishiShTa chaitanyam is one with visheshaNam or qualifications. Aatmaa or
saakshii being Brahman cannot have any visheshaNam or attributes. Hence all
attributes belong to anaatma and in this case to ahankaara. All our bio-data,
glorifying our qualifications, corresponds to anaatma or ahankaara or ego. When
the objector says saakshii knows only one mind and not many minds, the
statement itself is incorrect. Saakshii just illumines all the minds and yet
knows no mind.  All the knowing takes
place with the mind, in the mind and by the mind only, as we discussed above
that the subject-object duality that arises in the mind. Any knowledge involves
dis-covery or removing cover of ignorance using an appropriate pramANa. Both
jnaani and ajnaani are with reference to the mind only, since it is the mind
that has ignorance and it is that ignorant mind that gains the knowledge.
Saakshii just illumines both the ignorant mind as well as mind with knowledge.
There are no jnaani or ajnaani at Saakshii level.   
 
Saakshii is called
upahita chaitanyam and jiiva is vishiShTa chaitanyam. Mind is an important
factor here for both jnaani and ajnaani. Nischaladaasa calls the mind as
vyaavartakaH – revealer of the chaitanyam, just as moon is vyaavarthaka of
sunlight as it reveals the presence of sunlight where the moon is. In the
process of revealing, it is excluded as part of revealed but it just serves as
instrument or upAdhi for revelation. However, if it is wrongly included by the
ignorant as revealed entity then it is visheShaNam. Thus upAdhi and VisheShaNam
are two states for the same entity. Similarly mind is revealer of chaitanyam
but it just serves as upAdhi for jnaani to know that ‘I am’ is the revealed
entity. In this case, the revealing knowledge also takes place in the mind of
the jnaani only, not in saakshii.  
 
Everyone claims
that I am a conscious entity, and say I know my mind- yet out of ignorance they
associate the –I am – with the vishiShTa chaitanyam by including the mind as
part of revealed, while a jnaani intellectually separates the upAdhi
from the revealed and claims himself to be the conscious entity excluding the
upAdhi. Since the mixture of revealed and revealer (I am + mind or ahankaara)
are too subtle to separate, it requires a trained mind to do the separation.
Separation is too subtle since the mixture is not of physical mixture but
mixture of entities that are ontologically of two different orders of reality. This
separation has to be done by the mind, since misconceptions are in the mind.
This is what JK (J. Krishnamurthy – for those who are familiar with his
writings/talks) also calls as the conditioning of the mind. In our terminology
conditioned mind is vishiShTa chaitanya and unconditioned mind is upahita
chaitanyam. Deconditioning involves exclusion of the mind in claiming that I am
the pure conscious-existent entity. Some call this as transcending the mind. We
have to transcend the mind using the mind; otherwise it becomes a mindless
process!  The subtleness of the process
becomes clear once it is recognized that this exclusion of the mind as well as
the claiming that I am pure consciousness requires the mind only. Without the
mind no realization is possible just as without the moon sunlight cannot be
recognized where the moon is. Akhandaakaara vRitti is nothing but constant
abiding in the knowledge that I am that pure consciousness by constantly
excluding the mind, while using the mind for this exclusion, and ascertaining
that I am pure existence-consciousness that pervades all vRittis in the mind.
NirvaNa shatakam states the same in the very first sloka ..mano buddhyahamkara chittani naham……chidananda rupah shivoham shivoham. I am not the mind, buddhi, ahankaara, and
chitta, the four-fold aspects of the mind; and my nature is pure limitless
consciousness and I am that auspicious entity.  To remind us, this statement was made using the mind by the mind and for
the mind.
 
Raaga and dweshaas only affect the mind, not I,
the saakshii. To recognize this, detachment from identification with the mind
that has raga dweshaas as impurities is required. For that detachment some
degree of purity of the mind is required. The purification of the mind involves
a process since impurities are accumulated by a process only. The science of
purification or deconditioning is what Krishna calls it as yoga shaastra. This
is where JK’s so called teaching blunders (I am using so-called since JK does
not want to be called as a teacher, while his disciples claim themselves as
followers of JK’s teaching!). Purification of the mind can be done by karma,
Bhakti or upaasana yoga. Yoga makes the mind integrated so that it can
discriminate the subtle mixture of aatma and anaatma and shift the attention to
the self. 
 
Here it is important to understand that it is
impossible to have a mind completely or 100% pure. It is like trying to get
100% pure gold; and thermodynamically it is impossible. However, some degree of
purity is required for the mind to detach itself or not to include itself in
the claim that as I am a conscious entity. In Geeta Krishna says – naiva
kinchit karomiiti yuktho manyeta tatva vit, pasyan shRinvan ….
indriyaaNiidriyaartheShu vartanta iti dhaarayan, exemplifies the
de-identification process or de-conditioning process. 
 
However we have to recognize that without the
mind one cannot transact in the world; the mind includes the ahankaara. When
Shankara wrote Bhaashyaas and other prakarana granthaas there is mind and thus
ahankaara involved. He starts the text with mangala sloka only. Hence a jnaani
when he transacts in the world, he temporarily identifies with the mind for the
purpose of transaction, but knows that I am never a doer or enjoyer –
akartaaham abhuktaaham even while doing and enjoying by the BMI can go on.
Krishna says: yoga yukto vishuddhaatmaa vijitaatmaa jitendriyaH, sarva
bhuutaatma bhuutaatmaa kurvannapi na lipyate – thus one who is abiding in the
knowledge of I am the light of consciousness that enlivens not only this mind
but all BMIs, the actions by any or all BMI will not affect the pure
consciousness that I am.  The reason
again is ontologically consciousness is of different order of reality in
relation to the apparent creation and products of that apparent creation that
includes all BMIs. 
More in the next.
Hari Om!
Sadananda