Lights on Advaita:- 2

Lights on Advaita:

Selected Teachings of

 V. Subrahmanya Iyer

CHAPTER 11: ILLUSIONS OF SPACE, TIME, EXTERNALITY

(10.1) Illusion does not mean the non-existence of anything. Those who do not

understand Vedanta teach this wrong definition.

(10.2.) Experience of life shows that after deeper inquiry many things are not what they

seem at first sight, that the naively realistic view of the ordinary man is insufficient as we

go deeper.

(10.3) Every man thinks he is pursuing truth and would be indignant if he were told that

he was pursuing his own personal feelings about it. Admittedly the idea of truth comes to

all persons, but who inquires into its nature? Every man has the conceit that his

interpretation is true, although he has never taken the trouble to find out how it is true.

(10.4) Vedanta does not dispense with externality; take the case of Dream when the 'fear'

is inside and the 'tiger' outside. We perceive both internal and external. The external

world is reduced to ideas and the ideas are reduced to Atman. Vedanta is neither Idealism

nor Realism.

(10.5) Empiricism = taking things as they are known to the senses.

(10.6) Advaita does not deny existence of external objects: it denies their reality.

(10.7) People who use the word "external" ought to define it first. They speak of an

external world. External to what? Is the body external or internal to the mind? If the body

is included in the world (as it must be because it is built up from food, water, air, taken

from it) then if the body is internal (as it must be to the mind) the whole world must also

be internal.

(10.8) What is it that tells you of the chair? The mind, because if your attention is

elsewhere you are not cognizant of the chair.

(10.9) Where do you see the snake? Outside. Where is the snake? In your mind. Thus

inquiry shows that the body is really inside the mind. It is the nature of the mind to

concoct scenes. That is the best word we can really say about it. With occasions those

scenes will vary.

(10.10) Answer to the question regarding the idea of ideal chair sitting on it is fallacy.

The questioner forgets he is also an idea, his body to also an idea. He has not given up his

faith that body is real. Why does he think it impossible? He thinks his body is different

from idea. He does not know that mind and matter are both ideas. It is same as Dr.

(Samuel) Johnson's objection.

(10.11) Amputated limb soldiers in war who had a certain nerve touched in the arm were

at first telling the doctor, "do not touch my finger. It causes me pain.” He felt as though

the hand was there. There was nothing, still he felt it. It was his idea only. This is

analogous to Idealism. We feel the external world is and real but it is not there.

(10.12) What is your great grand father to you now? You may say he was such and such

man, but that only means he is an imagined figure, for you have never seen him, and he is

only an idea. Similarly yesterday we had a conversation. What is that to you now?

Merely a memory, i.e. it has now been reduced to an idea. Ignorance makes men think

that time, things, persons are real.

(10.13) What is Time? What is eternity? How can you know that God is eternal? Did he

tell you so? If, so, how does he know? For He might die tomorrow! How can you know

that there is such a thing as eternity. And if you know it you must yourself live all

eternity, be coexistent with it. Are you?

(10.14) Take anything which grows and changes, say a seed, and state at what precise

moment the seed became a plant, the babe a man. This is impossible, therefore the time

change is really your own conception, not in the object. Can you have an idea of time

unless you have in it beginnings and endings, breaks and changes? But when you try to

get hold of the latter, they vanish.

(10.15) "Past" must have a meaning. It is an idea. Future is an idea not yet come. Hence

whenever you are thinking; when you think of the past you think it in the present. I get

the idea of present only by distinguishing it from the past or future. It is an idea. Can you

experience this present really? What is meant by the present? It involves distinction, it

depends past and future. Both these do not exist. Therefore present does not exist as such.

The conclusion is that all time is but idea, imagination. When you think, all thoughts exist

in the present. Hence we call it eternal. But all idea of time is conception of mind. When

can you draw a line and say this instant is the present? In reality you cannot do this, you

cannot hold the present. Time is only an idea, and all events therefore are ideas with it.

The present appears to exist and yet it does not. Hence we call time Maya. But that which

appears is substantially the Atman, so if time and events go, we know the Atman does not

go. Hence we are not after all terming time--whose flux of events seems our life--illusory.

(10.16) Unreal in the snake-rope story means that which dissolves itself (is dissolved

back) again into you. The snake you had seen is only an idea. When you approach nearer

the snake disappeared. Where did it go? It went back into the mind. Similar the ideas we

form of the universe go back into the mind whence they arose. (ed. “prapanchopasasam”)

(10.17) By the time you say this is present it becomes past. What we consider as present,

is only imagination. How long does the idea of the present last even? It does not even last

one second. By the time you thought of present it is gone, the present itself has vanished.

Moreover the past is not here. The present can not depend on that even. Idea of time is

our imagination, belief.

(10.18) Time is treated in Mandukya Upanishad Karika: Time is always referred to some

object or event composed of objects. It takes time to glance at any object because it has

dimensions and the eye must travel from one border of it to another. Where does the.

present moment start or stop? It is impossible to distinguish these points, because it

becomes past moment. Similarly, where does the past or future begin or end? Impossible

to say. Hence we cannot form an idea of either past, present or future i.e of time. In short

it is only an idea in our minds. Then what gives the strong sense of reality to time? If it

were merely an idea, why is it felt by all mankind? Analyze each man, to him it is an idea

also. A million naughts remain naught. Hence collective experience of mankind does not

turn time as an idea in each individual mind into a reality.

(10.19) If time proved to be but an idea then eternity must be the same too: What is

eternity? That which is without beginning or end--an idea. merely, because who can say

what is going to happen the next minute, let alone all eternity. Even God himself cannot

say "I am eternal.” Even a God who has lived for a million years cannot say whether he is

going to continue another single year. Hence even eternity and time, as ideas, must

collapse or disappear. At this point people will fear to go further. Eternity consoled them

with the thought of surviving death. If it vanishes, they feel lost, But no, something is

left. To whom has these ideas come? To the Self. In whom do they appear and vanish? In

the Self. Hence the Self as Witness still remains. Now the world was shown to be but an

idea. All Ideas disappear into the self. Hence the world disappears into the self. Or the

self contains the whole world. It is the Witness of the three states. IT IS. Why add

predicates? It embraces everything. What cause then for fear? This is the Upanishad

teaching, Even the idea "eternity" disappears into Self and is contained by it. Why fear?

(10.20) The idea of time is impossible in the sleep state.

(10.21) Through ignorance we consider unreal things to be real, but when we get

knowledge we know them for what they are. False knowledge, such as taking a tree at

night for a man, is such ignorance and is removed by inquiry. Scientists have got so far as

to see the world in electrons and protons; if only they will inquire further and not stop,

they will see the world is idea, and still later they will know it is only Brahman. The criticism

is often made of Vedanta that we base it on queer or abnormal events such as

seeing mirages, snakes in ropes ate. We reply, no, we do not limit our inquiry to them.

We also inquire into real water and not mirages alone, into real snakes and not ropes

alone, imaginary snakes. Then we find the real nature of all these things--Brahman.

Hence ours is a message of persistent inquiry not stopping till the ultimate end is reached.

(10.22) Only after the world has been analyzed, should we ask the question, What is it

that sees the world? This leads to investigation into Atman, to What am I? But we should

not begin with the latter.

(10.23) The world has existence; even the snake seen in an illusion has existence: even

appearances have existence. It is therefore absurd to deny existence of anything

experienced. What we ought to do however is to ask ourselves, what is meant by

existence?

(10.24) You do not see the external object as outside your minds (upon realization)

although you continue to see it as outside your body.

(10.25) It is an error of all the scientists, psychologists and philosophers to regard illusion

as extraordinary, abnormal and peculiar perception. What you have to grasp and explain

is that it is perception--unadulterated plain perception operating as it always operates. It is

the ordinary process of sight touch etc. This is the most important point. Therefore

illusion must be treated as a part or continuation of the normal process of

sense-perception and experience.

(10.26) There is no such thing as a measure of time. Close analysis will reveal that all our

measurements based on planetary revolutions are ultimately nothing else than mental

impressions. Time is how we think it. Einstein has begun to point to this truth without

however, realizing the tremendous consequences which must ultimately follow when this

path of analysis is pushed to its logical and fullest extent. Thus by comparing the dream

state with the waking state, we may perceive how, as dreams occur in the mind, time is

purely mental. The same discriminations apply to the notion of space also. Those who

object that dream standards are hallucinatory and therefore inadmissible as evidence need

to be reminded that were this discussion conducted in the dream state, they would use

precisely the same, argument about the hallucinatory character of the waking state, whilst

they would uphold the definite reality of the dream state. The fact is that they possess no

proof beyond the idea that they are now in the waking state. And further, if dream is mere

hallucination, why should nature have given us this state unless she regarded it as being

at least as real as the waking state?

(10.27) Sankara used the idea of eternity only to oppose the idea of time, to show it as

illusory. But he never meant eternity is real. That would be to misunderstand him.

(10.28) There is a hypothesis involved and hidden in Zeno's famous paradox of motion. It

is that space can be infinitely divided. Even when you divide space you are only

imagining that you are doing so.

(10.29) People always make a mistake in confusing reality with existence. Appearance

may exist, as snake or mirage, and yet not be a reality.

(10.30) There is a difference between super-imposition and imagination. The first

requires a second thing to support or receive it which resembles it; the other is only the

mind manipulating itself. But when you know everything is Atman, you know there is no

duality, hence super-imposition is impossible. What then did the mind do? You cannot

explain adequately by saying it imagined because all your imagination will not bring

London before you as it is. The mind has projected the appearance so as to make it appear

outside the body. Hence it imagined it first and then projected it outside. How did it come

to appear outside? This shows that if you say the world is imagination and stop there, it

does not explain fully. You have to grant that the mind has a two-fold power, the second

being projection or superimposition of the form of objects upon itself. When you see

anything outside you, it is the mind which has created it for you, and as in dream or

mirage it can also project it to appear outside.

(10.31) The words "projection" and "'external"' are unphilosophic. From where to where

can there be the projection, when you know that the body is also an idea?

(10.32) There is no such thing as "outside" teaches Mandukya. In your dream you see a

mountain outside, but it is not really so. Sankara has said that you see the mirage or the

snake outside, but they are really in your own mind. You can never have anything as

outside without the mind showing it to you, without thinking it, without using the mind to

tell you. This is the reply to the realists.

(10.33) What is it that prevents us seeing world in self? The error of thinking mind is in

the body instead of reverse; mind cannot be confined to the body: we do not know its

extent: nobody has seen it inside the body.

(10.34) "Inside" and "outside" are terms having reference to the body. But the body is

mental, idea, hence as dimensionless as Mind. What is the use of such meaningless

spatial terms?

(10.35) We cannot say where the limits of' the mind are. The mind is like a mirror and

our body is like a reflection in this mirror, just as all other objects are. When you know

Mind is unlimited and that your body is limited, then it follows that the latter must be

within the mind.

(10.36) Time and space being only ideas, no thing can exist either inside you or outside

you; it is really the same as you i.e. non-different.

CHAPTER 12: DOCTRINE OF MENTALISM

(11.1) Walking through a disused ruined graveyard in Mysore with VSI he remarked: this

reminds us of what we too shall become. Where are all these dead people? They are only

memories, i.e. ideas, even to their kith and kin. The transiency of human life is another

indication that it is but an idea. Hence the study of death's inexorability as man's destiny

should cause us to reflect that whole of life ends in death and that nothing is left but an

idea.

(11.2) Yoga is valuable to bring seeker to indifference to sensation and sense perception

and thus prepare him for idealism of the world.

(11.3) The Western philosopher cannot get over their tallest hurdle, not because they

cannot see that the body is an idea but because they are so strongly attached to the body

that they modify or fit their theories to please this attachment. In short, they refuse to give

up the body.

(11.4) Only those who think body and world are real, are given yoga and mysticism,

which is the middling class of intelligence. Those who grasp that they are mental

constructions belong to the highest grade of intellects.

(11.5) Desire, attachment, passion are regarded as handicaps to path only because they

prevent mind accepting truth that matter is an idea. Naturally you will say "I like my

house. It is so comfortable and luxurious. I refuse to regard it as a mere idea," if you are

so passionately attached to its reality. They do not necessarily mean specific desires for

wealth, women, etc.

(11.6) You cannot teach higher Vedanta to anyone who is incapable of grasping the truth

that world is an idea.

(11.7) After long experience I have now realized that to use the word "unreal" in such

connection as “the world is unreal,” is unfortunate, and causes misapprehension on part

of others. So I have decided to and advise you to use the word “idea.” It is better to say

that “the world is an idea.” Similarly, do not talk of mental "abstraction" when you mean

withdrawing the mind inwards from the external world, but rather use the word

"detachment."

(11.8) It is knowing that is absolutely necessary for the existence of a thing; the objects

are not different from the mind.

(11.9) No scientist has been able to explain how and when you—your

consciousness--came into existence.

(11.10) The mind has no place; in dream it appears and disappears; it is constantly

changing. Atman constructs the mind you use as it constructs the physical objects-ideas.

The finite individual mind is a mental construction.

(11.11) Imaginations=mental presentations—mental constructions=ideas.

(11.12) Nowadays objective idealism generally is accepted. It teaches that the external

object is there, but your mind interprets it and forms a picture for you in the form of an

idea. Thus a combination of object plus idea = this system. The opposition is usually

directed against subjective idealism which says you know only the idea of the object.

Curiously however, the arguments for the latter are much stronger than for the former,

because even when you say there is an object, outside, it is your mind which tells you so.

All you get is a thought.

(11.13) Objective or Ontological Idealism teaches there is a real outside object of which

my mind tells me, and my mind could not form the idea unless the object were there,

whereas Subjective or Epistemological Idealism teaches that I do not know whether there

is any outside object other than my mind. I neither deny nor accept it. I say simply that I

do not know. Even if it existed I still know only what my mind tells me about it.

(11.14) Idealism can never escape to the truth except by the road of non-causality.

Otherwise it will always be deluded by its notion that a thought must reside in the mind

of a Thinker, i.e. produced by a Universal Mind or God i.e. caused by such a Mind.

Berkeley never saw this, but Kant began to suspect it: however he had the weakness to

imagine "transcendental" cause.

(11.14) European Idealism says the external world is a construction of the mind. But

Gaudapada alone of all philosophers whether Western or Indian rises still higher and

shows that as a causal relation is never found between subject and object, then the

Idealists are talking nonsense.

(11.15) It is not mere egoistic imaginations, but those in the mind itself. This must be

understood. In your dream the most important thing is that you yourself have been

constructed by the mind, for in your dream you are either a king or a hunter, or a beggar,

i.e. you are yourself imagined or constructed by the mind. It is not my idea but the

common Mind which imagines that and this person. You may have seen the birth and

death of other beings, thoughts and feelings, but you have never seen the birth and death

of the knower, or seer. You may imagine it but even that implies the imaginer. In other

words you must be there before thinking. Hence in this sense, the self is termed "the

unborn." We have never seen its going, so we cannot call it mortal. Hence too all things

and ideas must be of the same stuff as the Seer of them because they disappear into self.

(11.16) The European idea as soon as word "mind" is uttered is that it means "the mind of

an individual" whereas we Vedantins mean by it "that to which anything appears.” This is

an important and vital difference. Ours is thus a common mind.

(11.17) An idea is a mental creation.

(11.18) An idea means that you imagine. In Vedanta the word ‘idea’ stands for mental

construction --not that which the ego has constructed, but that which is constructed by the

mind which itself sees the ego--the common mind.

(11.19) Re: the Heart: Atman in heart (Hrid in old Sanskrit because in those days they

thought mind was in the heart). Mind can reduce itself to pin point (in heart) or expand to

take in universe. This is for yogic practice only, not Vedantic inquiry. It is useful for such

practice to take Atman as being in heart to have a point of concentration, like the heart

within as introversion, but it is a mistake to think this is highest.

(11.20) When someone is awake, we usually call him conscious, but pure awareness still

exists even when he is under anesthesia. We must separate pure consciousness from the

ideas in it, such as the ideas of waking objects and environment.

(11.21) The Vedanta notion of mind does not confine it to the body. Mind is like a

looking glass in which all bodies, all the universe appears. The mind must not be limited

to this or that point in space.

(11.22) The English word Consciousness is somewhat misleading. To Vedantins it means

"Consciousness of the universe" which you have in waking and dream, as one thing, and

pure consciousness, as another. Deep sleep is the nearest to understand pure

consciousness. Not that the external world is kept out, but you don't and can't see it as

separate because it is reabsorbed into you.

(11.23) We do not know the dimensions of the mind. All space is in your mind only, not

outside of it. c.f. the mind can imagine the Himalaya mountains.

(11.24) Those who talk of brain-consciousness are talking emptily. We do not know what

it is, nor what is "brainless consciousness". We know only consciousness. Science does

not know the true relation between consciousness and brain, if any.

(11.25) (a) There is only one Mind--let us call it the "Overmind." Every individual human

being is an inlet to the one Mind. In Sanskrit the latter is called "Sarowar" meaning "the

lake" hence the name of the sacred Tibetan lake "Manasarowar," meaning the lake of the

mind. If we imagine individuals to be pipes running out of this great lake of the

Overmind, then whoever goes only a little way into the lake becomes conscious of the

minds merest him; whoever goes to the deepest extent can then tap all minds. This is the

secret of telepathy. Insensibility to the body, or temporary insensibility of the personal

ego, permits the individual to enter the Universal Mind, as in hypnotic states, trance, etc.

The medium who gives up the ego to that extent gets rid of the obstruction to entering

into the Universal Mind. She may then ascertain the past or predict the future, because

both are equally present in the Overmind. However, she does this only temporarily and

she does not contact the Divine Self, only the eternal infinitude of time. There is no limit

to the Overmind, just as space has no limit. The notion that the mind is enclosed in the

head is a mistake. There is but one Mind operating through a multitude of individuals and

appearing different in each. This applies also to animals. To tap this Mind to its deepest

extent is simply dependent on the amount of concentration one has. Herein lies the key to

all occult phenomena, just as during the dream state we see people, hear them speak, fly

the world, etc. so the psychic senses derive their reality from the Overmind, for these

senses operate from the dream state. The occultist brings his dream state into his waking

state. The medium who hears spirit voices is like the dreamer who hears them too. All

occult phenomena presuppose the reality of material limitations and hence have no value

from the standpoint of truth. In fact, they may even become snares for the truth seeker, if

he does not recognize them as being the pseudo-spiritual phenomena that they are.

b) The One Universal Overmind is the source of genius. It is NOT Brahman. It is reached

by forgetting the personal 'I', then concentration.

c) It is because the mind is not confined to the brain box, but stretches far outside the

body that certain kinds of psychic phenomena are possible. Similarly, because past,

present and future exist simultaneously in the Overmind prediction is possible.

(11.26) The Unconsciousness can only be a consciousness without objects; otherwise it

has no meaning. Therefore it is really and somehow consciousness.

(11.27) That which you know best in the world, that which is nearest to you, that of

which you can never be free, whose existence is supremely certain, is your

consciousness. You may doubt anything else but you directly perceive yourself. Hence

we begin the study of Vedanta with the study of consciousness, not, as is mistakenly done

by Indian theologians, Western metaphysicians like Hegel, with the supposed Absolute.

Just as to explain the nature of gold, we take a single gold ornament first and then tell you

that all gold ornaments are made of this same single material so to explain the nature of

the unknown Brahman, we start with something known and familiar, viz. consciousness,

which you have in the three states, and proceed step by step from that onwards. You

know your Atman, it is directly perceived, thinking implies a thinking capacity, i.e. a

thinker. This Atman is your consciousness. After showing that this consciousness, this

self, is Brahman, we then explain that everything else is of the same nature which should

enable you henceforth to understand all else. Moreover everyone has and knows this

consciousness, therefore it is a universal datum. It is something which everybody can

grasp, not merely some occultist or mystic; therefore there is no mystery-mongering in

our study.

(11.28) If, as materialists say, the interaction of material brain atoms produces mind as a

byproduct, we reply that you could not know this unless someone had seen it happen. But

nobody has yet seen it. This theory is childish.

(11.29) No philosopher, whether in India or Europe has even been able to define the

meaning of 'mind' and 'consciousness'.

(11.30) It is more correct and a step up to Vedanta to understand that you know only

'mental states' as Hume pointed out. For in Vedanta we say we know only three final

states of mind--waking, dream and sleep--which come and go like other states.

(11.31) Before any thought, idea, opinion could come in, there must have been the mind.

Before you could know that God created world, mind must have been there to tell you so.

Before you can attribute to anything its primordial nature in the world--whether it be

Force, Matter, God or Electricity--the mind is prior in telling you of a primordial

principle. Therefore Mind is the only reality we know. All else we imagine, believe or

wish.

(11.32) All instincts, occult powers, mysterious faculties, are forms of the mind.

(11.33) Mesmerism is perfectly possible. Moreover a crowd of 100 can be wholly

mesmerized, because one stronger mind can master one or a hundred weaker minds. A

100 naughts still equals naught. This explains the rope trick.23

(11.34) The mind eludes measurement, therefore it cannot be mechanically studied or

analyzed as science does with other physical things. But the scientific method can be

applied to it apart from scientific measurement.

(11.35) How long, high and broad is your mind? You do not know where it begins or

ends. You cannot say it stops here. Have you seen your own mind, or anyone else's mind?

Yet people talk of my mind, his mind, as though each mind was numbered and separated.

Science now says that the mind is not limited, we cannot measure it or allot it to separate

individuals; that it is everywhere. Is your mind within your body or vice versa? If you say

your mind is within six inches of skull, that implies you have seen and measured it, which

is a lie. No man has ever seen a mind. We may say, however, that every man has got his

own thoughts, his own ideas, which are not in another man's mind, but Mind itself is all

one though thoughts may be many. All the external places, cities, bodies are within Mind.

(11.36) Imaginations are thoughts which arise by an individual's effort: whereas Ideas are

those which come and go of their own accord.

(11.37) Man knows only his consciousness. He never knows any other man's mind.

(11.38) Consciousness is something whose origin science has not discovered, when and

how it comes and when and how it goes cannot be seen. Science does not even know its

true relationship to the body.

(11.39) The secret of psychic healing or occult phenomena is this: the people who

approach the yogi have intense faith but weaker mind. The yogi says or does something

which sets the patient's own mind working powerfully on herself and, by power of

suggestion, causes her own cure. Mind can affect one's own body only, not another’s.

The miracle ascribed to the yogi above was really performed by the patient herself.

(11.40) Forgotten memories of something seen read or heard many years ago frequently

account for the sudden and unexpected arising of occult visions or other phenomena. But

unless one has a scientific frame of mind, one will ascribe these events wrongly. This is

the same as the Hindu theory of samskaras and vasanas, which in our view are buried not

only in the subconsciousness of this life, but also from former incarnations.

(11.41) An idea = what is present in the mind.

(11.42) We say mind is everywhere because we cannot determine its limits. But what is

"everywhere?" It is space. What is space? An idea, i.e. mind. Thus you see that when

23 A famous fakir illusion where a rope is seeming sent up into the sky and a boy climbs up it.

analysis is carried to its last, which is the principle of Vedanta we find the Mind is really

indefinable, and indescribable: That is the Drg.

(11.43) We cannot see anyone else's mind, only our own. Therefore, we must say, if we

would be honest, that Mind is one. To say that everybody has his own mind is merely an

imagination, an inference; it is unprovable, for all you can see of another person is his

body, never his mind. Hence Vedanta can only admit Mind to be one without a second.

(11.44) Consciousness outside is meaningless. Who has measured consciousness? How

can you get outside your mind or consciousness? When you think of the mind you are

unconsciously thinking of the body, and mean consciousness outside the body.

(11.44) How is it, critics say that every man has a different mind, yet you say there is

only one consciousness or Atman. Reply: There is only one sun but it will cast a million

separate reflections on the ocean, or a fire will throw out a hundred sparks; in the same

way understand the Self.

(11.45) We need to be careful in using the word Consciousness with Westerners, because

they apply it only to awareness of objects whereas India has specific Sanskrit words,

whose equivalents in English do not exist for pure, transcendent, objectless

consciousness, inclusive of deep sleep, dream and waking.

(11.46) Sushupti is "The Unconsciousness" of the Western psychologists: they have

absolutely no idea of Turiya.

(11.47) The Western theory of the Unconscious is a step forward to our definition of

consciousness but they cannot grasp it. They do not see that, if you give any meaning,

whatever to the term "unconscious" you have to be conscious of this meaning, therefore

your unconsciousness is really conscious. In deep sleep consciousness is ever and always

present, according to Vedanta, and when you talk of unconsciousness, you have to be

conscious, therefore it is nonsense.

(11.48) The "Emergent Theory" of Aristotle, S. Alexander and Lloyd Morgan says that

mind ultimately emerges from the body as its main product. It is not very different from

materialistic theory of origin and nature of mind, for it also ignores the felt priority of

mind, the fact that it tells you of body before body can tell you of mind.

(11.49) Have you seen this wall without using your mind independently of your idea of

it? No. It is the mind that gives you the wall. Therefore the "correspondence theory"

which says truth is that which conforms to reality although necessary for practical

purposes (otherwise we cannot get on with the business of life or do anything) is useless

for philosophic purposes because mind alone tells you about the wall. There is no other

reality outside you than the mind itself. Then to what is it able to correspond? How can

you put your idea alongside of any object to compare them? If your idea is of Chamundi

Hill can you examine it in correspondence with the hill? It is impossible. Mind cannot be

measured like matter. Nor does the "copy theory" survive examination, better than the

"correspondence theory.” Can you hold in your mind an exact copy of the Himalaya

mountains of precisely the same height and length as the mountains themselves? No. It is

an impossibility. Thus we finally arrive at the fact that the wall is mental.

(11.50) Nobody knows how mind and body are coordinated: they can only say 'it is so.'

No living being without a mind has ever been seen. The notion that they are separate is

only your construction. You may see a person at a distance and mistake him for

somebody else. The latter is then only your mental construction of picture. This shows

that it is the mind that works first and not the object. This proves that mind is

fundamental. Nobody can answer the question ‘How does the brain produce thoughts.’

Why? Because they make the mistake of believing that the physical brain comes first. If

the brain were the cause of thoughts, it would be possible to show the connection, but that

has never been done. There is an uncrossable gap. Therefore, this materialistic doctrine is

mere speculation, not philosophy.

(11.51) Maya as change: this change is only an idea, a thought. So Maya ultimately

means ideation, but according to context you begin by having idea of Maya as change in

mind.

(11.52) Energy, Force, itself is only a concept. You cannot see it. A concept is an idea.

An idea is a part of the mind. Therefore if science reduces the material world to pure

force, we may philosophically reduce that in its turn to Mind.

(11.53) The world is unreal--It is not an external object, it is only an internal idea.

(11.54) Spiritual Healing: That Kerin saw a vision is undoubted, that the cure was

effected is still more unquestioned. It is the mind that cured her. It is the subliminal state

rising to the luminal. Every man has seen only one mind. If you go sufficiently deep into

it you will find it is the One Mind of All. That is the latent, the subliminal. It is most

important. When we use a word it must have a meaning. To define a meaning is just

forming an idea of a word. When I say mind what happens is that you feel an idea of a

mind. So to know what mind really is, you must drop the idea of it. Then you will sink

back into mind itself. This is tantamount to concentration or thought cessation. Then you

contact the universal mind, which is the only mind and which is really an aspect of

Brahman, although to know it as Brahman one has to go still further. This universal

Mind, is One, not two or three. There, “this” as mind controls body, all miraculous

healing and occult powers happen. Dorothy Kerin has had the idea of being healed and it

was the universal mind which cured her, not Jesus. This was her own imagination, she

certainly saw the vision of Jesus, however, but it was self-created. Those who strongly

hold the idea of a sage or guru will see him in vision or meditating and get peace from

him, but still it is only their mind which creates the vision and which gives the peace. To

those who ask me whether Guru projects himself to them directly or whether they create

their own visions, I refuse to reply and say answer belongs to advanced stage (where

initiation into esoteric doctrine of Universal Mind is given.)

CHAPTER 12: DOCTRINE OF MENTALISM

(12.1) Vedanta does not say there is only your idea of an elephant and no elephant

outside. This is what Europeans think of Vedanta, mistakenly. We admit that the external

world exists, but we say that if you inquire into the nature of this world you will find it a

mental construction; if you inquire into the external world, you will find it idea also.

Hence we say that the external elephant does exist, but it is only an idea while the idea of

the elephant also exists: when analyzed both are found to be of the same stuff--thought.

We are not so mad as to say the external elephant is not there and that you can dash your

head against it. It is there but both it and your body are ideas.

(12.2) The universe itself may be said to be pervaded by the mind, i.e. I can stretch my

thought anywhere, to include any distant spot.

(12.3) Johnson's crude refutation of Berkeley was natural because he was not a

philosopher. Berkeley later visited Johnson in return. He knocked at the door. Johnson

asked ‘Who is It?’ Berkeley gave his name. Johnson refused to unlock the door, and

called out "No matter! Come in" He meant that Berkeley regarding the door as idea, and

not material, should come through it. The fallacy in Johnson's thinking is not to see that

Berkeley's body is also idea, unreal. He regarded Berkeley's body as real and the door as

unreal.

(12.4) The external wall is dependent on my mind. Unless my mind is active I see

nothing and the wall does not exist when my mind is not there, as in sleep. To say that the

wall is still there in sleep is unprovable, hence unacceptable for Vedanta.

(12.5) Because we are always thinking of ourselves as body, we continue to see the

universe apart from ourselves. But if by new habit we think we are Mind, the world is in

us, this is the value of idealism.

(12.6) I agree with Berkeley's phrase "Esse est percipi". This is equivalent to my doctrine

that to say anything exists it is the mind which tells you it is there, for perception is

performed by the mind.

(12.7) When we say world is idea, we mean that the world as we see is only mental. We

do not mean it is ideal--that is a totally different meaning. "Idea" is not synonymous with

ideal.

(12.8) The old query "How can a nerve-vibration be converted into an idea?” has broken

down. Vanished as latest science has solved it by saying that the two are not separate, that

mind and matter are one.

(12.9) Mentalism is a better name than ‘idealism’ because Berkeley, and Jeans have

associated latter with God.

(12.10) With the mind, one can think of the room where one is seated, of a country

20,000 miles away, with equal facility. Distance is no bar or limit, and the mind can

travel or rather extend in every direction. Hence I say that the body is in Mind, rather

than mind is in the body, as yogis say. And since there is no limit to the mind's extension,

I go further and say that the universe is in the mind. Therefore the world is only an idea.

(12.11) If the mind can be influenced as it can in hypnotism to perceive other people's

ideas as realities, why should it not be able to so influence itself as to perceive its own

ideas as realities? The Indian rope trick, which I have never seen, is an instance of mass

hypnotism, but the altered clock feat which I have seen is no less striking as an example

of mass hypnotism and if 500 people, sitting together, can be hypnotized into seeing their

watches and a large clock as being one hour slow, why cannot the entire population of the

world be hypnotized by the power of Maya into taking their own ideas or the external

universe as reality?

(12.12) The world passes away like an idea. Famous historical figures are now only

ideas.

(12.13) When you understand that the world is only mental, then only can you become a

sanyasi; until then no one is really a sanyasi. The giving-up, the leaving off a certain

things really means giving up the notion that external world is real but just an idea.

(12.14) The process of perception described by science is correct but it hinges on the

point where you become conscious of the object. And this point is only when the

impression reaches the brain and mind says the object is there, until then you are unaware

of the object. Now the belief that there is an object outside is the inference you

unconsciously make because you are habitually gripped by faith in causality. Yet it is

only an unjustified inference. Why do we not see that object is only idea and not outside

the idea? Because we wrongly think mind is confined to the physical brain. Hence the

need to get rid of causal belief before objective idealism can be transcended. It is this

blind belief that there must be a cause which makes us look outside for a cause for the

idea which we imagine to be inside the head. Mind cannot be measured, you cannot limit

it to a small space. Berkeley must be credited with having seen this; when he said, ‘esse

est percipi’ he meant nothing is perceived outside the mind; he did not mean to be

perceived outside the body is to be existent. Kant however added to this by discovering

the attachment to causality which holds the mind unconsciously.

(12.15) Jeans is correct in dropping the word “idea” and using "mental" instead, meaning

the same mindstuff as in dream for example.

(12.16) The teaching that there is an excitation in the brain which is followed by a

percept is quite correct for practical purposes of physiology but not so for higher

standpoint of philosophy. For who can see what is going on in the brain of another, be it

excitation of otherwise?

(12.17) If the pain supposed to be caused by a pin is not in any way like the pin itself, as

effects are usually related to causes then in what way is the sensation of a wall like or

related to the external wall itself?

(12.18) What is it that ultimately exists? is the question asked by ontology. When you

think of how the mind works to get its knowledge, you deal with epistemology. My

knowledge comes from ideas, is epistemology. What my ideas really are, is ontology. It is

the difference between what exists and what is known. Hence there are two kinds of

idealists, epistemological and ontological. Hence the need of saying what you mean when

you use the word "idealism."

(12.19) The entire sensory system is after all only a mental construct and as such exists

only when you think of it. It is re-created every time it is thought of, which means every

time it is observed or seen. Do not commit the error of thinking it existed prior to the

thought of it.

(12.20) There are two interpretations of ideas. First those ideas which are voluntary,

second those which are involuntary and which you can not help admitting to your mind.

The word "ideal” is therefore ambiguous, for sometimes it is used in the first sense which

refers only to single ideas and sometimes in the second sense which refers to those of

spirit and mental, e.g. the first is your voluntary thought of bread, the second is your

involuntary mental experience that is perception of bread.

(12.21) We do not know how consciousness emerges out of unconscious substance.

Jagdish Chandra Bose discovered that even plants show some kind of consciousness.

When atoms, gases or electrons attract or repel each other, does this not indicate that

there must be some awareness, intelligence, i.e. consciousness present in them. Thus

science is moving to the recognition that it is everywhere.

(12.22) Nirvikalpa samadhi produces the knowledge that everything disappears into the

mind. That is its only value.

(12.23) How can any object in the world not exist as part of the mind because we are not

thinking or not perceiving it? For when you say you are not thinking of Calcutta you

actually do so.

(12.24) Our answer to those who say idealism is only true of known things but need not

apply to the unknown, the unperceived things, is: If you are going to deal with the

unknown what guarantee have you that they even exist? None except that either in past or

present, either by some other person or mind has it been known, perceived. Thus you

return to the fundamental fact that the existence of a thing depends on your knowing it.

Otherwise you merely infer it, but inference is not direct verification. If you say the wall

existed unperceived, while you slept, this is not correct. 'It was only after waking that you

inferred it had existed, i.e. your mind told you so, which is again turning the wall into an

idea!

(12.25) Those who say we cannot know an object in itself talk rubbish. For when they say

this they are imagining the object, and thus actually knowing it as idea.

(12.26) The phenomena of hypnotism do not offer conclusive proof of mentalism but

only of the fact that thoughts can be spatialized and externalized, can be seen outside. For

the things seen by the hypnotic medium are not seen by the others who are unhypnotised,

i.e. hence the phenomena are not universally valid, which is what science requires in

proof. Adequate proof must show that this tree which everybody sees in the waking state

is only idea. If you object that there are cases of mass or crowd hypnotism that is not

valid because hypnotism only applies to weaker minds responding to stronger ones and if

among the crowd there is a mind stronger than the hypnotist's, he will not see the same

phenomena as the others. However, another conclusion which may be rightly drawn from

hypnotism is that all minds are somehow connected.

(12.27) Vedantin does not say there is no external world. He says only that the external

world (of objects) as well as the internal world (of ideas) are all of the same stuff, i.e.

mind.

(12.28) Materialists who say mind is unknown and inferred from brain, which is alone

known, are wrong. For it is awareness, mind, which tells us that the brain exists. When

attention is not present or when one is asleep it is impossible to know there is a brain.

Hence mind does have an existence apart from the brain, unless the latter be regarded as

idea. Consciousness is first and fundamental.

(12.29) The wall is not different from your mind; it is a part of it. This is not denial of its

existence; we fully admit that the wall is touched, felt and seen; despite that, it is idea.

(12.30) The mind forms the picture of the object and then presents it to itself.

(12.31) The desire for travel, to see other lands exists because you seek to know the place

and thus bring it into your mind, your memory, and to keep it there even as idea.

Henceforth it, being known, exists inside you and you are non-different from it.

(12.32) When analyzing sensation show that science is perfectly correct from the

practical standpoint when it says there is both an independent object and separate idea of

it, but that when we go more reflectively to the ultimate standpoint the gap between both

disappears and then the external object is discovered to be an idea. You cannot say that

there is only an idea and not an independent object. You can only say that the material

object when analyzed turns out to be an idea, but it certainly disappears as an independent

object. Therefore there might be two ideas of the same object, but when we rise to

philosophy we discover that there is only one idea, a percept.

(12.33) Those critics of Idealism who ask "What was the world before human minds

existed?" ask an unaskable question which is quite out of order. The first fallacy is that

matter existed before mind. How do they know this unless the mind is first there to tell

them? Science now admits, moreover, that we do not know when mind came into

existence. Hence no critic can definitely say it came later than the material world. We can

only say that Consciousness is fundamental and everything else is derivative.

(12.34) After we have completed the physiological inquiry and shown that

sense-experience is ultimately the experience of thoughts, you will be asked "What

becomes of the original object which gave rise to the whole process? How to account for

it?" Vedanta replies that whatever the object be it will have to be known as an idea

because we can know only mental things, because we can know only mind. Even if we

get at it, we shall find it cannot be independent of mind. It people say it is material we

shall know this so-called matter as being mental, but science has already exploded matter

and proved its illusoriness. But we do not stop there. Vedanta says that if we have to

recognize the original independent object as being an idea then the intermediary parts of

sensory process i.e. eye, nerve, brain, must logically be ideas also. What happens

therefore to that we return to our starting point and discover that the original outside

object which gave rise to the sensations is our perception of it, that the thing is the

thought perceived, the seen image in the mind was also the object supposed to exist

outside and to cause the image to arise. How so? Because we began with an assumption

that there was an object independent of the mind and we continued to assume that the

thought which arose was independent of this object, so finally we have to decide that the

object itself must be still there outside. But our initial assumption was unwarranted; it is

only our imagination at work; and the truth is that there is no duality of thing and the

perceived percept of the thing; rather there is only one entity: i.e. the thought itself. Much

of this confusion has arisen because of the use of the word ‘idea’ of things for we

habitually believe that ideas are internal and do not grasp that they may be external too,

that therefore space is as illusory as matter. The essence of this explanation is that the

whole thing is traveling unconsciously in a circle. We start with an idea and end with

precisely the same idea. What we start with we call outside object and what we finish

with we call percept. Our illusion lies in thinking the two are different; they are not but

one and the same.

(12.35) If a man says Mind is the product of material evolution, we reply: Were you

present 200 million years ago to note the beginning of such evolution? No. Then you are

merely imagining. Secondly what is it that must be previously present which enables him

to make such an assertion? It is mind, awareness! Hence mind comes first, matter,

whatever it be comes afterwards.

CHAPTER 13: THE ILLUSION OF WORLD EXPERIENCE

(13.1) When you cannot see into a man’s mind you can only say you cannot accept that

there is a multiplicity of minds, you can only see his lips moving but not his mind

moving. Hence you can neither accept nor deny this doctrine of multiple jivas24. It is

unproven hypothesis. To say that each mind is different, is unproved because you have

never seen mind. Can you say where it starts and stops, have you measured its thickness?

All is supposition, not proof.

(13.2) In all mental operations there are two factors--the knowing capacity and that which

is known. The known things are all passing away and are therefore unreal. Without the

knowing capacity i.e. the knower in existence, there could have been no such thing as

24 individual souls

knowing these things. What is meant by word know? Knowing implies two factors, the

knower or the knowing capacity, or that which becomes aware; and the known. Without

these two factors you cannot use the word know. We find the known always passes away.

(13.3) Thought is only a drsyam, no matter how exalted it be. Thought never touches the

Drg, but remains always in the drsyam. We foolishly believe that the more you think, the

more you will get; but it is really an error. It remains only a thought and gives you back

only a thought.

(13.4) You can only know an idea when you discriminate between it and the state of

mind when it was nonexistent just as you know a sound by its contrast to silence.

(13.5) The only certain thing about the body is that it is forever changing; the greatest

change of all being death which no one can prevent. In contrast to the body the mind is

the only thing of whose unchanging character we can be certain. For the mind tells you

about all the bodily changes, remaining itself relatively constant, as a standard of

reference for them.

(13.6) The term WITNESS, Seer, Sakshin, is used in a non-dual sense, without reference

to objects witnessed, absolute awareness, not relative.

(13.5) Thought is present in feeling. Your mind produced the thought. Feeling is a kind of

thought. Thoughts, feelings, will are all modifications, nothing more. Even if it is of God,

it is still in the mind.

(13.6) Both birth and death coming and going apply to drsyam. Therefore we say

birthlessness is the characteristic of non-drsyam, i.e. Brahman.

(13.7) If by consciousness you mean awareness of a drsyam, a duality, i.e. when the mind

is active it knows thoughts, emotions etc. then unconsciousness would only mean the

absence of duality, not the absence of the capacity to know; unconsciousness does not

mean the nonexistence of that which disappears from consciousness, it merely means that

mind has ceased its functioning. Finally there must be a kind of awareness which we do

not understand and which is still existent when the object, the known, the thoughts are

absent.

(13.8) Drg/Drsyam gives you a key to analyzing all statements, all revelations, all

assertions, all gods even. For it tells you that anything that can be made known by mind

is but an idea; something imagined, and never reality.

(13.9) Consciousness usually means a duality, something to be conscious of is implied.

Therefore it is an unsuitable word to indicate the pure objectless awareness which exists

prior to thought. The ego, the individual self is not the self which is the Witness or Drg

because it often disappears even during waking as in reverie when you are lost in thought.

(13.10) It is the drsyam that is ever-changing we reply to Bergson, Vijnanavadins etc. but

never the Drg. The ideas come and go, yes, but that does not prove that one idea produces

(causes) another. For if the previous idea has really vanished, memory of it would be

impossible. Its disappearance into Drg is no real disappearance. We only remember that it

has gone and come; that which perceives these ideas can alone be said to exist: That is

Mind, Drg. We only rely on the Drg, and none has seen the birth or change of Drg.

(13.11) Does consciousness mean a duality; knowledge, knower and known? Does

consciousness mean that which is capable of knowing, Gnan? Are you conscious of

anything in sleep? You are conscious of it only when you are in the waking state.

Consciousness there may be with or without object.

(13.12) The Idea of an object does not prove the object exists. Ego is only an Idea. When

you think of the "ego" alone it comes. Mind knows its appearance and disappearance -

you see the changes of the ego in dream also. The witnessed appears and disappears; the

witness is never known to be appearing and disappearing. That which appears and

disappears is not the permanent entity.

(13.13) Critics will object “What is the use of saying negate objects? It is impossible.”

They confront us even when we say ‘Negate.’ Reply: Have you ever had a dream within

a dream? Suppose you dream of journeying to Kailas and in the dream you fall asleep and

have a second dream within the first. Unless you have sharp mind, the memory of what

passed in the second dream may elude you. Now what is the nature of the second dream?

Mind! And of the first? Mind. Hence they are made of the same essence, they are

non-different, but appear to change. Similarly this world is of the same essence as

consciousness, is non-different from it but appears to change and be different from it.

(13.14) You cannot say how things have appeared, only that they are and they are in the

mind and are the mind. When mind works, they appear. Stop thinking and you will never

see any object.

(13.15) I am not this body, nor this wall; I am the seer of both. The body may be moving,

but you are seeing the changes. The body grows but you remain the witness of these

changes. You are the Witness, the Awareness.

(13.16) Do not imprison yourself in your own creation by imagining the mind to be

limited to the body. Just as space fills both inside and outside of a jar, so mind permeates

you and the whole world outside.

(13.17) We can't say that we see objects independently of the mind. cf. Kant "Time,

Space and Causation" are mental. But a mind cannot change a horse into an ass. And the

essence of objects themselves is mind alone, Atman alone--this Mandukya teaches.

Mysticism encourages you to be lazy, to think the external objects are created by Iswara

and internal objects created by Jiva. Both Iswara and Jiva are your own creation. Don't

waste your time in talks of Jiva and Iswara disputes; rather inquire into the nature of

Brahman.

(13.18) We do not perceive an object as it really is in truth, but only as it appears through

the screen of imagination.

(13.19) Maya means that you know the unreality of a thing only when it disappears.

When you know this world is continuously disappearing, you may perceive its unreality.

Science shows it is changing every minute, every second.

(13.20) Death is but an idea. It is connected with the body. Ideas come and go. But that

which sees the birth and death of things is the Atman. He is immortal.

(13.21) Knowledge does not destroy the world; it only destroys its unreality—because

everything is Brahman. c.f. knowledge of the dream objects, which does not destroy the

objects; it shows that everything is mental.

(13.22) Why do we not feel this world to be idea? Reply because of the strength of our

attachment to the body, of our identification with it, which in its turn is due to not having

inquired into the nature of the body and discovered its constantly changing nature. We

have to take the Witness-attitude to see the body as fleeting appearance.

(13.23) The mind is continuously presenting you with changing conditions, ideas.

Whatever is created by the mind, may appear to you to be real and existent. It is a mistake

to think that mental creations are seen to be unreal and non-existent.

(13.24) You know most intimately and directly your mind; all objective things you know

only inferentially, as the mind first speaks of their existence to you.

(13.25) Critics are under the mistaken impression that we say external world does not

exist. No, we emphasize it does exist, but we say its existence is mental. The world is

Maya, i.e. an idea.

(13.26) As nobody has ever seen the beginning of the world, nobody can ever see its end,

and hence it cannot be mortal. (This does not refer to things in the world, those we do see

have a beginning and an end; it refers to the world as a whole).

(13.27) We have got in our mind the idea of time; of seeing this at one time and that at

another; but this is all in the world of Drsyam. It does not touch the perceiver. It is

imagined.

(13.28) It is impossible to get to the knower, the Drg, before it is understood that the

world is an idea.

(13.29) Vedanta refutes the dualism of realists by using the arguments of the idealists, but

once refuted, we abandon the idealism which asserts mind is a momentary series of ideas

and go further to the reality of Mind (Brahman).

(13.30) Instrument of knowledge means the sense organs, both external and internal

which are only for the knowledge of Drsyam. Buddhi is an instrument on the other hand

for applying Neti, Neti,25 for getting the knowledge of Atman.

(13.31) Change is everywhere. Even Himalaya mountains spring up and other ranges

disappear. Those who say that by some effort in Yoga you got moksha, try to introduce a

new thing (moksha) which having a beginning must have an end. Production and

destruction go together. Therefore Yogic moksha is not true liberation. Not by doing

anything can lasting permanent liberation be realized. Similarly the endlessness of the

soul in religion is illusory: only the Drg is endless in the sense that we cannot truthfully

speak of its appearing and disappearing.

(13.32) In mediumship all we know is that the medium, who is another living person

speaks; there is no proof that it is a spirit. Every religion contradicts the others about after

death states. The only certain thing about death is that it forces you to renounce and give

up everything you possess--wife, money, fame etc. To get at the truth of death you must

inquire into the meaning of life now, in the present. Find the meaning of the world and of

yourself. Thus you learn there to no dissolution, nothing real can be lost, for everything

exists as it does in truth, i.e. as Unity, the One.

(13.33) If one has to enter the kingdom of Heaven, then God may one day get annoyed

and throw one out again. Why not? Who can read God’s mind? No.--anything that begins

must also end. Liberation is not of that kind.

(13.34) So long as we think at all, we have to think causally, temporally and spatially. It

is the way in which intellect works. And it is so constituted as to produce the appearance

of materiality. The world is like the deception of the cinema pictures as pointed out by

Bergson, passing before us with height, breadth, motion etc. Hence we get bound by

illusion. But the way out to reality is not, as Bergson thought, through intuition. That is

also a blind. The only way out is through Avastatraya.26

(13.35) Ideas cannot exist independently, they must exist in Mind. Similarly Bergson’s

ever-changing flux of pictures is a cinema-show which must have a screen. Motion is

illusory in the sense that it also is only an idea. Don't think that ideas are running from

one place to another.

(13.36) Another aid which is derived from Yoga practice is that it temporarily suppresses

ego. Such suppression is essential to arrive at Truth. What the yogi does not understand is

that while he talks of experiencing bliss in trance, he reveals the presence of an ego who

is the experiencer. To transcend bliss and to transcend trance, one must have gone into,

through and out of Yoga.

(13.37) Egocentricity is the common psychological state of mankind whereas selfishness

is the common ethical state of mankind. The two should not be confused.

25 The analysis of ‘not this, not this’, the negative way

26 Analysis of the states of consciousness, waking, dream and deep sleep

(13.38) Even in the waking state we forget the 'I', the ego occasionally, just as we forget

it completely in deep sleep, for it is only a mental construction.

(13.39) There is only one mind. Each ego, each ‘I’ is itself an idea in this universal mind.

This explains how personal separateness is an illusion.

(13.40) It is impossible for the knowing Self to become a Seen. Wherever any such

thought as that of mortality comes to you, ask yourself, “Is it my thought or is it the ‘I’?

This is Gnana Yoga. Ask “What is this thought? What is the essence of this thought?

Immediately the Atman will be there in reply.

(13.41) There is no such thing as knowing the knower. That knowledge implies two

factors, and the knower not being something to be seen, can never be known as such.

When we speak of relation, we deal only with the known world. When the known goes,

we say that because we actually see the known going; but we can never see the knower

go. We can only say "I do not know" about it. We cannot speak of the known without the

knower. But when the known has vanished, there is nothing to be said about the knower.

The act of conceiving in thought demands two factors. We cannot conceive the Drg, the

seer or knower, because we can say nothing about it, without making it an object. It

cannot be pulled down to the level of the Drsyam, the seen. The duality of Drg and Drsya

is not the same as the duality of two things in the objective world, for here both are

known and seen, whereas there one is known; the Drg remaining unknown and all you

can say of it is "I cannot make any statement about it. It is incomprehensible." If Drg

disappears, as does the drsyam then you must posit another seer to replace it; but in fact

no one has ever seen its disappearance. We never use the word Drg without Drsya. It has

no meaning apart from it.

Self is not a thing unknown to any one at any time. Let a man think. As soon as a

thought comes, there must be a knower there before in order to know that he is seeing a

wall etc. The Drg exists before the thought appears or the thing is seen; otherwise neither

knowledge nor sensation could happen. When can you say the Drg is not there? It is

always there. Even if you say it can be reached only at the end of a long path, it is

impossible for it to be ever absent even while you say this. The knower alone makes it

possible for you to know anything at all. “Though, thus quite self-evident, easily known,

quite near, forming the self, Brahman appears, to the unenlightened mind as unknown,

very remote, as though he were a separate thing,” says Sankara's commentary on Gita.

Those who do not look at the seer, the witness, and perceive it is the only thing that

neither comes nor goes, are deluded, and turn outward towards things objective, which

run away. So long as the mind only runs from one object to another, from one idea to

another, impermanent and unreal, they ignore the Atman and are ignorant. Where is the

time for them to think about the Witness?

(13.42) Mind when active is called mind! When it ceases to be active i.e. sinks back and

is only itself, the essence, the substance or material, it is then called Atman, the Self, the

Seer.

(13.43) The mind itself is the Drg: it can never be seen. Hence you cannot rightly speak

even of my mind. You know nothing of it directly. Vijnanavadin Buddhists say mind

comes and mind goes; it does not really exist. He says nothing external exists. This is

absurd, because who says the mind comes and goes? That which saw knows this, is the

real mind: the Drg; the rest is Drsyam. To perceive this requires a special sharpness of

mind.

(13.44) Mind is of the nature of the essence of the self. What is meant by the Self or

Soul? Has the word a meaning? Yes. Then it is an idea. Where are ideas? In the mind.

Hence the soul is a creation of the mind. That is why we call Atman, the Mind.

(13.45) The Aham27 dies daily in dream: because you change identities there, as hunter,

king etc. and in sleep. The aham of your childhood is dead too; thus ego changes

constantly, and yet you mistake it for a reality. That which perceives the ego is the

unborn, the unchanging reality, however.

(13.46) Body is what I know, what I perceive; perceiver is distinct: body is a drsyam, a

thought; I am not my thoughts. The answer to the query “What am I?" is "I, the Atman,

am pure knowing.” When there is a duality, doubt comes. And so long as a man thinks

there is a second thing to be obtained, he can never be happy because the duality is

always there. The Gnani, on the other hand, regards nothing as different, i.e. as a second

thing, and therefore escapes this unhappiness.

(13.47) Ears, nose, hands may be chopped off, legs shot off on battlefield, but the notion I

does not disappear, for that which you call I is the Drg, uncuttable, indestructible. It is

infinite because you cannot say where it begins or ends. It is immortal, because you have

never seen it die. The earliest ancients used the word ‘I’ and the latest moderns use it. For

the self is eternal.

(13.48) People think that the ‘soul’ or ‘spirit’ is something different from the mind. They

believe that the mind is really two. This is the confusion among Dwaitins,

Vishishtadvaitins and Europeans. If ‘Soul’ has any meaning, if ‘spirit’ has any meaning,

so long as you think of them, they are merely ideas. No, Mind is the highest: it is

consciousness, gnanam.

(13.49) The individual is a bundle of memories, desires, etc. What are memories and

desires? Something imagined. Therefore the individual self is entirely an imagination.

(13.50) The notion that you will go to some world after death, some astral plane or

religious heavens will disappear as nonsense with the disappearance of belief in the

reality of the ‘I’.

(13.51) The dog cannot reason like Aristotle but he does reveal a kind of rudimentary

reasoning in his behavior. It thinks elementarily. This is Sankara's view.

27 The ‘I’ thought, the ‘I’ maker

(13.52) WHAT AM I? The ‘I’ disappears every night in sleep, so what is the use of being

attached to it? It is illusory.

(13.53) Atman is that which knows everything, that which sees. Atman alone remains

after you get rid of all thoughts and ideas by identification with self. Atman is only the

seer, it is not Brahman, that is an error. It becomes Brahman only after inquiry.

(13.54) That which becomes conscious of all the things contained in consciousness, is the

seer, the Atman, the Knower. You have never seen the Atman, for he is never an object.

Hence logic, inference, cannot be applied to him, because intellect, logic is for objective

world and waking experience only, the state where we infer effects from causes. The

greatest mistake is to think of the seen as yourself, to confuse the object with the subject.

There is no proof that the seer is confined to you, yourself or me, myself. It is universal.

(13.56) People wrongly think that the Aham is the Witness, even though the ego

vanishing every minute.

(13.57) What is meant by birth, appearance or arisal? It can only be applied to drsyam.

That to which such words cannot be applied is the Drg. It is the only thing known that

does not vanish. For this reason we call it “the unborn.” But as everything that is seen,

everything that is known, is only your own self, the Drg, therefore all things are really

unborn, uncreated.

(13.58) Once you understand the ego, you will have understood 90% of Vedanta. You

must learn that the ego is different from consciousness.

(13.59) Homogeneity is the natural condition of the mind. Through ignorance we create

dissociations within it. The first dissociation is the I.

(13.60) How can you say that "self" is different from “mind.” It is the mind that thinks of

the “self.” What is mind? That which becomes aware of anything is Mind or self; you

may call it by any term. I cannot say where my mind is or my mind is not; then how can

you say that God is here or is not here or anywhere. No idea is permanent, not even the

God idea.

(13.61) There is no connection between the Witness and the Ego which appears and

disappears, is happy or miserable, which the Witness sees (like eastern and western

oceans never meet). The witnessing consciousness remains unconcerned.

(13.62) Vedanta does not rule out multiplicity of individuals and things; it admits this

separate existence: It would be mad to deny that. But it asks, "What is meant by each

existence? What has become of the vanished or changed individuality of each existence?

What has become of the child I once was?" When you are superficial and fond of

imagining, you can say what you like, but when you go deep in inquiry, you see that

multiplicity of the universe is not what it seems.

(13.63) How did ignorance come into pure Atman? Vedanta says: It is difficult to grasp at

the beginning. It is the same question in another form as, "Why did God create evil and

suffering?" There are many ways of answering these questions, the highest being given in

Mandukya Upanishad, but a lower explanation being given in Gita. Avidya is born of

Tamas. It causes in the person the contrary of Truth, i.e. you imagine the opposite, as

taking a rope for a snake. It is the incapacity, the dullness, of the mind to understand it.

But when the mind gets clear, then we "see" the Truth. Hence the inability to see is not in

the perceiver, but there is something which comes and goes, which hides and prevents

you from "seeing." This "something" is like a veil. What prevents you from seeing is not

yourself, it is a fault of the mind, not the seer. The mind is only an instrument which you

utilize. If this ignorance were a property of the seer, it could never go, but it is not. Then

ignorance is something that comes and goes, but the seer is untouched by it.

(13.64) The critic says why do all men see the same thing, if it is only an idea? Why do

they not see differently? One man does not say it is a cow, another does not say it is a

horse. The critic assumes that you are an ego-centric Solipsist, who alone exists and

created the world. But we do not fall into Solipsism because we make the ego also an

idea, and do not assume its reality as does the critic. Mental ideas may be objective.

(13.65) Where do all the ideated objects of the world come from? We do not know. No

creator who put them in our minds is indicated or provable. We can only infer that they

must have come from the Drg, the Atman, itself. No other explanation is rational. But this

explanation is only a preliminary stop and is dropped ultimately (with the dropping of the

Drg, Drsya relation) when non-causality is studied and the question itself falls to the

ground.

(13.66) It is not enough for Western philosophers to know that the world is an idea. They

ought also know that the ego itself is an idea, their own body is an idea also. This is even

more important doctrine and one which they have not been able to grasp. Thus the ‘I’ is

an idea within the great idea of the universe.

(13.67) Do not make the mistake of thinking that because the world is an idea, it is your

idea. There is no ‘I’ where this is seen. Berkeley tried to escape from this mistake but fell

into error of ascribing world to God's mind. He did not see that God also was an Idea.

Hence the world is not your idea, but idea.

(13.68) Nobody has ever seen God imagining the world-idea, thus bringing it into

existence in our mind. Then who must be the imaginer of our objective ideas? If you

want one, then it must be yourself because all these ideas appear and vanish within

yourself. Proof that Atman generates, sees and enjoys the objects is given by dream.

(13.69) The ego-thought and the world-thought arise at the same time but independently.

However you cannot see the objects as apart from each other unless the ego is present.

Hence it might also be added that ego rises first. In any case the world is not produced

out of the ego-thought, both are independently produced by Mind.

(13.70) Yoga implies duality! Yoga = joining two things, a something to which the yogi

is to be joined. He thinks, “I want to know Brahman, I want to attain Union.” So he has

the ego and cannot attain. Whereas the first thing in Vedanta is to question the ‘I’ until its

illusory nature is perceived and the seeker no longer says "I want to attain Brahman." The

Vedantin has nothing to get for the self, as it has vanished on inquiry, not even will he

say, “I will work for the sake of others.”

(13.71) Yoga lulls the ego to sleep but it will reappear when the practice is ended. The

only way to overcome the ego is to inquire into it. When you realize that it is only an idea

it will then lose its power over you.

(13.72) The Witness itself is gnanam; it is quite erroneous to say it has gnanam. It is

thinking, seeing, the distinction between objects and the knower is produced by itself.

(13.74) Every thought is an object, drsyam. That which cannot be cognized by any

thought, which is beyond all doubt because it is that which is the ultimate consciousness

of the doubter, that is Brahman.

(13.75) Rope is the substratum of the snake in the rope: the snake which you see in the

rope has no real existence. It is only in your mind. i.e. it is your imagination. The next

step is then only "What is the rope". It is also your imagination. Everything is only a

superimposition, i.e. an idea in the mind.

(13.76) Who knows the waves? The ocean knows the waves.

(13.77) The ideas can exist only in mind. Unless the rope is there, we would not have

seen the snake.

(13.78) What we can say is only that ideas appear and disappear in the mind. Now what

is appearance and disappearance? These are also ideas in the mind. Hence we say that the

ideas also are of the mind. Now what is Mind? The most we can say is that it is that

which becomes aware of ideas.

(13.79) If you have ideas, where are the ideas to stand? Can it stand in the void? No.

There should be a substratum for the ideas to stand on and this is the mind. Turiya cannot

be indicated by words for words indicate ideas and it is only that in which the ideas come

and go. We see a snake in the rope. What is the relation between the snake and the rope?

There is no relation.

(13.80) Everything else can be contradicted but not that which knows everything. Hence

that Drg is the truth. This non-contradictability characteristic exists because all the other

things pass away, but Drg, Atman does not change.

(13.81) Every form comes and goes; now forms arise and follow: science proves that all

things change and vanish: what has become of the forms? What is form? Form is that

which has no independent existence; it can't stand alone. Where does it go? It goes back

into mind. Hence the first stage is to see form as Maya; the higher stage is to see it as

essence of Mind, i.e. Brahman.

(13.82) You must not fallaciously say mind is immortal merely because we cannot see it

die. This is bad logic. Because a thing cannot be disproved, this does not prove it to be

true. To prove immortality we have to rise higher than Idealism, we have to go to the

more advanced Indian teachings.

(13.83) What has become of the red color of a faded flower? It was only a piece of your

imagination. If color were a thing where is it after fading? If perfume were a thing and

not idea why can you not locate it again? Hence the meaning of change is that it is only

appearances i.e. idea.

(13.84) We unconsciously superimpose the permanence of the Atman upon the flux of

the visible world, and thus deceive ourselves. This is Maya. The sense of reality and

permanence which we ascribe to the appearance arises from within ourselves. It is a

genuine sense but it is misapplied.

(13.85) The first stage is to regard all things as Drsyam, and separate yourself from them.

But this is tentative and is for those who still labor under the ego-complex. But the next

and higher stage is to see them all as Brahman, then you no longer turn away from them,

all is then ‘I’.

(13.86) If you analyze all the objects in the world, all the bodies, you will find that

ultimately there is only one substance, one thing which changes into all these different

forms. We then go further and say that this unitary substance can be traced to

consciousness.

(13.87) Look within yourself. You see Drg, perceiver, and drsyam, object, thought.

Everything you think of is drsyam, hence never towards the perceiver. Anything that you

may say, any answer you may receive, it will be in the world of objects only: it will never

approach their perceiver. Hence objectiveness implies duality. Ideation implies duality,

and duality denies the real.

(13.88) Unless you grasp that world is an idea, there is no other way of proceeding to the

higher truths of Vedanta.

(13.89) All the past history of the world is now only a series of ideas. Thus what you

consider so real now is known a little later as idea. Everything in this world is being

converted into ideas constantly.

(13.90) As Bergson and the Buddhist Idealists teach everything is idea, that each idea is

fleeting. Thus this table lasts only a millionth of a second but the continuous

multiplication of the same idea of table fuses the countless ideas of it and gives the

impression that it is lasting for twenty years. The time itself is only an idea as Kant shows

and Einstein implies. It is precisely the same with a cinema picture of a table; it shows for

a half-hour the same table but actually it consists of thousands of separate pictures fused

together. So our world of ever-changing flux appears stable because the multitude of

ideas follow with such rapidity as to yield the impression of stability.

(13.91) The first stage is to know the world is idea; the higher stage is to inquire what

they are and to know all ideas are only mind.

(13.92) The mystic's stigmata show how mind influences body. Vedanta goes farther and

says Mind creates the body.

(13.93) Death means conversion of forms considered real into ideas.

(13.94) What did the Greeks mean by saying that philosophy was the study of death?

Well, what is the chief characteristic of an idea? It is something which comes and goes,

transient, hence always dying. This is what you mean by an idea in contrast with the

objective world of mountains and bodies around you. The ideas live only for a few

seconds and vanish whereas the objective things persist at least for the whole of your

lifetime. It is this striking contrast which makes you say your thoughts are ideas whereas

the surrounding things are realities. But now consider. What is the ultimate fate of these

things and bodies? Will they too not have to die? They will--even though it take but 70 or

80 years in the case of your body and 70 or 80 million years in the case of a solar system.

All will decay and disappear. Hence they too are idea, the only difference being that they

occupy a relatively longer time to exist. But consider again! during dream a few moments

may seem to take a whole day. Therefore time itself is only an idea. Einstein found that

planetary times differed but he did not see farther that the time of the entire universe was

also Idea. Thus the whole of existence is idea because everything is subject to death.

Death is the problem which faces every man; he cannot escape and therefore ought to

study it. This study of what death means is philosophy! But what is it that knows these

things as dying, these ideas as appearing and vanishing? That Witness is what we call the

Atman: that does not pass away and hence does not die. In this sense you can see all these

ideas, bodies and things which vanish, vanish only back into Atman and live perpetually

therein. Thus ultimately there is no death when you can look so on all things as being

Atman. It is thus that the philosopher conquers death, thus that he sees the universe in

Atman, hence in himself as Atman. This is a secret teaching which I give you. The secret

is that after death you will continue to live on in those you love most, for you have

identified yourself with them.

(13.95) The purpose of illness and disease is the same as the purpose of death. They teach

men that everything is in flux, vanishing and transient: yesterday you were strong and

healthy, today you are weak and ill. What became of you health? It is the same problem

of as what became of the faded color of a rose? The lesson of all this transiency, of all

illness, is that the body is only an idea.

(13.96) What we find to be unreal and changing is still an idea and therefore Mind in the

end. Thus converting the world into unreality is a necessary half-stage to converting it to

Reality. But it is only a stage and we should not stop there.

(13.97) How do you know that you are not the body? 1. It is seen by you as an object. 2.

It has all the characteristics of drsyam, i.e. it is changing gradually and you are seeing the

changes.

(13.98) All talk of Maya is only a tentative position. It is for those who cannot think of

Mind by itself, who cannot detach Drg from Drsyam. In truth, however, Maya is only an

idea, and ideas are only Mind.

(13.99) Maya's "concealing power" merely means that when you look at an ink-bottle you

think only of the bottle. But a gnani will think of the Self too, of the ink-bottle as being

Self. Hence in the first case the Self is concealed by the ignorance of the man.

(13.100) In the outer world we see things; appearing and disappearing. Where do they

go? In the inner world of dreams, we see ideas appear and disappear. Where do these go?

That into which all these go is Mind but it is indescribable. We cannot say what it is

ultimately, but we know it is.

(13.101) The flux-oneness principle applies not only to physical world but also to mental

world. The very words you use were got from others, the ideas you think were learnt

from others, hence which of them can you say are really your own? In this way the

oneness of mind-world is seen.

(13.102) Getting rid of world does not mean that it must become imperceptible to the

senses. It means that you must know that it is destructible, it is ever-changing. You must

know its real nature; its unreality. You must give up the notion that it is real. The

knowledge of Atman cannot destroy the objective world, but can only give you the idea

that it is unreal. Modern science proves that everything is changing every moment.

Philosophy has to consider and answer the questions: How that which changes, appears

to be, changeless?

(13.103) Every minute a thought dies and a new one is born. Hence there is internal series

of birth and death, just as every minute external forms are born and die instantly.

(13.104) The Ultimate is not a void because of this fact: the world illusion is there, you

cannot deny its existence: the snake illusion is there, even though it is something other

than snake. This is quite different from the barren woman's son, which not only does not

exist but has not even an illusory existence. The distinction must be noted. When you

speak of illusion, remember it has two meanings (a) non-existence like a barren woman's

son, (b) illusive existence like snake-rope. The world illusion belongs to the second class,

but not the first. There is something existent, but it does not exist as it appears. World is

constantly changing and disappearing, this is maya, but it has a substratum. So we say

just as snake illusion cannot exist without a rope, so ideas can not exist without a mind as

substratum.

(13.105) The man who knows thoroughly that everything in his life is only a changing

drsyam, that drsyams are but transient thoughts; if he then identifies himself with the Drg,

he can stand unaffected by loss because he knows that he, himself, the Atman, can never

be lost or lose anything in itself. Knowing the drsyam as a part of himself, he no longer

considers it as drsyam. Such distinction exists only when enquiring. The ignorant man

imagines he is related to objects, imagines there is causal relation with them and then

imagines his sufferings because of their transiency. He foolishly believes that anything

can go away from his Atman, because he separates himself from them.

(13.106) Unity is here and now, always has been and always will be. But so long as man

ignorant of this truth, he will only see variety.

(13.107) Though we start with doctrine of change continuous and everywhere, we end

with the opposite doctrine that there is no change in reality, nothing is born or dies.

(13.108) Whoever speaks of the oneness of things must first of all prove the illusory

nature of external world; otherwise he is only like the yogis. Then alone can unity be

proved.

(13.109) This enquiry is much more than gramaphonic learning by heart; it is to

distinguish the imagination from that which is unimagined in the mind. Vichara is that

which helps you, after enquiry, to reject the useless, the imagined. Similarly when you

analyze water you separate oxygen from hydrogen; once this is known it is unnecessary

to analyze it again, you will immediately know that water is oxygen and hydrogen, i.e.

two gasses, whilst accepting water as liquid. So after you have analyzed the world, know

it to be idea and Brahman, once known there is no need to analyze it or to give up the

world.

(13.110) "Attachment to objects" means taking them to be real. When attachment goes,

gnana arrives.

(13.111) You will find some little defect in everything in this world.

(13.112) The principle of unity alone can give you perfect satisfaction as then you can

have nothing taken away from you, what you possess you will have until all eternity.

(13.113) That part of a man which is called body is born and dies, but we never see the

whole man, i.e. body plus mind born or die. We usually use the word man without

thinking of its meaning, we do not care to be precise. When you analyze deeper you will

find it impossible to separate both body and mind. The two go together in truth. Vedanta

says the two are not separate entities, but really one entity. Death is merely a change:

when perceived by the eye, we call it death: when perceived by the mind, an idea, but

both changes are really ideas. It is the mind, which is doing all this working. Religious

people say, the body will perish, but the mind will go elsewhere. Philosophy does not

agree. It finds man to be compound of both, both are unity, both are Atman. There was

never a separate body, If there were where is your body as a child? Mere perception of

the body does not give it existence in truth, therefore we see illusions of mirage, but that

does not mean mirages really exist; they are appearances.

(13.114) The body is part of the external universe; it holds its own reality and keeps you

from seeing the world as idea. All the 24 hours you think body is real and occupy

yourself with it. But as it is part of the Seen, and the world is seen, you take latter to be

real also. Only when you perceive that both these; that whatever object the mind sees-

-even your own body--is only an idea, is your own mind, hence your own self, then you

can go further and find that very self in its essence is Brahman. That truth reveals all

objects and persons as ONE.

(13.115) Death causes fear. What is the meaning of this fear? It arises from the meaning

you attach to the word death. The train of ideas (kalpanas) of the loss it entails comes into

your mind and frightens you. Therefore it is the thought that causes fear. Hence when you

know this why should you be afraid of a thought? The obstacle is that you do not want to

look upon this body as an idea. Yet the word ‘body’ brings to you only a thought. In

dream and sleep all ideas sink back into the mind, like the waves into the ocean, why then

be dissatisfied? The waves are still in the ocean, the ideas are still in the mind. Therefore

nothing is really lost, at death is really a going back to itself. So you must inquire what is

the self? If men knew this, that higher than the mind is the Atman, that everything goes

back into it and IS there, what room for fear?

(13.116) All the world is in me. All mankind is in me as idea. The idea is not a dead thing

because it is mind, a living entity. Therefore all men are not different from me and thus

we arrive at the unity of mankind.

(13.117) How far does the Atman go, where is it limited? I am the same being

everywhere. Its separateness from others is only imagined, (as through the body). All

other human beings are within this Self and non-separate from it. If you think of being

different from others or from God, or from suffering people you can never realize self.

This is true Ahimsa, only those who know it refuse to inflict injury to others.

(13.118) Suffering is also an idea; let it come and go. For every man has sorrow in this

world. Similarly when you know body is only an idea, you can look forward to its death,

the greatest of all sorrow with equanimity. For when an idea disappears, it goes back to

its source: cannot be lost. The mountain you saw in dream has vanished. Where? Back

into the mind. The form is not different from the essence, body from self; hence there is

neither coming or going, that which is, is and forever.

(13.119) When you eat, you are establishing unity with the food. When you love another

person, you are establishing oneness with him or her when you go to sleep you are

returning to the primal state of unity. When mountains crumble infinitely slowly it is

being dissolved into unity of substance. When river flows into the ocean, it is seeking to

merge in oneness. Everywhere you see every form, every individual whether animate or

inanimate trying to kill duality and achieve non-duality. We Vedantins are doing this

work consciously and quickly.

(13.120) You may feel the pain if your finger is cut. But if you know the truth, you will

only say that I am only the witness of the pain, which is a drsyam. The agnani gets

identified with pain and says that “I have pain”. Sri. Ramakrishna’s throat trouble not that

he had no pain; but he saw it was only the body's.

(13.121) That mind influences body is known from the annals of medicine, but how it

does so, is not known, is still a mystery, This is what Advaita says too, for it says that

apart from and independent of the mind, we can only fall into mystery, we cannot say

anything more than that everything is only mind; mind (i.e. Brahman alone is for certain.)

(13.122) Buddhist pessimistic viewing of all beautiful things such as woman or Nature as

subject to decay and hence ugly is only true of individual things but not of the Whole. If

we regard a woman only as a part we see the decay but if we perceive that the decayed

atoms are reborn into other parts, other beings and. live afresh, if we see that there is

something in the woman which is not subject to decay, if we see parts as Brahman then

they lose their ugliness.

(13.123) What do we know beyond the proton? Nothing. There is mystery beyond. If we

want to go beyond we can only imagine. Thus the world is still wrapped in mystery for

everyone even the scientist. This mystery is Maya.

(13.124) If the body is a reality, where is your body as a child, when it ran about, was

different in appearance and different in structure? It has vanished. Then what was it at the

time? What else but an idea? And how can a thing which changes and disappears be real?

(13.125) When you ask why knowledge is relative, partial and incomplete you have to

learn the distinction between drg and drsyam to find an answer. Relativity leads man to

idealism. Idealism leads you to mentalism. Mentalism leads you to avastatraya.

Avastatraya leads to Brahman.

(13.126) The first characteristic of Maya is change, impermanency. The second to "What

has become of the forms which have gone, of the names and forms? They appear to be

here but are not here now. Where are they? This is the same question as "What is this

world?" and "What do I mean by change?" This requires a lot of ever-deepening semantic

examination of the meaning of this apparently simple word "change." We then find it

merely means that we pass from one idea to another. Hence the forms which changed

have vanished into the origin of idea, i.e. Mind. At this point Maya disappears and the

illusion of stable forms produced by these imaginations was the Maya. You then discover

that Maya, avidya, form, prakriti28 were really nonexistent. Hence the answer to the

question "What is this world?" is that it is an idea, and an idea is something that is unreal.

In this sense the world is unreal. But this does not mean it is unseen.

(13.127) The keynote to Vedanta is to understand that although a thing is present to the

senses and appears to them, still it is unreal. Few can grasp this point.

28 Matter in the Samkhya system

(13.128) Just as the scientist simultaneously sees the table and yet knows it to be

electrons, so the gnani sees the table and at the same time knows it to be Brahman. In

both cases there is no conflict between the sense-perception and the mental knowledge.

(13.129) Illusions may be objective, but still unreal. This is the first stage of our inquiry.

The next and the higher stage is to see all those in yourself, hence to be real ultimately as

Self, Mind.

(13.130) The mind is virtually the external world, i.e. in effect but not in fact. This is the

first step. Second step: Convert everything into ideas. Third step: Where do these ideas

rise from and into what do they disappear as in dream? It is the mind--just like waves rise

and fall in ocean. Hence world is also Mind. Fourth step: That which sees all these

changes of three steps, exists always.

(13.131) Maya does not mean that it is illusion. It means only that it is an idea, which

exists momentarily, but is not really permanent. Ideas come and go continuously when

the mind is active.

(13.132) When we say the world is within the mind, we do not mean to say it is within

the ego-mind. It is within Mind, not ego. But people confuse both. That is why we say

until you got rid of ego, this great truth cannot be seen. The I misleads you by preventing

the sight of this truth.

(13.133) The external world is only idea, it becomes mental, hence it becomes

"invisible." So practice regarding all forms as being Mind.

(13.134) If you want to say a substratum should exist for anything, say for instance

substratum of a rope for a snake, then why not a substratum of ideas? Turiya is that which

is the substratum of our ideas. But if you say it is the substratum or support of ideas, then

the question of relationship arises, between the meaning of idea and the knower of the

idea. There is no meaning or relationship except as itself an idea, which is an object; and

the object has nothing to do with Turiya. Turiya is the witness--that is all--but witness

implies duality.

(13.135) Happiness promised in the world after death, as by religion, or to one's posterity

as by science, will not satisfy philosophy. It seeks happiness, here and now, in this life

where one can be certain of getting it.

(13.136) A gnani may be reborn in three days or three years. And if he thinks of form in

any shape when dying that will bring him back to incarnation again. So if he thinks of

serving humanity just prior to death, and wills it, he will reincarnate in order to fulfill that

task. And if he thinks of a particular work or service he will incarnate in such a way as to

carry it out. And if he thinks of his group of disciples and wants to continue their

instruction, then he will be reborn in their neighborhood or they will be reborn so as to

meet him again, and thus instruction will continue. Whatever picture he holds in mind

just prior to death will draw him back to earth and materialize. Where he dies in sleep his

subconscious tendencies will dictate the next birth. These tendencies are vasanas and

samskaras. So the student should think of his guru when dying in order to meet him

again. If student dies in sleep or suddenly then all his subconscious thoughts of devotion

to his guru will bring about the same result as if he had thought prior to death. It is really

the two together which determine next birth. Hence the importance of psychology to

philosophy, with its teaching of the power of subconscious. Were the gnani not to hold

this last thought of service of humanity he would not be reborn. It acts as a downward

pull. However it does not cause him to lose his gnan because side by side with it he

knows humanity or his disciples to be also Brahman.

Chapter 14: THE ILLUSION OF EGO EXPERIENCE

(14.1) Everybody says 'I' but every one sees differences in each 'I’. Remove the

difference and take the common factor of all the ‘I’s. This is the real 'I’.

(14.2) "Individuality" has no meaning. That is the point. The Drg is that which has no

limitations--all ideas regarding limitation are imagined. We have to catch that which is

between two ideas in order to eliminate ideas. I am "the knower" in all. The mind creates

many contradictions in dream and yet the mind is one. Know this and apply it to life as a

whole and pierce delusion of individuality.

(14.3) The individual mind can only imagine, it is identified by the ego etc. It is the

universal mind that creates or projects the whole universe as well as the ego. If you can

cast away the ego consciousness, the individual mind is the same as the universal mind.

(14.4) Is there a thing called the individual mind? Who asks that question? The question

presupposes that there is an individual mind. What is this ‘I’? Everybody uses the word I,

but they are really different. What is the common factor of the different I's? That factor is

the real ‘I.’

(14.5) The practical man says, Why should I practice anything, what benefit to me (the

ego). The religionist says, practice religion to get heaven in the next world for me (the

ego) and the mystic-yogi says, practice mysticism to get ananda for me (the ego), In all

three cases the ego is present--hence no gnana is possible. On Advaita nothing is sought

for me. Truth is sought for her sake alone.

(14.6) He who gives up the ego will achieve gnan very quickly. So long as the black

serpent of Aham, the ego, is, it completely covers the truth and prevents you from seeing

it.

(14.7) You will know that everything is Brahman, when the 'I' goes, everything is

immortal being Atman. It is impossible to die. Though thou art only the Drg, you identify

yourself with the Drsyam. "I" which is dying everyday in sleep; the ‘I’ vanishes every

moment in the waking state also--not to speak of the dream 'I’. The 'I' idea comes and

goes; no idea of it is permanent. Think ever that you are witness of the changing 'I's. Use

one thorn or idea to get rid of another thorn or idea.

(14.8) So long as Aham reigns in a man it is a guarantee of his ignorance. No matter what

profound realization or knowledge he claims, if his conduct reveals that the ‘I’ rules him,

do not believe his claims.

(14.9) There is no such thing as liberation after death, this doctrine is punditry. It must be

attained here alone.

(14.10) That the Drg is everywhere common is easily proved because everyone refers to

himself first by ‘I’; he adds his personal name only secondarily: the ‘I’ is always spoken

first--I am here, I am doing this. This is true in all languages, used by all men as the

primary answer to any questions: personal names come later. Why does every man use

the word ‘I’? If he is essentially different from others why does he use the same word ‘I’?

This proves that if a man as really different from another why does he use the same

notion ‘I’ as the other man? How did he get this notion called ‘I’. How did it come to

him. Why does a woman use the same word ‘I’ as a man although she knows that she is

so different in many respects? They should have used a different word. The whole of

humanity is classified under the name ‘I’. What is the common feature of this

multitudinous ‘I’? Just as various ornaments are all made of one element-gold, what is

that finality which comprehends all and is common to all and what is the single common

element in all human beings? The universal use of ‘I’ indicates that one exists, admitting

the various differences that exist. That common feature is which Vedanta seeks. In short

we are inquiring into the meaning of the word Man. Similarly a thousand waves are all

really water. So we inquire into meaning of word ‘water’. The unity cannot be taken

together.(as an assemblage of parts)

(14.11) No ego really disappears into annihilation. It is forever in the Self, as the waves

disappear into ocean; It goes back just as it does in deep sleep, which is not external

annihilation.

(14.12) What is death? For novices we say it is an idea, but for advanced students we

teach that death also is Atman, the Self, and hence not to be feared. Only you have to

continually regard it in this way--this is Gnana yoga.

(14.13) So long as you think of yourself as ego you will die, but when you think of

yourself as Mind, you will be immortal.

(14.14) Man has got the Aham which is attached to the body. The ‘I’ is there always, all

the 24 hours, at the bottom of our acts and thoughts. He has to get the widest ‘I’ which is

identified with the whole universe. Then he is Brahman.

(14.15) Ten years ago you were a child playing, now you are an adult with a different

outlook. The two personalities are changed and different, and both are therefore illusory.

Hence we say get rid of the attachment to the ego and you get truth, or true self.

(14.16) A man writes "individual life is a phantom.” He is wrong. The individual is a

phantom, but never life.

(14.17) Those who talk of the ‘I’ becoming merged in Brahman are not philosophers but

mystics. Vedanta does not admit even the existence of the ‘I’. The proof is that it

disappears every night in deep sleep. Yet in the book “Contemporary Indian Philosophy"

all the essays except mine, proceed on the assumption that the ‘I’ is real.

(14.18) If you do not get realization here, on this earth, in this world, you will never get

it. Besides, we know only this present life and we cannot afford to take chances of

suppositions of attainments elsewhere.

(14.19) Do not think of Heaven, which can at best be temporary. You can't get rid of

yourself. The "knower of Brahman" is absurd. Liberation during this life is the final step,

(why talk of after-death business) resulting as a consequence upon giving up all mental

creations. If you are to get Brahman it must be only here--emancipation in this life.

Christianity, Islam, all religions speak of next life and heavenly pleasures. Vedanta wants

it here and now. Pleasures and pains of this world can affect only the Jiva, the ego, the

I--not the Drg. Pleasure and pain are as much objects as the Jiva or ‘I’. This knowledge

can be guided by inquiry. Therefore we must always be engaged in the inquiry into the

nature of the Universe, the Jiva that sees it, and then the nature of the Jiva, a

determination of its nature as Brahman. People mistakenly think that the ‘I’ is Atman,

just as you take a shell (pearl) as silver. That which exists really is Atman only. The ‘I’

which is changing is wrongly identified with the unchanging Atman, Drg 'I'. How do you

know? Because the former ‘I’ changes, appears and disappears. Mind alone is the cause

of bondage and freedom. We do not rely on immortality, because it is said so in the

Upanishads; but because it is actually experienced. Of what use is quotations? Vedanta

appeals to facts.

(14.20) Most people shrink in fear of losing their ego; this is due to ignorance for the

truth is that the ‘I’, the ego, is also Brahman, and as Brahman cannot really be lost.

(14.21) The difference between us and other schools is that they have the erroneous belief

that there is some Reality, apart from us which is unborn and eternal, whereas we know it

to be our very own Atman.

(14.22) The Atman imagines the Jiva, the Jiva imagines the world--that is the Kalpana,

the process.

(14.23) The individual self is only an idea. Yoga is only an idea. Even Vichara-practice is

only an idea, but it is the highest. Hence the personality is only born and dies as ideas, as

imaginations not really. Hence the real self is neither born nor dies. Nobody has seen the

Jiva go. Hence nobody knows what becomes of it. There are no two selves, the

personality never exists apart from its ultimate entity, Brahman.

(14.24) All objects and creatures are mind alone. In advanced Vedanta you convert this

statement into "are Atman alone."

(14.25) When you know that ‘I’ or ‘me’ is also your mental-construction, then only can

you attain Atmic consciousness. For the ‘I’ also appears and disappears and changes like

all other ideas. That which sees the ‘I’ coming and going is the pure consciousness. It is

not individual consciousness, which is a ‘seen.’ The ‘I’ is thus a part of your imagination.

Hence it is said so long as there is ego, there is bondage.

(14.26) In deep sleep all ideas of objects are converted into Atman, similarly in Samadhi.

Even the idea of Ego, which is manufactured by the mind also, must be converted in

Samadhi to Atman. Thus the finite ego is not the Atman. The Yogi who comes out of

Samadhi has then to manifest the ‘I’, the ego, for he talks to you, he sits, he eats, he

walks.

(14.27) Why should the fundamental instinct of love--in its various evolving phases from

animal to intellectual--exist? Because the unity of mankind is the truth; its individualistic

separation is illusory.

(14.28) The Atman in you is present in all your activities of work or pleasure, and hence

you should one day find It as being the real hidden object of your activities. When this

understanding comes, you are ready to give up the inner burden of those activities with

their consequent anxieties, just to find peace, and be free of the anxieties. For that peace,

that rest, is really the peace of Atman itself.

(14.29) The mind should not get confused. It should not think that "This particular thing

is mine." This is what is meant by attachment. If you say that the whole world is mine, if

you think of the whole world, that is detachment. It is when you think of the individual

thing or individual man or object that you have attachment, but it has to be got rid of.

Give up the individual attachment and you will find the whole.

(14.30) The first thing in ignorance, the root of it, is egoism. So long as you have ‘I’, it is

useless to think you can find truth. This is the opposite of all other religions and

philosophies, which take the individual self for real and build up promises or attainments

on it.

(14.31) Death is one thing that is absolutely certain; what will happen after death in next

world we cannot be certain of. Let us therefore seek the true immortality which can be

gained here in this world, and once gained, will be forever. This is to know ourselves as

Atman, Drg which never goes but sees the vanishing body and is always there. This is the

sage's outlook.

(14.32) To the gnani both death and rebirth are ideas and hence do not exist in reality. Do

not ask him therefore what is going to happen after death, because the question is

meaningless to him. Everything is but mind, ideas, to him.

(14.33) Where is the death for him who, knowing the whole world including his body and

ego to be an idea with him, knows that he (as Mind) continues even if the idea passes

away just as a dreamer remains alive even when his dream-ego and body dies? And just

as the dreamer must awake to this fact so the man must find immortality whilst awake

too, i.e. here and now in this world, not in some problematical next world.

(14.34) The true sacrifice to which man evolves from sacrificing cattle, goats or human

beings, is the sacrifice of his ego. Then he gets Gnan.

(14.35) Atman is the thinking substance in man.

(14.36) The Mind as such must be carefully distinguished from the mind associated with

ego. This is a point on which much confusion in Western idealism reigns. For the latter

leads to solipsism and to the criticism, why don't you create a camel by thought and ride

away on it? It is only the former which produces ideas that are seen by all, not merely by

a single person.

(14.37) After ideas of objects are reduced to Mind, Mind itself must be reduced to

Atman.

(14.38) The universal mind exists in everyone. Therefore it is possible for all to practice

regarding the finite mind, the ego, as not one's real self, to look upon it as an object.

When one does this, at that very moment one has become the Universal Mind, This is the

gnana-yoga practice we ought to follow, although it is admittedly difficult. It involves

constantly objectifying the ego, seeing the ‘I’ as apart.

(14.39) Nobody can question that all objects are Ideas and that therefore the whole world

is a concept of mind alone. Here error creeps in because men think this refers to the

individual mind, to my mind. Berkeley, Jeans and Eddington say therefore that there is a

universal mind in which the myriads of individual minds exist. Advaita denies this. It

points out the ego-minds are within the one mind. The Vedantic tenet of myriad sunrays

reflected from a single sun is of this order, but given only to help us to understand at a

certain stage, not given as a final truth. Universal mind is not Brahman. The notion of

creation is still there.

(14.40) We do not say the world is a creation of my mind, my ego, i.e. solipsism. The

critics of solipsism are quite right. We make a distinction between my and the universal

mind, but we say ego prevents us knowing the truth. If you say my mind, you are

thinking only of mind associated with ego. It then becomes impossible to perceive truth

about world. Why are my ideas not seen by others? This is the problem. But it is a

fictitious one, for it is based on an illusion--that ego is real, that individual mind is real.

You have to go to highest Mind, to universal mind, to understand it, but then your

question will fall to the ground as unaskable. To understand this better, we appeal to

dream. In your dream you will see several other persons. Each does not see the ideas

images objects and pictures in the minds of the other persons. Yet after waking you

realize that all these separate persons, despite the fact that their individual zones of

awareness were different from the others, were nevertheless one and the same mind, the

mind of you--the dreamer. Similarly in the waking world we find the identical state of

affairs. We are all deluded by separateness into being blind to the one mind of which we

and the world are appearances.

(14.41) Vedanta also has the idea of a Universal Mind, like Jeans and Berkeley under the

titles of Prajna, Isvara and Hiranyagarbha. But these are only stages above which we

must rise: they are not the same as Advaitic Brahman, which is loftier.

(14.42) Getting rid of the ego does not mean losing the sense of individuality. It may be

felt, experienced but it must be known for what it is--an idea, a drsyam. We cannot deny

the ego being there but we can understand what it really is--a transient drsyam. Let the

ego exist, it cannot be abolished, but don't be deceived by it into seeking its satisfaction at

the expense of truth.

(14.43) Death exists in order to teach man that the individual is but a drsyam which

appears and disappears, hence it is to urge him to seek immortal life.

(14.44) Do not believe children's fables and intellectual cock and bull stories about a

man's spirit passing at death into Chandraloka, and thence to Suryaloka and thence

absorbed, in God. He has only gone back into Mind and will come out of it again.

(14.45) The moment that you give up ego you will get the "lightning-flash" and know

that you are everywhere (not that you are acting everywhere) and that everything is in

you. Like that other flash between two thoughts it is something extremely subtle hence

hard to detect, demanding extreme concentration.

(14.46) I know only one Witness. Everybody says that he knows only his own witness. I

am not conscious of another man's witness, and hence we can only say there is one Drg,

not two.

(14.47) The ‘I’ is the first kalpana, the first idea the human mind imagines.

(14.48) Ideas disappear but not in your mind, you must get rid of ego to grasp this.

Similarly when critics say world is still there when I am asleep, they are blocked by ego

from seeing truth that world does not come or go in ego-mind, but Mind.

(14.50) All these different Hindu teachings that the Atman is as big as the body, or as big

as the head, or as big as the thumb, are mere words, imaginations.

(14.51) When you are very angry you may behave badly. After you calm down, you

regret it and wonder how you could have been so. At this time you feel the angry man

was like a different person, not your habitual self. What had happened? You had changed

your ego for the time being and then threw off the new "angry" ego. This shows from

waking, proof that the ego can be detached.

(14.52) All religious doctrines of life after death are without exceptions based on reality

of the ego and therefore illusory. True immortality is only in the common universal self.

(14.53) The ‘I’ is a compound of a changing factor, ego, and an unchanging factor,

consciousness.

(14.54) The ego is called a serpent or black serpent because a snake is very cunning.

Similarly the ego is very cunning and operates even when it pretends not to. The ego is a

complex, as a psychological complex is that which works unconsciously; you do not

know it is there.

(14.55) The way to get rid of ego is to note its numerous changes and study its transient

illusion. In dream you have one I, in waking you have the different ‘I’s of childhood,

youth, manhood, old age; or as husband, pupil, master, traveler. Finally note its

disappearance in sleep. Another way is to practice humility all the 24 hours.

(14.56) The gnani conquers death because, by identifying himself with all mankind, he

continues to live on in them even after he is gone.

CHAPTER 15: AVASTATRAYA

(15.1) Indian philosophy: Its uniqueness relies on totality of experience by coordinating

the three states, waking dream and deep sleep-- not on waking alone like other

philosophies, arts, sciences and religions.

(15.2) Even when you are seeing the three states, you are still in the Atman; for it is

always there. Hence to talk of "shifting the consciousness from ego to Brahman" is

wrong because your consciousness is already in Brahman and therefore does not need

shifting.

(15.3) The Western idea of consciousness implies an objective relation, whereas Vedantic

idea is that it is the unrelated subject alone.

(15.4) It is quite impossible to know that there is a waking state, unless you have a dream

and sleep to compare it with (like contrasting colors). Hence knowledge is possible only

when you have differentiation. And since the Drg is the undifferentiated it can never be

known in the ordinary sense of being distinguished from anything else, as the three states.

You cannot talk of the absence of objects when there are no objects for contrast.

(15.5) Dream state is precisely the same as the function of imagination in waking state,

remarks a Upanishad.

(15.6) "We are such stuff as dreams are made of" said Shakespeare, showing that he was

an idealist.

(15.7) Dream is the same as waking state so long as it lasts. Whatever applies to the latter

belongs to the former also. Hence when I say intellect is reason confined to waking I

include dream in the latter.

(15.8) Sleep and Samadhi are identical. Samadhi is induced and under the control of one

individual, while sleep is not induced and not under control.

(15.9) There is a distinction between reason applied to waking state and reason applied to

all three states. And there is a distinction between applied to waking and dream, and

reason in working in them. The former is intellect or intelligence strictly. It is capable of

knowing its own incapacity to know everything as is confessed by scientists. It knows its

own defect which arises from confinement to waking data only.

(15.10) Intellect is that which works in the waking state alone whereas Reason is that

which examines the three states; it takes them into account.

(15.11) Turiya the intellectual laying down of the three states to view them from Witness

standpoint, is possible only when you, the ego, disappear.

(15.12) Deep sleep and highest Samadhi (Nirvikalpa) are the same entirely. Self is

Witness when there is an idea or object to witness, but there is none such in deep sleep or

samadhi-- there is nothing to witness. Only in the waking and dream states are there these

objects or ideas; they disappear in deep sleep and samadhi, for both the ordinary man, the

yogi and the gnani. The deep sleep state is hence identical for all these three. You call it

unconsciousness, but do you not see that consciousness can only exist where there is

something to be conscious of? Your friend (Yogi So-and-So) who says he goes to sleep

in the consciousness and remains aware of it throughout the night is simply deceiving

himself like many yogis and mystics, if he is not deluding others. It is impossible. There

is no such thing as Turiya or the fourth state, which is also yogic nonsense. The goal of

all yoga is nothing more than deep sleep. Slumber. Yes, nothing more! But you must

keep this secret because no one will want to undergo the troubles and disciplines of yoga

if you reveal it. The difference between the ordinary man and the attained yogi is that the

latter can enter this slumber or samadhi as he calls it, at will, whereas the ordinary man

cannot. Don't reveal this secret because yoga is necessary for the vast majority as a

preliminary stage to being fit to study Gnana: It is for those who lack the power of insight

and brains; but it will give them peace of mind through elimination of thoughts and all

the contents of mind, as well as detachment from worldly desires, both being

prerequisites to study of Gnana which demands absolutely free mind as well as

detachment from worldly desires, both being pre-requisites to study of Gnana which

demands absolutely free mind to attend to it.

(15.13) When we say Turiya is realized or known, we mean only that ignorance is

removed. The realization is not a result of any activity because the Turiya was always

there, only an unveiling.

(15.14) Form of objects and their essence as mind are one and the same. To see this, take

the illustration of dream and its objects. But this perception requires a mind as sharp as a

razor. If you think of form as something different from mind then the latter has nothing to

do with it; and when you regard it as being non-different from Atman, then you find the

objects disappear and only the Self is.

(15.15) There is no such thing as manifold manifestation in the sense of a new creation:

just as there is nothing new in the dream world, all its apparently manifold objects being

still unchanged Mind. Similarly Brahman is always there as the world, still one, still

unchanged.

(15.16) It is not possible to say that the external changes and forms are either different or

non-different from Brahman. This statement is most important. To grasp it look at dream

where objects are neither different nor non-different from Mind.

(15.17) Why should men have sleep? Nature wants to teach you that it is possible to have

a state where there will be no imagination, no duality, no fear. In sleep, no questions can

be asked, no answers given, there is nothing. Questions can be asked where imaginations

are possible, i.e. in the waking state. The secondless state is always present, even now

during the waking state. When the mind has learned to inquire properly it finds this

non-dual state even during waking, as it is never absent. It is wrong to take sleep as

Gnana or Moksha. The case of sleep is given only as an illustration or analogy, it is like

the true state of nonduality but nevertheless it is not our goal. It is given as analogy only

to show that all ideas disappear in deep sleep. Whereas Moksha is present in this very

moment and all can be realized here and now outside of sleep. Only to achieve this the

mind must be properly trained to inquire into it.

(15.18) Turiya must be found in the waking state. The analogy of deep sleep is given by

the Upanishads to indicate that sleep is the last gate to be passed before reaching Turiya,

that it is like Turiya in the sense of having no second thing for the Atman to be aware of,

but sleep is definitely NOT the condition of Gnana. Otherwise the Gnani would have to

keep on returning to sleep in order to recover his Gnana or the yogi would have to keep

on entering samadhi to see Atman. Sleep and Samadhi give Atman alone, whilst waking

state gives both Atman plus thoughts and things. Hence the non-dual Atman is

ever-present even in the midst of waking life. Panchadeshi explains these points.

(15.19) Sleep gives Atman. That is not enough. It must be known and felt in the waking

state which means you must discover it in the midst of thoughts, and things i.e. you must

examine the external world and by inquiry-practice eventually trace it back to Atman.

Then only have you known Brahman and also known it to be the same as Atman.

(15.20) That which sees the three states coming and going, which knows them, is the

Omniscience. Mind is still attached to form, to worldly reality hence it needs training to

get above this attachment before it can perceive both the forms and the essential one

reality, simultaneously. This is the real meaning of Omniscience.

(15.21) Just as all ideas sink into the mind after dream, so all ideas of the world sink into

Atman, and are never really lost.

(15.22) How are we to know that all this world becomes Atman? The illustration of deep

sleep is used, for before you entered it you saw a material world which disappeared.

Where did it go? To answer this, ask what all the objects of the world are. They are ideas.

Where do ideas go back to? The Mind. Hence world disappeared into the mind. The mind

disappears into the Atman. Mind active produces ideas, when in its inactive state it

disappears. When everything is Atman there is no one else left.

(15.23) Deep sleep has been given you by Nature to show how in Gnan the whole

universe goes back into you as idea.

(15.24) Even when you see mountains in dream they are not different from the mind

itself. The essence is the same. Similarly with Atman all things are not different from it in

essence.

(15.25) If there is only one self why is one man crying and another laughing? All should

have the same emotion? Hence religions believe in millions of individual separate souls.

But the objection of differences between separate feelings are answered by illustration. In

your dream you think of a tiger who attacks and eats you. Who made the tiger, what is it

made of? Answer: the same mind has created both the tiger and yourself. Thus two

separate different egos are created by one mind. Latter appears bifurcated through its own

imagination.

(15.26) What do you see in the ordinary waking or dream state? You see each object and

person separately, this man, that wall etc. When you say all these are mind, you reduce

them to one category, the mind, and then know their oneness in essence. If however your

mind is attached to this particular man, that individual woman or thing, you become

unable through your liking or desire or passion for the separate object, to see the general

oneness of all.

(15.27) When you kill a tiger in your dream, it is only your own mind appearing as the

tiger which you kill. Similarly other creatures and men are your own self appearing as

different and what you do to them you are really doing to yourself. They are in your

mind, not out of it.

(15.28) Turiya is not the fourth state: Turiya is that in which all the others are merged; or

it may be called the witness which sees the other three states.

(15.29) What we are trying to teach is the nonexistence of Matter. The Quran itself

teaches it in a very few phrases. "The world in which we are living here is a dream and

men who are living here are a dream." it says. This means that any really deeply

thoughtful and concentrated mind sees this truth, but how it is so, and what it leads to,

they need not know. That is provided only by the higher Vedanta. Shakespeare

thoughtfully said: "World is such stuff as dreams are made of." But this alone does not

make him a gnani.

(15.30) When you get Gnana, all acts become ideas as in a dream.

(15.31) Advaita begins by using dream as an illustration. Then it proceeds to use it as an

analogy, but in the final stage it proceeds to ask what after all, is the difference between

our waking life and dream life? Whatever so-called differences critics may point out we

shall refute as non-existent. For example, if you say that waking life is continuous and

dream life is discontinuous, we reply: Not so. Even during dream you remember things

which happened some months previously and also you have relations with people with

whom you were formerly in relation. Moreover when science proves the discontinuity of

atomic structure then the whole waking world is shown to be discontinuous also, should

you insist that dream life is discontinuous after all. Again if you reply that dream is

incoherent whereas waking is coherent we reply: Not so, because even waking life can be

shown to be incoherent at times. Therefore we can find no difference whatever between

waking and dream. They are both of the same character, that is, they are both mental.

(15.32) Sleep is merely used as an illustration of non-duality. Even in the waking state if

mind is sharp we can get the lightning-flashes of sleep: it is then called sahaja samadhi:

only we do not notice them. Philosophy will not end if you confine it to the waking state:

it will always produce endless ideas and hence endless schools of thought. But only in the

non-duality of sleep do all ideas die, when this is brought into waking state as sahaja

samadhi.

(15.33) The student must pass first through the stage of scientific proof from waking

world facts for idealism: he must know that things are ideas. Then only is he ready to

pass to the higher stage of studying Avastatraya. Here dreams show what powers the

mind possesses to manufacture whole worlds, to create externality and internality, i.e.

space. Sleep shows what power the mind possesses to reabsorb, store and later reproduce

all the ideas of the world, space etc. Finally having shown all this Avastatraya clinches

and carries to final culmination the idealistic theory learnt from waking state facts and

shows what nature of mind is, what ego is, and that everything is not only ultimately one

or non-dual but also not apart from yourself.

(15.34) Science teaches that all the universe is interwoven, one thing affecting another or

depending on another or related to another. Now dream must therefore have its part to

play in Nature, too. What is this part? If we only reflected deeply on the matter we would

realize that the third of every 24 hours given to sleep indicated the great importance

Nature attaches to dream and sleep. Vedanta says dream is to open a rift in the

mechanism of what is going on behind the scene as illusion does, and thus give a strong

hint that all life is mind made, that the waking state is as ideated as dream.

(15.35) We do not take dream-pictures or fanciful ideas as real as our critics say, but our

waking pictures as unreal. The two attitudes are totally different.

(15.36) Experience of the world is there, that is undeniable, only you will have to know

that it is illusory, not what it seems. The illustration is dream. When you wake up and

thus when there is no ignorance, you say that the dream world was illusory. Similarly in

waking when you get rid of ignorance you say, yes the wall is there but it is illusory. For

every second it is fleeting, just like a cinema picture. The wall appears stable but science

knows it is not really so: hence its appearance is illusory.

(15.37) Even the sense of reality is also mental, i.e. imaginary, and this is proved by (1)

dream or (2) rope/snake illustration.

(15.38) Realists who say that objects have a sense of reality not found in more imaginations,

to them we reply the same sense is found in dreams.

(15.39) Did the mind go from here to Himalayas in your dream? No, the idea of space

and movement is in the mind. Similarly the Atman does not move, but motion occurs

within it.

(15.40) The rose and smelling which you have in a dream, are only an idea. This helps to

understand why similarly the five senses which you have in waking are also ideas.

(15.41) There is no way to discover the world is idea except by modern scientific analysis

of matter. Avastatraya cannot be used for this: it is only an illustration in this connection.

Avastatraya is not needed to prove idealism: Scientific--such as Russell, Eddington, and

even Berkeley up to a point, analyses of sense-perception forms the only real proof.

Avastatraya can merely illustrate idealism, although it is the only proof when you step

beyond idealism. Scientific analysis of sensation is quite enough to prove idealism. When

world is known to be idea, Avastatraya is only proof of world being in you, and only way

to understand the nature of Atman. Idealists fear solipsism, quite rightly because they

make the mistake of putting the world in the ego, not in Atman. They have seen only

ego-solipsism, not Atman solipsism, which is the truth. Proof of idealism can only be got

from science. There only can you see the world and yet know it to be nothing more than

idea.

(15.42) Where was the world before you woke up this morning? It must have been in the

mind, similarly when you awake into Gnan you know world is Mind, finally.

(15.43) It will be a great error to write that the world is a dream. It is not. The correct

statement is: "The world is like a dream." This is because both dream and waking worlds

are mental constructs.

(15.44) Ideas are only momentary although one minute may look like 1000 years in

dream.

(15.45) The Fourth is that which sees, the Witness and it cannot be described. It is not a

state, cannot be. The three states merge in the fourth.

(15.46) Sleep is always present in all the three states.

(15.47) Think of a coconut tree idea; next moment a mango tree idea. What happened

between these ideas? I do not know. Why do you remember the ideas? There is a

discontinuity of thought between the idea of a horse and the idea of an ass. What was

there between the two ideas? One idea is not the same as another. The mind distinguishes

them; then what is there between them? This shows that 'sleep' or absence of objects

intervenes even in waking state.

(15.48) Deep sleep is said to be causal relation, because every day you go to sleep and

wake up and the whole world is before you again. It is also called the seed condition: A

mango from a mango seed, and vice versa. Mango tree goes into the seed form and comes

out again. In the tree form you do not see the seed: in the seed form you do not see the

tree. In the waking you see the whole world, in sleep only the seed, you do not see the

world.

(15.49) Turiya is not a state or condition. We can experience only the three states. Turiya

is present always. That which knows all the three states is itself changeless.

(15.50) The Western psychologists' objection that only primitive savage races regard

dreams as real experiences, is answered as follows: Vedanta does not say dream

experiences are real. It agrees that they are unreal. It says that waking experiences are

unreal (and here it is supported by science) and that therefore the waking state is similar

to dream i.e. both are unreal, despite the feeling of vivid reality they produce at the time.

(15.51) You can understand that all the world is the same Brahman if you reduce waking

world to dream state and that to sleep.

(15.52) In a dream you may become another personality. What happens? The knowing

capacity in you, the Atman, associates itself for the time being with the new ego and

identifies itself with it. But when the dream ends, you wake up and that ego--say a

soldier--disappears. After that you know that you can be separated.

(15.53) Just as Mind really remains unaffected by changing experiences in dream,

(although you think at the time that a murderer is killing you) so Mind in waking is

unchanged by its myriad thoughts and experiences. Just as waking after dream shows the

murderer as not having been there other than delusion, so in waking up to Gnan all the

world show is seen to have been only idea, unreal.

(15.54) Sleep is due to the absence of duality. It means that there is no positive misery or

pleasure. In sleep there is only absence of misery and pleasure. But a gnani must have the

knowledge of the absence of duality even in the waking state. Then only there is real

bliss.

(15.55) The Atman is he who sees the three states coming and going in succession; and

this "witness" unites through experience. I witnessed the three states--what are they?

They came out of my mind and disappeared into mind, therefore I am also the sleeper,

dreamer and the waker. I am only the witness--the fish does not belong to any particular

river-bank, i.e. unaffected by any states is Atman; but Atman gets attached to the banks.

In the same way, you can understand the various states, if you think deeply.

(15.56) When you identify yourself with a particular state, waking or dream, you become

identified and individualized. The true nature of Prana has no identification. In deep

sleep, it does not identify itself and remains unindividualized.

(15.57) Turiya is not a state. It cannot be indicated by words. It can be understood only as

Neti, Neti. It is that on which the ideas stand; it is present in all the three states. If you can

say that everything is idea, you must admit that all ideas must have a substratum. Ideas

cannot stand in the air. There should be a mind in which ideas stand. Similarly there

should be a substratum for the illusory super-imposed snake, which is the rope.

(15.58) If you had only the state of pain, could you have had the idea of pain? No. It is

impossible. Yogis talk nonsense when they talk of perpetual anandam, for they could

form no idea of it unless they also had pain. Is there any anandam in deep sleep? It means

that after awaking, you contrast the troubles of waking with their absence in sleep. In

latter there is only one state and hence no second thing for comparison is seen, and there

is then unconsciousness. When there is no duality, you can say nothing about it either

way. Similarly suppose you had only the waking state, could a man then know it was

waking? He would have nothing to distinguish it from. Now he who says dream is unreal,

automatically states that waking is real and vice versa. Hence waking is real to him who

has seen dreams and to none else. To objection that all people see waking objects and

testify to them, whereas you alone can testify to your dream objects, reply is: In dream

you may see a 1000 persons and 10,000 objects, as in waking. At the time all these

persons seemed real. Here also in waking you have a 1000 persons and same objects.

Where is the difference between the two groups of persons and things? All seemed real at

the time. The objection thus falls to the ground. Science helps us here by now saying that

for no two seconds do the same things exist as Buddha said. Even the Himalayas are

being washed away by Ganges in form of sand, and they are thus ever-changing their

form. The most important principle however is that all forms, whether waking or dream,

are illusory because they are perceived by the mind. Merely because things and persons

appear to you as real, is no justification for taking them as such. We are aware only of a

succession of waking states, each comes and passes away; similarly with dream states. To

objection that the same waking world reappears reply is that the idea of sameness is

illusory and must be inquired into. You may think you are in the same buildings which

you entered this morning, but if you inquire and examine it scientifically, you will find it

has undergone change throughout.

(15.59) You remember a dream after it has passed. You do not remember it as a waking

condition, but only as a dream state. In the dream state, if you were expected to

remember waking state it should similarly be remembered as a dream and not as a

waking condition. In dream you have food, body, hands, table etc. This proves that what

was known in waking reappears in dream, where again it seems real. How could you

recognize Halwa sweet in your dream, unless you had previously seen it in waking. This

is the reply to the objection that we cannot remember waking life in dream, although we

remember dreams in waking. Therefore the waking things are seen again in dream later

being a repetition of something that has transpired in waking. We can't say how the mind

chooses its various waking material for its dreams, but it does draw on that material for

its dream-life. The careful examination of dream shows that memory of waking experiences

persists during dream, but if your memory is weak: the links between dream and

waking are lost. Philosophy does not treat dream with usual indifference. It studies it with

care.

(15.60) The mind constructs its own picture of the world because it converts sensation

into its own images. It is the same as in dream, where mind creates its own dream world

that exists within it.

(15.61) The conscious inquiry into the nature of the objective world during the waking

state gradually brings about a "waking up" during the dream state and one begins to

realize that one is dreaming. That means that if one sees a tiger during his dream, he will

understand quite well that the tiger is only his idea, or dream. But this condition will arise

only after the mind has saturated itself with inquiry and discrimination during waking

state.

(15.62) How is dreamless sleep known? No ideas and no objects were present then.

Hence it is only known by negation; In the same way the pure self is also only known by

negation.

(15.63) The interval between two ideas which pass through the mind is equivalent to the

deep sleep state.

(15.64) Deep sleep and the dream state are ever present with us, but the idea of time

prevents us from apprehending them, for it makes us think that such and such a thing has

ended and so on.

(15.65) It is essential to inquire into the presence of objects before we can understand the

truth of their reality. The presence of objects is known only in terms of their absence, that

is the color black is known as black only in terms of contrast with the color white. Hence

Reality is to be known only as distinguished from unreality. In deep sleep the entire

universe disappears from consciousness, that is, becomes unreal. Therefore, the different

states are really relative to each other. In truth when the mind gets the consciousness of

Reality there is no distinction between the three states.

(15.66) The term thought must be used differently from the term idea. A thought is any

passing fancy or any feeling or any desire which comes and goes within yourself. An idea

is not a thought in the above sense but a sensation of some object which is apparently

outside yourself. Thus you will form an idea of a table whereas you will have the thought

of removing the table from one room to another.

(15.67) The point to be noted is that the dreamer may imagine himself to be hunting,

ruling or flying when in waking life he never does any of these. Hence his dream ego is

entirely a concocted one, fictitious and superimposed on reality. Precisely the same

applies to the waking ego.

(15.68) I say that the waking state includes the others because it is only when you are

awake that you know dream and sleep exist. During dream itself you take it for the time

being as though it were waking, and you are unable to know otherwise. The necessary

contrast to enable you to distinguish between the states can only be effected whilst

awake, when only you can perceive that waking is only a state that comes and goes; you

cannot perceive this during dream or sleep. Hence realization can only be effected in the

waking state. Hence too the need by the West to study Avastatraya.

(15.69) When in a dream, if you are aware that all the forms, phantasms etc. that you see

are of the same stuff as the essence of the mind; it is knowledge; the dream ceases to be a

dream (with its reality) and it comes and goes as simply as an idea of the mind.

(15.70) When my mind is working I see the world; when it ceases to act (as in sleep) the

world disappears. Therefore I infer by comparison and agreement that the existence of the

world is connected with the duality of the mind.

(15.71) The attributes of the mountain you see in dream i.e. its hardness, sizes form etc.

are in the mind. Similarly in this world the attributes of the various people and objects,

are in the mind, the Atman.

(15.72) Mind ceases to work in sleep and death but its basis still continues and must

continue.

(15.73) Mandukya points out that everything exists in sushupti29, and from it you get the

whole world.

(15.74) All the phases of the ego's dualistic thoughts and feelings and sensations have

their origin in sushupti; they come from there and somehow they exist there: how, we

don't know. Sushupti as the cause of our individual life is inferred, not seen. However

beyond sushupti is the Atman. This sushupti as source is equivalent to "The Unconscious"

of the psycho-analysis.

(15.75) A ¼ of a rupee is included in a one-rupee piece; a ½ rupee is already there in one

rupee bit. Therefore the ¼ and ½ rupees are merged in the one rupee bit: when you have a

whole rupee you don't inquire, does it contain a ¼ or ¾ rupee in it: you know that both

are present therein. You can by inquiry convert, merge or dissolve all the parts of a rupee

in the whole one. Similarly you can show that waking dissolves in dream, the dream

disappears in deep sleep, and latter merges in Turiya. This is done by converting world of

material objects into an idea. Europe is now learning this first quarter, and it has yet to

learn what becomes of these ideas, and what becomes of deep sleep--i.e two more stages

29 deep sleep state

or quarters. In this way everything "all this" as Mandukya says in the first sloka becomes

Turiya or Brahman.

(15.76) All occult and yogic experiences of vision, astral traveling, clairvoyance, if

genuine, are in dream-state but is there then no difference between occultist experiences

and ordinary man's? There is. The yogi knows he is dreaming, he knows he is out of

body, but ordinary man does not. Pursuing this line still further we find that when

thoughts are transcended in trance the same position arrives, i.e. the man (yogi) enters

deep sleep and knows he is deep sleeping, whereas ordinary man does not know. It is

conscious trance. Nature has imposed the three states upon all mankind without exception

---none, not even gods and sages can escape from these three: waking, dream and deep

sleep.

(15.77) Conscious sushupti=samadhi. Conscious dream= visions, mind-made by yogis.

(15.78) The essential difference between deep sleep and Nirvana which is the fourth

state, is that the ego is still latent in the former state, whereas there is no latent ego nor

latent intellect in the fourth state. Intellect cannot function in Nirvana and therefore

cannot tell us anything about it. A further difference between the two states is the

presence of consciousness in the fourth. Nothing can be understood unless it is

distinguished or differentiated from something else. For this reason, deep sleep, which

offers no contrasts and no differentiations cannot be known in the ordinary sense. The

contrast gives one the ability to see reality. Unless we examine the mind and see how it

gets exact meanings for words, we cannot see this.

(15.79) Of what stuff is the seen made? In the dream it is the same stuff as the seer, mind;

hence in the case of dream you can easily see the real unity in apparent duality. So also in

waking state for the time being you do not know that the world is of the same stuff as the

Atman: although the wall appears different it is nevertheless non-different when inquired

into. Only the knowledge of this non-difference can bring universal brotherhood and

eliminate wars. The tiger and the wolf have the strongest sense of separateness and hence

prey on other animals. "Maya" really means you do not know that the world is made of

the same stuff as the Self.

(15.80) Just as you know of dream only on waking inquiry similarly you know of reality

only on making inquiry: and just as duality of dream state disappears on such inquiry so

does duality of waking state disappear.

(15.81) What is the philosophical value of sleep? Has nature given it to you merely for

physical utilitarian purposes? No. There is also a higher value. When you think of a

meaning, when you get an idea of non-duality, you are still in the world of duality. You

begin to imagine, "Brahman must be like this; or Brahman must be like that." Thus you

merely get your own imagination back. You can raise no question in deep sleep.

Therefore, to help you to understand Brahman aright, Nature gives you deep sleep. But it

is a help only. Sleep is not Brahman, however.

(15.82) Deep sleep is not the same as Gnan, for the latter exists when you see the world

of objects and men; not when you are unaware of it.

(15.83) Avastatraya: You know that there is a dream state or a sleep state only in the

waking state. How do you know the meaning of sleep or dream apart from the waking

state? Only by distinguishing it from waking. Imagine a man who is sleeping or dreaming

all the 24 hours. Would he ever know that there is a different state in existence, unless he

awakens? It is only by taking the whole of man's experience; waking cannot be separated

from the other two states: you know waking only by distinguishing it from dream. The

West does not know what is meant by sleep, waking and dream. Waking is that which

comprehends through understanding the other two states. To shut out dream and sleep

from inquiry is to prevent fullness of knowledge being got. It is wakeful state alone

which gives you knowledge of the other states. It is impossible to arrive at truth when we

reject so much data as sleep and dream, and confine ourselves to waking alone.

(15.84) Vedanta takes the whole of experience throughout the universe that you get in the

waking state. It asks the question: What is the meaning of dream and sleep? Eventually

you come to a certain understanding about the truth of the entire existence, not merely a

certain aspect of it. I do not believe in the cock and bull stories that in the next world after

I die I shall have my knowledge with me. I die every night but where, in deep sleep is all

my knowledge, feeling-and personality? Suppose you never wake up from deep sleep.

You never regain your separate self, nor the world. It is the same in death. The world and

myself disappear then as in sleep.

(15.85) Our position is not that there are no external objects, but that the wall outside and

my idea of it are both mind. To understand this, you must go to dream. We say there is

nothing external to Mind: which has got everything in Itself as in dream. In dream you

have external objects, but they are not separate from mind when you examine them after

awakening.

(15.86) The word dream is generally used with reference to the body, for it means "my

dream" which occurs within my body. Your body reappears in dream, you dream a

journey, but you do not actually perform it, your body seems to do it.

(15.87) People like Dr. Sam. Johnson who stamped his foot on the ground to refute

Berkeley and to show the world is real, ignore that in dream they would do exactly the

same--stamp their dream foot on the ground and assert it to be real.

(15.88) The three states are known in the waking state, not in dream or sleep. Hence you

must detach yourself from them whilst awake, if you are to realize Turiya. In the waking

world alone can we get Brahman. The mind has to be so sharp in order to catch the

meaning of the word state, as applied to waking, for if it sees it thoroughly, it will at once

know it is in Turiya.

(15.89) Because deep sleep is followed by dream and waking, it is called the seed or

causal state: otherwise if it continued unbroken it would be called Brahman. It is a state,

something which comes and goes; the objects of each state are included with it. The

gnani detaches himself from them, sees them coming and going, and thus remains in the

ever-present non-dual Turiya.

Everyone knows these states are transient but everyone does not detach himself

from them. It takes time to realize the truth of Avastatraya as it does to realize

non-causality: although you may perceive them intellectually. At the moment you know

that the three are only states, you know the Drg, which is Turiya, but you have to know

this continually. Turiya is not a state. In deep sleep you have Brahman, for it is always

there (it exists in deep sleep, but you do not realize it then), but you wrongly think that

when an object is present, as in the waking state, there is no Brahman. You call this

Turiya only when you have the three states before you, just as you call it Drg only when

you have drsyam before you.

(15.90) The whole world is of the nature of consciousness; this you can realize by the

illustration of dream; and the world-consciousness is not different from your own: they

are of the same substance or stuff. The objects rise and fall back in this consciousness

like waves in the ocean.

(15.91) Which part of the mountain seen in dream was not the mind! All of it (is mind

upon analysis.) Hence none of it could have been lost, because of all the mountain was

your own mind and lapses back into your mind, and as matter is only mind, having been

proved to be so, the whole world is in my mind. But it is not my ego, my individual mind,

which can create this world. It is the common One Universal Mind.

(15.92) Waking objects, on account of their being similar to dream objects, are unreal

because they are perceived objects. This is important and must be understood. For what is

it that perceives? It is the mind. What is it that the mind has in it when it sees an object?

An idea. Suppose anything existed outside or different from the mind. What is it that

would have to tell you about it? The mind. As in dream, the mind is that which informs

you of existence of objects, i.e. it is only an act of the mind. Those who say things exist

apart from or independent of mind talk like children. Where is the proof? This principle

must be thought over a million times until you thoroughly grasp it. It is only mind that

makes a thing perceived. Hence objects are mental states.

(15.93) The relativity of the three states: you could not know black as black if white did

not exist. If only one color existed you would never be aware of that fact. Only by

existence of another opposite or contrasting color do you know (it). Similarly you would

not know waking as waking if life were always waking state. You know waking state

exists because of existence of dream state by way of contrast and of deep sleep. Therefore

the three states are present together and are always present.

(15.94) Dream is necessary to distinguish from deep sleep, as you cannot know the

presence of an object without knowing its absence.

(15.95) Every man is given the three states, therefore every man can realize Truth.

(15.96) When you have a dream, what is it? This analysis requires self-elimination,

purging of preconceptions. What is the dream now, at this moment, in the waking state?

It you concentrate you perceive dream is only a thought, an idea; it is only your own

mind. Similarly, all our action and thoughts of to-day, now, will be nothing but thoughts,

ideas, tomorrow. Hence all we are doing is, even now, nothing but an idea. Yet it falsely

appears because of attachment to the false idea that all this is real.

(15.97) The aim of yoga is to empty the mind of its contents, but this is successfully

achieved by millions of men during the deep sleep state. Yet they never find Truth. That

is why something more is needed. Deep sleep is not liberation. It is not Reality. Reality is

existence in the external world of matter, as much as in deep sleep, but only the sage can

perceive this. We have to tell novices that deep sleep is nearer the Overself, merely to

induce them to begin and carry on the quest which shall pass into and through and out of

yoga. If yoga were enough, why did not Krishna tell Arjuna upon the battlefield to sit

down and keep quiet? Instead of that, He told him to go into the thick of the battle of life

and to fight, that is, to act.

(15.98) Sleep is Nature's greatly merciful gift to ordinary men to enable them to contact

their divine self nightly. Such is its mercy.

(15.99) Deep sleep is simply having no ideas.

(15.100) The dream-state has been given to man as an illustration for the purpose of

pointing out to him that the external world is likewise an idea. You see a thing in dream

as different from you, but yet it as of the same substance – mental - it is not for nothing

that dreams exist. How did the sense of reality during the dream arise? This must be

answered. It arises from the Atman, not mind. There is no other illustration but dream

which can prove this truth.

(15.101) If a man in dream knows the world to be idea, this is a good test that he has

reached the higher stage.

(15.102) You must think constantly that the world is an idea till it gets so firmly fixed in

your mind that the proper test of your grasp occurs--when in your dreams you will say to

yourself too that even your dreams are but ideas.

(15.103) Until you become fully aware during the dream state that you ARE dreaming,

you are not ready for higher Vedanta teaching which gives Gnana. You must begin to

practice to perceive your dream experiences so as to become conscious that it is a dream

in dream state itself. This will cause the waking self to grasp the idea that both idea and

the object constitute the whole category of existence. All is Mind. If this memory that

what you see what you think as well as your individual self are ideas then that is Gnana.

(15.104) Dream is called the second state, the sphere of Taijasa, which means light. Why

is dream world called the light world? Because there is no sun, moon or stars, yet there is

an entire illuminated world visible to the dreamer. The light is still present there. Whose

can this light be? It must be that of mind. The mind emanates its own light, suns and

moons. How is it that when we shut our eyes, when we enter a state where there is no sun

or electric light, we perceive anew scenes, persons, etc. in dream, reverie or imagination.

It is because we experience them by the mind's own light. That which is said to be only

mental and inside, is thus able to produce the world outside. The old ideas reappear and

produce the external world, impressions, vasanas. This is our scientific basis for the

theory of rebirth too.

(15.105) If you subtract from your experience every thing which is known, then you have

the Turiya, objectlessness: to understand this note that sleep is objectless but you get no

knowledge of it except in waking state. How do you understand deep sleep? You imagine

nothingness. What do you do in such imaginations? You are negating every idea. Hence

if the mind can be so concentrated as to thrust all ideas aside, you understand sleep.

Hence if you learn the way to negate ideas, which is possible, you may reach reality. But

you can see it only for a lightning-flash of a second, it is so quick. You know it has come

but cannot catch it. The moment an idea arrives you know that it was preceded by the

blank. Hence the interval between two thoughts is Turiya. Therefore you have to examine

your own mind with tremendous watchfulness to get it. The three states come of their

own accord. But Turiya is seen by intensely sharp vigilance only. Turiya is the absence of

the three states. It is always present but must be probed for. It must be always there

because it is implied by the presence of the three states. Were it not there you could never

think. Turiya only can get the meaning of existence and non-existence. When you can

realize within yourself the non-existence of objects, that is Turiya.

(15.106) It is the want of Buddhi, the incapacity to see sharply that prevents

understanding that Turiya, the state in which the other three are now, is here and now.

The moment you grasp Turiya the unreal appearances disappear. Nothing that is done can

get it, hence yoga cannot reach it. It is exactly the same as when you try to remember that

you had deep sleep last night. What do you do to get such remembrance? Do you practice

yoga? No, you negate the waking and dream states, you shut your eyes and try to think

them away. Similarly the moment you negate objects, external and internal, you grasp the

Drg in a single second, in a flash. It cannot be done by Samadhi.

(15.107) All scriptures imagine a mystic creator for the universe, but Life itself when

examined reveals that the true creator (or emanator) is deep sleep, because all your ideas

emerge there from and all the objects in the universe are but ideas which come and go

and seem real for the time only because your mind makes them so.

(15.108) Knowledge of Atman is true knowledge, not merely the absence of duality as in

Sushupti where you don't know that it is Brahman. Gnan is to see the world and say that

it is all Brahman. Even the Himalayas are in you. The control of mind is essential to

know the unreality (not the absence) of the phenomenal world. Sushupti can't be equated

with Gnan.

(15.109) Use dream as an illustration frequently. This is Avastatraya method. Last night

in dream what were the actions, the food eaten etc. All were in mind. All were mind.

Similarly all here is Brahman. All is Brahman. What is there to give up? Beginners must

renounce world but thinkers find there is nothing to renounce.

(15.110) The mountain seen in dream is not lost. It has gone back into the mind and is

still there. You cannot say, "I have lost a portion of my mind called "mountain". Similarly

all the world idea retires to the mind, and is realized as identical with Atman.

(15.111) People quite wrongly believe that deep sleep is the pure Brahman condition.

Sleep is a different kind of non-duality, not the highest. Brahman must be seen when

discrimination of the manifold is seen, not when it is absent, as in sleep. You exercise

your Buddhi and understand that this wall, table, man are Brahman.

(15.112) You will know that you have understood Vedanta when in your dreams you can

say: "This mountain, these cities and people are all mind," This is the test of whether you

have advanced from theory to successful practice.

(15.113) You can talk of the three states only during waking. You do not think of the

waking world when dreaming, nor of both when in deep sleep.

(15.114) You can have the equivalent of dream right now by shutting your eyes and

imagining that you are visiting some place, meeting some person, etc. Moreover you can

also have the equivalent of deep sleep if you can succeed in making the mind as sharp

and fine-edged as a razor, when you will detect blankness even in the midst of waking

state: it can only be momentary, but it must be the thoughtless.

(15.115) During dream you have got only mind, one and indivisible, yet you do not think

it to be mind, but you take it to be mountains, streets, sounds and persons. Similarly in

waking you take the same things as distinctive whereas they are really one mind.

(15.116) In the dream world there is no real sun, stars or electric light, yet we see all the

dream-objects. By what light do we see them? It is by the light of the Mind. Such is the

wonderful power of mind that it creates sun, stars and electric light, in dream.

(15.117) We do not say the dream is as real as waking; we say it is as unreal as the

waking. The difference is very important.

(15.118) In sleep there is no positive misery or pleasure, but only absence of misery and

pleasure, i.e. absence of duality. But a gnani must have the knowledge of the absence of

duality even in the waking state. Then only there is realization. We must distinguish

between absence of duality and the knowledge of absence of duality.

(15.119) But Turiya is that which sees all the three states, the states do not merge into it

and come out of it again. It always sees the states coming and going. This is the

difference between sleep and Turiya.

(15.120) You cannot prove positively that consciousness has vanished in sleep. You can

only show it negatively. For you cannot know the limits of consciousness: you cannot

posit where it starts, stops, vanishes etc. This is what Europeans do not understand. We

use the word consciousness to include non-dual states like sleep, whereas West uses it

only for duality states. Westerners do not grasp that consciousness can remain without

objects, as in sleep, and yet be conscious still, This is "contentless consciousness."

(15.121) Dream shows that a second object can be present (duality) and yet you know

later it was not really so. Similarly in waking our sense of duality is a delusion.

(15.122) They object that there is nothing in deep sleep. I reply that the term nothing

indicates the existence of a thing to start with, therefore non-existence implies existence.

Nothing must have a meaning, i.e. a thought and if you had not seen there was a waking

world you could not negate it in sleep. Waking and sleep go together, one is not possible

without the other. You get deep sleep even in the waking state. It comes during interval

between two ideas, when one goes and the other appears. Hence non-existence of

Brahman in sleep is wrong. It is like the waves disappearing but their substance or

essence, water, remains.

(15.123) Because we are not aware of any other things in sleep, we have to admit that

every idea both internal and external has merged into the mind during sleep as

undifferentiated consciousness.

(15.124) Dream also is a waking state to the dreamer. When we get up we have another

waking state. Strictly speaking, we have a succession of "waking states."

(15.125) The illusions of dream disappear on waking when they are seen to be unreal.

Similarly the illusions of waking also disappear when Gnan dawns and it is seen as

equally unreal. The objects, persons, and talks of both states are all ideas. The next step is

to know the nature of all these ideas are only the Mind. All names and forms are

imagined, but I am always there, whether I see them or not.

(15.126) We imagine the waking world and then imagine the dream world and then

proceed to find the former as the cause of the latter. This is our delusion. Dream

experience is entirely the result of our imagination, not of our waking experience.

(15.127) Those few who never dream cannot apply the Vedantic analogous to it, nor the

Gnani-test of feeling himself the All in dream! However this does not matter, for they can

still apply the latter test to waking only but they are unfortunate in missing the former

illustration; this will not prevent realization through.

(15.128) The three states come and go, impermanent and therefore have no value from

truth standpoint, All yogic visions likewise come and go, and are valueless. They are but

projections of the mind, as the Jyoti-light seen by yogis and mystics, quite genuine but of

no value to the Truth-seeker.

(15.129) Nature has mercifully given man a nightly demonstration of the goal and the

truth of life, in the experience of deep sleep. There you have the comparative bliss of

dropping all objects, whether dream or waking, and later the lesson of seeing them arise

again from the same state of apparent nothingness. Everything is found in consciousness

or mind, both objectless and objective. But Europeans know only the latter, not the

former. They must learn the lesson given by Nature through deep sleep. No yoga can give

a greater lesson, and even in waking state the same lesson can be learnt by use of buddhi:

through which an object may go but pure consciousness remains. A room in darkness

does not mean that the objects therein have vanished or disappeared. Similarly these

external objects, sounds, persons, go back into the mind in deep sleep and reappear on

waking. When the external world subsides in deep sleep, the truth is that it is only an

emanation of the mind, a form of thought, it was the mind and remains the mind. This is

to help understanding everything as Brahman. Nothing is lost or disappears; It is and

always was Brahman.

(15.130) Einstein's theory of relativity is applicable to dream experience. Four persons

viewing a table will have four different pictures of it in their mind, says Einstein. Each

sees his own mental structure, what his mind tells him, i.e. his own imagination.

Similarly the dream-world seen by a dreamer is entirely relative to his own mind. Each

dreamer will have an individual world of objects of his own presented by his mind;

relativity reveals that no two persons see the same thing in the same way, consequently

the whole world appearance is idea. (because things are thoughts, ideas, it is possible for

a unique object to be seen from a multitude of standpoints by different individual

observers and still be the same object, makes relativity possible. - editor)

(15.131) Those who object that the means and ends of waking are different from those of

dreams, and therefore they are not on the same level, ignore that you have time, space

and causal relation in both states. These three things make the waking world real to you:

and are its chief characteristics; similarly they give the same sense of reality to dream.

They say waking is real and dream is illusory. We say both are illusory.

(15.132) Where is the need of a divine creator when your own dream experience offers

proof that you yourself bring into being a whole world of objects and persons, and if you

can create a dream world, why not also a waking world? Only do not forget that 'you'

does not refer to the ego which is itself a produced thing.

(15.133) (The) Advanced state of this path, resulting from the constant practice of inquiry

and "awareness" is that the attitude thus developed during waking will repeat itself during

dream. Even in dreams the Gnana-yogi will thus separate himself from his dream body,

know all his dream objects to be mind, etc.

(15.134) We do not say that the three states do not exist; that is not our point; we say that

what is felt as real in each of the three states is one and the same thing (the Atman or Self

- ed).

(15.135) Why is waking not known in dream? Reply: It is known. You think you are

awake during dream.

(15.136) The best illustration that everything is within you, is dream. Therein all things,

scenes and persons are in your mind, are your mind. In the same way the external world

is yourself and in yourself.

(15.137) Many thoughts appear within the mind and are limited by time (and) space, but

you do not know any limits to the mind itself.

(15.138) The diamonds you wore in your dream were only mind at the time and

disappeared into mind. Thus they are not lost really.

(15.139) That which appears as the three states plus that into which the three states

disappear, these two together form the Supreme Brahman.

(15.140) Where do ideas come from? Only from Sushupti--where else could they come

from? Sushupti is unindividuated mind.

(15.141) Vedanta does not regard Turiya as the fourth state, in a numerical line, but as

that which is present and subsists in the three states. The former is an error because

Turiya is not a state. Turiya is the witness of the three and is That which knows of their

existence. But how is it to be known in deep sleep apart from the sleep? You have to do

what is done in algebra, you separate or drop out the three, take away the differentiating

factors and whatever remains is the Drg, Turiya. It is the only thing of which you can be

certain that it is not transient but always there, whereas waking, dream and sleep come

and go.

(15.142) The three states are themselves mere ideas and time in them is also an idea. You

have to be careful when writing about them to distinguish clearly between the objects

seen in the states and the experiences of the states. What is past time? Imagination! What

is the future? Something imagined; but if you take away these two states, your present

becomes meaningless. How can it exist independently of the other two? Hence the whole

of time is idea and the three states, being dependent on time, are also reduced to idea, to

being merely imagined: So taking away the three states as illusory, unreal, what is left?

The Atman.

(15.143) At the point of passing from wakefulness to sleep, see what it is; that is Atman.

(15.144) Even in sleep when you see nothing and know nothing, still it is as much

Brahman as in waking when activity and knowledge abound. For Brahman never

changes, is not mutable, does not increase or decrease; hence talk of gaining moksha30 is

nonsense.

30 Liberation, enlightenment

(15.145) When you think of a dream you can reduce all its sights to Mind, to your mind.

So when you get Gnana, you reduce all to Atman and no longer rejoice or sorrow over

differences of experience because you now know them all to be One.

(15.146) Knowledge implies a knower and a known. Such distinctions do not apply to

Gnan. Yogis misinterpret this to mean Nirvikalpa samadhi. The correct understanding is

that even though there are different objects yet at the same moment, you will realize they

are non-different. The best way to grasp this is to look at dream, wherein the object

known, the process of knowing and the knower are simultaneously only Mind.

(15.147) It is absurd to say, as yogis do, that Brahman is found only in Nirvikalpa

samadhi, in the absence of world. This is the same as sleep. If that were so, why did the

Upanishads speak of a "fourth?" This truth is that waking is Brahman, dream is Brahman,

sleep is Brahman.

(15.148) You must have a keen mental eye, a hawk's eye to see truth in a moment. He

who thinks of the three states becomes the perceiver of the three states and is the Atman.

(15.149) When you see the mountain and when you do not see it, the substratum is there.

The substratum is only the mind. It is only the Gnani that knows this. Just as all sounds

have for their substratum the sound Aum, so the mind without ideas and forms exists

even while there are ideas and forms.

(15.150) If the Turiya were not there, you would not be aware of anything. Turiya

subsists in all the three states; otherwise we would not be aware of them. If anything is

real, we cannot get rid of it; it cannot appear and disappear. But because the three states

appear and disappear, they are said to be unreal.

(15.151) Turiya is not something we get after removing the three states. Turiya exists

always. Removal of the states does not mean the production of a new entity. When you

get at Atman as the witness of the three states you cannot become aware of the Atman; it

is the Atman that is aware of the three states. Remove the darkness and you see the

object. The two are simultaneous. They are not really two. When you remove ignorance

you realize the highest truth. If I believe that the absence of the three states gives

realization when the mind is still in an elementary state, i.e. the mind merely imagines

that which becomes aware of the three states. What is between the disappearance of one

idea and the appearance of another idea in the mind? It is just like sleep, though it is

momentary. If there is no interval between the two ideas how can I distinguish between

the two? Between the two ideas, there is only the mind. It is known to him to whom it is

unknown; it is unknown to him whom it is known.

(15.152) We know only one Mind. We never know but only assume there exist other

individual minds; all you get is the thought of them. Even when I am thinking of the

minds of the dream state, it is still the same Mind that is operating; they were only

thoughts of this Mind.

(15.153) Whatever is in the mind can appear outside as objective existence.

(15.154) Those who think because I am not conscious of the creation of the world by my

mind, therefore I did not create it, are wrong. Look at dreams. You are not conscious of

creating them, nevertheless they came out of your mind, whether you were aware of them

or not. They are mental. This proves that the world of waking can also come from the

mind without your knowing. This non-knowing is called agnana ignorance; you have to

see that, as Avastatraya says, the whole world is created by mind.

(15.155) He who thinks God is one and I am another can never understand truth.

(15.156) Misery is due to duality. When you know that everything is in you, not

elsewhere and when you know there is nothing other than yourself, duality disappears

and misery vanishes as a consequence.

(15.157) So long a a man thinks that there is a second thing, he is under Maya and in

bondage; so soon as he sees oneness only, he is wise and free. Nothing could be easier

than this.

(15.158) The doctrine of the "Lightning-flash" of glimpsing Reality mentioned in

Upanishad must not be misunderstood. It has two meanings. The first is merely for

beginners to encourage them to go on. It is the teaching that they have to get beyond

thought and between thought, to stop thinking for a fraction of a second as it were. The

higher meaning is that the students suddenly grasp the idea that all the world is only a

thought, and that he himself is also a thought and that all this thought-world is inside

himself, is Atma, Brahman. With that he recognizes that the thought itself is Brahman

with all its ideas it includes Brahman too, including the idea of himself. This sudden

understanding may last only a fraction of a second at first. Hence it is called

"Lightning-flash." It is not samadhi in yogic sense. He has to repeat this glimpse of true

understanding more and more times until it becomes a stable grasp of the truth.

(15.159) You avoid, check or control vasanas because they are imaginations, hence

drsyam. For if you do not check you will never know the drg. Hence knowing truth

requires greatest discipline.

(15.160) All the obstacles to realization are duality. The path is therefore to remove them,

to unify. But it must be done correctly, not a pseudo-removal. The differences of variety

in this world are of great value to the thinker, for they cause him to inquire and then

pursue his enquiry to the end and thus eventually rise above all difference of duality into

non-duality. But in the inferior minds these same differences will cause only strife, war,

dispute and bloodshed, in fact all the world's troubles are caused by the sense of duality.

(15.161) We use the word "knowing" the truth or reality only for beginners, know implies

duality. But we have to use it for convenience of instruction until the pupil is able to

perceive himself that he is, was and ever will be Brahman.

(15.162) If you say you are an Advaitin, then you have got a meaning for the word which

means you still think Advaita is duality. Hence we say it is more correct to reject the label

"advaita" as well as all other labels; saying instead "search for truth."

(15.163) To be established in non-duality means that wherever the mind goes, whatever

you see, it always reminds you of Brahman; whereas novices may get a flashing glimpse

of Brahman but it passes away as soon as the vasanas of this world rise again.

(15.164) It is only when gnana yoga is practiced all the 24 hours, that the mind becomes

steady, i.e. attains sahaja samadhi in truth.

(15.165) Every new birth of a form is still only Mind, so it is nothing new, no second

thing.

(15.166) You are only aware of your ignorance in the waking state. Hence you can get rid

of it only whilst awake.

(15.167) Real Gnan, when it sees the waking state, thinks everything it sees there to be

only an idea; just as the man who has awakened from dream similarly regards his

dream-world. This is to be achieved by constant practice in right thinking until it

becomes natural.

(15.168) In dream you may be travelling to Bombay and yet your mind has not really

moved. Hence mind is motionless and yet paradoxically in motion at the same time.

(15.169) We know of no other thing having produced our dreams, although we may

imagine or speculate, other than Mind itself. The dream is Mind; its objects are mind its

results are mind, it is but one substance Mind: And yet it appears as a duality or

multiplicity! Similarly waking world of objects, i.e. ideas are also non-dual but appears

differently.

(15.170) The gnani is he who knows in the waking state that the world's reality is

illusory: thus he is as though asleep whilst yet awake.

(15.171) Think of all the beautiful women you had in dreams, realize they were only

ideas; and apply the same conclusion to the women you see in the waking state. Do this

to all other sensual pleasures. This is the practice which leads to enlightenment. Dream is

the key to understanding the world rightly.

(15.172) There is no attainment of Turiya. It is always there. It is that which is aware of

all the three states.

(15.173) The Self appears only in the waking and dream. In sleep we do not experience it

as appearing and disappearing. Where did the self disappear during sleep? That into

which it disappeared and from which it appeared at waking, we call the self. We do not

know whether it disappeared into God or Overself etc. for we do not see it come and go

into a second entity. Strictly speaking we cannot even say that the self appears and

disappears into the Self; for we do not see it. But the nearest approach is that individual

ego entered the universal ego, just as all the sounds come and go into soundlessness.

(15.174) In the waking, objects appear to be real. In dream everything is produced by

mind and is therefore ideas. By studying dream phenomena we come to the conclusion

that everything are ideas and nothing but that. In sleep everything goes back into the

mind and therefore we say that ideas are also mind. Deep sleep is, as it were, the

container of dream and waking.

(15.175) All the three states are Brahman. To think that waking is not Brahman whereas

sleep is Brahman is an error: similarly to say that Turiya is Brahman and not the three

states, is error. All is Brahman without exception. If you take Mind to be Brahman, then

just think: when you pick up this book science tells you it is idea, hence Mind is then

present. When a dream-mountain is seen is not Mind present? When in sleep even though

no objects are seen, is not Mind present? So Mind, Brahman, is everywhere, in all three

states and even beyond them.

(15.176) The fact that sleep is a drsyam is proved because we know it as being sleep only

after we are awake, i.e. when it is past and gone, i.e. when it has vanished. And is it not

the characteristic of drsyam to vanish, to change? It is only a temporary state whereas

Brahman is permanent and not a state. Moreover it is the activity of buddhi which brings

the understanding of Brahman and buddhi is inactive in sleep. Finally the sleeper sees

nothing whereas the gnani sees the world, sees Brahman even in waking.

(15.177) You know that dreams have come from sleep. If you want to know what is

common to both their essence, you have to take away from dreams the names and forms,

then you will have the Mind left. This Mind is the common feature of dream, sleep and

even waking. This Mind has undergone no change amid all these appearances. Therefore

the idea of causality is inapplicable to it, and have no meaning.

Om Tat Sat

(Continued...)

(My humble salutations to Brahmasri Sreeman  V Subrahmanya Iyer  for the collection)