5.6. I am neither the doer nor the
experiencer
“Arjuna, if through your egoism you think you will not fight, this
resolution of yours will be thwarted. Your nature will make you fight. Never be
carried away by the transient ups and downs of everyday life. Who do you think
you are? You are not the author of any action. God in the heart of man is
running this world as if mounted on a machine. These warriors have died long
ago, they will die even if unslain by you. You are just an instrument in the
unseen hands of God. You have right only to action, do not hanker for the fruit
of it. Do not become inactive leaving your work. Ego is the enemy at the root
of all our actions and thoughts. The thought that `I am the doer' is the Ego. The
wise man knows he is not the doer. Nor is he the experiencer. Perform your
actions with detachment, by transferring your doership to the divine. Perform
actions only to purify your mind. Perfection and purification of mind are
subjective actions. Subjective results are not taboo; only objective results
are. It is not the experience of events that gives us joy or sorrow; the joys
and sorrows are already determined by us by the attitude we keep in doing the
action.
“The so-called Renunciation (sannyAsa)
is not renunciation of work. Action in yoga is renunciation. Therefore poised
in yoga, renouncing any addiction to whatever that pertains to your body or
mind, making failure and success as one, fight without attachment. Surrender your will to me,
become my devotee, you are dear to me. Avowing the truth, I tell you, you will
reach me. Leaving all the doership of dharmas take refuge in me. I shall
release you from all sins and bondage; do not grieve”.
This is the bottomline message of Krishna in his teaching of the Gita to Arjuna. In all
this the most difficult to understand and to abide by is the statement “You are
not the doer, nor are you the experiencer”. As this happens to be the main
concept in the practical operation of Vedanta of non-duality we shall go about
elaborating it from scratch.
The philosophy of non-duality uses several concepts of Vedanta. In
order to understand its full import, one has certainly to get a deep
comprehension of many basic technical concepts like Atman (the Self as an immanent principle), Brahman (the Self as a transcendent principle), mAyA (the confounding factor of all
Life), PrakRti (the Nature
of everything), NirguNa (that which
carries no attributes), adhyAsa
(superimposition), and a few more. While the significance of these concepts is
profound, the ordinary words like Karma (meaning ‘action’) and Bhakti (meaning ‘devotion’) are more fundamental not
only in Vedanta but in the general understanding of spiritual behaviour that
goes with what is known as Hinduism. The fundamental import of these two
ordinary words get added significance – nay, added complication – in the theory
of advaita. Because Karma and Bhakti impinge on the daily
living routine of individuals and because of the fact they both involve the
concept of action itself, the answers to the questions”Who is the doer, who is
the experiencer?” become indispensable in any explanation of advaita.
Torn of all jargon, the question raised is the following. If the
innermost reality of each individual is the supreme spiritual reality – which
is what is claimed by advaita – then
what prompts us to think and what motivates us to act must be this spiritual
reality, namely, the Self. If that is so, then all our bad thoughts and actions
have to be traced to this source. And there arises what seems to be a
contradiction. How can the Self, which is equated to Godhead, be attributed
with anything that is bad or imperfect? On the other hand, if the Self is not
the motivator of our bad thoughts and actions then who is responsible for them?
So, who is the doer (kartA)? The
characteristic statement that occurs very early (3–27)[1] in the Gita says: It is
(only) the person deluded by his ego, who thinks he is the ‘doer’. So to think that oneself is the doer of one’s
actions (or for that matter, the thinker of one’s thoughts) is wrong according
to the Gita. But this raises a contradiction in another way. If oneself is not
the doer of one’s actions, and not the thinker of one’s thoughts, then why
should one be ‘punished’, or considered responsible, for one’s actions or
thoughts – which is what is purported to be the central thread in all concepts
of merit and demerit, religious or otherwise?
Normally, in world parlance, in
our everyday life we do many things and also experience much more, physically
as well as mentally. When we say ‘I do it’ or ‘I did it’ or when we say ‘I have
had such and such an experience’ we have no doubt at all about whom we are
referring to. It is the personality claimed by the pronoun ‘I’. But Vedanta
comes in and interjects to tell us to inquire into whom this ‘I’ refers to. From Yajnavalkya, the Sage of
the Upanishads, through Shankara, the Guru of yore, down to Ramana, the Master of
modern times, all of them make a distinction between the personality claimed by
the use of the pronoun ‘I’ and what they designate as the real ‘I’. It does not
require great wisdom to accept that the entity claimed by the common use of the
pronoun ‘I’ is a temporary one; for, one day, that entity is bound to
disappear. The question then is: Is there any remnant of that ‘I’ except the
ashes? Religions generally talk of the soul as the remnant of that personality
of ‘I’. advaita philosophy refines
that and provides a unique answer to the question. advaita says the answer can be obtained by Guru’s Grace if one
starts enquiring into common statements about one’s own behaviour, some of
which are :
1. Somebody pinched me and I felt
the pain.
2. I had a sumptuous meal and I am
happy now.
3. I dreamt I was in a palace,
enjoying all the luxuries of life.
4. I was angry then, but I
controlled my anger.
5. My mind is restless because of a
sad occurrence.
6. I was thinking of something else;
I was not aware of your presence.
In #1, the ‘I’ refers to the BMI, though we don’t specifically say
so. In #2, the first ‘I’ refers to the body and the second ‘I’ refers to the
mind. In #3, the first ‘I’ refers to the mind and the second ‘I’ is a fictitious
‘I’ – we know it is so, but we don’t specifically say it is fictitious. But we
do recognise this fact, because very often when one describes a dream one uses
words like ‘I dreamt as if I was in a palace, …’. The words ‘as if’ mean that
the subject of experience in the dream is fictitious. In #4, the first ‘I’ refers
to the mind and the second ‘I’ refers to the intellect. In #5, it is the mind
that is specifically referred; the point to note here is that the mind has been
influenced by a totally external factor, namely, the sad occurrence. In #6, the
first ‘I’ refers to the mind and the second ‘I’ refers to the conglomeration of
the mind and the senses.
The reader can himself think of many more examples. Thus all the
time, without our knowing it, we are identifying ‘I’ with our body, mind,
senses or the intellect. advaita
Vedanta asks us to ponder over certain questions in respect of this
identification of ourselves. What do we mean by ‘We are identifying
ourselves with ….’? What would it mean not to so identify? What would be the
consequence if we do not identify ourselves with BMI ?
Who is the ‘We’ here in these questions? Who is supposed not to identify? We
shall see now how to distinguish between what witnesses all our thoughts and
actions and what actually thinks and acts.
According to Vedanta, the
doer/experiencer is the one who has identified with one’s BMI. If you don’t
identify yourself with your BMI ,
you are not the doer/experiencer. But who is this ‘you’ that is being talked
about? That is the clinching issue. There is a triple personality that we should know of in
order to know ourselves. The first is the outer personality, by which I mean,
not the external personality that others see in us, but the personality that we
claim in our heart of hearts as ‘I’. This outer personality of mine includes my
BMI , along with all the innermost
thoughts that I know are mine, and therefore my ego also. By the ‘outer
personality’ we are here linking together the ‘concrete body’ (sthula-sharIra) and the ‘subtle body’ (sUkShma-sharIra) – purely for the
purpose of clarity of this exposition about doer/experiencer.
But behind the BMI) there exists the JIva which gives it life. Without this,
the BMI cannot express itself. The
corresponding English word ‘soul’ may be used most often though it may not have
all the connotations that ‘JIva’ has.
“What dies when separated from the soul is the body; the soul does not die”
(Ch.U. VI–11-3). This soul is nothing but the spark
of the Absolute Consciousness (7-5; 15–7) and therefore it is sentient. From
the seventh chapter of the Gita we know that His own divine Energy – called
Cosmic Nature (PrakRti) – is
two-fold. One is superior and the other is not so. This latter is the source of
all matter. It manifests actually as eight-fold matter, namely, the five
elements, mind, intellect, and ego. In its manifestation as the five elements PrakRti constitutes all of what science
has unfolded about the universe and all of what it continues to unfold. In the
manifestation in each individual as one’s mind-intellect-ego, PrakRti constitutes all “the actions of
one’s past lives individualised and earmarked for this life together with the
accumulated tendencies from all one’s past lives” (Shankara’s Commentary on (3–33).
The Superior
PrakRti (parA-PrakRti) is what becomes all the souls. Each soul takes several bodies
(physical appearances) one after the other just as the same individual dons
different clothes -- (2–22). In all these different appearances of the
same soul, though it takes
different bodies, the same mind sticks on to it -- (15–7, 8). But the memories
of the mind do not go with it since they stay in the brain and perish along
with it. However, in each such life of the particular soul, the mind
accumulates tendencies (vAsanAs) that
go on with it into succeeding lives where it gets other bodies. It is the set
of these tendencies that gives a character to the mind. This character is a
mixture of the three basic strands of PrakRti
– the divine (satva), the dynamic (rajas) and the dull (tamas).
Without BMI the soul cannot express itself as an individual.
Without the sentient soul, mind is just inert matter. But when it sticks on to
the soul in the latter’s physical expression through BMI ,
it gets (a borrowed) sentience. Now the soul interacts with the universe of
matter as well as with the other living beings. But even this interaction has
to take place only through the medium of the BMI .
There is therefore a seemingly endless play of the sentient Consciousness
within and the insentient universe of matter outside through the medium of the BMI . In this play, the sentient Consciousness within, which is nothing
but the spark of the Absolute, is called ‘Purusha’ or Self. We shall use the word ‘Purusha’ in this context
systematically. ‘Purusha’[2] has the inbuilt meaning of ‘resident in the body’ which aptly
describes what we are talking about. Everything else, including the interaction
with other beings, is of course PrakRti.
This interplay of puruSha and PrakRti
is what constitutes our passage through life.
Now the Lord says: There are two purushas:
(15–16). They are: the perishable purusha (also
called ‘empirical self’) and the imperishable purusha. The perishable one expresses itself through the BMI . When the BMI vanishes
in the cycle of time, it can no more express itself. So this personality is termed “Perishable” (kShara).
It is this Perishable PuruSha – whom we shall hereafter denote by ‘PP’ for
convenience of brevity in writing – who does all the work in the external world
and thinks all the thoughts.
[A note for the
novice reader: In the style of mathematics which uses a lot of symbols for
communication, it is suggested that as you read these lines, do not keep
reading ‘PP’ as ‘PP’ but keep reading it as ‘Perishable PuruSha’. That will
protect you against possible confusions that might arise when other notations
are introduced like ‘IP’ – imperishable PuruSha ! Also by reading it for what
it means, the sentences will not tend to become unintelligible mechanical mantras!]
It
is he, the PP, who is the ‘I’ of ordinary conversation. Vedanta says it is not ‘the real I’ because of the perishability
of PP. He is the mutable, thinking, acting personality, subjected by Ignorance
to the outward workings of PrakRti. We said the soul expresses itself
through the BMI . But in so
expressing itself, it invariably makes the mistake of thinking it is just the
PP and nothing more. In other words, the soul commits the colossal error of identifying itself with the BMI .
This colossal error is the beginningless ignorance. And here starts all the
problems of life. All the pleasure and pain, ups and downs, light and darkness,
good and bad, that the BMI suffers
through, are mistakenly assumed by the soul as its own experiences. Not only
this. All the actions of the BMI
are also appropriated by the soul.
Thus arises the common expression:[3] ‘I am the doer’, ‘I am the experiencer’. The PP (or, what is the same thing, the soul in its present state
of oneness with the PP) is involved in the actions of Nature. He reflects the
different workings of the modes of Nature. He associates himself with the doings of PrakRti and thinks he is the doer. He identifies
himself with the play of personality and clouds his self-knowledge with the
ego-sense in PrakRti so that he thinks himself as the ego-doer of
works. (3-27).
The
second purusha is ‘the Imperishable PuruSha’ – which we shall
denote hereafter by ‘IP’ for convenience of communication. It is a higher,
deeper, reality -- some exponents call it ‘inner reality’ – than the PP. It is
the eternal impersonal self within. It is the ‘sat-chid-Ananda’ (Existence-Knowledge-Bliss) of Vedanta. The full
Sanskrit term is “akshara-purusha” -- ‘akshara’ meaning ‘imperishable’. It has no share in the action and
movement of the PP except to support it by its presence and be a
non-participating witness.
Some one pinches my body. It hurts.
Who feels this hurt? I feel the hurt. Who is this I that is speaking? It is the
PP. Why does the PP feel the hurt? Because it has identified itself
with the BMI . Therefore it becomes the experiencer (‘bhoktA’).
Recall that the soul has already fallen into the colossal error of thinking
that it is the PP and nothing more. Not only do I feel the hurt, but I flare up
at the other person. Who is this I that is flaring up now? It is again the PP. Why
does the PP flare up? Because it has identified itself with the BMI . As a consequence of this identification, it not only experiences
the hurt, but falls into the trap of the gang of peace-breakers like anger and
ego and flares back. So it becomes the ‘kartA’
(doer).
What does the Lord say on this now?
He says: Of the two puruShas the imperishable is never hurt and can never be hurt. “This
cannot be cut into pieces; this cannot be burnt; this cannot be tainted; this
cannot be dried”: (2–24). So He says: “My dear Arjuna, You (the PP / soul) are wrongly
identifying yourself with this BMI . Don’t do this. Identify yourself with the IP within you. Then
there will be no hurt. Only Happiness”. This is the bottom line. This is the
essential philosophical content of the entire teaching of the Gita. This is the
message of all spiritual teaching. This is the grand recipe for happiness. Vedanta comes to our help in analysing this
message for us. Vedanta reduces everything to five fundamentals[4]
(DRg-dRSya-viveka #20):
·
'sat' (Existence) -- revealed
by the fact that it 'exists' (asti
·
'chit' (Consciousness) -- revealed
by the fact of 'knowing' (bhAti)
·
'Ananda' (Bliss) -- revealed
by the fact of 'happiness' (priyam)
·
'nAma' (Name) -- everything
has a name
·
'rUpaM' (Form) -- every
visible thing has a form.
The
first three are permanent, eternal. Each one of them constitutes what we called
the IP. The last two are ephemeral, transient. Our BMI
belongs to the last two above. Anything in our experience belongs to this
‘Name’ and ‘Form’.
When somebody pinches me I feel the
pain. It is really the BMI that
senses the pain and reacts to it. But the BMI
would not have done it if 'I' were not there. (for example, a dead body) – that
is, if the sentience, borrowed from the IP within, were not there. It is the
association of 'I' with the BMI
that makes 'me' feel and react. The ‘superimposition’ of BMI and of its experiences on the ‘I’ is the
problem. When I, the one whose outer personality is called so-and-so, ceases to
associate the 'I' with the BMI and
remains what it should be, namely, the IP, there should be no feeling of pain
and no provocation for a reaction or action. This is what Krishna
says to Arjuna.
Thus
all action happens only when the association of the permanent facet of man
namely the 'sat-chit-Ananda' facet of man is associated with the 'nAma-rUpa' facet of the same man. Or, it
may also be said the other way. The ‘nAma-rUpa’
facet and its goings-on are superimposed on the ‘sat-chid-Ananda’ facet. It is this association/superimposition that
is the actor and the reactor. It is this association/superimposition that is
the feeler, the thinker. Who makes this association/superimposition? It is the
empirical Self, the JIva. All that
Vedanta says is this: Get over this mixing up of the 'sat-cit-Ananda' with the 'nAma-rUpa'.
Thus to the question “Who is the
‘We’ in the statement ‘We are identifying ourselves with the BMI’?” the answer
comes now. ‘We’, the agent or subject who does the identification is the
PP/soul/ ‘empirical self’ who expresses himself through the BMI . If we do not so identify then the hurt or pain
which affects the body, mind, intellect will not be ‘felt’. (Easy to say this!
But at this point it has to be granted at least as an academic truism). At
least this is what Krishna says. It is at this
point of the discussion we have to spend considerable thought on the key-words
“non-participating witness” in the paragraph above that introduced the IP. It
is in fact the punchline of Vedanta, particularly of advaita.
The IP (Imperishable puruSha) is the
real I within us, and he does not do any action, he does not think any
thoughts, he does not feel any emotions. He is unaffected, unperturbed,
uncontaminated, unsullied by any of the happenings to the PP (Perishable
puruSha). He is the One introduced by Krishna
very early in the Gita in verses 23, 24, 25 of the 2nd chapter and
later, in many other contexts. He, being the real ‘I’, can therefore very well
say: “I am not the doer or the experiencer”. Like the street light that
witnesses everything that happens under the light but is itself neither the
doer nor the experiencer of the happenings, -- (See also the explanation of ‘nishkriyA’
in 1.11) -- He is the non-participating witness to everything that happens to the PP. At the
final end of the theory of non-duality one is told that the knower, the known
and the knowledge are all one. But, ordinarily, the knower is the subject and
the known is the object. The subject which knows the object is the centre of
consciousness. It exists, and it knows. The object only exists.
The
JIva (the soul) is the subject of all
experience. It is a complex of Consciousness (ChaitanyaM) and Matter. When
objects are in relation to the subject we have the stream of presentations
called Vrittis. When there are no objects there will be no presentations
but the consciousness that lights up the presentations will remain. That
consciousness is the Witness, the non-participating Witness. Objects are not
presented to Consciousness as such. They are directly presented to the JIva (the soul) and only indirectly to
the Witness. There can be no relationship between Consciousness and objects,
because they belong to different orders of reality, like the rope and the
snake. The subject, the centre of consciousness, is experienced directly in an
intuition, like an ‘I-feeling’ (aham-pratyaya),
but the object is known only from the outside like ‘this-feeling’ (idam-pratyaya).
Then
how did this Pure Consciousness become the JIva or the empirical self and how was the JIva made the subject of all experience?
Strictly speaking, there is no ‘becoming, no making, no transition, no transformation’.
Pure Consciousness (Atman, Brahman) does not undergo any change of
form or character. JIva is only Brahman in an empirical dress of BMI in which the sprouting of the thought of
distinctness from Brahman has
occurred. This thought of individuality is the Ego, the starting point of the JIva. JIva
is therefore Consciousness conditioned
by Ignorance in the form of an ego of individuality. The Self can have no
direct knowledge of the world except through the apparatus of the BMI . This apparatus as well as the small world
which becomes the object of its knowledge is spoken of as the adjunct (upAdhi) of Consciousness. All this
adjunct is matter. Consciousness (‘Chaitanyam’)
which has this limited portion of matter for its adjunct is the JIva. Each JIva has its own knowing apparatus and moves in a small world of
its own, with its own joys and sorrows and thus has its own individual existence.
Though the Self is one, the JIvas are
many.
Shankara draws attention to this fact
of one Self and several JIvas, for
instance, in his commentary on (2-12) where the Lord says [5]There
was never a time when I was not there nor you were not there, nor these leaders
of men nor that we, all of us, will come to be hereafter. He comments: [6]
‘The plural number (in we) is used following the diversity of the
bodies, but not in the sense of the multiplicity of the Self’. Generally in his
commentaries, Shankara
uses two illustrations to bring home this point. One is the sun appearing as
many reflected images in different pools of water. If the waters are dried up
the several images get back to the original sun. The other illustration is the
infinite space being delimited by artificial barriers. If these barriers are
knocked down there will be no occasion to speak of the different spaces. These
two illustrations of the exact mode of conceiving the relation between the Self
and the Soul gave rise to two schools of argument in later advaita, namely, the argument of original and its reflection (bimba-pratibimba-vAda), and the the argument of
delimitation (avaccheda-vAda). The former is the VivaraNa
school and the latter is the BhAmati school.
Thus when Consciousness is
conditioned by its association with Ignorance or Matter it is no longer Pure
Consciousness but a complex of both, called JIva,
the soul. This does not mean however that Matter or Ignorance is outside of the
Reality of Consciousness, because that would contradict non-duality. The
relation between Self and Soul has therefore to be conceived in the following
way.
The addition of the adjunct is only
a difference in the standpoint that we adopt. There are two standpoints – the
intuitive and the intellectual. The intuitive is that of immediate and direct
realisation. It is the method of the mystics. There is no dualism of subject
and object there, nor that of doer and the deed, nor that of agent and enjoyer.
These distinctions of duality arise only in the intellectual method of looking
at reality. That is why the Gita says that it is “beyond the intellect” (III –
43). It is the nature of the intellect to break up the original unity and revel
in these distinctions. At this intellectual level what we are doing is actually
a come-down in the level of perception. The JIva
is now perceived in relation to its own small world, the subject in relation to
the object and the doer in relation to the deed. The Self thus reflected in the
medium of the intellect becomes the JIva.
As per the VivaraNa school, the Atman or the Self is
the original, the intellect is the reflecting medium and the JIva is the reflected image. In the case
of the BhAmati school, the Atman is the
infinite space, the adjuncts (upAdhis)
are the limiting barriers and the JIvas
are the small spaces.
The reflection idea is used skilfully by Kapila MahaRshi in his exposition of Vedanta. (See 7.2). “The presence of the
Supreme Lord can be realized just as the sun is realized first as a reflection
in water, and again as a second reflection on the wall of a room, although the
sun itself is situated in the sky. The self-realized soul is thus reflected
first in the threefold ego and then in the body, senses and mind”.
The JIva is thus a complex of Consciousness (Chaitanyam) and
matter. It is Pure Consciousness with a limited adjunct of matter, namely, the BMI . This limited adjunct is spoken of as the
Ignorance (avidyA)
of the JIva. Stripped of its adjunct
the JIva loses its individuality and
is then nothing but Pure ChaitanyaM. The analysis of the three states of
waking, dreaming and sleeping is intended to show that Consciousness is the
only constant factor running through them all. Even in the sleeping state, this
Consciousness is there. That the soul does not see in that state is because,
although seeing then, it does not see; for the vision of the Witness can never
be lost, because it is imperishable. But then no second thing exists there
separate from it which it can see. [7](Br.
U. IV – 3-23). Shankara quotes this passage in his
commentary to Br.S. II-3-18 and adds his own explanation: [8]This
appearance of absence of awareness is owing to the absence of objects of
knowledge, but not owing to the absence of consciousness. It is like the
non-manifestation of light, spread over space, owing to the absence of things
on which it can be reflected, but not owing to its own absence.
It is in the fourth state called ‘turIya’, that transcends the three
states of waking, dream and dreamless sleep, all traces of Ignorance disappear.
When the JIva is thus disassociated
from Ignorance and therefore from all material vesture, the spiritual core of
the JIva comes into its own. Shankara
sets forth (in his commentary on Br.S. I-3-19) the nature of this transcendence
of all adjuncts in the following way. A white crystal placed by the side of
something red or blue appears red or blue on account of the adjunct. But in
reality the crystal is only white. It does not ‘acquire’ its white colour but
only shines in its own natural colour.
Before the onset of true
enlightenment the Spirit (Consciousness) on account of its association with the
BMI appears as the JIva. But the rise of true knowledge does make a real difference. All
false notions disappear and Spirit rises to its true stature. The self-hood of
the empirical self falls to the ground and the Self shines forth in its
original splendour. To know the highest truth is only to know the self in its
true nature. The moment true enlightenment dawns on man he realises that he is
no other than the non-dual self, that very moment he sheds his finitude and
rises to his full stature. There is no question of the JIva merging in anything other than itself. It simply comes to
its own.
In truth there is no entity as the JIva at all. It is not among the things
created. It is a false creation due entirely to adventitious (‘Agantuka’) or incidental circumstance,
that is, coming from without and not pertaining to the fundamental nature. “The
idea of embodiedness is a result of nescience. Unless it be through the false
ignorance of identifying the Self with the body, there can be no embodiedness
for the Self” ( ‘sa-sharIratvasya
mithyA-jnAna-niimittatvAt …. kalpayituM’ : Shankara’s Commentary on Br. Su.
I-1-4 ). JIva has always remained Brahman. Only the adjuncts have to be
removed for this truth to stand out. Once this realisation is there, the
finitude of the JIva will disappear,
as also its misery and its supposed agency and enjoyership. “When that Brahman, the basis of all causes and
effects, becomes known, all the results of the seeker’s actions become
exhausted” (Mu.U. II–2-8). The transmigration
of the JIva which is due to its false
association with the adjuncts, will also come to a close. That is when the ego-thought
of separateness from the Supreme Self, with an ‘I’ of its own, will get
destroyed. That is what we mean by saying ‘JIva attains mokSha’. The
two things are simultaneous, like the simultaneity of disappearance of darkness
with the lighting of a match. But that does not mean that JIva ‘reaches some destination’ or ‘obtains something’. ‘JIva sees the Truth’ simply means that
it sees that it is itself Brahman. In
other words, it wakes up to the Truth that was always there. Not waking up to
the Truth was the Ignorance. Ignorance is not in Brahman, which is pure and self-illumined, but in the JIva. So long however as the latter does
not realize his identity with Brahman,
ignorance is said, rather loosely, to envelop Brahman.
All the injunctions that are given
by the Vedas to man are given to him in his state of ignorance because activity
is natural to man in that state. The Self is never the doer. The injunction is
only a restatement following what is given in experience. All the ritual purifications through chanting
of mantras and the results of such actions are enjoined on, and enjoyed by,
that entity which has the idea “I am the doer”, as stated in the Mundaka
Upanishad mantra “One of the two enjoys the fruits having various tastes, while
the other looks on without enjoying” (Mu. U. III-1-1). The misery that falls to
the lot of the JIva, the empirical
self, is entirely due to its fancied association with its adjuncts. This
association imagines such ‘realities’ as ‘I am a brahmin’, ‘I am a renunciate’,
‘I am a JIva’ and the like. When the JIva sheds these imagined realities and all
adventitious adjuncts and realises its true nature by a discrimination between
the permanent and the ephemeral, then there is an end of all its misery. Except
by such knowledge of the Ultimate Self, misery and finitude cannot be overcome.
Question: So then we come back to
the oft-mentioned idea, ‘Self-Knowledge’. But who is the knower of this
knowledge here? Is it the Self, who is always illumined, or the JIva in his
unillumined state?
Man is not only conscious of the
world around him but is also self-conscious. This self-consciousness is not
self-knowledge. The JIva is a complex
of spirit and matter. It is therefore made up of the knower and the known, the
subject and the object. The latter is presented to the former and the resulting
cognition is self-knowledge. This self is the empirical self and not the
Absolute Self. There can be knowledge of the empirical self (‘empirical’
means ‘arising from observation, experiment and experience’); there can be no
such ‘knowledge’ of the Absolute Self. The latter is the Inmost Self, the
Witness. It is Pure Consciousness. Both subject and object are presented to it,
whereas itself is not presented to anything. It cannot be an object in relation
to itself as subject nor can it be presented to some other subject since there
is no other. It is the ‘non-witnessed Witness’. Two names of God bear testimony
in this connection: ‘Devoid of witness’ (“sAkshi-varjitA”
in L.S.), and ‘Witness’ (“sAkshI” in V.S.).
This Absolute Self is unseen, beyond
empirical dealings, beyond the grasp (of the organs of action), undefinable,
unthinkable, indescribable (as this or that), and whose valid proof consists in
the single belief in the Self, in which all phenomena cease and which is
unchanging, auspicious and non-dual. (MA.U. 7). As the all-pervading space is not tainted because of its
subtlety, so also the Self permeating the entire body, is not tainted by
anything that the body, mind or intellect does (13–32). The Atman/Brahman/The Self is like the Sun
which illuminates the whole world but is at the same time uncontaminated by
anything of the world. Every action of the world as well as of the body, mind
and intellect is dominated by PrakRti.
However this does not mean that the Absolute Self has
to be unknown. It is known intuitively as the very self in us. It is
self-luminous. A burning lamp does not require another light to reveal it.
Consciousness does not need to be revealed by another consciousness. The Self
is not unknown to anyone for it is the inmost self in us. ‘The Self to which
all mental states become objects of knowledge, is known through every one of these
states. The witness of all mental operations, whose essence is mere sentiency,
is implied by those operations themselves as being the common element in them
all. There is no other means of knowing the inner Self’ (Shankara Bhashya of Ke.U. II–4). “Through what should one know that
owing to which all that is known? Through what should one know the knower?”
(Br.U. II-4-14). “As fire does not
burn itself, so the self does not know itself and the knower can have no
knowledge of a thing that is not an object” (Shankara Bhashya to Br.U.II–4-14)
The
empirical self (The soul, JIva) is the knower of
whatever can be known. But his knowing is all vitiated by the tendencies sticking
to the mind. This is particularly emphasized by Shankara’s interpretation of
the name “avijnAtA” (non-knower), one
of the names in V.S. Shankara says “The soul is the knower, namely the one for
whom the knowledge that the doership and experiencership are only imagined as
belonging to the Atman is vitiated by
the age-long tendencies of the mind and known in the opposite way; the Ultimate
is the non-knower”. In other words, JIva
‘knows’ things the wrong way! That it is the ‘wrong’ way dawns on him when true
enlightenment illumines him. How long has he been knowing it the ‘wrong’ way?
Ever since he became the JIva. When
did he become the JIva? When
ignorance descended on him. Whose ignorance? JIva’s ignorance. Thus Ignorance and JIva are coeval. You cannot say
which was first. Vedanta says this is undecidable (anirvacanIyaM). But when finally Enlightenment comes to the JIva, there is no more JIva thereafter; only Brahman. Thus what was a beginningless
Ignorance comes to an end. But the end of ignorance comes in such a way that
the very ‘fact’ (!) of a stated ignorance is no more even a past fact; because
Brahman has always been Brahman; there ‘was’ no JIva at all!
This
is a little difficult to digest – isn’t it? Why ‘little’? It is the most
difficult advaitic teaching to accept. Because we still continue to think as an
‘empirical self’ in an ‘empirical’ way! When we mistook the rope for the snake,
and better lighting showed there was no snake but only the rope, the
rope-knowledge eradicated the ‘appearance’ of the snake thoroughly. The
empirical reality of the knowledge here was of a higher order of reality than
the phenomenal reality of the delusion of the snake-phenomenon. But when we are
told that “JIva is only Brahman, the phenomenon of JIva is only an appearance, and the real
thing is the IP”, we, being the
empirical self, receive the knowledge in an empirical way and this
empirical knowledge has no strength to destroy the identity with the BMI , which is also at the same empirical level of understanding.
Thus there can be no ‘knowledge’ of
the Absolute Self, the non-participating Witness, in the ordinary sense of the
term. There can be only an intuitive experience of it. “A man, who is in the presence
of an object to be known, has only to be drawn attention to the object of
knowledge. When that is done, the knowledge arises naturally in conformity with
the the object and the means of knowledge.”[9] ( Shankara, Commentary on Br.S. III – 2 -21). Mark the word
‘arises’ (utpadyate). Knowing and
Being are welded into a unity here. Since this state is also free from all
desires, it is further characterised by Bliss. Hence its ‘own state’ (‘sva-rUpa’) is sat-chid-Ananda. Shankara’s emphatic insistence on the point that,
The Self is not something that is ‘attained’ can be seen throughout his
writing. Two instances may be quoted here from his commentaries in this
connection, though the context is slightly different from ours.
In the first he emphasizes the need to distinguish
between ‘para-Brahman’ and ‘apara-Brahman’ (meaning ‘superior Brahman’ and ‘not-so-superior Brahman’. Only the ‘apara-Brahman’ is attainable. The ‘para-Brahman’ cannot be ‘attained’ nor can it be ‘known’, for it is
the Self of every one. Attainment is possible only when there is difference,
where the attainer is different from the attained. Commenting on Br.S. IV–3–14
he says: “Therein by the fact of not clearly
distinguishing between ‘para-Brahman’
and ‘apara-Brahman’, the scriptural statements
of movement etc. attributed to ‘apara-Brahman’
are superimposed on the ‘para-Brahman’.
Does it mean then that there are two Brahmans,
namely ‘para’ and ‘apara’? Certainly, yes. There are two. Because, ‘He
Satyakama! What is known as Omkara is itself both ‘para-Brahman’ and ‘apara-Brahman’
says P.U.(5 -2). If it is questioned ‘What exactly is ‘para-Brahman’ and what is ‘apara-Brahman’?’, here is the answer. Wherever Brahman is taught by words such as ‘not material,
not concrete’ in order to negate the attributes like name and form created by
Ignorance, that is ‘para-Brahman’.
And wherever that same Brahman is
taught, for the purpose of worship, as if it has name and form, by the words
such as ‘He consists of mind, His body is life, His form is light’ ‘ (Ch. U.
3-14-2), that is ‘apara-Brahman’.
“OBJECTION: If that is so, then all
the shruti that proclaims non-duality, will be contradicted. “ANSWER: [10]No.
That fault is nullified by the fact that the name and form are only adjuncts
created by Ignorance”.
The second instance is from his
commentary on the B.G. 18-50: “Therefore the effort should only be to discard
the superimposition of Ignorance on the Self; no effort is necessary to
‘obtain’ the enlightenment of Brahman
– because it is self-evident. Though thus quite self-evident, easily
affirmable, quite near and forming the very self, Brahman appears to the unenlightened, to those whose understanding
is carried away by the differentiated phenomena of names and forms created by
ignorance, as unknown, unaffirmable, very remote, as though he were a separate
thing”.[11]
So when we ask “Who is the knower?”, the answer has to make a distinction
between the knower of all that goes by the name of knowledge—which is the same JIva, as
before -- and the knower of Brahman,
which, as we have seen, is not an object of knowledge. The knower of Brahman becomes Brahman, says the Upanishad (Mu. U. III – 2 -9).
Look at the grand truth of what is illumined,
what illumines and the Illumination, by the concluding paragraph on
‘de-superimposition’ from Vedantra SAra of Sadananda (of the 15th century,),
translated by Swami Nikhilananda: “As
the light of a lamp cannot illumine the lustre of the sun but is overpowered by
it, so Consciousness reflected in that state of the mind is unable to illumine
the supreme Brahman, self-effulgent
and identical with the individual self, and is overpowered by it. And on the
destruction of this state of Absolute Oneness with which that Consciousness is
associated, there remains only the Supreme Brahman,
identical with the individual self, the JIva, just as the image of a face in a looking-glass is resolved into
the face itself when the looking-glass is removed. Such being the case, there
is no contradiction between the Br.U. statement “By the mind alone it is to be
perceived” (Br. U. IV-4-19), and the Ke.U. statement “That which cannot be thought of by
the mind” (Ke. U: I–5). We are to suppose that the unknown Brahman is brought into contact only with the mental state, - which
simply destroys the JIva’s ignorance
concerning Brahman, but does not help
to reveal it -- but not with the underlying Consciousness, because Brahman is self-luminous and it does not require the help of
another Consciousness to reveal itself.” Thus it is that what is illumined,
what illumines and the Illumination are all Brahman
– recalling to us the immortal verse (4 – 24) from the Gita.
To the questions: “Who is the doer?
“Who is the experiencer?” the answer for both turns out to be neither the Self,
nor the non-Self. Either way advaita
is contradicted. Pure Consciousness can neither act nor experience. Matter is
inert. What acts or experiences is a complex of the Self and non-Self. It is JIva, a complex of Consciousness and matter. “The discriminating people
call that Self the enjoyer when it is associated with body, organs and mind”
(Ka. U. 1-3-4)[12].
This ‘association’ itself is because of one’s own nature (variously designated
as ‘PrakRti’ or ‘sva-bhAva’). Even when
the Upanishad says “The Self is to be seen” (Br. U. II-4-5; ‘AtmA draShTavyaH’), it is not an
injunction for us to ‘do’ something in the form of ‘knowing’, because the Self
is beyond ‘knowability’ as an object; ‘it is meant mainly for attracting one’s
(JIva’s) mind towards Reality’ (“para-vidyAdhikAra-paTithAH” : Shankara
in Br. S. Commentary of III-2-21) – that is, turning one’s mind towards one’s
own natural state (‘sva-rUpa’). One’s
own ‘nature’ (sva-bhAva) has to be
contended with in order to gain one’s own ‘natural state’ (sva-rUpa).
The empirical Self, that is, the
PP, that is, the soul who has identified with the BMI ,
is therefore the doer and the experiencer. It is he
who enjoys and suffers. It is he who is subject to pleasure and pain. And it is
he who thinks of himself as the doer and experiencer[13].
advaita is clear however that this
doership/experiencership is not natural for the soul. For if it were so, then
there would be no liberation for the soul. ‘If agentship be its very nature,
there can be no freedom from it, as fire can have no freedom from heat’ [14] (Shankara, Commentary on
Br. S. II–3–40). The states of being an agent and an experiencer are conjured
by ignorance and so devolve on the soul only in its state of ignorance, that
is, only when it is wrongly identifying with the BMI .
Shankara further elaborates it in his commentary on Br.S. II–3–41: “During the
state of ignorance, when the individual soul is blinded by the darkness of
ignorance and cannot understand itself to be different from the assemblage of
body and organs, it derives its transmigratory state, consisting in its
becoming an agent and experiencer, from the behest of the Supreme Self who
presides over all activities and resides in all beings, and who is the witness
(of all) , imparts intelligence (to all) and is the Supreme Lord”.[15]
The non-participating,
‘un-knowable’, ‘non-knowing’ Witness is deep within as the IP, the Atman, the unchanging Self. He is the
silent, immutable, all-pervading, motionless, self-existent Consciousness. He
is impersonal. He is disassociated from the doings of the GuNas. He is the
inactive non-doer and Witness. He is like the Sun who is said to illuminate the
whole world while he actually does nothing to illuminate. Just he is – and the
illumination takes place! The concept of the two Selves -- or two poises or
roles of the one Self -- and a consequent grand design of a triple Self, is an
essential contribution of the Gita to
the understanding of the eternal Upanishads.
Without the substratum of the IP within, the JIva or the PP or what we think as our personality
has no existence. Recall Shankara’s commentary on Br.S. I-4-22: “There is the
vedic text (Ch.U.VI-3-2) ‘Let Me manifest name and form by Myself entering in the
form of this individual soul’ which reveals the existence of the Supreme as the
individual soul. And also there is the Taittiriya text (Aranyaka. III-12-7)[16] :‘The Supreme, having created all the forms, and then given them
names, and having entered into them He exists there by doing all kinds of
actions’. While speaking of the creation of light etc. the Upanishad does not
make any separate mention of the creation of the individual soul, in which case
alone the soul could have been different from the supreme Self and a product of
the Self.[17]
The IP is also called (15-16) [18]kUTastha, the immovable, or
the immutable, that which remains like the unchanging iron-piece (anvil) on
which the blacksmith does all his hammering. It is the reflection in our
intellect of the Absolute Consciousness that generates the JIva-feeling, an individualised feeling, in us, of 'I' and 'mine'. On
one side there is the IP or kUTastha and his immutability. On the other there is the action of the PP or JIva and its mutability in PrakRti. Both these coexist.
‘They coexist as two contrary sides,
aspects or facets of a supreme reality which is limited by neither of them’.
But the existence of the PP is a reflected existence in our intellect and is
therefore also called ‘chidAbhAsa’
(meaning: Shadow or reflection of Consciousness), whereas the existence of the
IP is original existence. There is a mutual superimposition of attributes. The
existence, consciousness and bliss of the IP are superimposed on the JIva which reflects all this to us as if
they are its own. On the other side, the pain and pleasure that the JIva appropriates from the BMI are superimposed on the IP and we say ‘I am
sorrowful’ or ‘I am happy’. It is because of this mutual superimposition, the PP
itself, that is the JIva, is said to
be a creation of illusion, as is asserted in verse VIII-52 of PanchadaSi:[19]
“ChidAbhAsa, the reflected
consciousness, partakes of the characteristics of both, the superposing
intellect, such as doership, enjoyership etc. and the superposed Atman, which is consciousness. So the
whole ChidAbhAsa is a creation of
illusion.”
The Ultimate Reality, however, is the Supreme Self
(the purushottama), declared
by the Lord to be ‘different from the other two’. (15-17). This is the third of
the triple personality. That is His supreme nature of existence. People
foolishly think that the visual manifestation is all there is (9-11). They
allow the water-space to hide the real pot-space within and revel in the
virtual glory of the water-space. But
deep within us, by clearing our minds of all its 'contents', -- by clearing the
pot of all its water -- we must get to the pot-space, that is the IP. It is the
substratum which makes way for all the actions of the individual Self. The
actions themselves are because of the PrakRti
-- its three strands -- which in the analogy is the reflecting capability of
the water-mind. Between the IP and the Supreme Self there is no difference.
The former, stripped of the imagined adjunct of the body, is nothing but the
Supreme Self.
Question: Does all this simply mean then that we
have to identify ourselves with the IP all the time and keep thinking that we
are neither the doer nor the experiencer? Is it not then a self-mesmerisation
and nothing more?
Maybe. But it is not so easy. One has to prepare oneself probably for a long
time before one is tuned into that kind of attitude. It is a long SAdhanA
that is involved. In fact the whole of the Gita is to prepare Arjuna for this
ideal attitude.
[1] ahamkAra-vimUDhAtmA karta’’ham-iti manyate.
[2] ‘The resident in the body’
– this meaning comes from the derivation of the word ‘puruSha’ from its
etymological roots. ‘puri shete iti puruShaH’ – He who resides in the body-city
is puruSha. Recall (5 – 13) ‘navadvAre pure dehI’
[3] Just to quote from one of the hundreds of places
where Shankara emphasizes this process as a superimposition, here is one from
his Commentary on Br.S. II-3-29: ‘Though the Self is not an agent and
experiencer, and though it has no transmigratoriness and is ever free, still it
comes to have the states of being an Agent and an experiencer, this being
caused by the superimposition of the modes of intellect acting as a limiting
adjunct.’ (“buddhy-upAdhi-dharmAdhyAsa-……….
nityamuktasya sata AtmanaH”).
[4] asti
Adya-trayaM brahma-rUpaM
jagad-rUpaM tato dvayaM //
[5] na tvevAhaM jAtu nAsaM na tvaM neme janAdhipAH / na caiva na
bhavishyAmaH sarve vayam-ataH paraM //
[6] deha-bhedAnuvRttyA bahu-vacanaM , na Atma-bhedAbhiprAyeNa //
[7] Yad-vai tan-na paSyati paSyan-vai tan-na paSyati, na hi
drashTur-drashTeH viparilopo vidyate avinASitvAt / na tu tadvitIyam-asti tataH
anyad-vibhaktaM yat-paSyet //
[8] vishayAbhAvAd-iyam-acetayamAnatA na chaitanya-abhAvAt-yathA
viyad-Asrayasya prakASasya prakASya-abhAvAd-anabhivyaktiH na
svarUpa-abhAvat-tadvat //
[11] avidyA-kalpita-nAma-rUpa-
....yatnaH kartavyaH
[12] Atmendriya-mano-vyaktaM bhoktety-Ahur-manIshiNaH /
[13] When I was a teen-ager, I remember to have asked
this question “Who is then the doer?” to my father, once after his Gita-class
to his contemporaries, which I had the good fortune to attend. The cryptic
answer he gave is still fresh in my memory: “The doer is he who thinks he is
the doer”.
[15] ‘avidyA-vasthAyAM
kArya-karaNa-sanghAta-aviveka-darSinaH jIvasya av idyA-timirAndhasya sataH
parasmAd-AtmanaH karmAdhyakshAt sarva-bhUtAdivAsat sAkshiNaH cetayituH IsvarAt
tad-anujnyayA. kartRtva-bhoktRtva-lakShaNasya samsArasya siddhiH’
[18] kUTastha also means the top of a mountain which remains
unchanged and undisturbed. kUTa also
means the changeable universe amidst which the unchangeable remains fixed and
is therefore called kUTastha
[19] kartRtvAdIn buddhi-dharmAn sphUrtyAkhyaM cAtmarUpatAM / dadhat
vibhAti purataH AbhAsaH ato bhramo bhavet //
