Table of Contents
Oneness and the Concept of Self-Awareness
Self-Awareness can never be “your” Self-Awareness or “mine”. It is universal. However, in the apparent world, we can never deny that there is multiplicity, duality. This duality only exists as long as we study this dual aspect with all attention.
Otherwise it remains hidden.
When we undertake focusing our attention on that which is dual, through valid spiritual practices, that apparent duality magically transforms into oneness. Oneness is not a concept or idea. It is also not empirical. If we attain awareness or realize it, as a matter of sharp concentrated effort, to be more precise, which is the root of existence, this oneness shall also become clear.
Oneness is best understood through the mechanism of how Self-Awareness functions.
The Western Myth of Awareness
The western world says “Wealth Awareness”. It says “Health Awareness”. For example, a particular star is in the news for his relationships and affairs. He is the talk of the town.
This is “one” type or variation of Self-Awareness; the “mind” of Self-Awareness. Everybody is talking about this man. He is all over the place. There is another person, known for his wealth and for how he uses wealth.
The rest of the population becomes bewildered and wonder-struck by his attitude and flair. This is another variation of Awareness. This means that wealth, power, status, poverty, avarice, crudeness, cruelty will have examples in “individuals”, “Individual Awareness”. These people or individuals, in fact are symbols, representatives of that variation in Awareness.
When we think of a splendid physique, Arnold Schwarzenegger comes to mind. The name of the individual can change based on time, place and circumstance. The individuals change but the idea is the same.
Awareness has certain features that rolls up and presents itself as “individuals”.
For example, if terrorism is rampant, it also reflects the contents of the individual minds. This does not mean that everyone has these tendencies, but it averages out the overall intention of bullying and fear-mongering in the average individual’s mind.
The rolled up version then becomes international news. But unfortunately we differentiate this “news-maker” from ourselves, whereas, he exists as our mere reflection!
Attention is the Key to Self-Awareness
When the individual gets his mind under the scanner of attention; when one is careful with one’s thoughts and keeps the heart pure, he shall definitely experience a world of that nature. Perhaps, this is what great minds like J Krishnamurthy speak about and vociferous in their public addresses.
It is an experiential fact. Even if one individual follows spiritual practices and maintains the “health” of his heart or mind, he shall have purged almost all the filth. that the world is currently undergoing.
He would have graduated into a “new” world although literally he is in the same world which has the rest of creation. His “world” will be free from the problems that the other world is undergoing. When the mind becomes purified, strangely the world becomes purified too as a function of Self-awareness.
It may not be so, for the “other” but it shall emphatically be so, for “you”. Although Self-Awareness is one, the mind gives you the experience of multiplicity. The “One” talked about is pure “Self-Awareness”, free of mind. When the heavy mind becomes purified and purged, one shall enter that “One”. About this there is no doubt!
7/8 Questions from Sanatana Dharma
The scores generated in this Quiz may or may not be absolute. There may be right or wrong answers to each Question. A percentage towards 100 indicates that you are more aligned to the overall subject matter.
How can we know Reality?
Supreme Lord Sri Krishna refers to two opposite concepts of real and unreal, especially in connection with the subject of Self-Awareness. It is to be understood that whatever is real is permanent, unreal is always temporary.
The real does not undergo any change, and it is the very cause for change. It instigates change. But, it is unseen, we cannot perceive it through the senses. We can only realize it if our intelligence becomes purified and sharpened through sadhana.
If the real were not to be present or existent, there would be no scope to sense the unreal. The environment, weather changes, body, etc changes.
But, it is also a matter of perception that these ever-changing entities reflect in the light of something which does not change. Many generations have come and gone. The present becomes Past and the Future transforms into the Present. But this change is noticeable and perceived. Perception can happen only if there is a point of reference.
Unreal exists because of Reality
For example: When traveling in a car we closely notice the scene outside the window. After long hours of staring, the scene is traveling in the opposite direction. Now, is it the car moving or the scene? Who can tell us the reality?
Someone who is stationary and does not move can only gauge the reality of the situation. A person standing outside can only determine that it is the car that is moving and not the scenery. One can say the same thing about the rotation of the planets around the Sun.
Unless there is something that is considered as an absolute frame of reference, one can never locate the point of change. All observable phenomena change. The entity that is changeless can only detect this change. That changeless entity is the unchangeable Reality.
Reality is not definable on its own. All that is unreal has no separate existence. It is just a transformation of energy from one form to the other and noticed by the real. Without the real, the unreal would have never existed.
Bhagavad Gita: Chapter 2: Verse 17
Know that alone to be imperishable, which pervades the universe, for no one has the power to destroy the indestructible substance.
Nature of Pure Self-Awareness
In the light of Reality, the unreal appears. We discussed this in the previous segments of this article. The apparent unreal is just a shadow of Reality. It has no separate existence of its own. Our bodies undergo constant change. Times change.
People around us and their behavior towards us also undergo dramatic changes. It is in the light of Self-Awareness that the whole dance of life occurs. We can perceive changes because of unchanging Self-Awareness.
Self-Awareness is that reality that remains unaffected. It is imperishable, and we cannot perceive it. But, it is that which gives scope for perception. When perception occurs, there is a split in Self-Awareness.
The observer observing the changes is Pure Self-Awareness. It is independent and requires nothing external to function. However, it expands. These expansions result in mind, body, senses, sense objects, sensory perceptions, thoughts, feelings, emotions, ideologies, etc.
It is the shadow of Self-Awareness which is the body, mind, and the universe. This is not pure Self-Awareness, but a by-product.
What is the Nature of Reality?
Just like in a dream, we see ourselves and others. We see, feel, smell, hear and taste in dreams. The person seeing the dream does not undergo change. He is apart from the person present in the dream.
This individual reality is Pure Self-Awareness. But, the unique experiences we undergo in our dream are products of pure Self-Awareness which undergoes change. Experiences of the senses are simple transformations within the field of Self-Awareness.
Also, it is Self-Awareness alone that perceives these transformations. When we are observing the world outside of our body, we are not sharp enough to accept or perceive that what we see outside is actually happening within us, in pure consciousness. Self-Awareness or Consciousness which has its secondary byproducts as the mind, intellect and false ego projects itself as the world outside.
We may strangely see, smell, taste, feel, hear things outside. But we are not awake enough to notice that it is happening within the field of consciousness.
So in short there is nothing outside of us. The whole multiverse is a colossal expansion of the within, absolutely within and nothing without whatsoever. All experiences which include our dreaming and waking states are unreal.
They simply happen in the light of Self-Awareness where Self-Awareness is the subject, the experiencer, that which is real. That which is experienced is unreal and changeable or transformable. Self-Awareness is permanent, and it is the substrate of the universe or even the multiverse if it were to exist. It is that entity where there can be no change, and hence it is indestructible.
It is imperishable and the supreme subject.
Once this becomes a realization, one will start moving towards permanence and imperishability not in terms of body or mind but towards true knowing and towards destruction of all fear which is associated with change.
Bhagavad Gita: Chapter 2: Verse 18
All possessions of Self-Awareness are Perishable
That which animates the body is only that one Self-Awareness. Self-Awareness by itself is only one and cannot have several categories. It is like this. When the Sun shines in the sky it casts its reflection on several thousands of pots of crystal clear water placed in the open.
Now, the reflected sun cannot be the Sun itself. There cannot be thousands of Suns. It is the one Sun that is shining brightly outside the pot, which seems to animate in thousand different ways through the water-pots. Similarly, Self-Awareness is only one, and it is in the light of this single point that living entities appear and disappear.
Although a person dies, his body becomes infested with several unseen and minute living entities which are animated by the same Self-Awareness. The representation of that one Self-Awareness has withdrawn itself. It has handed over the body to the other living entities which are animated by the same Self-Awareness.
If one does not attend to the dead body, it shall decompose on its own by the power of other minute living entities. But, if we attend to the dead body it means that other superior living entities animated by the same Self-Awareness cremate the body and dispose of it thus.
Hence Self-Awareness presents itself in various sizes, forms, and numbers. The dead body, minute living entities, superior living bodies, etc are various forms of the Single, same Self-Awareness. A man of high intelligence realizes that it is that one Self-Awareness alone that has been transmuting and itself, creating the illusion of change, growth, and decay.
Hence the bodies, mind, intellect, memory are perishable and these belong to that one imperishable and eternal Self-Awareness alone that never changes.
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