11 / 18 / 2011

Body and mind

If I am not what I have, i.e. body and mind, what's left of myself ?

Nothing, if not the Self.

But what is the Self ? That's the only real question.

"Who am I ?" or Self-inquiry is the same question.

I know what "myself" means, but could be the Self that cannot be mine ?

11 / 28 / 2011

Having and being, 2 very different principles.

The body and mind that I have are not what I am since, as I said, they are what I have. It's obvious, but how can I know it if I'm not this body, the brain and mind, which is the only way to know it ?

Just a dog chasing its tail, when it gets tired, it stops and sit and watch.

Mirror of the soul

The intellect is the mirror of myself and the Self.

"The mind is the reflection of pure consciousness on the intellect." Shankaracharya

"I am" expresses the presence of being in itself known by my own mental faculties. But who is really watching the whole process, myself or the Self ? Could the Self be the true nature of myself ?

Without what I have, there is nothing left of myself. And yet I am. So "I am" and myself are the expression of 2 totally different experiences.

Being in itself and myself are not the same. Myself is all I know about I and me, body and mind, being in itself is a mystery because it has no body and mind, and yet, it is conscious of itself as such.

Vichara, Self-inquiry, is the way to discover this being in itself by myself. It's a practice.

Because the mind and the intellect are also conscious, pure consciousness can be known as it is.

Because I am personally a conscious being, I'm able to know pure being and pure consciousness as they are.

The intellect, Buddhi, is the mirror, which reflects simultaneously the immutable presence of pure consciousness and the mind in perpetual transformation.

There is no other mystery. And once it is understood, it's not anymore a mystery, but a plain fact. That's the purpose of Self-inquiry, to stop confusing the mirror with the light it reflects, and to realize that you would not even see the mirror without the light.

11 / 30 / 2011

"Who am I ?", the only question truly metaphysical

Any other questions are only philosophical gossip.

The relation between subject/object, the actor and the performance.

Drama in 3 acts : the thinker/thinking/the thoughts.

Comedy in one act : the process of identification.

The "I, me and myself", the thoughts and the faculty of thinking are one.

And the observer watches without being invited.

The player plays with his toys. He suffers from and only wishes to break them, but doesn't know that he's inseparable from his toys. It's nevertheless there, in the mind, that everything is played.

The thinker is lost in his thoughts or stops thinking in order to watch his thoughts, which now are not anymore his own.

It's just a game, a mind game, most of the time, the sad game of the ego who thinks about itself to make sure that "I" is real because truly speaking that "I" is not. It simply cannot find itself anywhere. No thoughts can know themselves by themselves.

Are there any thoughts which are not self-centered ? Yes, every egocentric thoughts we watch without identification, without the echo "It's me and I who think that I'm this and that".

If the "I" doesn't know his own egoism, greed and hypocrisy, how could it criticizes the ones of the others ? How could it progress on the path of knowledge ? How could it realize the truth ? We have to know our own egoism, greed and hypocrisy before to see them in the others. How could we know what they are without having a first-hand experience of how our own mind works ? That's the real drama, and that's what spirituality is all about.

Self-inquiry is beautiful, but first thing first, it shows you the mind as it is and how it works.

Same same..., but different. If the "I" doesn't know his own egoism, greed and hypocrisy, how could he criticize the flaws and qualities of the others ? Because that "I" is so good, modest and sincere ? Good joke, until the mind faces itself !

Every "I, me and myself " are the same, led by a survival instinct, a physical and mental instinct. Nothing evil in itself. Only a bad ego-trip for oneself and the others.

Incarnation is the drama, the true story is about learning and truthfulness.

12 / 8 / 2011

"Two birds, inseparable friends, cling to the same tree. One eats the sweet fruit, the other looks on without eating." Mundaka Upanishad

_ Are you a conscious being or a psychological entity speaking with itself in its mind all day long?

_ I am of course a conscious being.

_ So why don't you realize this very simple truth ?

_ I've already realized it.

_ So why do you spend your time speaking in your mind instead of actualizing this truth in your life ?

_ How ?

_ By just being conscious !

_ What ? I'm already conscious.

_ The faculty of being conscious doesn't think. It can watch the activities of the mind, but it cannot think. It's not its function. Or you are the thinker, or you are the witness of the thinking process, the mind. You cannot be both at the same time. Identification or no identification, that's the only game in the spiritual town tonight.

The ego treads the path of knowledge by becoming the witness of its own apparent existence, then by seeking the true nature of the witness it became to finally realize that there is no path nor ego to tread it.

But if you think that its quest was useless, you didn't understand that you are this unsatisfied ego who sometimes thinks that its quest is useless.

12 / 29 / 2011

The organ is shaped by its function.

We could even say that the function creates the organ because it's a necessity. But consciousness is not an organ or a function. Like space, it hasn't any form and yet, it's ever-present and all-knowing.

How could consciousness know anything without the brain ? Don't worry, it doesn't need yours, it already has all the others.

12 / 30 / 2011

"Thinking is not your true nature." Ramana Maharshi

And not thinking is not your true nature either ! The silence of the mind is just the nature of the mind without thoughts. And then what ?

Thinking is a very convenient mental faculty when we need it. But the true nature of a person, of its self-consciousness, is not what this person thinks. It's not and cannot be thinking, the thinking process, nor the content of the mind and the mind itself.

Consciousness is not the intellect, which it makes conscious. The Self is not the self-identity "I", which expresses its own thoughts.

A person is a body and a brain with its mental faculties. This quite sophisticated organism expresses naturally its own existence in its thoughts or with other people by using the concept "I, me and myself". This "I" is a personal identity, which represents the person, its life, its past and all its experiences. All human beings determine their own existence in the world with no other but a personal identity. But this identity itself is not technically speaking identical to the ego.

The ego is the personal identity plus the identification process, which makes this ego believing that it is a psychological entity different from its own body and mind. "I have a body, a mind, a past, emotions, perceptions, sensations, etc." states it very clearly. In the mind of the ego, "I cannot be what I have" because "to have" is obviously not "to be". The personal identity on the other hand doesn’t think to be independent of its body and mind. It represents them, and at the death of the person, its function will be completed.

For the ego, it’s quite different. Although its own apparent existence and presence are an illusion, it will survive potentially after the death of its physical body to be reincarnated. But if the ego realizes the Self, which means that it succeeds to annihilate itself in its quest for the truth, it therefore won’t have to be reincarnated anymore.

But how this illusory identity can have the impression to really live in a world as illusory as its own thoughts ? Self-realization answers to every question by revealing their futility and not by answering them with other thoughts, which cannot have any meaning either.

In other words, how the dreamer could answer to the questions of the person he is in his own dreams ? And how the dreamed character could know that the dreamer exists somewhere in another world that his own ? Both of them haven't the least idea that the dream state determines their so-called existence. So there is no answer to that kind of question because all those questions are quite simply meaningless. When we dream, we cannot know that we are dreaming, and when we don't, the dream is obviously over. So who would need to wake up ?

The ego will never know the truth, but only the ego can search for it. Realization of the truth is the end of the ego, of an egocentric entity who thinks to be different of its own body and mind. When the dream of the ego stops, the big dream goes on, but without ego.

The ego is made of thoughts, beliefs and identifications, everything it can call mine. If you don't believe it, stop thinking and see what's left of yourself, of your egocentrism, sufferings and desires, of everything which gives you an apparent reality. Without thoughts, you cannot even identify yourself with your own body to prove that you really exist. In this no thought state of mind or so-called no-mind, the person that you think to be will carry on his life, of course..., but without you.

Have a good break, and start living without you !

"Sacred" also means "inviolable"

The Mahavakyas, sacred Mantras such as "I am Brahman", "I am the Self", "I am pure being, consciousness and bliss", etc., are absolutely impersonal, which means they don’t concern anybody in particular. No human being has the right to state "I am God", except for a sacred initiation, as a joke or to look like an idiot like many kan-gurus today.

The Atman is not the Jivatman.

And the Jiva is not the Atman either.

Moksha is not the Jivamukta.

Jnana is not Vidya.

"To know the Self is to be the Self".

The Self never change anyway, only the one knowing the Self can realize the truth and so change of understanding and knowledge. The true nature of "I am" will never change whatever happens to that being. Thinking or not thinking is not the point of that quest for truth, nor the one of true knowledge. "I am Brahman" is the expression of an immutable state of being, which can be experienced and realized, but that cannot concern the person realizing it. In other words, if you think to be Brahman, you don't get it.

1 / 5 / 2012

You are a person, a human being, not the Self

The Self is our true nature, it's not the person we are or the self we find in the "myself, yourself, etc." we all know very well. It's the true nature of the consciousness or awareness of that person, the true nature of "self-consciousness". It's unrelated to his or her body and mind.

When "I" speak to "you", you and I cannot be the Self. How the Self could communicate with the Self and what for ?

Understand that the Self doesn’t think to be anything. And moreover the Self never think nor seek anything. It's the "witness", the Atman. It’s the Self and pure consciousness, which watch and know our own thoughts, desires, delusion, actions, etc.

We cannot confuse the true nature of being, being in itself, with what we are in this world, human beings. Pure being and being a person are obviously not the same. Everybody knows that we are all beings and moreover conscious beings, but we ignore the true nature of being, which is absolutely pure, because without manifestation. Being as such is a pure state. But a state of what ? It's only the state of being, and since we are human and conscious beings, we can know that state.

We must not interpret in any crazy ways Vedanta to make out of it a real psychosis. "I am the Self", that the ego can understand about him or herself, means nothing else than "Me, I am God, I'm personally God". That's absolutely not what Vedanta states. A sacred Mantra or "absolute thought" is totally unrelated to what we may think about ourselves.

1 / 12 / 2012

Biology states that we interact with reality through the nervous system.

But Vedanta explains that it's consciousness, which interacts with reality through what we are, a person made of flesh and bones, and a nervous system, living in the reality of the world made of matter.

A long time ago, in order to realize the Self and be free from illusory suffering, it was apparently only necessary to listen to the truth from the mouth of a Rishi and understand it, nothing more was apparently needed, no Sadhana and Yoga was necessary. That's very well explain in "Yoga Vashishta" and Yajnavalkya's teachings. But since that time, it seems that egos got harder, they increase their own density, so to speak, and became tough nuts.

A concept that could help to understand.

Spirituality and mythology often use the concept of "reflection", return of thoughts or images on a surface such as a mirror. And Advaita Vedanta explains that the mind results from "the reflection of consciousness on the intellect".

According to western psychology, which find a lot of inspiration in Greek mythology, the psyche is the set of psychic phenomena forming the personal identity, the human faculty for thought, judgment and emotion, i.e. mental life, including both conscious and unconscious processes, that is to say the ego and the mind as distinguished from the body and brain. And a psyche is also the name for a large mirror suspended between two pillars joined by horizontal bars resting on two feet and, of course, used to look at ourselves. It's surely not by chance that ancient people have chosen the same word to identify two things so different, the individual consciousness and a mirror in which we can contemplate ourselves. If you will, "I can see myself in a mirror, and also in my own consciousness".

The image of yourself that you see in a mirror is an illusion, it's obviously not you as you are and what you are in reality, it's only an image of the body, and especially its surface or appearance. But how the reflection of consciousness on the intellect could give rise to the mind and ego, to what you think of yourself, i.e. everything you are personally ? Let’s suppose that the intellect is like a mirror equipped with all the mental faculties that you use every day, the faculty of thinking, reasoning, remembering, imagining, perceiving and so on. And that consciousness is what enables the intellect to know, the light so to speak, which enlightens all mental phenomena produced by its faculties. The mind and ego, that is to say "you", is then the coherent image of this set of phenomena on the mirror of the intellect, an illusory projection, so to speak which makes the ego believing that it is itself the totality of all these phenomena.

When it is said that the world is an illusion, it must be understood before anything else that it is so because you are yourself the illusory identity, which thinks to perceive the world. It's difficult to admit that the "I, me and myself" and all the thoughts that determine the presence of that entity, its very existence, could be an illusion, or that in fact "you" are an illusion. This is however what Advaita Vedanta explains in many ways and what reveals Self-realization and Sahaja Samadhi. So for some people, it might be easier to understand that the image you see in a mirror is not really what you are because it's only an image of yourself. As a matter of fact, it's not even the mirror itself, the intellect, and even less the light of pure consciousness that makes this image visible.

If you practice meditation, you will obviously understand more easily what "the reflection of pure consciousness on the intellect" really means. And one hour of meditation should be more than enough to fully realize that your true power is to watch the thoughts that you are unable to control, but with which however you used to identifying with.

So who are you when you are no longer those thoughts, that is to say in a pretty strange way, when you stop thinking in order to watch your thoughts better ? Except for the power of being conscious of those thoughts, I do not see what might remain of your own presence in such an experience. Practice, watch carefully and you will understand without explanation. The truth is always much simpler than anything you could imagine about. The truth can only be right in front of you everywhere and at any time.

But what will be the purpose of this revelation on yourself ? The real secret that the Jnanis, the people of knowledge, explain since very ancient time is very simple. The faculty to be conscious, i.e. consciousness or awareness, during meditation or in our daily life is much more than a mental faculty of the intellect. This faculty is identical to pure consciousness itself, pure being and pure bliss, "Sat-Chit-Ananda".

The Divine, Atman, the soul or whatever, is Sat-Chit-Ananda, your true nature. In other words, if you essentially are the Divine contemplating what manifests the mirror of the intellect, which you consider yours, this mirror will send you back sooner or later a very sacred image of your true nature that you will never forget. Now it's up to you to realize if the ultimate challenge that offers you this spiritual knowledge is worth to be understood and realized.

Why is it your ultimate challenge, the one of the ego ? To realize that the true nature of being is absolutely divine, this ego will have to be annihilated in its own quest for the truth. And that's certainly not what it wishes. It's alright to look for the true nature of being it thinks to be because such a quest will enhance its self-importance, especially if it understood that this true nature is absolutely divine, but it will never do it to destroy its own apparent existence even if it understood that everything it incarnates is completely illusory.

Good luck in your spiritual quest, the grace of God goes with you. How could it be otherwise if you understood that this grace is nothing else than your true nature that the ego will always meet in all its thoughts reflected on the intellect, and that you are only able to know when you are conscious..., conscious of what they really express, the ineffable presence of pure consciousness itself.

To realize the Self, the presence of pure consciousness, it's only to discover what you never notice before, but which was already there, now and forever.

When you're thinking, you obviously know your thoughts, but you are ignoring the very fact that you can only know those thoughts because you're conscious of them. So what's the real nature of that consciousness ? And it goes the same with all your perceptions, every you can know. Self-realization is about knowledge, pure knowledge, how knowing happens.

2 / 23 / 2012

Dream and reality

The sacred truth is only about reality as it is, not as it should be nor as it could be.

If the truth is the real purpose of your spiritual quest, be happy with reality as it is, but don't try to change it.

How to explain better what the word "consciousness" means ? "That which knows is never the object of its own knowledge." Shankaracharya

The Self and the "now" are one. Is it obvious ? If yes, you truly stand nowhere because the Self and consciousness are identical, and it's impossible to know where this consciousness really is since you can find it inside yourself when a mental phenomenon, a sensation for instance, appears, and outside yourself when you perceive something in the outer world, but something that becomes instantly a mental phenomenon you can only really find in your mind, that is to say inside yourself.

Reality is therefore an illusion because we don’t know its true nature, and we don't know it because we don't know our true nature either. And moreover, we con only perceive the outer world inside ourselves. So what really is that so-called outer, Maya ? It's a mystery.

Tat Vam Asi : "you are that".

You already are what you are trying to become and finally be. You can only realize it and not try to become anything in order to be it. Consequently, every spiritual quest is useless.

Of course, it's useless when you understand the truth, but can you realize the truth before to search for it ? Therefore, the spiritual quest is essential. And there is no spiritual quest without spiritual practice.

2 / 27 / 2012

I can search for it, I will never find myself anywhere

So I stop searching and there I am... at last !

In Yoga and Advaita Vedanta, only the experience is truly interesting. The conceptual truths and information we can extract from such knowledge are much less important. That's why concepts like God, reincarnation, Karma, Samskara, Vasana, liberation, etc. are quite relative. They only concern an entity, which doesn't determine the true nature of its own apparent existence and presence, and moreover that cannot be found anywhere in any experience. Where could you find the "I, me and myself", the ego, which is a mental projection, a personal identity that the mind uses to express itself ? Nowhere, everything is mental, that is to say a perception and projection, everything is in the mind. When I see a tree, I have to project an image of it in my mind to perceive it outside myself otherwise I would not see anything. I would not even know there is a world out there.

3 / 10 / 2012

Very simple, but maybe unpleasant

You already have what you are trying to get. You already are what you would like to become. So you can only realize it. But what is it ?

Consciousness is what you have, and conscious being is what you already are. But this conscious being and the thinking being are not the same.

The true conscious being is consciousness itself. It's impersonal, universal, "one without a second", our true nature, the one of our own individual consciousness, the Self, God, the Divine, Sat-Chit-Ananda, etc. Everybody embodies that conscious and unique being, because everybody is also personally conscious.

But the thinking being on the other hand is you, the ego, a personal identity, a psychological entity, the process of identification itself, which makes you thinking that you are a body and mind. If you deny it, what you are looking for to have and be becomes impossible.

In order to realize the Self, first you have to recognize that you didn't realize it yet. Before to realize the Self, realize that you are not the Self. And if you are not the Self, you can only be the "I, me and myself", the ego, the personal identity searching for Self-realization. That's an embarrassing truth that doesn't allow you to lie to yourself if you understand what it means.

"My ego, I've an ego, your ego...", is a joke ? Even an ordinary dictionary will tell you there is no difference between "I, me, myself" and the ego. So if you start from the principle that you are the Self, bad news, folks, you are the ego, the "I, me, myself" searching for the Self and especially for Self-realization. If you were already the Self, what would be the point of searching for it ?

You only search for Self-realization because the one searching for it is not the Self.

3 / 12 / 2012

Can we still appreciate simplicity ?

Why so many esoteric truths in spirituality when the supreme truth has been explained so clearly in very few words in the "Mahavakyas", the sacred sayings of the Vedas ?

"The Divine is being, consciousness and bliss."

"The Divine is the Witness."

"You are that."

Witness, consciousness, knowing..., is that so difficult to understand ?

The Divine is the Witness. I'm also the witness of my own thoughts and perceptions, I obviously know them.

The Divine is being. I am too, I am a being, I exist. I've no doubt about it.

The Divine is consciousness. I am conscious too, I am a conscious being. It's absolutely obvious.

The Divine is bliss. Ah ah..., here we have a problem. Only bliss is missing in my own being and consciousness. Why ?

4 / 14 / 2012

Tricky points concerning non-duality.

The term Advaita, non-duality, means "not two", no subject no object, that is to say no self-consciousness related to something else. So how the experience of non-duality could be considered as an experience if it’s without object and subject, without self-consciousness knowing something that is not self-consciousness itself, or "I, me and myself" able to experience this absence of object and subject ? It just doesn't make sense.

Therefore, the experience of non-duality cannot be an experience as we usually understand it, but a realization, i.e. an obvious fact, a reality, and not a concept, idea or philosophical thought.

Non-duality determines the natural state of a person living in the reality of the ordinary world, "Sahaja Samadhi", which means the natural state of his or her perceptions because it’s impossible to really speak of a person without any reference to his or her body and mind. And as far as body and mind are concerned, we can only have an experience of how they manifest.

An experience is only possible when there is a phenomenon or object in relation with the subject who is supposed to live this experience. The object goes with the subject and vice versa. But during the experience of non-duality and pure consciousness, the subject, which is "I, me, myself" or self-consciousness, disappears, and therefore, there is no object either. So what’s left ? The reality of what it's usually called "that".

There is only reality as it is. In other words, emptiness, enlightenment or any kind of mystical experiences have nothing to do with the experience of non-duality and pure consciousness because it’s not the object of the experience which is important, but the absence of relation between the subject and the object of that so-called experience. This absence of relation makes that every experience becomes absolutely divine. So there is no need to seek anything extraordinary in order to realize the Self. The quest for the truth and Self-realization is totally unrelated to mysticism.

The so-called experience of pure consciousness reveals what has no beginning and no end. But the experience of what has no beginning and no end cannot be an experience because every experience usually starts and ends in time and space. So what kind of experience are we speaking about ? It’s a simple fact too obvious to be considered as an experience. We are conscious being, but can we really experience the fact of being and being conscious, or in other words, the true nature of being and consciousness ?

Let’s say that you experience the true nature of the being that you are, which is without beginning and end, and of course very different from your own body and mind. How could you consider that this experience starts at one moment and ends at another? If you suddenly realize that your own existence, the very being that you are, is without beginning and without end, that realization is of course forever, but the experience itself may change and stop because it is lived by a body and a mind, i.e. a person who is not going to last forever.

Just understand that only a mortal person can experience the eternal and immortal being and consciousness. They themselves don't need to be liberated, and moreover liberated from what ? They already are living in pure bliss and only for while.

Absolute : as such in itself, considered in itself and not in relation with anything else.

The knowledge of something usually implies the knowledge of its opposite or at least, of what that thing is not, hence the "relative" knowledge of that thing. What about the "absolute" knowledge of something and the knowledge of the absolute itself ? Possible or not ? The knowledge of what makes knowledge possible is not a concept. It’s the absolute, the Self and pure consciousness, it's pure knowledge, it's absolute knowledge, it's knowledge of the absolute.

Consciousness itself is identical to the faculty of knowing. The experience of pure consciousness, non-duality or the absolute is, if you will, the simple fact of knowing the faculty of knowing the faculty of knowing the faculty of knowing and so on, there is no beginning nor end in that kind of knowledge. And if something appears in the field of that consciousness and knowledge, that thing will obviously be known too.

Did you get it ? You cannot be what you know, but only the being who has the faculty of knowing, which means that everything you know about yourself cannot be what you truly are. That being, the faculty of knowing and consciousness itself are one and the same.

What are you ? You are pure being and pure consciousness. You are that : Tat Vam Asi.

Who are you personally ? You are a person, a body and mind, a personal identity, a psychological entity, the ego, an individual...

5 / 10 / 2012

Wisdom and intelligence

Wisdom that we could easily consider as intelligent, if it really exists and is not only a nice philosophical concept, expresses itself by a very peculiar special state of mind and not by a mental structure or intellectual activity more complex than usual. Intelligence as it's generally understood is far too associated to memory, reasoning and a very sophisticated way of thinking to be considered as a simple faculty of pure consciousness. The Hindus explain however that pure consciousness is also pure intelligence.

But what is a mental structure and a state of consciousness ? A mental structure could be roughly compared to a certain way of thinking conditioned by cultural, psychological or other factors such as education and learning, and the most obvious state of consciousness that we know is, of course, to simply be conscious, that is to say to be awake, the waking state being the ordinary state that makes possible to know what we call reality, life, the world or whatever.

Now let us tackle the problem which truly concerns the practice of spirituality. If we want to experience what this most obvious state of consciousness is, to be fully awake, do we have to stop thinking ? Thinking is the center point of the practice of spirituality and in particular the practice of meditation. But do we really have to stop thinking in order to realize the Self and understand at last that our true nature is identical to what pure consciousness is ?

Some people would say yes and others no. For those who believe that thinking or the absence of thought cannot modify in any way the fact of being fully awake and conscious of whatever appears or disappears in the mind, the Sutra of Hui Neng is waiting for them. This small book is about the life and teaching of an illiterate woodcutter who understood and realize that there is no difference between non-duality, Buddha’s nature and the Tao, that’s why he finally thought that Zen and to be suddenly zen without any other practice than understanding is enough, an understanding unrelated, of course, to thinking or the absence of thought.

For the others who think that they must stop thinking in order to realize that they are basically conscious beings before to become thinking beings, an army of spiritual teachers wait for them arms wide open to teach them more techniques that they will ever be able to practice… and sometimes, it’s not very expensive !

Roughly speaking, we have, in Advaita Vedanta and not only Buddhism, 2 different schools : the proponent of a sudden enlightenment and self-realization, which doesn't enlighten anybody, and the proponent of a gradual enlightenment through practices, learning and Dharma, which doesn't seem to enlighten anybody either. So what could be the difference between both ? My guess is that the practice of spirituality can help a lot more than a sudden enlightenment that never happens and helps anyway.

What to do ?

What to do when there is nothing left to do ? To be saved from oneself by ceasing to do, by contemplating very attentively what is there to contemplate, by just watching, by being fully conscious without doing anything.

Beautiful images of non-duality.

"The wild geese flies across the long sky above.

Their image is reflected upon the chilly water below.

The geese do not mean to cast their image on the water.

Nor does the water mean to hold the image of the geese."

(Chinese verse from the eighth century)

"Our minds are simply God’s mirror, reflecting the "here-now" of creation. Such, according to the Taoist, is the process of creation. But this creative reflection can only be understood through private intuition."

"Our private intuition is our own. Enlightenment doesn’t come from without. It comes only from within."

("Creativity and Taoism" Chang Chung-yuan)

Just understand who the witness is, the one truly able to watch what you think to be

The witness has always been free from what it’s watching. Understand that and the mind game is over. Everything is over. Everything starts and ends in the present. Consciousness and knowledge are the present. Everything else is illusion, phenomenon that appears to only disappears. Everything comes and goes, and yet, you're still here to know it.

As the immortal will never become mortal, we will never be able to fully rationalize the irrational

The truths stated in Vedanta come from direct experiences, realization, and not from reasoning. Advaita uses logic and common sense to explain those truths, but the seeker cannot really understand them without his intuition and by bypassing his rational intelligence.

The intellect has this remarkable ability of always being able to refute with logical and convincing arguments all claims. That being so, the Advaita philosophical system proposes to the seeker of truth to question his own existence by asking himself "Who am I ?" or by practicing the Yoga of knowledge, Self-inquiry and renouncing to the self.

Advaita Vedanta explains that we are the Divine, but this truth being a priori absurd, the Yoga of knowledge invites us to seek what we are not for our own existence, the apparent existence of "I, me and myself" that we never question, is in fact much less obvious that we believe when we try to discover what it really is and where to find it. As a matter of fact, it's nowhere and nothing, and yet we cannot deny our own existence. Therefore, we have to realize what we are by inquiring the true nature of being, and by renouncing to what we are not. The methodology is pretty simple and obvious, but the practice of it is quite another question.

5 / 18 / 2012

First thing first : the power of words

"I, me and myself" are nothing more than words and concepts, but they determine without doubt something you know very well, i.e. yourself !

If you think to be something else, you don't understand the teachings of Advaita Vedanta. You are the concept and the idea you have about yourself, the entity resulting from a process of identification, the illusion who is looking for the truth, i.e. the ego you try to annihilate. Isn't it absurd ?

During your quest for the truth, you will never be anything more than the thought that makes you thinking that you are not a thought, the personal identity thinking not to be an identity nor an entity, that is to say the ego thinking to be different from his or her ego. It's just hilarious !

7 / 11 / 2012

To be doesn’t mean to become

As you are, you are absolutely perfect.

But do you know what are you ? And I'm not speaking about who you are. You are obviously a person like anybody else.

What you are, on the other hand, is pure and perfect consciousness, pure and perfect being, and guess what, you're even pure and perfect bliss. That's really over the top, but it's fact, a fact you just don't experience because you're obviously not aware of it.

9 / 27 / 2012

Subject/object relationship, the crucial point in Advaita Vedanta

You cannot perceive and know yourself by any means because you will always be "the one", the subject who perceives and never what the "witness" perceives, the object of perception. Self-realization is therefore another kind of knowledge.

To be more precise, your true nature is what perceives and not what has been perceived. But the concept of "witness" is still giving a wrong idea about what your true nature is because, truly speaking, there is no possible difference and separation between who perceives, perceiving and the perceived.

Sometimes, to be is not to be, and at other times, not to be is to be

It’s wrong to believe that the immanent presence of consciousness could exist without being known because it would mean that consciousness as such doesn’t exist at all although we are obviously conscious being, at the very least when we are awake. The presence of consciousness is nevertheless totally ignored, and yet without being conscious, we would know absolutely nothing. So consciousness cannot be ignored except when you aren't aware of it, that is to say all the time.

In other words, it doesn't matter we realize the Self or not because it's exactly the same as far as our true nature is concerned. It's not going to change anything. If something has to change in order to realize the Self, it can therefore only be something that is not the Self and our true nature. So what is it ? The ego, the mind, the body, the personal story, our point of view, the psyche... ? What really is the point of Self-realization ?

10 / 8 / 2012

Jivatman and Jivamukta

Human being and so-called liberated soul.

To realize the Self doesn’t make you becoming the Self, your true nature is already the Self, it has always been and always will be. The human being stays human, very fortunately. The person or what we usually call an individual doesn't disappear. And the Self or consciousness stay and will always be the Self and consciousness.

To realize the Self is simply to realize the truth on what we are, the Self, and who we are, a person who is obviously not the Self, but a human being.

Truly speaking, nothing changes, but true understanding of that truth, Self-realization, makes everything different.

11 / 2 / 2012

Yin Yang and non-duality

As soon as we grant a quality to the manifestation of an inner or outer phenomenon, that determines the existence of its opposite quality.

No quality can be absolute, they are all relative. Happiness doesn’t exist without suffering. Peace precedes or succeeds agitation. One discovers the truth by only becoming aware of the lie, we sometimes also called illusion or ignorance.

When it is said that the Divine is being, consciousness and bliss, "One without a second", the Divine is obviously not a manifestation, a phenomenon we could perceive. So being, consciousness and bliss are not the qualities of the Divine either.

Consequently, the Divine is "not this, not that", Neti Neti. It’s by denying what God is not that we make sure to not be mistaken. There is absolutely no difference between the Divine and being, consciousness and bliss. So what is really the meaning of being, being conscious and being conscious of bliss.

Is it possible to really know the Divine, the absolute being ? By realizing what our true nature is, we can only know "that". By discovering the presence of being and consciousness that we obviously embody by simply being conscious, we are that "One without a second". We have no other true nature and foundation for our own existence and being, and also for knowledge.

But how to really be sure of it ? The knowledge of our true nature is identical to the experience of non-duality, which, of course, is the ultimate knowledge, the very fact of knowing our own faculty of being conscious, in other words, of being conscious of consciousness itself. The perfect absence of self-consciousness, i.e. of the subject in relation with an object, determine the experience of non-duality, of this "One without a second", and there is obviously nothing beyond. How could it be otherwise if, by definition, there is no second and something else ?

If this "One without a second" is absolutely unique as the expression states very clearly, there is nothing beyond, before or after, and nothing that could transcend it too. Therefore, God, i.e. consciousness, is this totality and oneness, which pervade all the creation without being affected by it, just as space and our personal consciousness do.

Consciousness is much more than another dimension

To really know the passage of time, we'd have to be located outside of the temporal dimension. To really know the presence of space, we'd also have to be outside of the spatial dimension. In order to know the speed of the flow of a river, we have to be outside the river, of course. It’s the most obvious method we could conceive, and moreover, it's already the experience we know very well since we always live in that spatial and temporal dimension that no one can deny, and that we not only know very well, but we can also experience as a very ordinary fact. Whatever time and space are as such, we are absolutely conscious of their dimension, power and presence. Whatever the true nature of the creation is, we cannot deny our senses of perception because that's the only reference we have to really know anything.

So to be conscious of, it’s to be "here" and "somewhere else" simultaneously, "here" means in space and time, and "somewhere else" means outside or beyond space and time. To be conscious of is to be the Self and pure consciousness beyond any dimension, and it's also to be a human being living in a world of 3 dimensions or 4 if we take time as another dimension.

There is a so-called state, Turya Samadhi, that is not conditioned by space and time, not a state in which we could find ourselves, but the state of being in itself or as such, the Self that we truly are and it would be better to consider as our true nature since the fact of being human cannot be denied.

To be "here" and "somewhere else" at the same time, it’s in fact to be "nowhere" and not asking for more because it's not only pure bliss, but it's also pure bliss "here", somewhere in this very dimension called space and time.

In order to know the Self, we just have to be the Self. To know what consciousness is, we only have to be conscious. There is absolutely no difference between the Self and consciousness. But that doesn't determine the real experience of non-duality. To experience only the Self and pure consciousness as they are is Nirvikalpa Samadhi, a transcendental state, and it is not Sahaja Samadhi, a natural state, the ordinary state of a self-realized being because it's impossible for a human being to survive in that ecstatic state.

"Nothing" doesn't mean "everything". "Everything" means "nothing" plus everything that could be in it. And consciousness can contain everything, the totality itself, without the least effort. In that so-called conscious nothingness, there is everything, the whole universe

Who can truly understand that by what everything is understood ? No one and everybody too. Did you understand ?

1 / 29 / 2013

The origin of the most obvious fact we could know, being conscious

What’s the origin of a dream ? The dreamer !

What’s the origin of the universe, of life, of mankind, matter, the atom, DNA… ? Consciousness.

What is consciousness ? We should know it, aren’t we conscious ?

Advaita Vedanta claims that the true nature of everyone and universal consciousness, the individual soul and God, are one and the same. But we are not God, only your true nature is divine. Realize it, then you will be and won't be God. And before anything else, you will be in bliss and won't ask for more.

Direct contact with the truth is knowledge, experience, realization, liberation… The true cause of misery and suffering is ignorance. Its remedy is obviously knowledge, knowledge of the truth also called Self-realization. But to know what exactly ? To know the most obvious fact we all know. What is that most obvious fact about yourself ? What is closer to you than your own eyes ? Being conscious and only conscious... of your own bliss, Sat Chit Ananda. You obviously are a conscious being before to realize that you are a human being with a body and mind. You are conscious and then conscious of your own body and mind, but you're not conscious of your own bliss. Somehow, that bliss has been replaced by the body and mind. So could we say that having a body and mind is pure bliss, the means of having a blissful experience ?

As the moon has the same reflection in many puddles, every so-called individual consciousness are identical to universal consciousness. By consciousness, we mean the faculty to be conscious, i.e. to know spontaneously and without the least effort.

You are naturally conscious of your waking and dreaming states, which determine the manifestation of realities inside and outside yourself. But the question raised by Advaita Vedanta is to know if you have the faculty to be conscious of yourself or if it’s consciousness itself that has the faculty to know you personally as a conscious and human being. It seems logical and obvious, although inadmissible, that the faculty of knowing is the ultimate and impersonal power of consciousness, and the entity "I am personally conscious... of myself" is an illusion, a delusive reflection of consciousness we take for ourselves.

How could it be an illusion ? If the faculty to be conscious and to know has truly a meaning, nobody can have or own personally that faculty without being itself the faculty of knowing the one who believes to have it. In other words, nobody has the faculty to know one’s self. That faculty is self-sufficient and obviously identical for everybody. That universal faculty to be conscious is called Chit, pure consciousness. And it’s inseparable of Sat and Ananda, being and bliss.

A concept which helps to seek and understand the truth

Something in perpetual transformation cannot be true because it’s always changing of form, state and name. At a certain moment, that thing is what it is and at another, it’s or is called something else. In other words, never being what it is, was or will be, how could it be true ? So, by definition, only what is immutable could be considered as true. Such concepts are, of course, purely philosophical.

But in the universe, the phenomenal world, which is not conceptual, but very real, everything is always changing. So nothing could be considered to be true. And yet we perceive the reality we live in. Being untrue, and yet obviously perceived, reality is therefore an illusion, usually called Maya. With the body and the manifestations of the mind, it’s the same. Everything is always changing except one thing, which is so obvious to us that we forget its presence : our faculty of being conscious and knowing spontaneously, consciousness itself. The very fact of being conscious never changes, only the known object can do it constantly. So philosophically speaking, we can say that the fact of being conscious, consciousness itself, is true, and reality, what consciousness is conscious of, is an illusion. And since you are conscious of your own body and mind, that is to say of yourself, draw the most obvious conclusion about what you really are. Are you that self of yours or are you consciousness knowing that very same self ?

Worry or wonder

Not only you will never be able to free yourself from your own mind, but before all, understand that you absolutely don't need to do so since you are the personal identity that allows the mind to express itself. The ego is a term used in psychology and it simply means "I, me and myself". And you would like to free yourself from it ? Better to say that the mind wants to be liberated from the mind or "I, me and myself" want to be free from "I, me and myself". That makes no sense, the Neo "Advaita speak" is simply absurd.

"This is my body, my thoughts, my actions, my decisions, my will, my pleasures and pains, my feelings and emotions, my imagination, my power, my intelligence, my house, my car, my job, etc.." "They are mine. It is I who ..." "I and I and I and I and I... " And this is not a love song, you know it very well. It's self-love and narcissism making you sick of yourself, but that's not a love song making you happy, no doubt about it !

But who is that egocentric entity claiming to own so much and so many faculties? Isn't it you ? Isn't it the mind that expresses itself personally by using the words "Me, I, myself, my and mine" ? Yes, only words, ideas, concepts, mental products and so-called illusions, but what do they really mean ? You don't use that kind of terminology for the pleasure of deluding yourself.

The ego, that is to say "you", doesn’t really have mental faculties, it’s the mind that expresses itself through its own faculties and calling itself "I, me and myself" for only the sake of linguistic in order to make sense when it communicates with itself or with other minds. The personal identity 'I', that is to say the ego, is not even a ghost in the machine, it is only a concept, an idea, a word, a linguistic sign. It has no power at all, not even of thinking. And yet you are able to think all day long. So aren’t you the mind that uses the concept 'I' to express itself ? And that "I" wants to be free from its ego and from its mind, and on top of it, from its body ? It's a big joke, that will never happen.

But if we are the mind that expresses itself through its own personal identity called "I" or that personal identity which does it with its own mind, what does it really change ? Absolutely nothing ! On the path of knowledge, we can however understand that the quest for a "personal" liberation is just pointless, and such an understanding is certainly not nothing. It is instead a considerable time savings that we can now use for a genuine spiritual quest, a very real search for the truth, and not for the fulfillment of crazy dreams with Neo Advaita concepts that make no sense at all.

Therefore, what really is this truth ? It is so simple and obvious that, as a matter of fact that no one would deny, we can only ignore it. So let us be simple, nothing more than clear and obvious, what is our main personal quality and faculty, and also the quality and faculty of the mind ? Just see it and realize it by yourself.

We are conscious during the waking state and also when we dream. We can naturally be conscious of a multitude of perceptions and mental events, real or totally illusory, it simply doesn't matter. But the very fact of being conscious itself never changes and it cannot be denied. So what is our true nature and also the one of the mind, a true nature, which is necessarily constant and immutable ?

The fact of being conscious, i.e. consciousness itself, is our true nature, the true nature of self-consciousness, the ego, the mind or whatever. And it is also the truth and knowledge that you are searching for. So instead of living permanently with our body, our thoughts, our worries and suffering, we can also live with the presence of that consciousness. And see for yourself what that will provoke sooner or later in your own life.

There is no difference between Self-realization and the truth. You are consciousness and the Self, realize that simple fact and the mind will become a source of wonder and not any more of burden.

2 / 11 / 2013

"Evolving consciousness", a Neo Advaita crazy concept

When we hear questions like "Does consciousness is evolving ?", it’s very clear that we have to define what consciousness means in that specific context. From the standpoint of Advaita Vedanta, consciousness, Chit in Sanskrit, cannot evolve because it’s by definition immutable, changeless, that is to say true or, if you will, it is the supreme truth. Sat Chit Ananda, being-consciousness-bliss, cannot change because it’s identical to Brahman, God, and God cannot obviously change or become in any circumstance something else than God. So God never changes, transforms itself since it has not form, nor evolves and devolves. Such a line of reasoning is not metaphysical, but only very basic, simple and logical even if you don't believe in God because you believe at the very least that consciousness is not figment of imagination. And if God or consciousness is the truth and the truth has to always be the same in order to really be true, God and consciousness must be changeless, therefore they cannot evolve, that is to say change in any ways.

Gaudapada put it very simply to explain what might seem incomprehensible. He says : "The immortal cannot become mortal, nor can the mortal become immortal." In other words, we can ask "Is God, the Divine, that is to say being-consciousness-bliss, mortal ?". The answer is pretty obvious even if you don't believe in God because being and being conscious are facts for everyone. And the most funny in that kind of logic is that, if you really believe in yourself, in the very fact of being and being conscious, you obviously believe in God too. So if you ever hear atheists telling you that they believe in themselves, please, don't start laughing like crazy because they won't understand why.

Now, if we speak about individual consciousness and what it could mean, it’s of course evolving and always changing. It can psychologically, intellectually, emotionally, that is to say mentally progress or regress too. But from the standpoint of Advaita Vedanta, individual consciousness is nothing more than the mind thinking : "I’m conscious of myself." Individual consciousness is not pure or universal consciousness. Only the true nature of that individual consciousness is pure and universal, it si the reflection of pure consciousness on the intellect giving rise to the mind with its own faculty of being personally conscious.

Please, understand very well in your practice of self-inquiry, introspection or meditation that consciousness and your personal faculty of being conscious cannot change, that's a fact you can easily verify by simply watching your thoughts, feelings, sensations and so on. What you are conscious of is always changing, but the very fact of being conscious is immutable. And it is this very fact that you are trying to fully realize in your quest for Self-realization, the fact that you are a conscious being, i.e. being and consciousness, Sat and Chit, and not body and mind.

Consciousness is always conscious..., of course !

If consciousness could forget itself just for a split-second, why to call it consciousness and not the mind ? Only the mind can dive in deep sleep state, i.e. the unconscious. On the other hand, consciousness is immutable and perpetually aware, even when there is nothing to watch and contemplate because it can always be at least aware of itself, a presence of pure and perfect bliss.

To think that consciousness could forget itself and need to be awakened for some reasons is just an absurdity, a contradiction, complete nonsense.

3 / 4 / 2013

The concept of relation in Advaita philosophy

In the world we live in, everything is in relation with something else, and the initial relation that nobody can deny is obviously the relation of "I" with something belonging to the inner or outer world.

Everything we know determines in other words a perception, which reveals the relation between an object of perception and the subject of that very same perception, i.e. this "I, me and myself" who is supposed to perceive something different from what it seems to have and also be. So what is the true nature of this perception, which establishes the apparent existence of a subject in relation with an object, of this "I, me and myself" with an inner or outer world of manifestations ?

For a better understanding of what the concept of non-duality means, let us compare a perception to a schoolchild’s graduated ruler with four faces. The two sections that determine the beginning and the end of the ruler would symbolize each one the subject and the object of a perception, and the ruler itself would represent the perception happening in time and space. And let us say in order to complete that metaphor and for better understanding that the four faces of the ruler would be the four primordial elements : earth, water, fire and air, and the volume of the ruler would the fifth element, ether.

In that representation or description of a perception, the question raises by non-duality philosophy is quite simple : "Can we separate one section from the ruler itself and so from the other section at the opposite side ?" Such a question obviously doesn’t make sense. A ruler can only be what it is because it has two sections that give it a dimension, a length. But here, as far as we are really concerned, the true question a lot more sensible would be : "Can we separate an object of perception from the subject of that perception, this 'I, me and myself' from his or her own perceptions, at the very moment something manifests in the field of consciousness ?" Of course not, subject and object are interdependent. If we can perceive one, the other must also be present.

The point of those pretty weird questions is that nobody can deny the manifestation of one's own perceptions, and the fact that we are conscious of them. But is there any "I, me and myself" as a subject separated from his or her own perceptions, and consequently also separated from the objects of his or her perception ? It's impossible. And can we separate consciousness itself from any perceptions ? Neither, it’s not only impossible, but it doesn't make sense. It simply means that the very fact of being conscious must always be present when we are awake and even when we dream. And that raises many questions about the waking state, the dreaming state and also the deep sleep state where it seems that consciousness simply stops.

So because there is an undeniable relation of a subject with an object, but both of them are inseparable, and because consciousness (the fact of being conscious) is obviously inseparable from every perception too, we can state that there is absolutely no duality, or in other words, the duality we used to perceive, the separation between the "I, me and myself" and the world of inner or outer perceptions, can only be an illusion.

That’s the most basic understanding of the concept of non-duality in Advaita Vedanta philosophy, which finally infers that the mind and the ego, this "I, me and myself" as an entity separated from his or her own perceptions, that is to say that very duality, is nothing more than an illusion, a mind trick because only the mind can apparently create out of nothing the idea of "I, me and myself". Consciousness doesn't create anything, it's only the witness.

Those questions and answers explains the concept of relation creating an illusion. But now we can wonder why this illusion is perceived as a very real fact that no one can deny. I cannot deny that I perceive the words I'm writing and you cannot deny that you perceive the words you are reading. That will be the purpose of the second phase of the Advaita philosophical system, the crux of that sacred knowledge, which, sincerely speaking, is extremely simple to understand. As already mentioned, the "I" and "you" apparently perceiving the object of their own perceptions don't exist anywhere, not even somewhere in the mind. We cannot deny the presence and manifestations of our body and mind, but as far as we are personally concerned, we cannot find ourselves anywhere.

4 / 7 / 2013

The experience of so-called non-duality is, in fact, the experience of pure consciousness, non-duality being a philosophical system based on reasoning, logic and thoughts.

Only when the knower and the known, the experiencer and the experience merge into pure consciousness, the so-called experience of non-duality seems to happen. But let us be clear on that point, neither one nor the other disappear. Nothing could be known and experienced without at the very least a separated being knowing and experiencing that so-called non-duality. And it goes the same with Self-realization. If it's not a human being, Jivatman, who realizes the Self in order to become a liberated human being, Jivanmukta, who or what could it be ? It's certainly not God, the Self or pure consciousness, that would realize what God, the Self or pure consciousness are. And yet that's what we hear currently today in Neo Satsang.

The ever-changing reality cannot be separated from pure consciousness, but they are not the same since reality is always transient and consciousness always immutable. So we cannot separate one from the other, but we obviously can distinguish the nature of reality from the one of being conscious of it.

And what’s about the so-called knower or experiencer, the one who generally thinks to know the reality he or she used to perceive ? Nothing really change during the experience of non-duality. He or she didn’t really exist before the experience, and so he or she doesn’t really exist during and after either. Only the apparent presence of "I, me and myself" and of the mind seem to disappear. As a matter of fact, their apparent presence doesn't stop at all otherwise no experience and perception would occur and that person would be unable to live in the world. Only the manifestations of the mind, "I, me and myself" cease for a while.

That so-called experience of non-duality simply reveals that pure consciousness, i.e. the faculty of being conscious, cannot be separated from any perceived reality, Maya, and yet, that consciousness is totally different from the same reality because their nature is absolutely different, one is immutable and the other always changing. That's all we have to understand in the concept of duality and non-duality.

The one without the other

The Mantra or concept "I am the witness" is quite correct and very easy to experience, but it doesn’t determine any Self-realization. It’s nothing more than an idea and a mental impression, kind of feeling and state of mind resulting from the practice of meditation, Self-inquiry and insight.

The direct experience of "I am the witness" of something, which is obviously different of what "I am" determines, in fact, what is called duality and absolutely not non-duality since whatever or whoever I am, I can only be the witness if I'm witnessing something, which cannot be the witness per se.

Non-duality means that there is no difference and no separation. It's the experience of a perfect oneness between the witness and what he or she perceived, between consciousness and any perceived reality, that is to say between Brahman and Maya. It's the experience of that "One without a second" : Ekam Evam Advitiyam.

And that experience is only possible in the apparent absence of the mind, in the absence of its manifestations, of every mental impression and state of mind, which generally generates the apparent presence of "I, me and myself", the ego.

But we cannot lose sight of the fact that the concept "One without a second" is totally different from the Neo Advaita concept "Oneness", everything is One, because consciousness will never be one and the same with reality, nor Brahman could be identical to Maya. Take any of your perceptions, you will never be able to separate the object of your perception from the fact of being conscious of it, but they are obviously not identical. They are not different if you consider that they cannot be separated from each other, and yet they are not the same if you realize that their very nature is totally different.

Reflection in a mirror

"I know that I am" simply means that "consciousness is the witness of the manifestations of the mind that takes the concept 'I' to express personally itself".

And that "I know that I am" is, in fact, the expression of a very ordinary experience that everybody knows, but to which we unfortunately never pay attention.

As a matter of fact, we all know that we are, that is to say we like it or not, we exist somewhere in space and time since we are aware of it. But we are usually satisfied with that fact without trying to know what it really means and especially without realizing the scope of such a revelation. If "I know that I am", does it mean that "I know that I have a body and mind", or "I know that I'm conscious and that 'I' is essentially conscious" ?

4 / 15 / 2013

Consciousness is truly everywhere and nowhere

And that doesn't help to find it inside or outside ourselves, of course !

When people speak about the presence of consciousness, the true witness or what they also sometimes call the "background or screen", they theoretically consider this power of watching to be somehow "behind" themselves, and sometimes in a very funny way, they show with their hand a location behind and outside their own head.

They don’t seem to understand that this so-called background, screen or presence is everywhere, in front of them, behind, inside and outside themselves. It’s like space itself. How could we differentiate the space inside the body and the one outside especially when we are moving ? Space is everywhere. There is only one space and one consciousness too. And because it’s permanently everywhere and precisely nowhere, we don’t realize its presence nor its supreme existence, its immanence.

4 / 29 / 2013

What we really need to know about life

First the bad news is that we’re in free fall forever. Then the good news is that there is no ground to crush on. So, please, be safe, there is nothing to fear. And moreover we usually don't feel it, or let us say not very often.

Having understood that, we may wish to stop falling down and down and down since it's somehow pretty boring. And here comes the planet "Advaita" on which we can nevertheless smoothly land on.

It’s not the paradise, but it helps a lot. It's not going to change or save the world nor ourselves, but it can radically make our life very different.

Have a good trip, folks, because that's the ultimate trip of your life. Compared to that kind of spiritual journey, climbing Mount Everest is for psychedelic babies learning how to walk. It takes a lot more than a guide, a good map and few Sherpa to reach the peak of consciousness, pure bliss.

Two very different description of what reality is

Conventional description and the experiential one :

The conventional description is very simple and everybody knows it. For instance, I see the world through my eyes because I have a body and a brain gifted with mental faculties, which make that kind of perception possible. In other words, I live in my head and use my body to do things, to act, react and survive.

The so-called experiential description that everybody also knows at any times during the waking state is quite different and so strange that it’s almost impossible to believe that we are truly living in such a crazy reality.

Let’s start with some questions in order to understand how the experiential description really looks like. Can we differentiate the object of a perception from the perception itself ? It’s, of course, impossible.

We can differentiate an object we see from the eyes that are seeing it because they are obviously not the same, but not from the faculty of seeing itself. And it also works with the faculty of being conscious of it, which means with consciousness itself. Nobody can separate the object of a perception as seeing, hearing, touching, smelling and tasting from the faculty of perceiving it, of being conscious of it and finally from what we usually call "consciousness" if we have already reached that kind of understanding.

We certainly can understand such a fact with our conceptual intelligence and some explanations, but do you realize what it means ? I remind you that we are speaking about an experiential description, about how we really experience reality moment after moment during our waking state.

If we cannot differentiate the object of a perception from the faculty of knowing it, i.e. consciousness itself, it also means that we cannot separate them. So when we see a tree, for instance, whatever the distance that separates us, the tree and the consciousness of it are inseparable because there is no way to differentiate one from the other. And it means that, in fact, there is absolutely distance at all between the faculty of knowing and what seems very far from it. Isn't it crazy ?

When we are looking at a beautiful landscape with mountains, rivers, valleys, the sky, the sun, etc., consciousness is, in fact, everywhere in the whole landscape. And it also means that we are not only looking at the landscape, but also at consciousness itself. Now it's getting really crazy. All the space is, if you will, completely filled with consciousness as far as we can see, listen to, smell, touch and taste. And it even goes much further.

In other words, all the space we live in is purely and simply pervaded by the presence of consciousness as far as we can see, listen to, smell, touch and taste. And of course, it goes the same for the so-called space inside ourselves, body and mind. As you can see, that’s a quite different description of the reality that we used to think of and live in. But that description is nothing more than experiential, that is to say the ordinary one we constantly know without thinking and experience as soon as we wake up every morning.

Your first objection would probably be that consciousness, i.e. our faculty to know and be conscious, is in our mind, that is to say in our brain, which means in our head, and not outside filling in and out space everywhere. Yes, that's correct, but that brings us again to a conventional description of reality and not our real experience of it because we only know that we have a mind, a brain and a head when we are conscious of them, and that means again that we cannot differentiate and separate them from consciousness itself. So where is that consciousness ? Let us be clear on a very simple evidence, we can only know a fact when we are conscious of it. That's all we really need to understand about Vedanta, Advaita, the sacred and the spiritual matters in general as far as knowledge is concerned.

Whatever we know and perceive inside or outside ourselves, it’s only possible because we are conscious of it, and because consciousness is precisely where the object of knowledge and experience is, and finally because consciousness is everywhere. Who could deny such an experiential description of reality itself ? It's a simple evidence that everybody already knows even without explanation, understanding and realization.

The experience of having a body and a head and so a brain is only possible in consciousness and not the other way around. Anything happening inside and outside ourselves can only happen in the realm of pure consciousness. And we are obviously conscious of having and not being a body and a head. So we are this consciousness without realizing it although it would be much better to say that pure consciousness is our true nature since it's also impossible to deny that we are without doubt human and conscious beings.

Advaita Vedanta is all about that crazy truth and how to realize it in order that it becomes a fact and not anymore a philosophical concept and intellectual speech. If Gurus and Rishis of ancient times explain and repeat tirelessly that we are not the body and mind, it’s only because consciousness is our true nature, or if you prefer, the true nature of being, of our own existence, is pure consciousness and bliss.

Somehow this pure and universal consciousness that nobody can locate anywhere is much closer to our individual consciousness of being a person, a personal entity, than our own body and mind. The knowledge of having a body and a mind is only possible when we are conscious of them. Fall into a deep sleep and that knowledge stops instantly.

So the ultimate question would be : "Am I consciousness itself or a conscious person or what makes possible the knowledge that I am a person with a body and mind, and consequently, I'm a human being ?"

Here the answer to that crazy question might become very complicated because we are simultaneously all of them. It's only different points of view on the subject according to what we have realized. Nobody can decently think "I'm not conscious, I am not and I don't exist", nobody can pretend "I'm not a conscious person and conscious being", nobody would sincerely believe "I'm not a human being". All those statements are true, but the realization we have of ourselves might be very different from one person to the other.

5 / 4 / 2013

Excerpts, free rendering and personal commentaries of Shankaracharya's "Laghu Vakya Vritti"

"The reflection of pure consciousness on the intellect becomes this well-known impression of being with its sense of individuality."

The intellect works like a mirror, a very special mirror gifted with mental faculties such as thinking, perceiving, reasoning, remembering, calculating and so on. And this intellect, which reflects like a mirror every phenomenon manifested by its mental faculties, can only work when it’s enlightened by the light of consciousness. In the deep sleep state where there is no light of consciousness, nothing conscious, but complete darkness, i.e. pure ignorance, nothing happens, appears and manifests. That light of pure and universal consciousness, which enlightens everything coming from our mental faculties, once reflected on the intellect, produces the so-called individual consciousness, the ego, the mind and the sense of being separated from what is perceived, or in other words, the duality between the subject and the object of all our perceptions.

Let us say, for instance, that we see hundreds moons in hundreds puddles, all of them are, of course, the reflection of only one moon, the one in the sky and not in any puddle, and it’s obviously the light of this real moon that enlightens what we can see in the puddles and the puddle itself. The reflected moon in the puddle, and the so-called individual consciousness created by the intellect, are illusions. And so everything perceived by an illusion becomes an illusion too, that's why we call it Maya.

Just ask yourself "What or who am I?" while facing a mirror and you will understand very quickly the most sublime truth, which has always been right in front of you and even closer to you than your own eyes. You simply cannot be what you see of yourself. And if you think about yourself, you cannot be either what you think. So what or who are you ?

"The Jiva is reincarnated because of its good and bad actions. Therefore, the supreme purpose of life is to discover our true nature by discriminating pure consciousness from its reflection on the intellect, which gives rise to the Jiva, the ego and individual consciousness."

It simply means :

- Good and bad actions are not illusory because they have consequences, and nobody can ignore those very consequences. In simple terms, if you think "I don't care anyway", it might be true at the very moment you are thinking, but surely not when you will reap what you have sown.

- Reincarnation is the only concept which gives a real meaning to life. No reincarnation or at the very least the idea of afterlife, be a good hedonist and forget any idea about spirituality.

- The practice of spiritual disciplines such as Self-inquiry (meditation and discrimination between the obvious fact of being conscious and what is called states of consciousness or states of mind) is a requirement to attain the supreme purpose of life, which is Self-realization, liberation, the truth and so on.

"The intellect illumined by pure consciousness acquires its own brightness and thereby illumines the perceptions of the external world."

Without the light of pure and universal consciousness, the intellect would perceive, know and understand absolutely nothing. We even could not speak of any sort of intellectual and mental faculties if the very fact of being conscious was not present.

"Pure consciousness shines forth by itself in the interval of two modifications of the intellect."

When the mind stops, what’s left is pure consciousness, the simplest expression of being conscious. Between 2 thoughts, for instance, the silence of the mind is similar to the presence of consciousness because consciousness doesn't think nor speak.

"People aspiring to the experience of pure consciousness and liberation should practice the restraint of modification of the intellect."

People who want to be free from the mind should practice concentration and meditation, i.e. Self-inquiry, that is to say ask themselves "Who am I ?", then dive deep into the silence of the mind and see what's there. And that will never happen without concentration. Today Westerners think that mindfulness as kind of meditation in action is enough. Sorry, folks, there is no real practice of mindfulness without concentration. Ask any Buddhist monks who practice mindfulness since that technique of meditation comes from Buddhism, they know it. Every Yogi and lay people who seriously practice Dharana and Dhyana, what really meditation is all about, know it.

"The reflected consciousness, although involved in the modification of the intellect, cannot be separated from Brahman."

There is no difference between the immutable faculty of being conscious that we all have and know very well, and the pure and universal consciousness, that is to say God. Don't forget that there is no difference between Brahman and Atman, the divine principle and the true nature of soul... or more precisely the core of the soul, i.e. what makes possible our own existence and individual consciousness to be a very ordinary fact.

"Having fully understood the meaning of the Mantra 'I am Brahman' ('I am God'), the seeker of truth should meditate unremittingly upon his or her identity with Brahman by any means."

It simply means that nobody realizes the Self by simply drinking tea or eating cookies during Satsang, nor by listening to a true Guru or a Neo Advaita clown who pretends to be a spiritual teacher.

"Meditating upon 'That', talking about 'That', enlightening mutually on 'That' and somehow getting oneself absorbed in 'That' have always been known and taught by the sages as the path of Self-realization."

No commentary, isn't it clear enough ?

5 / 12 / 2013

Who or what is really conscious of the obvious fact that you are personally a conscious being ?

The so-called Self is the ultimate and only true witness, the one watching and knowing because there is obviously no other witness watching and knowing the one who is supposed to watch and know, and so on ad infinitum. That kind of witnessing personality disorder must end somewhere, and, of course, in the only real witness, the Atman, which is also Brahman.

If you understood during meditation by simply watching what's going on inside yourself that you are not the one who seems to know the Self or who could experience pure consciousness, but you can only be this very Self and pure consciousness that knows everything you think to be personally, you are without any doubt on the so-called path of knowledge and very close to its goal, Self-realization, enlightenment, liberation, etc.

The Self will always be the ultimate and impersonal witness of everything you think to know personally. But how could you be a conscious person and the impersonal witness at the same time since you obviously are both ? As a matter of fact, there is absolutely no paradox in such statement because your true nature is to know like anybody else that you are a person, an individual, a human being, but now you have to realize what the true nature of that person really is. Without realizing what the true nature of your own consciousness is, that conceptual knowledge is worthless.

The true nature of a person is not what the person itself is, that is to say a human and conscious being with a body and mind. You are obviously a conscious person, but your true nature is pure and universal consciousness, and it is impersonal, of course. It's very easy to realize by simply watching everything you can perceive of yourself, your own body and mind. What you are watching cannot be what "that" which is watching, so what is it ? It's the Self, pure consciousness. It's very simple to understand and a bit less to realize. Never mind, that's the only point of a true spiritual quest. Just forget any idea of easiness in spiritual matter. Spiritual quest and spiritual life are extremely simple, but if you expect something easy, just forget it.

The key to every paradox in Advaita Vedanta

Buddhi, the intellect, is like a mirror that reflects consciousness and all your perceptions on yourself.

To better understand what it really means, just ask yourself : "Am I the image I see in the mirror or the one who is looking at it ?" Same on the mirror of the intellect : "Am I what I think of myself or the witness watching the thoughts coming from the intellect ?"

5 / 31 / 2013

Let us just be a bit sensible

It is said that the Vedas, books of knowledge and truth, are eternal. They existed before humanity and before the creation started to manifest if we agree that there is a beginning, kind of Big Bang.

The Mahavakya, great sayings, such as "I am Brahman" (the Divine), "Brahman is Sat Chit Ananda" (Being, Consciousness and Bliss), "Brahman and Atman are identical" (the Self), etc. don’t determine the presence of a divine and personal identity that could express itself in space and time since they are impersonal. Who knows where they come from since they and the truth they point to are always ever present ?

The Self as God, divine principle or universal consciousness, is the absolute, and so impersonal and beyond space and time, and it is in this sense that these great sayings existed before the creation and will continue to exist after its dissolution. They don't refer to anything that could manifest in the ordinary world we perceive.

The Mahavakya express in words the unspeakable truth, which must still be passed on as concepts to the intelligence of each individual who obviously has a personal identity. In other words, the truth is directed only to that conceptual intelligence because the personal identity itself is nothing more than a concept, which indicates the presence and existence of a person endowed with a brain. Therefore, the individual can realize the Self and discover the immanent presence of God by first understanding the meaning of the Mahavakya and then by realizing the truth they contain. The Mahavakya are not different from God who is obviously eternal, and it's absolutely clear in the saying "I am Brahman".

It is not God who suddenly discovers what God is. It is not pure consciousness that realizes what its true nature is. The Self, which has never ceased to be the Self, doesn’t unveil all of a sudden during a spiritual awakening or experience its own presence to itself. All that kind of Neo Advaita speak is complete nonsense. The Divine doesn't need anything and certainly not to be awakened or to realize the truth, nor consciousness needs to realize what it is to be conscious. They already are what they are.

To take the classic example of the dream and the dreamer peculiar in the commentary on Advaita Vedanta, the dreamer must remain what it is, i.e. immutable, for the simple reason that if he or she wakes up, the dream and the dream character that he or she embodies in his or her own dream would disappear instantly, and so the notion of dreamer would be meaningless since the person would be awake and not dreaming anymore.

That would mean in other words in the context of our ordinary reality we perceive in our waking state that the creation would be dissolved at the very moment someone realizes the Self. That's very fortunately not the case otherwise God would have to start a new creation not only when someone realizes the Self, but also every time a person experiences pure consciousness, i.e. an awakening, even if that experience lasts only a split-second.

We may suppose that God would like to sleep peacefully without being disturbed and awakened by the people he's dreaming and who may think to awaken in his own dream to the supreme truth. All that kind of Neo spiritual concepts are absurd. God is God, consciousness is conscious, and they are watching our personal show. And when someone thinks to be awakened or awakening, liberated, realized or realizing nobody knows what, they must be bursting out of laughing from such nonsense.

The simple idea of God or pure consciousness claiming anything about their own state is insane. The Mahavakya "I am Brahman" is already the transcript of a truth that has no word and which is eternal. Such words are only good for seekers of truth who try to understand their meaning otherwise they are insane. Who would sincerely believe that Brahman, Sat Chit Ananda, could speak Sanskrit, but not English and Japanese, and moreover speak to some chosen and enlightened ones, and not the others ? Such a God would be incredibly elitist. The Mahavakya are not spoken words, but the expression of a truth that has no word. They are eternal for those who can hear them or like the word Upanishad means, to those who are "sitting near".

6 / 4 / 2013

Mirror

I’m the mirror on which reality is reflected, a magical mirror gifted with many mental faculties and essentially able to know what it reflects.

So in other words, the true nature of that mirror is to be conscious, personally and individually conscious. But is that mirror able to realize what makes it really conscious ? That's the real question because if it has no way to realize it, any attempt of Self-realization and liberation is useless.

If a guru explains it clearly, why the intelligence of any person would not understand that a totally impersonal consciousness makes its intellect personally conscious, that the very fact of being conscious is purely and simply impersonal in every circumstance since it's identical for everyone ? What we are conscious of is obviously different, but the faculty of being conscious is always the same. Anybody can understand and so realize it too.

Be sure of that, before anything else, a liberated person is liberated of being or not being liberated. The idea of being liberated is simply laughable. How a person could become something else of what that person is, a human being, body and mind ? Would someone have to become kind of monster in order to be liberated and realize the Self ? It would be pretty weird for a person who would have realized nothing more than what the true nature of consciousness is. Anyone claiming to be liberated or Self-realized is joking. Only the mind and the ego can claim anything, and especially what they are not. Have you ever met someone telling you : "I'm the mind, I'm the ego, I'm complete ignorance and deluding myself."

6 / 16 / 2013

Free will

"You have control over your own action alone, never over its fruits." Bhagavad Gita

Does it mean that you cannot choose what you are doing or thinking ? Of course not, it's just the contrary, and you know it very well since nothing and nobody asks you to read those words. But you will have no other choice than to bear or appreciate their fruits and consequences. You like it or not, we all have to reap the consequences of our actions and thoughts, even if they only express an emotion.

6 / 23 / 2013

One without a second

Advaita, non-duality, means "not two" or in other terms, there cannot be "one" plus another "one" in order to make "two". So if we cannot put in relation that "one" with something else, how could there be anything beyond non-duality ? If we cannot relate consciousness with a totally unknown phenomena, what are we talking about when someone pretend to go beyond consciousness ? In order to go beyond, that is to say to transcend non-duality and consciousness, we would have to be something totally unconscious and the one who goes beyond "not two", and yet be conscious and different from that "not two" we have transcended. In other words, it's not anymore an awakening personality disorder, but complete insanity.

Self-realization, which determines the experience and pure knowledge of non-duality is absolutely supreme because there cannot be anything beyond. This "nothing beyond", of course, can be called the Divine or divine principle, God, Brahman, the ultimate witness or pure consciousness since the power to know and be conscious is essential in any sort of knowledge.

If pure or universal consciousness, the Self, non-duality, the Divine, Self-realization, liberation, Sahaja Samadhi, etc. didn’t determine a lived and direct experience, a state of being and knowledge obviously known by someone very much human as all the true Gurus are, nobody since beginning of time would have ever been able to think and speak about. Advaita Vedanta is not kind of poetry, it reports very real experiences and realizations that are always the same for everyone realizing the Self or at least experiencing for a while pure consciousness.

"The map is not the territory" Alfred Korzybski

Understand that Advaita Vedanta is not the truth or a philosophy, but as Hindus say, a "philosophical system" created by human beings to explain the sacred truth ? It’s a "system" made of concepts, a paradigm, a model, a way to explain something very important in order to have an idea about it, but the explanation itself is not and cannot the sacred truth, as well as the word tree is not a tree at all, but only a word with a definition not found in nature, but only in a dictionary.

And since the mind is also a "system" made of mental structures, a "system" or mental construct made of concepts and words, and working on itself until a new structure open, so to speak, the all "system", Advaita Vedanta as a philosophical system is very useful because it reveals with concept a truth that cannot be conceptual, but which can at least relax the mind by answering many of its questions.

Advaita Vedanta is not kind of "system" like a virus created to destroy the mind and all its programs, but to open it up to pure consciousness. It helps to understand what spirituality really is all about, and then it gives tools, techniques, practices, paths and keys to achieve Self-realization. How could we ask for more ? It's already all we need to know, understand and realize the Self.

Excerpts, free rendering and personal commentaries of "Drig Drishya Viveka" of Shri Shankaracharya

"Consciousness never wakes up nor fades away. It never increases nor decreases. Being pure light, it enlightens everything with its own and supreme nature."

Consciousness is immutable. So when someone speaks about the evolution of consciousness, it’s probably about civilization, culture, mentality, personality, mind, collective unconscious, individual consciousness or personal knowledge, but surely not about consciousness itself, otherwise it would mean that God or Brahman, the divine principle, and even the Atman, the witness, are also able to evolve, develop and also improve themselves, although the idea of God getting better doesn't make sense at all.

It’s so obvious that consciousness enlightens everything, every manifestation inside and outside ourselves with its own light that it would be difficult to speak more about if not by simply asking : "Could you be aware of and know anything if you were not aware of and knowing it ?" In other words, could we be conscious when we are unconscious ?

As a matter of fact, those questions have no meaning since we can only know and be aware of something if we are conscious of it. So there is, in fact, absolutely no difference between a manifestation and the consciousness of it, reality and knowledge. No difference..., but we can nevertheless distinguish the manifestation of a phenomenon from consciousness itself by its transitory nature whereas consciousness will always be immutable forever.

The very fact to perceive, discover, contemplate, know and be the witness of what comes to our knowledge during the waking state cannot evolve or change. Again, by definition, the Divine and pure consciousness are changeless and without any shape, without name and form. And if it's changeless, it's obviously eternal. And if it's eternal, it transcends time and space, that is to say the whole universe. But if it allows us to know time and space, the world we live in, it has to also be immanent. So pure consciousness is transcendent and immanent, both at the very same time.

What could we do with such knowledge of an apparently pure and universal consciousness and unattainable God when we perfectly know that we only are small human creatures ? Does such knowledge have any real purpose, some practical consequences ? We are human, that's a fact, but as everybody knows, we also are conscious beings. Would it mean that our true nature is a lot more than human, that it could be absolutely divine although we are and will be nothing more than simple and small humans in the real world we live in ?

"The intellect (Buddhi) only seems luminous when it reflects the presence of consciousness, which itself is pure light. This reflection of consciousness on the intellect gives birth to the mind and ego."

The intellect or even the mind itself only seems a conscious faculty because it works like a mirror. The reflection of pure consciousness on the intellect makes it conscious. No mental faculty such as perception, memory, imagination, reason could occur if consciousness was not present to enlighten and reveal their manifestations. The intellect itself or mind is merely an abstraction, which reflects what its mental faculties manifest and, of course, the unchanging presence of pure consciousness. The intellect and mind seem to take reality and so become kind of separate entity when they apparently give birth to a personal identity or entity also called ego in order to express themselves personally and in a consistent way.

As a matter of fact, there is no ego without manifestations of the mind and the intellect, a basic intelligence, and there is no manifestation of the mind without a personal identity or entity, an ego that could identify itself to at least the mind. To say that the ego, this so-called personal identity or entity, identifies with the mind is more a figure of speech than a real fact since it's truly and obviously the mind that creates and projects in itself this personal identity or entity in order to express itself intelligently. For instance, thoughts don't come out of the blue, they are clearly a manifestation of the mind and the intellect. And when we claim "I'm thinking", it's clearly the mind that is expressing itself, the "I" as such is only necessary for the sake of linguistic and communication.

The intellect is at the service of the individual to enable that person to survive intelligently with all its abilities and faculties, to live mentally as an individual different and separated from the others on every level, and to live egoistically in order to pursue his own personal development, which inevitably involves desires, quest for satisfactions and the pursuit of pleasure. There is nothing bad or wrong in that kind of functioning. It's just our very human condition.

The only real problem of an ordinary human being starts when personal development and quest for satisfaction becomes an obsession and suffering, which very quickly disrupt the mental faculties of the intellect, then the nervous system, then the energetic body, and finally the physical body. That person now has only to come back to normal functions of the mind and the intellect with the help of spiritual practices to find again a healthy functioning, i.e. a physical, energetic, nervous and mental balance that will enable to understand that true personal development can only take place in becoming impersonal, that is to say absolutely selfless and not anymore egoistical. Egocentricity is the natural response of our survival instinct, but when that egocentrism becomes selfishness, hypocrisy and greed, i.e. pure egoism, that's not a necessity or a need, and moreover it's going to hurt everybody, including the person expressing that kind of egoism going far beyond any sort of survival instinct and normal life.

In other words, to survive and live, and do it in the very best conditions possible is quite natural, even animals do it although they never take more than what they need, but when that quest for the best survival and life breaks the mental balance necessary to live well, there is obviously a serious problem because the result is exactly the opposite of what was expected at the very beginning of that quest for survival, security, comfort and well-being.

"It’s by the identification with the reflection of consciousness on the intellect and with the body that the ego apparently becomes a conscious entity."

"I, me and myself", the personal identity and entity in other words, result from a simple identification process, so to speak. Let us remember that the identity, entity or ego has been developed by the mind and the intellect out of necessity in order to express what they contain as an intelligent individual obviously different and separated from the others.

This conscious entity or ego, usually called individual or self-consciousness, is not kind of incarnation of evil as some very awakened Neo gurus claim today, nor the cause of all our problems. If we really want to find out what is responsible for our suffering, it would be much easier by simply studying our personal psychology and mind functioning, by contemplating the consequences of our "selfishness, greed and hypocrisy" instead of exploring the mind in order to find out how ugly looks like the ego, which obviously doesn’t have any face, being only a concept.

"The process of identification with the reflection of pure consciousness, with the body and with the so-called 'witness' gives rise to the ego."

The identification with the reflection of pure consciousness produces the personal impression "I'm a conscious being separated from other beings".

The identification with the body produces the personal impression "I’m a human being, a man or a woman separated from other men and women".

The identification with the so-called "witness" produces the personal impression "I’m a sentient and intelligent being who knows that he or she is different from the others".

And without this personal identity "I" and all its identification with body and mind, "being" remains conscious and intelligent, but not anymore human. "Being" is now purely divine ; "being" or "I am" is nothing else than "Sat Chit Ananda", pure being, pure consciousness and pure bliss.

"The identification with the reflection of consciousness on the intellect, which is natural, is not destroyed as long as it’s necessary. The 2 others identifications with the body and the so-called 'witness' disappear with Self-realization."

As long as the person is alive, he or she has to remain conscious as an independent and separated being in order to survive. His or her intellect has to work naturally and consciously otherwise that person would die very quickly, and therefore the concept of "oneness" as it is defined today is utterly absurd.

The 2 other modes of identification with the body and the so-called "witness", or spectator of an amazing show made of an infinite amount of perceptions, are not important nor necessary, but illusory, because in any cases, the main function of the intellect with all its mental faculties is to take care of the body, i.e. the person who is living in a world where survival is obviously not a joke or kind of illusion.

And as far as the so-called "witness" is concerned, it truly is and has always been pure consciousness itself. So Self-realization doesn’t change anything since it's always present in each of us, and yet, it changes everything because the ego and the knowledge it has of its own apparent existence as an individual separated from the others and its environment are now only functional and nothing more. In other words, the ego, "I, me and myself", don’t have any other function, as all the other mental faculties of the intellect, than to contribute to the survival and well-being of a person called at present a liberated being, a Jivanmukta, since Self-realization doesn’t make this human being becoming less human. It would be pretty much the opposite. By realizing what the true nature of self-consciousness is, and so now living in a natural state of pure consciousness not anymore self-centered, the individual becomes more than human. That kind of being is really divine and humane for his or her consciousness is universal and identical to Brahman. The natural state of consciousness for everybody is exactly the same and since it is not a by-product of the mind and so egoistical, it is absolutely pure.

"The subtle body which is not conscious is the cause of the appearance of the mind and the ego. It is born and it will die."

There is no difference between the subtle body, the mind and the ego. They determine what is called the Jiva, the individual soul or self-consciousness as a separated being, and Ahamkara, the personal identity or ego born out of ignorance of its true nature, pure consciousness itself. This subtle body is born and will die, and it will tirelessly reincarnate until Self-realization is achieved. That Self-realization or spiritual liberation is not only the end of the cycle of reincarnation ; it’s also the end of suffering and ignorance of our true nature that we usually associate to the body.

If we identify with the body, our real dimension compared to the universe is tiny and such a limited existence will inevitably cause suffering and ignorance. On the other hand, if we realize that the true nature of our existence is the Self and universal consciousness, we are infinitely more spacious than the entire universe, and so we can really have the impression to incarnate an ocean of bliss or bliss itself, Ananda. Bliss is far more than infinite happiness or self-contentment, the self-satisfaction that we experience in specific situations, it's purely divine and inconceivable. Bliss can only be experienced after Self-realization or during the experience of our natural state, Sahaja Samadhi, ususally called today an awakening.

"Maya, the cosmic illusion or universe in which we live, has the power to project and hide behind a veil. Maya projects everything we perceived inside and outside ourselves."

Brahman, the Divine, is absolute. He has no relationship whatsoever with anything ; that’s what the term "absolute" means in opposition to the term "relative", in relation with. So Brahman cannot be the cause of the creation of the universe nor being subject to any sort of consequences, i.e. relation of cause and effect, that is to say Karma. It is therefore Maya, this magical power behind of veil of illusions and forever incomprehensible, which is responsible for the manifestation of the creation.

On the other hand, Brahman is absolutely true, and by definition, the supreme truth is immutable. It is impossible to conceive a truth that would be true now and false at another time, and again true later on. But as we know, everything which determines the creation and manifestations of the universe, including ourselves personally, are in perpetual transformation except one element, space, that apparently never changes. But being inseparable from "time", the temporal dimension always and systematically associated with space, we cannot really consider space itself as an immutable element, let alone the fact that the universe with its spatial and temporal dimension is subject to constant dissolution and new creation.

We infer therefore that "Brahman is true" since it never changes, and "Maya is an illusion" in perpetual transformation, neither true nor false, but what could be simply described as real because it projects the obvious reality in which we live. That reality called an illusion or Maya, compared to the true nature of Brahman, does not really make sense unless we explain the difference between the immutable character of pure consciousness, the witness, and the transitory nature of all manifestations, the world we live in inside and outside ourselves.

And eventually Shri Shankaracharya would end his explanation by suggesting that ultimately Brahman is also the universe. That statement can be taken as a contradiction, a paradox or simply an obvious fact since if the Divine, that is to say pure and universal consciousness, is really the absolute, it necessarily is the substance or supreme cause of all illusions, Maya, or as it is said sometimes, the background or screen on which the creation is projected as a movie, and moreover the conscious principle that makes everybody personally conscious. Therefore, on one hand, Brahman cannot be the universe because it is not subject to any relation of cause and effect and it is immutable, only Maya can make the universe appearing. And on the other hand, Maya cannot come from nothing and have any absolute reality of its own, and so Brahman has to be its ultimate cause and intrinsic nature. Brahman is not the manifestation of the universe as a phenomenon that could be known by the senses, but it has to be its ultimate substance, the noumenon that can be known in itself. If that is understood, there is no contradiction or paradox in the statement : "Brahman is real, Maya is an illusion, Brahman is Maya."

"The creation is nothing more than the manifestation of names and forms in consciousness, which is nothing else than Brahman, just like waves are movements on the ocean."

Trying to find out if a wave in relation with the ocean is true or untrue, real or illusory, doesn’t really make sense. It’s quite clear that a wave is not the ocean nor it is separated from it. It goes the same for the dreamer and the dream, which is nothing more than a projection of the mind, but not the mind itself. Whatever the creation is, we cannot deny the experience we have of it and this experience obviously occurs in the presence of consciousness. So the true question can only be about the true nature of that self-consciousness and not about the creation we perceive as "witness" of an amazing performance, dance of Shiva, Lila or whatever you want to call the manifestation of the universe.

We will never know what the creation really is before to realize what the true nature of our own existence and self-consciousness is. That’s precisely the point of the practice of Self-inquiry, Vichara, which is with Vairagya, renouncement, the means to realize the Self.

And this beautiful aphorism of Shri Shankaracharya raises the funny question : "Does a wave can be liberated from the ocean ?" And the obvious answer would be : "Yes, of course", if the wave realizes that it is not separated from the ocean and never will be, and if it also realizes that it is nothing more than water as the whole ocean is made of, and only a name and form due to the real nature of the entire ocean.

Let's not forget that before to realize it, this wave believed that its self-consciousness, so to speak, its very individual awareness of being a wave, was separated and different from the ocean... of pure and universal consciousness, which is pure bliss. And by doing so, that poor wave lost all its bliss, its true nature, that is called ignorance.

8 / 8 / 2013

Being there

If the Divine is omnipresent, infinite and eternal, there is no place and no time when and where the Divine is not there at present. So where is it now ?

If I’m only a wave on the ocean, is that really a problem ? Everybody loves to be a wave on top of the ocean. That wave inside our mind is called "I, me and myself", self-esteem, pride, egocentrism, narcissism and so on.

And that personal identity gives us the opportunity to contemplate the sky above the ocean. Is that really a problem not to be the ocean, but only a wave ? Anyhow it’s not because we have a name and a form that we are separated from the ocean. It’s quite the opposite. Without names and forms, we would have never been aware of what the ocean could really be.

Instead of complaining of what we are, we certainly can be delighted at the idea of being different and not separated from the ocean. That's the purpose of such knowledge. I'm a wave, so what ? I'm only a human being in the whole universe, what's the problem. I'm suffering because I'm not the whole universe ? Come on, man, stop dreaming. I'm already universal consciousness, and now I'd to be an appearance in that consciousness ? That cosmic mind game is ridiculous.

8 / 22 / 2013

"No knowledge, as vast as it is, makes it possible to attain the plenitude of wisdom without the knowledge of oneself." Saint Bernard de Clairvaux

Conceptual or not, knowledge is always an enlightenment in the mind. Isn't it ???

The source of all knowledge

"Know That By Which All Else Is Known." Mundaka Upanishad

It’s utterly useless to intellectualize and complicate the knowledge called Advaita Vedanta because it’s in fact crystal clear and extremely simple. Although this philosophy relies on logic and sacred truth that cannot be questioned, kind of very sophisticated intellectualism and paradigm, this philosophical system relies only on an experiential and not conceptual knowledge, which is so evident that it can apparently become very complicated and difficult to understand. In order to understand Advaita Vedanta, we only need to read the words without any personal interpretation.

10 / 3 / 2013

Even more simple to understand

The supreme truth is not a thought that could be understood. So if you search for it, you will have to find it not in your reasoning and thoughts, but in the silence of the mind.

Is it logical ? Probably, but how to really understand that the supreme truth is not a thought ? The only way that humans have found is to realize the Self, what our true nature is. Such a realization is far beyond any sort of understanding relying on thoughts and conceptual intelligence.

Intellectual understanding is very different of experiential realization. Self-realization is beyond proof, logic, concept, reasoning, dogma and faith. It's nothing more than a fact that cannot be denied, the simple fact that consciousness is supreme and beyond duality.

Consciousness cannot be less than pure bliss, the foundation of intelligence. Who doesn't experience an unspeakable joy in the pure understanding of a simple fact ? Just look around and enjoy. Is that intelligence already an amazing enlightenment ? Doesn't every single perception we have from anything inside and outside ourselves reveal that our true nature is already pure bliss ? Bliss might be very different from what you think. What about having the immense privilege to perceive the creation with our own senses and just be alive.

Is consciousness communicating with consciousness ? The movie is not the screen. It’s true that the projection of the movie is only possible because of the presence of the screen. But the screen is not the movie nor is the movie identical to the screen. Tonight, let's go watch a screen. I think I would prefer to watch a movie, it might be only an illusion, but it's more spectacular than a blank screen.

Consciousness doesn’t think nor speak. Consciousness watches its Maya, Lila, dance, manifestations, illusory appearance, the movie. Being "one without a second", the perfect expression of non-duality, it cannot communicate with something and someone "else", a second. "Consciousness speaks" or "silence speaks" is pure nonsense, the expression of an insane arrogance.

The absence of relation determines the true nature of consciousness. There is no relation between pure consciousness and any manifestation, except the fact of watching and knowing it, but that cannot be called a relation. Watching and knowing are just the opposite process of being in relation with, it means "not attached to" and therefore, "free" from it.

Non-duality and Oneness

Non-duality doesn’t mean oneness, unity, sameness, identical, indistinguishable, similar, analogous and uniform, or without any separation, difference and identity. It means that the relation between object and subject is an illusion, object and subject of perception.

Isn't it obvious that awareness is quite distinct from anything we perceive ? On the other hand, oneness is a very ambiguous term, which doesn’t express what non-duality truly is and even much less what the true nature of reality could be, a reality that cannot be denied whatsoever.

Non-duality means : "Yes of course, there is duality in everything, everywhere and all the time in a context where everything is obviously in relation with something else and so different. Of course, when there is something high, there is obviously something low, something heavy, something light, if there is white there is also black, and so on. It’s a fact, but it’s not ‘that’. That’s not what we are looking for. That's not the truth, the Self and what non-duality is all about."

In a spiritual context, non-duality determine spiritual liberation, the presence and realization of the Self and pure consciousness, the cognitive embodiment of being as such. But if someone was truly experiencing oneness, that is to say not being separated from anything, he or she wouldn’t be able to survive a very long time. Just imagine what would happen if you couldn’t differentiate anymore yourself from the chair on which you are sitting right now, or your feet from the floor. Just like a personal identity or ego is necessary in order to communicate intelligently, the individual consciousness as a person different from the surrounding world and the others is essential to live normally, that is to say to be relatively sane. Just forget every Neo concept, Neo teaching and Neo Advaita if you want to understand what non-duality really means. Advaita Vedanta is crystal clear, Neo Advaita is kind of cheap pseudo metaphysics that doesn't make sense at all. Anyhow, who would sincerely be the whole universe ? Don't we have enough problems by only being a human being separated and different from it ?

10 / 24 / 2013

Beyond the big dream

"All fear is born of duality" (Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 1.42)

And of course, anxiety and desire too. But who can say : "I'm without desire, anxiety and fear ?" Who can really pretend to be totally liberated, and from what ? Who can really live with "So be it !" in one's mind ?

There is no fear in pure consciousness, but life itself is not pure consciousness. Life is our human condition. So do we have to deny this very life and human condition in order to be liberated ? If there is a real spiritual liberation in the fact that we are human and conscious being, that liberation cannot proceed from the denial of our most obvious condition.

We search for spiritual liberation because we are human beings. As far as we know, animals don't. So let us be happy to be what we are, and search for the true nature of being without denying that we are human. The statement "We are not body and mind" concerns the true nature of self-consciousness. But without body and mind, the fact of being human, there is no self-consciousness at all, and there is no inquiry, no liberation, no Self-realization, there is nothing. A spiritual quest doesn't mean that we have to drop all basic common sense and start believing in frivolous and unfounded nonsense.

1 / 9 / 2014

The sacred, echo of reality, and reality, echo of the sacred

"I am Brahman" or in other words, I am the Divine, is a sacred Mantra, words that I cannot express personally. This Mantra doesn't concern "I, me and myself", it's the echo of our true nature resonating in the mind through language. It's somehow a vibration taking form and name, sounds and words.

It’s quite obvious that "I am Brahman", that is to God, doesn’t have any relation with my body and mind, with the person that I am, with anything that I could know about myself. So what's the point of such a Mantra ?

When Lao Tzu explains that the Tao one can speak of is not the Tao, he's nevertheless very clearly speaking of the Tao and nothing else. Same with the Mantra "I am Brahman". Brahman never speaks, but the Mantra tells us without any doubt that Brahman exists, not only exists, but also that his very existence is "One without a second", that is to say absolute and without any sort of duality. "I am Brahman" is simply pointing to the presence of pure consciousness and the absolute that never speak and don't need to in order to be known. If we want to understand for ourselves what this Mantra really means, it simply says : "Just open your eyes and mind, here I am !"

20 / 4 / 2014

Yes..., but no !

We could say that ice is made of water. But we will never say that water is made of ice.

Brahman is Maya, but Maya is not Brahman because the manifestation of an illusion cannot be nor become real and true.

So how could Brahman be Maya, that is to say an illusion, if Maya cannot be Brahman ? Brahman is Maya as much as a dream is a projection of the dreamer, his psyche and imagination taking form, but the dream cannot the dreamer as such, the person who is sleeping and dreaming because that person is in a bed and not in the dream.

During the dream, the dream character may look identical to the person dreaming, but when that person wakes up and so stops dreaming, the truth about that dream character is obvious. The person sleeping is not and cannot be the one in the dream, that one is only a figment of imagination.

What about us, right now, in what we call the real world ? Does waking up from it or in it is going to allow us to leave the world ? "Stop dreaming !" would say Ramana Maharshi who, of course, didn't disappear. Very fortunately, he stayed in the dream to tell us : "Hey, wake up !" Very fortunately because if spiritual liberation was making the body and mind disappearing, who would have ever heard about it ?

6 / 23 / 2014

So simple to understand and so difficult to realize

Changes can only be perceived in relation with a changeless background and only if the "perceiver", the witness, doesn’t change too. So are they different or one and the same, kind of oneness ?

This subject concerns truly non-duality and not the so-called oneness of everything, which is a completely absurd concept.

The very fact that we can perceive things moving, changing and evolving, thoughts coming and going for instance, shows that the perceiver of those things and thoughts, the witness, the awareness and consciousness of them never move and change. It simply means that pure consciousness is forever immutable. And if it's forever immutable, it cannot change either when we die. So pure consciousness, pure being and of course, pure bliss are eternal and immortal. And if it's our true nature, draw the conclusion you like.

That which has no beginning nor end is true, that which has a beginning will always end. And that's the difference between an experience of pure consciousness, a so-called awakening, and Self-realization, a revelation that has no beginning nor end.

Such concepts might seem a bit esoteric, but they are not. Just imagine, for instance, that right now and contrary to everything you have thought, you suddenly realize that you have never been born and you will never die. You would realize that you are eternal, but of course, you couldn't know it before to realize it. So the realization happens in time, at a precise moment of your life, but the revelation has truly no beginning nor end, it's beyond your life. We have to be mortal in order to realize that we are eternal. Isn't it great to be and have simultaneously both, mortality and eternity ? The cosmic intelligence that has created the universe and life may have sometimes a very peculiar sense of humor, but it's quite genius.

Truth and illusion

Consciousness doesn’t arise as the manifestation of the universe and it doesn’t lose or forget itself in order to realize what its true nature is.

Brahman and Maya are quite different. The first is real and true. The second will always be an illusion and untrue.

It's "I, me and myself" that have to realize the truth. Don't worry, Brahman is fine. It doesn't need us to realize anything and at last know what bliss could be.

It's utterly insane to think that consciousness could forget what it is and need to realize it in order to finally be really conscious, awaken or liberated. Consciousness is, by definition, conscious, not only conscious of everything it can know, but first of all, conscious of itself as such.

It's like those Neo gurus who pretend that consciousness speaks to consciousness when they are themselves speaking to their disciples. Are they psychotic ? If someone cannot see anymore the difference between oneself and the others, it would be much better that this person stops speaking to anyone because there is obviously no point to teach something already known to oneself. Such kind of Neo teachings and crazy Satsang have absolutely no meaning.

To free what ?

As you know and experience permanently, consciousness doesn’t cling to any perception, thought, emotion, feeling and state of mind. The faculty to be conscious and perfectly aware is attached to nothing. So can we say that consciousness is free and has always been free ? If we take the concept of spiritual liberation into consideration, it obviously doesn't our faculty of being conscious. So who or what really needs to be liberated ?

7 / 13 / 2014

Not very difficult to understand

If we realize that every perception appears in the field of consciousness, as much as the perceptions of the real world we live in than the ones of all the manifestations of the mind, how are we going to make any difference between the conscious witness we embody in the real world and the witness of our own mind, that is to say of ourselves ?

Understand, and then experience it. It won't take more than a split-second to realize the truth. It might be a very short realization, but it will always be better than nothing !

7 / 17 / 2014

Aparokshanubhuti. Self-realization of Shri Sankaracharya

Excerpts from the translation and commentaries of Swami Vimuktananda (with some remarks of Mel Patrick) published by "Advaita Ashrama" that I thank a lot for their remarkable works and dedication to their mission. This very small classical text of 78 pages deserves to be read entirely, very carefully and meditated upon in order to stop believing that Self-realization could occur by chance or in doing nothing (or by just going to Satsang as some Neo Advaita gurus advocate today).

2. Herein is expounded (the means of attaining to) Aparokshanubhuti (Self-realization) for the acquisition of final liberation. Only the pure in heart should constantly and with all effort meditate upon the truth herein taught.

Mel Patrick : Please, notice the words "pure in heart" (those who have worked and obviously are still working before complete Self-realization on their own selfishness, greed, hypocrisy, narcissism, personal illusions and so on), "with all effort" (spiritual quest is not really a cocktail party or preppy Satsang), and "meditate" (yes, the practice of meditation, Self-inquiry, and other spiritual disciplines can help a lot and even be necessary to achieve final liberation). As an introduction, this second verse is pretty clear on the subject of spiritual liberation, it won't happen without at least a very sincere dedication.

11. Knowledge is not brought about by any other means than Vichara, just as an object is nowhere perceived (seen) without the help of light.

Commentary from Swami Vimuktananda : It is ignorance or Avidya which has withheld the light of Knowledge from us. To get at Knowledge, therefore, we have to remove this Avidya… It is only when we make an inquiry into the real nature of this Avidya that it gradually withdraws and at last vanishes; then alone Knowledge shines.

Mel Patrick : The practice of Vichara, Self-inquiry or meditative introspection, starts by watching what is called ignorance, i.e. the mind, in order to realize its illusory nature, then and only after Self-knowledge is revealed. The ego is totally out of context in this spiritual quest and practice. The point is not to realize that it's the ego who is practicing that kind of meditation, it's to simply practice and see where it goes, what that practice really reveals. Without any sort of spiritual practice, what do really expect to achieve ? It would be like reading a book on how to play the violin without ever trying to play the violin, what for ?

22. The luminosity of Atman consists in the manifestation of all objects. Its luminosity is not like that of fire or any such thing, for (in spite of the presence of such lights) darkness prevails at night (at some place or other).

Commentary : The light of Atman is unlike any other light. Ordinary lights are opposed to darkness and are limited in their capacity to illumine things. It is a common experience that where there is darkness there is no light ; and darkness always prevails at some place or other, thus limiting the power of illumination of such lights. Even the light of the sun is unable to dispel darkness at some places. But the light of Atman is ever present at all places. It illumines everything and is opposed to nothing, not even to darkness; for it is in and through the light of Atman, which is present in everybody as consciousness, that one comprehends darkness as well as light and all other things.

Mel Patrick : The very fact that we can see darkness somewhere in some circumstances, and even when we close our eyes, means that there is a light... at least of intelligence and consciousness inside ourselves which makes us know that darkness. Without the light of consciousness, we would not know what darkness could be, and as a matter of fact, we would know absolutely nothing.

29. O you ignorant one ! Why do you assert the blissful, ever-existent Atman, which resides in your own body and is (evidently) different from it, which is known as Purusha and is established (by the Sruti as identical with Brahman), to be absolutely non-existent ?

Commentary : … To remove this doubt, it is here said that Atman is a fact of everybody’s experience and as such, its existence cannot be challenged, therefore there is no reason to call it Sunya or absolute non-existence.

Mel Patrick : The Atman is pure consciousness, the faculty to be conscious and so to know. Everybody is conscious, a conscious being, with at least a body made of flesh and bones, that is to say everybody is a Jivatman. So it’s quite obvious that our true nature, the true nature of that human and conscious being, is this pure and impersonal consciousness since everybody is different and unique, but the fact of being conscious, the faculty of knowing, is the same for everyone. And if that's true, no one can say "my consciousness...". It's important to make a clear distinction between pure or universal consciousness and individual or self-consciousness, the fact of being personally aware of myself as a person, body and mind. Both are not the same, the first is true consciousness, the second is the reflection of pure consciousness on the intellect. It's only a reflection that makes us personally conscious of ourselves as an individual being different and separated from all the others.

Purusha or pure consciousness is always conscious of itself as Sat Chit Ananda, pure being perfectly conscious of its own pure bliss. "I, me and myself", the ego, can only be aware of itself as body and mind. So who realizes what during Self-realization ? The intellect, Buddhi, always reflects pure consciousness and usually that reflection gives rise to the mind. If the mind stops for some reasons, Self-realization or a so-called awakening occurs because the intellect still reflects pure consciousness. As a matter of fact, nobody falls into a coma during such an experience, the individual is still a human and conscious being, very conscious should I say. In other words, it's obviously not pure consciousness that realizes what pure consciousness is, it's a person with his or her intellect and intelligence who discovers it. And that's why we can now call that person a Jivanmukta, a liberated being, because the reflection of pure consciousness on the intellect is not anymore confused with the mind. The intellect of such an individual apprehends pure consciousness as it is, his or her mind and ego are only functional as much as his or her legs, hands, senses of perception and son on, everything that makes this individual a human being like all the others, but with a very big difference because that individual cannot take what makes the intellect conscious and intelligent for what makes it functional and alive in the real world.

30. O you ignorant one ! Try to know, with the help of Sruti and reasoning, your own Self, Purusha, which is different from the body, (not a void but) the very form of existence, and very difficult for persons like you to realize.

Mel Patrick : That ignorance simply comes from the fact that we don't realize that "I can only know myself because I'm conscious" and that "I" is nothing else than pure consciousness itself. In "I'm conscious of myself", "I" is just a figure of speech to determine the presence of Purusha, a pure and impersonal consciousness. And "myself" points, of course, to what I am in the real world, a human being with a body, intellect, mind and ego.

But when I think "I'm conscious of 'my' body and 'my' mind", it's very confusing because it seems that "I, me and myself" are conscious of the body and mind when, in fact, only consciousness can be really conscious. So can the mind and ego be somehow conscious since the experience of being "personally" conscious is also very obvious to everybody ? The answer can only be found in the statement : "The reflection of pure consciousness on the intellect projects the mind." In such a mental process, everything is conscious to some extent, but the real source of consciousness can only be pure consciousness itself and not the mind nor the intellect, otherwise it would be like saying that a brain is always conscious even when the person is dead, and that would make no sense.

32. "I" (ego) is well established as the subject of perception whereas the body is the object. This is learned from the fact that when we speak of the body we say "This is mine". So how can this body be Purusha ?

Mel Patrick : This concerns those who identify their own existence as a conscious being with their own body. The evident fact that "I have a body, this is mine" means very clearly that "I cannot be the body" or in other words, what I "have".

As far as everybody knows, to have and to be is completely different. So if I have a body and a mind, it clearly means that I cannot be that body and mind. Therefore, who I am since I'm without any doubt conscious of their manifestations. And the answer can only be "the impersonal consciousness that knows them". That consciousness has to be impersonal because it knows everything that determines what is considered to be personal. And it knows it without any specific personal quality and faculty other than simply being conscious. Being conscious is an universal fact for every human being as long as we are alive.

33. It is a fact of direct experience that "I" (Atman) is without any change, whereas the body is always undergoing changes.

Mel Patrick : This "I" or supreme "I" or "I-I" as Ramana Maharshi would say, is obviously not the same (the ego, "I, me and myself") as it is spoken of in the former verse 32. It is the Atman also sometimes called "I" or pure consciousness, the witness, Self, Atman, Brahman, Purusha, the Divine, God...

The perceptions of the body or anything else, including of course all the manifestations of the mind, always change. But the faculty to know them, consciousness itself, never changes. Pure consciousness or Atman is absolutely immutable as the Sruti explain it many times. So the purpose of this Yoga of knowledge is to find out what, inside ourselves, never changes. It’s inside ourselves and our faculty to be personally conscious and so to know ourselves with our body, thoughts, emotions, problems, etc. that this self-inquiry is practiced.

As a matter of fact, this knowledge is so simple and clear that it’s difficult to believe what it could reveal, the supreme and only real truth. Our true nature is pure consciousness, the one we never pay attention to. There is no way we could deny that we are all conscious beings. And we all take it for granted without realizing what it means. But do we inquire what being is and what being conscious really means ? Never, we prefer to watch and scrutinize in any ways our personal problems and story without realizing that being, the obvious fact of being and being conscious, is pure bliss.

40. The immutable Atman, the substratum of the ego, is thus different from these two bodies, and is Purusha, the Ishwara (the Lord of all), the Self of all. It is ever present in every form and yet transcends them all.

Mel Patrick : The immutable Atman, the substratum of the ego, is another way to explain that without the reflection of pure consciousness on the intellect, there is no mind, and without mind, there is no ego, no personal identity allowing the mind to express itself.

Two bodies, the gross and subtle bodies made of matter and pure energy talked about in former verses, are not the Atman, pure consciousness. Pure consciousness knows them, but without identification. Only the mind and the ego can identify themselves with those 2 bodies without realizing that the substratum of both are pure consciousness.

42. Thus the view that the body is the Atman has been denounced by the enunciation of the difference between the Atman and the body. Now is clearly stated the unreality of the difference between the two.

Commentary : … the body has no existence independent of the Atman just as waves do not exist independently of water. In fact, the Atman alone exists, and it is through ignorance that one sees it as appearing in the forms of the body and the like.

Mel Patrick : In other words, although Brahman cannot be Maya, an illusion, there cannot be any illusory manifestations without consciousness knowing them. So consciousness must be the substratum of all those manifestations, and the difference between both is more a figure of speech than a reality despite the fact that they are not one and the same, kind of oneness.

45. There exists no other material cause of this phenomenal universe except Brahman. Hence this whole universe is but Brahman and nothing else.

Commentary : … because the effect is never different from the cause, a pot is never different from the earth of which it is made. The names and forms that differentiate the effect from the cause are but conventional and are found non-existent when their nature is inquired into.

Mel Patrick : You need to know the definition of the word "conventional" in order to understand what Swamiji explains in this commentary. Cause and effect are obviously different, but there is no way to claim that a cause was not the effect of a former cause and so. So cause and effect are the same since the very beginning of the universe, and we can also state that there is in reality no difference between that very beginning and before of it. So can we say that there is no difference between nothingness and everything, and nothing ever happens, as some says ? Nope, because that so-called nothingness is not nothing, it's Brahman, pure being, pure consciousness and pure bliss, and especially because nothing can arise from nothingness. If the universe manifests and we can obviously see and sense it in many ways, that universe has an origin, and that origin cannot be nothingness, the complete absence of at least an incredible creative and intelligent potential.

48. Moreover the Sruti has condemned (the belief in variety) in the words, "The person who, ‘being deceived by Maya,’ sees variety in this (Brahman), goes from death to death".

Commentary : … is born and dies again and again. The reference is such Sruti texts as : "He who sees variety in this (Brahman) passes from death to death." (Brih. Up.) In other words, unless a person realizes the non-dual Atman which is evidently without birth and death, there is no escape for him from the cycle of re-births.

Mel Patrick : We may perceive diversity in everything and everywhere, but the fact remains that pure consciousness knowing that diversity will always be identical to itself and to the true substratum of what it knows. Simply put, there is no duality between consciousness and the true substance of the universe, the diversity of names and forms and phenomena are Maya, momentary appearances. Therefore, if someone realizes also that there is no difference between pure consciousness and his or her self-consciousness, there is nothing left that could reincarnate.

55. The Sruti in the form of the Brihadaranyaka has declared that this Atman, which is the Self of all, is verily Brahman.

Mel Patrick : The true nature of our own existence as conscious beings is nothing else than the Divine, pure being. It cannot be otherwise since being in itself, being as such or simply knowing that we are and exist is not something personal. Even if a stone could speak, it would say "I am... ... a stone". Everything is as such, being is universal and so consciousness is also universal. It's impossible to conceive being without being conscious... of it, as far as humans are concerned because we can really doubt that a stone, a plant or an animal has that kind of metaphysical concern.

59. Just as (after the illusion has gone) one is no more deluded to see a jar in earth or silver in nacre, so does one no more see Jiva in Brahman when the latter is realized (as one’s own Self).

Commentary : So long as a person is in ignorance, he thinks himself as a Jiva which has an individuality of its own apart from Brahman. But when with the dawn of real knowledge he realizes himself as one with Brahman, this Jivahood appears to him as nothing but an illusion like the illusion of silver in the pearl.

Mel Patrick : It doesn’t mean that he cannot perceive it anymore, but he knows its illusory nature as much as he knows the true nature of his own existence as pure conscious being, Sat Chit Ananda. Self-realization doesn't interrupt the knowledge of his individuality, nor of the manifestations of his own body and mind. But that knowledge doesn't prevail anymore on the very fact that he is before anything else conscious, that his true nature is pure consciousness, that he truly embodies pure being, pure consciousness and pure bliss.

90. The theory one hears of from the scripture, that Prarabdha doesn’t lose it hold upon one even after the origination of the knowledge of Atman, is now refuted.

Commentary : The Sruti in many places has declared that even a Jnani is not free from the operation of Prarabdha. Sankara has dealt with this point at length in his commentaries on Chandogya Up. and Gita. In all those places, he has supported the popular view that Prarabdha is binding even the Jnani. But here as well as in his Vivekachudamani, he has boldly asserted the true Vedantic view without any compromise. He has clearly shown that to a Jnani there is no such thing as the body, and it is meaningless to say that he is any longer under the influence of Prarabdha, which has no hold upon the bodiless Atman.

Mel Patrick : Prarabdha is usually considered as the remaining Karma of the individual after Self-realization. This commentary simply means that when the Jnani, person who knows the Self, who has realized the Self and so who embodies and truly is the Self, realizes that his or her true nature is pure consciousness (the absolute witness), that is to say Brahman, and not the person itself with a body and mind (the object of consciousness), how could he or she still has any sort of Karma ? Pure consciousness, the Self or God cannot be bound to any Karma, which is nothing more than a potential of ignorance, illusion, suffering and reincarnation.

97. The body also being within the phenomenal world (and therefore unreal), how could Prarabdha exist ? It is therefore for the understanding of the ignorant alone that the Sruti speaks of Prarabdha.

Commentary : Those who do not know the highest truth argue that if ignorance with all its effects is destroyed by Knowledge, how does the body of a Jnani live, and how is it possible for him to behave like an ordinary mortal ? They, however, fail to see that it is they who, being still in ignorance, see the body of a Jnani and speak of him as behaving this way or that, whereas the Jnani himself never sees the body at all, as he is ever established in Atman. To convince such persons the Sruti brings Prarabdha as a tentative of explanation for the so-called behaviour of a Jnani.

Mel Patrick : "Unreal, illusory, non-existing, Maya and so on" mean untrue, those terms don't mean that the manifestations of the world and the ones of the individual suddenly stop. If it was the case, the Jnani would truly die or disappear.

In Vedanta, something ever changing cannot be considered to be true or real or truly existing. Something "absolutely" true never changes, that's what has to be really understood. When scientists state that matter is made of atoms, it’s true in their own scientific approach and understanding of reality since the manifestation of everything that can be observed, studied and analyzed. But as far as absolute truth is concerned, that truth, spiritual, philosophical or metaphysical and, of course, non scientific, has to be true in the past, in the present and in the future forever, it cannot change. Scientists fail to realize that something ever moving and changing as the atom cannot truly exist. It can manifest for sure, but from a spiritual, philosophical or metaphysical point of view, we cannot consider that an absolute truth could be true now, then changes and be untrue or again true later on. So because everything is ever changing in the universe, Maya, the whole creation including every Karma is simply called an illusion, which never truly existed. And so only Brahman as pure consciousness can exist because it never changes.

As Gaudapada explains so clearly and beautifully : "The immortal cannot become mortal nor can the mortal become immortal". The immortal having no Karma since it is not subject to any sort of condition and relation of cause and effect, the Jnani has also no Karma as soon as he or she realizes the Self.

99. ... one should accept those Srutis alone from which proceeds true knowledge.

Commentary : The realization of the non-dual Atman alone constitutes the real knowledge, and the Sruti are the only means to such knowledge. But all of them do not bring about this knowledge. So those Sruti alone which teach the non-dual Atman and thus directly lead us to the final realization, are to be accepted as the real, and all others that support duality are to be treated as secondary.

Mel Patrick : By "real knowledge", Swamiji doesn't mean Self-realization, enlightenment or liberation, but true and correct "conceptual" knowledge. As we will see later on, conceptual and intellectual knowledge leads and helps to realize the Self, but it's far from enough for achieving Self-realization.

101. The Atman that is absolute existence and knowledge cannot be realized without constant practice. So one seeking after knowledge should long meditate upon Brahman for the attainment of the desired goal.

Commentary : The realization of Brahman doesn’t come in a day ; it requires years of strenuous effort. One should not, therefore, gives up one’s practice even if one meets with failure in the initial stages, but should continue it with renewed vigour.

Mel Patrick : Clear enough ! No spiritual practice, no cause and no effect, and so no Self-realization and liberation (called very modestly today in Neo Advaita "spiritual awakening", in order to differentiate it, for only commercial reasons, from true liberation, "Moksha", although there is no difference between both since, in traditional spirituality, the term "awakened", Buddha, also means liberated, Mukta).

Without conceptual knowledge such as the Sruti in order to help the understanding of what we are really searching for, spiritual practices such as Self-inquiry and a Dharma, a decent and correct spiritual path, there is no real spiritual quest for anything, and spirituality becomes nothing more than a new trendy entertainment, a consumer product.

107. The wise should always be one with that silence wherefrom words together with the mind turn without reaching it, but which is attainable by the Yogins.

Commentary : That silence here denotes Atman which is ever quiescent. It is attainable by the Yogins because it is their very Self.

Mel Patrick : This verse describes a very high level of practice of Self-inquiry, Vichara, also called sometimes mindfulness or meditation in other contexts. Words, conceptual intelligence and the mind turn toward the truth but cannot reach it. Only the practice of Self-inquiry and meditation can really transcend the mind and help to attain that supreme truth.

And if someone asks who really attains what since everything is an illusion including the one searching for the truth, the so-called "doer", the answer would be that it's self-consciousness searching for its true nature, which is obviously pure consciousness. And if that individual or self-consciousness realizes that its true nature is pure and universal consciousness, there is no more any individual or self-consciousness, and Self-realization is at last achieved, i.e. the ultimate goal is reached because only Self-realization is the true end of a spiritual quest. As long as it is not reached, there will be reincarnations in order to achieve that ultimate goal.

108-109. Who can describe That (i.e. Brahman) whence words turn away ? (So silence is inevitable while describing Brahman.) Or if the phenomenal world where to be described, even that is beyond words. This, to give an alternate definition, may also be termed silence known among the sages as congenital. The observance of silence by restraining speech, on the other hand, is ordained by the teachers of Brahman for the ignorant.

Commentary : Even this world, when one attempts to describe this phenomenal universe, is found to be inexpressible, since it cannot be called either Sat(existent) or Asat (non-existent). If it were Sat it would not disappear in deep sleep, and if Asat, it would not at all appear now. Therefore, the world is also Anirvechaniya (inexpressible).

Mel Patrick : "congenital", a very interesting term. We come from silence, are born in silence, living in silence, dying in silence and ultimately going back to silence, but we are not very often aware of it although it only determines the presence of Brahman, pure consciousness as such. As a matter of fact, if silence was not the back-ground of any noises, we would simply be unable to hear them. If emptiness or space as not the back-ground of every manifestation, we would simply be unable to see anything. And so on for every phenomena appearing inside and outside ourselves.

So consciousness doesn't speak nor make any noise. And since pure consciousness cannot be described, except by silence, i.e. the absence of description and conceptualization, the phenomenal world cannot either because its true nature and substance is that very same consciousness.

111. The non-dual (Brahman) that is bliss indivisible is denoted by the word "time", since it brings into existence, in the twinkling of an eye, all beings from Brahma downwards.

Commentary : The whole creation is nothing but a resolve in the mind of God. When He has a desire for Creation, the universe is produced in no time.

Mel Patrick : "Brahma" is the creator. "Brahman" is the substratum of the creation, which unlike the creation itself is indivisible and so non-dual. In Advaita Vedanta, Brahman is not considered as the creative principle, but the true substance of the creation. As a matter of fact, we cannot even speak of creation since Maya, the illusory universe, is nothing but like a dream in God's mind. Can we say that we create our dreams while sleeping ? No, dreams happen independently of our will and desires. So Maya is a fact we can witness, a mystery, but it's unrelated to any sort of creation as we understand it usually when we state, for instance, "I create this and that" because this "I" and "this and that" belong to the very same realm of reality and manifestation, and that is not the case if we think that Brahman creates or has created the universe.

116. Converting the ordinary vision into one of knowledge, one should view the world as Brahman Itself.

Mel Patrick : This very important verse explains the real purpose of all those Sruti, which are conceptual knowledge. It's not enough to understand their meaning, it has to be converted into a real practice and vision, i.e. paradigm and model through which we understand and conceptualize our own life and presence in the world, a real practice such as constant Self-inquiry, mindfulness, meditation in action and so on.

124. The complete forgetfulness of all thought by first making it changeless and then identifying it with Brahman is called Samadhi known also as knowledge.

Mel Patrick : In other words, silence of the mind has to be searched for during self-inquiry, introspective meditation, and also while living. And that silence can also be called knowledge because it already reveals the true nature of pure consciousness. It's not the pure state of Sahaja Samadhi, but it's already kind of samadhi because it's obviously a very peculiar state... of silence when the mind stops its endless blah blah blah.

125. The aspirant should carefully practise this (meditation) that reveals his natural bliss until, being under his full control, it arises spontaneously, in an instant when called into action.

Mel Patrick : Here bliss is associated to the silence of the mind. Compared to thoughts and the constant discourse of the mind, the eternal blah blah blah we all know very well, silence is certainly a release, kind of liberation, and it has to be searched for constantly by practicing meditation until it arises spontaneously anywhere and at any time.

126. Then he, the best among Yogins having attained to perfection, becomes free from all practices. The real nature of such a man never becomes an object of the mind or speech.

Mel Patrick : We should never stop any practice before to reach the final goal, liberation or Self-realization, which are totally different of a simple and momentary spiritual experience, a glimpse on the truth also called today a spiritual awakening.

Sincerely speaking, the real spiritual quest starts after that awakening, for those who have the privilege to live it, because now those people know what they are really searching for. And for those who don't have the privilege to live such an amazing awakening, which is nothing more than an experience with a beginning and an end, their understanding of the Sruti and their own intelligence are more than enough to know the real purpose of their spiritual quest. So instead of desperately searching for an amazing awakening and crazy experience that might happen, but that might also not happen at all, better to understand the Sruti and practice, practice and practice.

And when it is said that "the real nature of such a man never becomes an object of speech", it clearly means that such a man will never claim and pretend to be enlightened, liberated or self-realized because it wouldn't make sense. How could the Self, that is to say God, would suddenly say "I'm liberated" ? Any pretension of liberation or awakening are just a big joke or a serious personality disorder.

127-128. While practising Samadhi there appear unavoidably many obstacles, such as lack of inquiry, idleness, desire for sense-pleasure, sleep, dullness, distraction, tasting of joy, and the sense of blankness. Ones desiring the knowledge of Brahman, should slowly get rid of such innumerable obstacles.

Commentary : After some progress is made in the path of spirituality, there arises in the mind of the aspirant a kind of pleasurable feeling as a result of concentration. This, however, greatly hinders his spiritual progress, as it robs him of all enthusiasm for further practice.

Mel Patrick : The practice of Samadhi here is nothing more than the quest for silence of the mind, it's not kind of ecstatic state of mind such as Savikalpa or Nirvikalpa Samadhi. And as everybody who practices meditation knows very well, that silence of the mind is quite difficult to attain. But if it was easy, there would be no fun either..., and everybody would already be enlightened. Jokes aside, never think that a spiritual path could be easy. It's surely very simple and clear, but just forget any crazy idea of easiness such as sitting in Satsang and having a cup of tea with biscuits or reading a book, which seems pretty difficult today with YouTube.

129. While thinking of an object the mind verily identifies itself with that, and while thinking of a void it really becomes blank, whereas by the thought of Brahman it attains to perfection. So one should constantly think of (Brahman to attain) perfection.

Commentary : Whatever one thinks one becomes. So one desiring to attain to perfection should leave aside all thought of duality and fix one’s mind upon the non-dual Brahman which alone is perfect.

Mel Patrick : This is the mind which identifies with its own thoughts. In this verse, it’s clearly explained without any doubt that the ego has never been a problem in a spiritual quest as Neo Advaita teaches nowadays. The ego is only a function of the mind, a concept. It's the mind that identifies with the ego, if you will, although it doesn't need to since the whole process of identification is only a natural functioning of the mind. If the mind wants to speak, it will, of course, use therms such as "I, me and anyself". The mind doesn't have any other way to express "Here is what I think".

130. Those who give up this supremely purifying thought of Brahman, live in vain and are on the same level with beasts.

Commentary : Man has the unique opportunity of realizing Brahman and thus becoming free from the bondage of ignorance. But if he does not avail himself of this opportunity, he can hardly be called a man, as there remains nothing to distinguish him from the lower animals.

Mel Patrick : If we really understand the meaning of all this knowledge, we would have to be completely mad to give up our spiritual quest. That's the very purpose and meaning of life, and it makes it absolutely amazing. What could be more amazing for just a human being than to realize that his or her true nature, his or her real consciousness, is divine ?

131. Blessed indeed are those virtuous persons who at first have this consciousness of Brahman and then develop it more and more. They are respected everywhere.

Commentary : After long practice, the aspirant at first realizes, while in Samadhi, the presence of Brahman which pervades the inner and the outer world. But this is not all. He should then hold on this Brahmic consciousness until he feels his identity with Brahman at every moment and thus becomes completely free from the bonds of all duality and ignorance. This is the consummation of spiritual practice.

Mel Patrick : Not sure they are respected everywhere... in the West, but they should surely be virtuous, which is rarely the case in the West today. Sex, money, power, drugs and rock and roll are not without the shadow of a doubt spiritual, especially hard rock if we search for silence and peace of mind. But Rome was not built in a day either. So just be sensible in your spiritual quest and middle path, use and don't abuse what you really need to feel alright.

132. Only those in whom this consciousness (of Brahman) being ever present grows into maturity, attain to the state of ever-existent Brahman, and not others who merely deal with words.

Mel Patrick : If it's not clear enough, let me spell it, no one realizes the Self by simply going to Satsang, reading books or watching YouTube videos.

133. Also those persons who are only clever in discussing about Brahman but have no realization, and are very much attached to worldly pleasures, are born and die again and again in consequence of their ignorance.

Mel Patrick : No room to any kind of "Crazy Wisdom". It is clearly stated without the slightest doubt that people who still play with "Money, Power, Sex, Drugs and Rock & Roll", that is to say attached to worldly pleasure, are absolutely not awakened, realized and liberated from anything, and especially not from their own ignorance, and consequently they don’t deserve to be called gurus, spiritual guides, teachers etc. because they are not better than their disciples, students and listeners, but very often worse. They only can speak. So what ? Everybody does it. And even if they are pretty clever, cunning and smart... especially to make money by selling their pseudo spirituality, they will reborn again and again because of their ignorance and foolishness since they don't only have no teachings at all, but they also mislead people with their crazy speech and false wisdom.

134. The aspirant after Brahman should not remain a single moment without the thought of Brahman, just like Brahma, Sanaka, Suka and others.

Commentary : To be ever immersed in the Brahmic consciousness and thus identify oneself with It is the final aim of Raja Yoga. With this verse ends the exposition of Raja Yoga in the light of Vedanta.

Mel Patrick : Every long journey starts with a single step, and then another and so on. The purpose of Yoga is not either to create more neurosis, frustration and obsession. Everyone should keep in mind the purpose of a spiritual quest, make an effort, determine what should and can be done without becoming completely crazy and peacefully evolve and get spiritually mature. The point of any Yoga is not to become fanatic, but to tread a spiritual path and progress as much as we can. Fanaticism is certainly not a progress or just getting better in any way.

139. One should verily see the cause in the effect, and then dismiss the effect altogether. What then remains, the sage himself becomes.

Commentary : When both causes and effects have thus disappeared one may naturally conclude that only Sunya, a void, is left behind. But it is not so. For the absolute negation is an impossibility. One may negate everything but cannot negate one’s own Self. So whence causality has been negated, what is beyond all negation is the very Self of the inquirer, which is the ultimate reality.

Mel Patrick : Absolute nihilism is nonsense and impossible because the one who would believe that there is absolutely nothing has to be something in order to believe it. So any sort of nihilism, paradigms relying on concepts such as emptiness, nothingness and complete void are completely void, empty and nothing.

141. The wise should always think with great care of the invisible, the visible and everything else, as his own Self which is consciousness itself.

Mel Patrick : We cannot separate any perceptions from the faculty of being conscious of them, but only distinguish them from because perceptions without exception are always changing and consciousness is immutable. Subject and object are not and cannot be separated, but, by their very nature, they are distinguishable and totally different.

142. Having reduced the visible to the invisible, the wise should think of the universe as one with Brahman. Thus alone will he abide in eternal felicity with the mind full of consciousness and bliss.

Commentary : A person may at first take some external thing as an object of his meditation, but he should afterwards think of it as existing only in the form of the mind, and latter the mind also should be reduced to Brahman which is pure consciousness. Then alone one is said to have reached the highest goal.

Mel Patrick : To reduce the visible to the invisible simply means that everything becomes conscious facts and so consciousness itself. It doesn't mean that the visible becomes invisible. Nothing really changes, but the understanding, the perspective, the realization of what we call perceptions is totally different.

143. This has been described Raja Yoga consisting of these steps (mentioned above). With this is to be combined Hatha Yoga for (the benefit of all) those whose worldly desires are partially attenuated.

Commentary : This Raja Yoga, which is purely psychological in its character, is extremely difficult to be practised by those who have not yet overcome the physical disabilities and banished the carnal appetites from the mind and thus made it pure. To them, therefore, Hatha Yoga, or the Yoga that teaches physical control together with a little concentration, is at first very helpful. For, they may thereby get control over their external and internal nature and thus may in course of time become fit for the practice of this Raja Yoga.

Mel Patrick : In other words, there is only one Yoga. Jnana, Bakti, Karma and Hatha Yoga are in fact only one path, the one you need and how you approach that path, the one that can really help you to achieve Self-realization. Some people will need Hatha Yoga in order to approach such knowledge, and others don't. Some will need Bakti, devotion, according to their specific mind-set, mental and emotional attitude. Whatever you take and need, the point is to reach knowledge, self-realization.

144. For those whose mind is completely purified this (Raja Yoga) alone is productive of perfection. Purity of the mind, again, is speedily accessible to those who are devoted to the teacher and the Deity.

Mel Patrick : Purification, that is to say improving oneself, is not an option or futile as Neo gurus teach today with their concept of illusory doer, but a prerequisite in every spiritual quest. And it's surely better to have a Guru to guide us on that spiritual quest and remind us what the right direction really is because it's very easy to think that we progress when in fact we are going backwards.

For the greedy ones who want the whole gamut, here is the link :

http://estudantedavedanta.net/Aparoksha-Anubhuti-by-Sri-Shankaracharya.pdf

9 / 6 / 2014

"Not two" also means "nothing else"

Is there anything beyond consciousness and the power of knowing ? Is there anything beyond the Self and Brahman ? Is there anything beyond non-duality ?

"Without a second", it’s impossible to conceive. Non-duality can only be absolute knowledge. And even when it takes the form of conceptual and so relative knowledge such as Sruti, sacred scriptures, it is still about absolute knowledge.

6 / 2 / 2015

Swimming like a fish

Let us imagine a fish that would like to discover what water really is and in which it is obviously swimming since birth. It could compare this element with the sand, rocks, plants, metals and other garbage it could find on its way, and even with the element fire, heat, it could discover in a submarine volcano. But it’s for sure by getting out of water that it would have the best knowledge of it, because in water, the element earth, vegetable matter, metal and fire will always be associated with the true nature of the one it is searching for. In other words, it should leave the element in which it is living in order to truly know it.

Is it the same with the Self, pure consciousness and non-duality if non-duality means really "not two" ? And moreover, could we compare this non-duality to a "fifth element" or anything else if the concept itself doesn’t allow any possible comparison ?

Non-duality implies no relation, no comparison, no concept of any sort. Maybe the idea of silence of the mind or pure consciousness could help. Sit and watch by yourself if it does.