Tuesday 1 July 2008
The interaction between mind and life is fascinating and has captured the curiosity of the scientist at long last. Many in the east have known these things experientially for millenia now whilst in the west it now gets publiciity under the rubric of New Age philosophies. One of the proponents of this philosophy and one who relies on age old eastern concepts but makes it readily accessible to a western audience is Ken Wilber - a transpersonal psychologist. Watch this video on consciousness or as he calls it I-am-ness
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Bohudin aagay, dakhin er ek mahapurusher sanniddhye aasar sujog hoyechhilow. English translation e sei anubhuti gulow asadharan -
1. "I" am not the gross body which is composed of the seven humours (dhatus).[The seven dhatus are life sap (rasa), blood (rakta), muscles (mangso), fatty tissue (med), bones (asthi), bone marrow and nervous tissue (majja) and semen and reproductive system (shukra)],
2. "I" am not the five cognitive sense organs, viz. the senses of hearing, touch, sight, taste, and smell, which apprehend their respective objects, viz. sound, touch, colour, taste, and odour.
3. "I" am not the five cognitive sense-organs, viz. the organs of speech, locomotion, grasping, excretion, and procreation, which have as their respective functions speaking, moving, grasping, excreting, and enjoying.
4. "I" am not the five vital airs, prana, etc., which perform respectively the five functions of in-breathing, etc.,
5. "I" am not even the mind which thinks.
6. "I" am notthe conscience too, which is endowed only with the residual impressions of objects, and in which there are no objects and no functioning's.
7. If after negating all of the above-mentioned as 'not this', 'not this', that Awareness which alone remains - that is who "I" am .
Every conscious activity of the mind or body revolves around the tacit assumption that there is an ‘I’ who is doing something. The common factor in ‘I think’, ‘I remember’, ‘I am acting’, is the ‘I’ who assumes that it is responsible for all these activities.The Self or real ‘I’ never imagines that it is doing or thinking anything; the ‘I’ that imagines all this is a mental fiction and so it is called a mental modification of the Self. Since this is a rather cumbersome translation of Aham-Vritti it is usually translated as ‘I’-thought.(Literally aham-vritti means ‘mental modification of ‘I’) .
When the thoughts arise the ‘I’-thought claims ownership of them- ‘I think’, ‘I believe’, ‘I want’, ‘I am acting’ – but there is no separate ‘I’-thought that exists independently of the objects that it is identifying with. It only appears to exist as a real continuous entity because of the incessant flow of identification which are continually taking place. Almost all of these identifications can be traced back to an initial assumption that the ‘I’ is limited to the body, either as an owner-occupant or co-extensive with its physical form. This ‘I am the body’ idea is the primary source of all subsequent wrong identifications and its dissolution is the principal aim of self-enquiry.
I shall end my portion today but with some relevant quote two of the foremost proponent of Hindu Philosophy - Shankaracharjya had said -
" Death or fear have I none, nor any distinction of caste;
Neither father nor mother, nor even a birth, have I;
Neither friend nor comrade, neither disciple nor guru:
I am Eternal Bliss and Awareness – I am Siva! I am Siva!*
I have no form or fancy: the All-pervading am I;
Everywhere I exist, and yet am beyond the senses;
Neither salvation am I, nor anything to be known;
I am Eternal Bliss and Awareness – I am Siva! I am Siva!
Swami Vivekananda had said and I quote -
"When, by analyzing his own mind, a man ( bohubachanay suddho - women rao included kintu !!) comes face to face, as it were, with something which is never destroyed, something which is, by its own nature, eternally pure and perfect [the Self], he will no more be miserable, no more be unhappy. All misery comes from fear, from unsatisfied desire. When a man finds that he never dies, he will then have no more fear of death. When he knows he is perfect, he will have no more vain desires. And both these causes being absent, there will be no more misery; there will be perfect bliss, even in this body
It might be useful to consider the Self through the analogy of the spider. Just as a spider spews forth its own spittle and creates webs within which he traps his prey, makes a home, procreates and dies, equally it can swallow the wide world of web (pun intended) again so as to leave nothing of its habitat or survival and procreating habits. Similarly, the Self can be considered to be like that spider that creates much of what is visible or objective or 'out there'. It then gets spellbound by what's out there whilst at all times this is the creation of what's 'in here' and hence an illusory phenomena.
Here's a poem that I wrote some years ago and I'm fascinated to see how it mimics the thoughts of Shankaracharya (not to suggest that this is plagiarised or alternatively that I consider myself to be as actualised as he was):
Who am I?
Am I
The blood, flesh, nerves and bones?
Or
The phlegm, spittle, urine or turd?
The eyes, ears, nose ,and tongue,
Or
The skin, nails, hair and breathe?
Who am I?
Am I
The one who has a name?
Who
Is tall, dark and handsome?
Or
The one who has a genealogy
With
A family name, class and creed?
Who am I?
Am I
The experiencer of personal grief and joy,
Envy, jealousy, greed or shame?
Ecstasy, gratitude, pride and Love?
Or is it
My memories that determine who I am?
Who am I ?
Am I
Constituted by my thoughts, ideas, beliefs and quirks?
Or my
Philosophies, religion, ideologies and dogmas?
AM I
The one with compassion, patriotism,
Sacrifice and pain?
Or
am I the only one who asks
Who am I?
Am I
Of atoms, molecules, enzymes and chemicals
That course through the body
Or the breath that enters and leaves
And connects me to the universe
Who
Am I?
Am I
The physical, the emotional, the intellectual
And psychological
Or
the categorical, theological
intentional, causal, autobiographical
or
the temporal, spatial, evocative, interpersonal?
Who
Am I?
Am I
The child loved by his parents
Or
the boy who played with his peers
Am I the brat?
Who could never sit still?
Or
the brother
Who always wanted to win?
Who
am I?
Am I the lover
Whose love knew no bounds
Or the father whose concerns were all too real
Am I
The cousin, nephew, uncle or son in law
Or
Merely who I call ‘I’
Who
Am I?
Am I
The Bengali growing up in Bihar
Or the
‘Khotta’ spending time in Bengal?
Am I
The north Indian settling down in south India?
Or the Asian
Living in Great Britain?
Who
Am I?
Am I
One who often works wonders
Or
The drug crazed misfit who lives
In the dumps?
The Kishore-‘kanthi’ who could yoddle and woo
Or
The axe-wielding guitarist a-la Motley
Crue?
Who
Am I?
The eastern cultured in western garbs?
Or the Western intellect with an eastern spirit?
The artist, the poet
The dreamer, genius, the psychotic
Or
The analytical, ethical, grounded man of earth?
Who
Am I?
Am I
The cultural, anthropological, Darwinian organism?
Or
The ephemeral, ethereal, unfathomable?
Or
The intrepid, individual or collective unconscious?
Who am I?
Am I this
Or Am I that
A bit of it and bit of that?
And does it matter
Who calls me what?
For there is no one really in here
Who asks the question
Who am I?
I set aside the question
And ask myself another
Perhaps it is the question
And not the questioner
That poses the problems?
I rephrase it to:
What am I without another
The existence of who,
Gives me reason to ponder
Who I am?
Iron Maiden succinctly summarized 'I' in his work 'Hallowed be thy name', strange illusion!
We are just like wavefronts of a vast ocean. Each wave thinks of itself as a new identity, while in essence they are just another part of this great water body. Remember Carl Jung and cosmic consciousness?
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