The paramount importance of self attention-7

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Sadhu Om: All that is required is to find out howanyworld-picture comes into existence and is dissolved. In wakingand

dream we have the power to see ourself as many, whereasinsleep we lose this power and therefore see nothingother thanourself. This power is what we call mind, andit iswhatproduces the appearance of multiplicity in waking anddream.Trying to find out what this power is and howit arisestoproduce one dream world after another is what is calledātma-vicāra (self-investigation or self-enquiry), because wecanfindout what it is and how it rises only by keenly attendingtoourself, who now seem to be this mind, the one whoseesallthis multiplicity

This practice of self-attention is so simple, and it is theonlymeans to find how any world or anything other thanoneselfseems to exist, but in the name of sādhana or spiritual practiceso many other exercises are taught

All other spiritual practicesentail attending to something other than oneself, whereasātma-vicāra entails attending to oneself alone, so by definitionit isthe simplest of all spiritual practices, and hence it doesnotrequire any aid. In fact any aid would be somethingother thanourself, so it would distract our attention away fromourself,thereby defeating its very purpose. Therefore what Bhagavanhas taught us is the simple, direct and only effective meansforus to know ourself as we really are and thereby eradicateourego or mind, which is just a false knowledge of ourself.

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This is why the ego is described as cit-jaḍa-granthi, theknot(granthi) formed by the entanglement of awareness (cit) withadjuncts, which are all insentient (jaḍa). The ego is thefalse‘I’that is always aware of itself as ‘I amthis body’, whichisamixture that consists of a real element and an unreal element.The real element is ‘I’ or ‘I am’, which is pure self-awareness(cit), and the unreal element is ‘this body’, which is non-aware(jaḍa).

..The fact that the ego is one and not many is madeclearbyBhagavan in verses 23 and 24 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadubyhisreferring to it as ‘நான் ஒன் ’ (nāṉ oṉḏṟu), whichmeans‘the one [called] I’ or ‘one [that rises as] I’: This body does not say ‘I’ [that is, it is not aware of itselfas‘I’]. No one says ‘Insleep I do not exist’ [even thoughonewasnot aware of any body then]. After the one [called] ‘I’ rises, everything rises. Investigate [consider, determineorfind out] with a subtle mind where this ‘I’ rises.

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The jaḍa body does not say ‘I’; sat-cit does not rise; [but]inbetween [these two] one [spurious entity] rises [as] ‘I’ [limited]as the extent of the body. Know that this [one limitedself-awareness that rises as ‘I am this body’] is cit-jaḍa-granthi [theknot that binds the conscious and the non-conscious togetherasif they were one], bandha [bondage], jīva [life or soul], thesubtle body, the ego, this saṁsāra [wandering, perpetualmovement, restless activity, worldly existence or thecycleofbirth and death] and manam [the mind].

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As he says in verse 33 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu: ‘Beingoneisthetruth, [as is known by] the experience of everyone’. Therefore,since we are always one, there can only ever be one ‘I’, sotheego is always the same ego, even though the adjunctswithwhich it identifies itself are constantly changing.

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If the ego were not always one and the same ego, but wasinstead a different ego at each moment, the karmatheorywould not be valid, because the ego that experiences thefruitof a past action would not be the same ego that didthat action.However this is not the case, as Bhagavan clearlyimpliesinverse 38 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu:

If we are the doer of action, we will experience the resultingfruit. [However] when one knows oneself by investigatingwhois the doer of action, doership will depart and all thethreekarmas [āgāmya, sańcita and prārabdha] will slip off. [Thisis]the state of liberation, which is eternal.

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180

.............This is why Bhagavan wrote in verse 15 of UḷḷaduNāṟpaduthat the present is the only one, meaning that thepresentmoment is that only moment that actually exists.

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Thepast andthe future are just ideas that occur in the present moment, butlike all other ideas or thoughts, they can occur onlybecauseofthe illusion of a continuously passing time. Without suchanillusion, nothing would seem to happen, because happeningsentail change, and change can seemto occur onlyinthepassing of time.

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Until we rise as the ego, we are not aware of anythingelse,because as Bhagavan says in verse 26 of UḷḷaduNāṟpadu,everything else comes into existence only when the egocomesinto existence, and nothing else exists when the egodoesnotexist. Our real nature is not aware of either the appearanceorthe disappearance of the ego – in fact it is not aware of theegoat all, because the ego is just a wrong awareness of ourself,whereas our real nature is clear self-awareness undefiledbytheappearance of anything else. Therefore what is awareoftheego is only the ego itself.

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183

Therefore the ego can never be aware either of its comingintoexistence or of its ceasing to exist, and this is whywecannever cognise the exact moment when we wake up or theexactmoment when we fall asleep. However Bhagavan asks ustotryto find out how the ego comes into existence, eventhoughwecan never see it actually coming into existence. In order toseewhen or how it comes into existence, or when or howit ceasesto exist, we must attend to it very keenly, and whenwelookatit carefully enough we will see that no such thingactuallyexists, because what actually exists is only our ownreal nature,which is pure self-awareness.

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Therefore we should not imagine that if we practiseself-attention keenly enough our power of attention will becomesosharp and subtle that we will be able to cognise the risingandthe subsiding of our ego every fraction of a moment, becauseifwe attend to ourself keenly enough it will not rise at all. That is,if we fix our attention very keenly on ourself, the sourcefromwhich the ego rises, what will become clear to us is: I aloneexist, so no such thing as the ego has ever come intoexistence.

Vivarta vāda [the contention that the ego and everythingperceived by it is just a false appearance] can hold trueonlyso

long as the ego seems to exist, but when we see the realityofthe ego, namely our true nature, we will see that noegohasever existed, so ajāta [the fact that nothing has ever beenbornor come into existence, even as a false appearance] will thenshine as the only truth, because since the ego has never existed,nothing else has ever actually existed, since accordingtovivarta vāda everything else depends for its seemingexistenceupon the seeming existence of the ego

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In some books that record Bhagavan’s answers to questionsheseems to accept the existence of the causal body in sleep, but inUḷḷadu Nāṟpadu he makes it clear that in the absence of theegothere is no body or anything else at all. For example inverse26he says that if the ego comes into existence everythingcomesinto existence, and if the ego does not exist nothingexists.Moreover in verse 5 he clarifies that the body is a formof fivesheaths, so all five together are included in the term‘body’,and that no world exists without such a body. Thesefivesheaths are usually divided into three bodies, the gross, subtleand causal, and a prevalent view in advaita texts is that thebody we experience as ourself in the waking state is thegross

body, the body we experience as ourself in dreamis thesubtlebody, and what we experience in sleep is the causal body, butBhagavan has pointed out that this view is not correct.

Firstly he says that there is no actual difference betweenwaking and dream, and that while dreaming we seemtobeawake, so the body we experience as ourself in dreamseemstobe as gross or physical as the body in waking. Therefore whateverbody that we experience as ourself, whether in wakingorindream, is a form composed of all the five sheaths

Secondly he says that sleep is not a state of ignorancebut oneof pure self-awareness. Only from the perspective of theegoinwaking or dream does sleep seem to be a state of darknessorignorance, but in sleep the ego does not exist, andinitsabsence what remains is only pure self-awareness. Thereforethe causal body is said to exist in sleep only as a concessiontothe self-ignorant view of the ego.

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The ego is the wrong awareness ‘I am this body’, soit seemstoexist only when we are aware of ourself as a body, as weareinwaking and dream. Therefore it does not exist in sleep, becausewe are then aware of ourself only as ‘I am’ without anyadjuncts. As Bhagavan says in verse 25 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu, theego comes into existence, stands and flourishes onlybygrasping forms, and the first form it grasps is whatever bodyitcurrently experiences as ‘I’, so since no forms seemtoexist insleep, the ego does not exist then.

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........Though they are described as five ‘sheaths’or‘coverings’ and are compared to the layers of an onion, whichif peeled off leave nothing inside, they are not actuallyfivedistinct layers, but are closely interwoven andinourexperience of them they are inseparable fromone another. Justas we peel off all five of them whenever we fall asleep, ifweinvestigate the ego, the ‘I’ that experiences themas itself, andthereby experience our real nature, we will peel off all of themsimultaneously and forever.

The grossest of these five sheaths is the physical body, andeach of the other sheaths is progressively more subtle, sosince

all five of them form one body, we can say that thesubtlestform of this body is the darkness of self-ignorance(ānandamaya kōśa), and that a grosser formof that darknessisthe intellect, a grosser form of the intellect is themind, agrosser form of the mind is the life or prāṇa, and a grosser formof the life is the physical body. This is why BhagavansaysinNāṉ Yār? [eighth paragraph]: ‘The prāṇa is said to be thegrossform of the mind’.

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None of these five sheaths are ‘I’, but that which experiencesthem all as ‘I’ is the ego, so to investigate what we reallyarewe need to separate ourself from all of them, includingthesubtle darkness of self-ignorance, and we can separateourselffrom them only by attending to nothing other than ‘I’

Sincetheego cannot stand without grasping these five sheaths asitself,when it tries to grasp itself alone, it will subside anddisappear.This is why Bhagavan concludes verse 25 of UḷḷaduNāṟpaduby saying that if one searches for it, the formless phantom-egowill take flight.

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The darkness of self-ignorance is called the causal bodybecause none of the other four sheaths can appear without it, sowe can permanently separate ourself fromall the fivesheathsonly by eradicating this fundamental darkness. Just as darknesscan be removed only by light, the darkness of self-ignorancecan be removed only by the clear light of pure self-awareness(ātma-jñāna), and we can see that light only bykeenlyattending to the ego, the one to whomself-ignoranceandtheother four sheaths appear.

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That is, what is enveloped in the darkness of self-ignoranceisonly the ego, and since the ego is just a false awarenessofourself as ‘I am this body’, we can free ourself fromthedarkness of self-ignorance only by eradicating the ego, andwe

can eradicate the ego only by seeing ourself as we reallyare.Therefore from whichever angle we may consider thematter,we can eradicate the ego and thereby separateourselfpermanently from all the five sheaths only keenly attendingtoourself alone.

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188

So long as the ego is in contact with anything other thanitself,its real nature is concealed from it, so in order to finditsrealnature it must attend to itself alone. This is why Bhagavansaid:‘Its true nature is known when it is out of contact withobjectsor thoughts’ and ‘The ego in its purity is experiencedintheintervals between two states or between twothoughts’(Maharshi’s Gospel, Book 1, Chapter 5). Therefore weshouldwithdraw our attention completely fromeverythingelsebyfixing it firmly on ourself alone, as he implies in verse16ofUpadēśa Undiyār: Leaving aside external viṣayas [phenomena],the mind knowing its own form of light is alone real awareness[or knowledge].

That is, when we attend to ourself alone, awarenessofeverything else will recede and disappear, and inthebrightlight of pure self-awareness that then remains the egowilldissolve and be consumed entirely, as Bhagavan says inverse193 of Guru Vācaka Kōvai:

If the ego-mind, which wanders about attending to other things,begins to attend to its own nature, then [all] other thingsdeparting, ‘I’, the limited awareness, will be annihilatedbythereal awareness of oneself, which shines without limit asthenature of the heart.

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And who can give śivatva? Only one who is dissolvedinśivaas śiva, as Bhagavan implies in the previous verse, verseB15of Guru Vācaka Kōvai (verse 10 of Upadēśa Taṉippākkaḷ): Only one who is saved can save living beings intheworld;whereas anyone else is like a blind person who is [tryingtobe]a guide to [another] blind person

Sphurana

Sadhu Om: Sphuraṇa is not something that we do not alreadyknow, because it is always shining in us as ‘I’. It is thesimpleawareness ‘I am’, so it is never unknown to us, becauseevenwhen we attend to other things we do not cease tobeawarethat I am.

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However, because we are so accustomed to attendingtootherthings whenever we are either awake or dreaming, whenwetryto attend only to the awareness ‘I am’ it seems to shinewithafresh clarity, and this fresh clarity of self-awareness is what isgenerally called sphuraṇa.

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When we attend to other thingstheawareness ‘I am’ is mixed up and confused with awarenessofabody and other such adjuncts, so instead of shiningjust as‘Iam’ it shines as ‘I am this body’, but when we trytoattendonly to our basic self-awareness, ‘I am’, the adjuncts recedeinto the background and self-awareness begins to shinemoreclearly and prominently. The more keenly we attendto‘I am’,the more awareness of all other things fades away, untileventually we remain shining as ‘I am’ alone.

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Whenever we attend to anything other than ‘I’ we seemtobeabody, but when we try to attend only to ‘I’ we begintorecognise that ‘I’ is actually something quite distinct fromwhatever body I seem to be. 

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To know this ‘I’ as it really is we must attend onlytotheawareness that always shines as ‘I’, thereby ignoringall otherthings, including the corpse-like body that we nowmistaketobe ‘I’. This is why in the kaliveṇbā version of UḷḷaduNāṟpaduBhagavan extended verse 29 by adding before it theclause‘uḍalam piṇam pōl tīrndu’, which means ‘leaving the bodylikea corpse’, so with this clause the first sentence of that versemeans: ‘Leaving the body like a corpse, not saying‘I’bymouth, investigating by an inward sinking mind whereonerises as ‘I’ alone is the path of knowledge’.

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Likewise in the first sub-section of section 1of VicāraSaṅgraham he says: If one asks how to investigate [this impure self-awarenessthatrises as ‘I am this body’], [the reply is:] can this body, whichisjaḍa [non-conscious] like a block of wood, shine andbehaveas‘I’? It cannot. Therefore, setting down the corpse-bodyasacorpse, and remaining without uttering ‘I’ even by [physical or

mental] voice, if one keenly investigates what it is that nowshines as ‘I’, then in [one’s] heart a kind of spurippu[afreshclarity] alone will itself appear to itself [or to oneself] withoutsound as ‘I am I’. Without leaving that [fresh clarityof self-awareness], if one just is, it will completelyannihilateahaṅkāra-rūpa jīva-bhōda [the sense of individualityintheform of ego], which is called [that is, which experiencesitselfas] ‘body is I’, and [then], like fire that catches on camphor, itwill itself also be extinguished. This itself is said bysagesandsacred texts to be mōkṣa [liberation].

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The term spurippu, which means shining or clarity, is aTamilequivalent of the Sanskrit term sphuraṇa, and theyarebothverbal nouns derived from the Sanskrit verb sphur (spuri orpuri in Tamil), which means to shine, be clear, shineforth,appear clearly or make itself known, so when Bhagavansays,‘if one keenly investigates what it is that nowshines as I, thenin the heart a kind of spurippu alone will itself appear toitselfwithout sound as I am I’, what he means by spurippuis afreshclarity of self-awareness. That is, if we keenly attendto‘I’, afresh clarity of self-awareness will shine forth withinus.

So long as we attend to anything other than ‘I’, we areawareofourself as ‘I am this body’, and this adjunct-mixedself-awareness is what is called ego (ahaṅkāra) or the senseofindividuality (jīva-bhōda). However, if we attend to‘I’ keenlyenough, we will thereby separate ourself fromall adjuncts, andhence instead of shining as ‘I am this body’ our self-awarenesswill shine clearly as ‘I am just I’.

If we cling fast to this fresh clarity of self-awareness, withoutleaving or letting go of it, that steady state of unwaveringself-attention is what is called ‘just being’ (summā iruppadu),because it is the state in which the ego does not rise toattendto

anything else, and hence it is the state of absolutesilence,stillness or inactivity. 

By remaining unswervingly inthisstateof just being, in which we do not let go of self-attentioneventothe slightest extent, 

the last remaining traces of the egowill beconsumed 

by the clarity of self-awareness,

 andthenthefreshness of that clarity will subside, 

after whichpureself-awareness will shine forever

as our natural, eternal andimmutable state.

This is what Bhagavan refers to when he says: ‘Withoutleaving that [spurippu or fresh clarity of self-awareness], ifonejust is, it will completely annihilate the sense of individuality(jīva-bhōda) in the form of ego (ahaṅkāra), 

whichis called[that is, which experiences itself as] ‘body is I’, and[then], likefire that catches on camphor, it will itself also be extinguished’.

What is extinguished when the ego is annihilatedis not theclarity of self-awareness but only the freshness of it, 

becauseitwill then be experienced as the real nature of oneself (ātma-svarūpa), which is eternal and immutable

However, unless we have all-consuming love toattendtoourself alone, and unless our viṣaya-vāsanās or outward-goingtendencies are consequently greatly diminished, we will not beable to cling to the fresh clarity of self-awareness without everleaving it, 

so during the course of our practice this freshclarity(spurippu or sphuraṇa) will fade whenever we attendtootherthings and will shine again only when we renewour effort toattend only to ourself. 

That is, to the extent that we attendtoother things, our self-awareness will again become cloudedbybeing mixed with adjuncts, and to the extent that weattendonly to ourself, the adjuncts will fade and self-awarenesswillshine clearly. In other words, the more keenly we attendtoourself, the more the appearance of adjuncts will subside, andconsequently the more clearly the sphuraṇa will shine, until

finally the ego and all its adjuncts will be dissolvedforeverinthe absolute clarity of pure self-awareness.

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Therefore once we have ignited the sphuraṇa or freshclarityofself-awareness by trying to attend only to ourself, weshouldthen try to cling as firmly as possible to this sphuraṇauntil itconsumes our ego entirely like a flame that catchesandconsumes a piece of camphor.

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196

However, since there is only one ‘I’, if one investigatesthisone ‘I’, which is what now seems to be the ego, its real naturewill be revealed, just as if one looks carefully enoughat whatseems to be a snake one will see that it is just a rope. Whenonesees that it is actually just a rope, the snake in effect disappearsor takes flight. Likewise when one investigates oneself keenlyenough to see what one actually is, the ego will disappearortake flight. This is why Bhagavan says in verse 25of UḷḷaduNāṟpadu and elsewhere that if one seeks or scrutinises theego,it will take flight.

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