Qualities of Spiritual Life

We have seen many ways in which our sense of identity propels us into samsara. It is a whirlpool of activities, experiences, sorrows , disillusionment , temporary pleasures and so on. One of the fundamental issue we face in this wordly life is that we remain ignorant of the fact that all these problems are arising from a basic misconception and that all experiences are just consequences of this.

The mind is a storm of activity right from the time we wake up. It propels us into this world by telling us that we need to bring fulfillment in life by changing ourselves, changing the environment we live and changing our near and dear. We work towards our goals incessantly by bringing in change. But after bringing in change , we realize that the change also involves losses. Any change will include gain and loss . But our mind usually looks at loss because it has a nice way of enhancing thoughts and emotions. A gain is often easily overlooked. How many of us thank for what we have got?. Anyway the feeling of change in our life is to feel for losses . The short term gains are temporary.

What started these pursuits anyway?. Our concept of our self image or ego. In our mind as we transact there is a self image we have created over a period of years which we take ourselves to be . This self image if you look closely is hardly a constant. In one period of life it was something, in a next phase it is totally different and yet we maintain that it is our identity . Have you ever looked closely into your mind and tried to identify what this self image is made of ?. Is it real?. Or is it just a sequence of thoughts and emotions?.  If so what happens to it ?. You can see that the mind cannot maintain something without effort. A thought or a concept can remain in our mind only when it is constantly thought of . If you don't give attention to a thought , it vanishes in no time. So in order to maintain our identity all the time, the mind should go on producing thoughts and thoughts about it.
This is what our identity is " A concept maintained by our mind through incessant thinking".

This also explains why children are so pure. Neither do they have a self image nor do they have a thought system to maintain it. Their effort is not to maintain or change anything. They perceive the world as it is without the filtering of the self image and assigning, categorizing and holding onto  objects. After years of conditioning we understand that our mind have become more polluted rather than becoming free .

What is the solution?. The solution is to first recognize and accept that it is not in the world the problem exists but in us. It is in our minds and cognition all the problems exist. The world cannot be and need not be changed. What should change is our approach to life in a fundamental way. What should change is to clearly see the root cause of the problem lies in our mistaken identity and work towards understanding who we truly are and to align our efforts accordingly.

Vedanta often speaks about some qualities for  spiritual life. The first quality is Vivekam or Discrimination. This is also called Nithya-Anithya-Vastu-Vivekam. By developing a viewership, we need to constantly see what is permanent and real from what seems to be apparent and transient. Look at thoughts and emotions. Look at objects which come and go. You can see the transient nature . What looks difficult situation now, will become a past incident later. What looks daunting task now becomes a regular routine later. But look at the persistent quality of awareness in which all these objects are seen and disappearing. When they disappear also , awareness remain as awareness of absence of something. So awareness never goes. Is the self image of us constant and permanent? For one we can see it was never there initially . So it is hardly permanent. But our awareness of self image was there all the time. We knew its absence and we knew its presence , we knew its change over time. So we need to see ,the self image  is not real , it is only one of the impermanent objects which changes over time.

The second important quality is  Vairagyam or dispassion. It is a natural consequence of the first quality. When we realize the impermanence of objects, we realize that we can hardly hold onto them. So a sense of dispassion arises naturally . This is the zen like quality of letting go of objects without interest. Seeking something higher, we let go of these simple objects. If money goes, we let it pass. If we loose something dear we let it pass. As the mind trains to let go things and understands that it is not a meek quality, but comes from an understanding of the higher principle, a sense of acceptance develops.

The third quality is a sense of discipline in our life. It entails mastery of our mind and sense organs and concentration and withdrawing . This is where various upasanas can help. Meditating , living meditation, spending time with spiritually inclined people ( satsangs ) etc can help our mind to become withdrawn from the wordly problems into more and more spiritual life . Even thinking too hard on wordly problems is an indulgence . It is not only a waste of time but also takes us away from the real path .

The fourth quality is the desire for freedom. As we go on replacing desires in life, we understand that there is only one way we can achieve this. By having a desire for freedom. Using consciousness of mind itself to replace it with the supreme consciousness. By planting disbelief in the mind about what it says to look beyond the mind and go to its source. This is often called Mumukshuvtam. The one and only desire which is the destroyer of all desires, is this persistent desire to know the truth.

Even though all these seems a difficult task, once we get used to all of them, we can see that life is rather simple in spirituality. Since there is only thing to ponder, we don't waste our time pondering over so many tasks we have to accomplish , so many objects to hold on. Also since it is something that is real and permanent, we are always at ease with it. We watch the objects as they come and go rather than getting immersed in them. 

Experiencer

In every experience in life there seems to be three things. One there seems to be an experiencer, second the experiencing and the third experienced object. Now let us take an example, you are watching a sun set in some beautiful beach side. A cool breeze is blowing , the night time sky is slowly descending . The experienced is clearly the sunset and the beach. The experiencing is the process of perceptions and thoughts that come in . Now who is the experiencer here ?. The immediate answer is "me". Who is me?. If you ask your mind it would try to say it is nothing but the body-mind system. So the experiencer according to the conventional experience is "body-mind " system.


Now look at this fact closely. The fact that I is only the body-mind system is only an idea. It is more like a concept .Isn't it ?. What is a concept ?. A concept is mental construct which may or may not correspond to something .  If you look at the concept of say honesty . You can see that it is a set of ideas ,, opinions and values . All mental constructs. It may be guided by social ethics, your own personal philosophy and so on. But nowhere in the world , can you show a thing called honesty. In some years the concept of honesty might change and it still would exist in mind only. Isn't the concept of I more like a mental construct?. You can definitely see the body , you can experience the mind, but the I seems to be non-existent except as a thought. So when you say "I saw the sunset", do you mean to say " A thought(concept) experienced sunset?". This seems absurd. Yet, it is what it is. This is the meaning of the statement "there really is no experiencer".

Now take another experience. You are angry at someone. There are lot of thoughts created out of the emotion called anger. Now the object causing anger could be anything . The emotions also exist. Process of anger is going on. But where is the experiencer here.? Again a concept or thought ( called I) is the experiencer here. How can a thought(I thought)  be angry?. It is only a thought. In order to understand the absurdity of this  , consider honesty. Can a concept called honesty be angry ?. Or will it become sad if honesty undergoes change with advancement in culture. A concept is only a concept. Just like that how can a concept called I feel anger or sadness?.  It is only a concept.

Lastly consider you are walking down the street. You are perceiving the body walking. Still you would say the I am walking. Experiencer is a thought or concept. The thought feels that it is walking. All this shows that even though the experiences are there and experiencing is going on, the experiencer is hardly an existent entity. It is not something that is permanent. It is a thought called the "I thought" which claims that the experience is its own.

Also notice an important aspect here. The fact that the I is only body-mind  is also known!!!. So it is also an experienced object. Any thought or concept is an object. So the concept of I is also an object. If it is an object, what is the subject?. If the subject is not the body-mind system, then the subject is not part of it but independent of it. So the experiencer is not the body-mind, but it is awareness itself. Awareness is not personal. It is not an awarer. It is awareness. A state of consciousness which is knowing.

For seeing this simple truth that there is no experiencer , but only a background awareness which is illumining all the experiences can be seen in every experience if you look closely enough. Very often we take the experiencer to be granted. We are always lost in the experienced objects and the process of experiencing that the experiencer is never seen or questioned. Every experience is a pointer to finding this out. The idea of spiritual practice is to identify the experiencer and to show clearly what it is . Notice we  said "what it is" not "who it is". Because there is no who.

When we look around , you can see people moving around caressing this sense of imaginary I holding on to it, nurturing it , working for it , trying to make the life better for it. How silly and frivolous. We build houses , move around in cars, go to places, all to satisfy a thought?. ( called I). Now wonder ,this world is such a mad place. No wonder that it  is filled with suffering. If you satisfy a thought will it thank you. Will it ever become content?.

So what is the solution to this problem?. The solution is not to think that the experiencer would vanish  from our mind. The idea is to go on witnessing the experiencer concept in our mind . The process of experiencing the experiencer itself is the solution. Naturally the witnessing of the experiencer shows that the experiencer itself is not the experiencer since there is something observing it. So next time you experience a strong emotion, look closely . Look at the experiencer . Try to find where it lives. Try to find what it is. Go on searching for it. Also have a wonder "who is searching?!!!".

To the ardent student , a doubt may arise. The subject to which all experiences are happening is awareness. How can we learn about it ?. Once we learn it , it becomes an object of knowledge. But the subject can never be an object. So what does atma jyana do ?. Atma jyana is nothing but the understanding that I am what i am seeking. The subject which i am trying to understand is nothing but me. Owning up the real atman as myself  and rejecting the body-mind as anatma is the real purpose of this endeavor. The shift of consciousness from the body-mind complex to the awareness is called transcendence( shifting the I). This is why the only word we can use here is "I AM THAT". All other statements like I KNOW ATMAN etc makes atman into an object which it is not.

True Nature of Self

यस्तु सर्वाणि भूतानि आत्मन्येवानुपश्यति
सर्वभूतेषु चात्मानं ततो न विजुगुप्सते ॥

                                                  Isavasya Upanishad

"He who sees everyone and everything in self; and the self in all beings and forms; feels no hatred for anything"

At many instances in our life , we feel miserable , restless and not at ease. At those instants we do not know how to come out of this state . Let us look at this situation closely and see what is going on.

Suppose there is a life situation which makes you really sad and miserable. Thoughts come on an on, emotions erupt and you feel crunched , unable to let go of anything. All these things are happening. So we can see this from a different plane . There are two possibilities in this
One is that you are not knowledgeable about the state of your mind. You do not view your mind so to speak. This happens for example when you sleep . There may be thoughts and emotions but you are not aware of the state of your mind. Does this create a  problem?. No.
The second possibility is that you are knowing your mind . What happens ?. Suddenly these thoughts and emotions create issues. You come and say " I am disturbed and confused on what to do".

Here is the crux of the situation. It is the knowledge of the mind that created the issue. If somehow you were not aware of the things in your mind, you would not have said " I am disturbed". So it is the awareness of something that creates the issue. Now this could be due to two causes. Awareness caused the issue or the mind caused the issue. If awareness caused the issue, then in all wake state you would always feel disturbed. But this does not happen. So you conclude, it is the mind that created the issue.

Now there are many things in life which causes the thoughts in your mind as mentioned above. For example , you come to know the sad demise of your best friend's father then also you might feel disturbed. But at that time you would say " I feel sad for him". This sadness is different. When you see a tall tree what you conclude "The tree is tall" . But when you see yourself in mirror and remark you feel "I am tall". So the same tall thought in your mind is different based on situation. The same sad thought is based on situation. Your friend's father's demise produces a different sadness than your own sadness even though the sad thought could be similar.

When you look closely both a tall tree and your tallness both produce a knowledge about some tallness and so the idea is the same . How can a similar thought produce a different response when the content of the thought is more or less the same. Not only that , we also feel " I am tall " and "I am sad" etc. We feel identified with an object of our knowledge. A more accurate statement would be to say I am a witness of this knowledge. There should be something that needs to be independent of the knowledge to know it. If the something that is knowing itself is tall or sad, then it can never become short or happy later. It has to be independent of the attributes that it knows. Yet we know from our experience that we are knowing so many things of our mind's changes. Isn't our knowledge of these mind changes showing that the knowing principle is independent of our state of mind and is neither sad nor happy?. Yes. This is the liberating thing that we come to know.

No experience is exempted from this simple principle. You are consciousness and you are knowing these changes and stand independent of all. So it is more accurate to say , i am knowing sadness in me, but i stand independent of it. I am knowing happiness in me, but i stand independent of it. All changes are happening , but i am the knowing principle of all..You have known so many things in your life. You have studied many things, worked in many fields . All these things , memories, thoughts, emotions, feelings have gone through you and yet you stand apart without getting affected by them. If you were identified with each and every thing , how do you come out of it ?.

All this may be true. But when sadness comes, a tension comes, why do we feel so bad. What gave the mind the ability to do this. Here is the crucial thing to understand. Consciousness through which you know everything is turned into an object by the mind. It says consciousness is nothing but Body-mind. We now know consciousness or awareness can never be an object as it has to be independent of all objects to know them. But the mind conveniently says awareness is body-mind. Why ?. So that certain thoughts and emotions can feel more powerful and strong. Certain knowledge can feel more important than others. So a sadness pertaining to your body-mind is more important while other sadness is not so. A simple trick has divided your world. Now instead of understanding that the sadness or any thoughts are just happenings in the world, you become engrossed in it . You can spend hours and days thinking about them. So some knowing becomes pain.

A thought occurs and then the mind comes and claims that it is happening to me. If you believe it you are caught in the maze of your own thinking system.

Look at the moon. There is moon as an object and there is also space between us and the moon. So where is awareness? Is awareness in us and not outside?. It cannot be . It has to be there in the space also , since it has to know that there is a distance.It has to be in the moon also since it has to know about the moon. This is strange . Most of us might not be convinced about it. But how are you sure that there is space?. To know something you require awareness. So to know space it has to be there. If awareness is not , then no object can  be. So the idea of separation arises because of attributing awareness to the body mind. In the real picture it has to be limitless and independent.  The moon and your body mind are just objects in this limitless, formless  awareness.

This is one of the reasons why many spiritual teachers want us to inquire into our own true self. When you begin to see the truth about awareness as separate from the objects especially the body-mind also, it becomes impossible for the mind to convince us in dualistic thinking. All happenings are going on independent of us. It is neither belonging to us, nor to anyone. They are all guided by the laws of the universe. Just as thousands of processes are going on inside the body, the thoughts also are happening guided by the laws. If you truly understand that there is a radiance knowing it and standing independent of it , and you are that , how is that you are affected Every experience is a pointer to this knowing principle which all the scriptures call the eternal , self effulgent principle. Every experience is enlightenment.

Samsara

The wheels of samsara rolls us into these life situations. Often we are caught in them so much that , every activity , every experience is clouded, sad and painful. It is often not possible for us to relinquish negativity because of external factors. Before starting the discourse on spirituality , Arjuna and Duryodhana are portrayed as symbols of mortals who suffer from these wheel of samsara. If you look at Duryodhana he is the epitome of evil in terms of adharmic actions and attachment to wealth , fame and security. But why Arjuna?. Before Gita starts , he calls all Dhartharastras as Durbudhe ( evil minds). But on seeing all his relatives, he breaks down. So you can see the wide end of the spectrum. You could be good or bad, you could be dharamic or adharmic, all suffer because of samsara.

The first and foremost problem in life is that of attachment. An attachment is not necessarily due to attachment to people. You could be attached to concepts, blind beliefs, relations, health, wealth and so on. All attachments are collectively called Ragah. A ragah is always one in which we seek some material benefit either directly or indirectly. An expectation is implied in an attachment. When you love your child, there are lot of implied expectations, even though you may never admit it. In any relation also there are lot of implied and direct expectations. When you probe deep in to that you will see what your expectations are. If there is no problem or expectation it is not an attachment and there are no problems at all. In contrast to attachment, love is one of zero expectation and that is why it is a spiritual quality and why it is difficult!. Many love that we experience is only attachment in a guise.

Attachment comes with an expectation and hence implies a giving and taking. We give something now to receive something back later or now. It is this taking that is implied in the hidden expectation. Love on the other hand implies sacrifice and non expectation. It is also unconditional. All attachments comes with conditions. Why do the people to whom i have done so much behave this way? is the common compliant. You can see how many things attachment depends on. No wonder you are thinking and emoting a lot if you have attachments.

You may wonder , why do attachments happen and what is the root cause?. It comes from repeated thinking and weak identity. A weakness in our identity , as a limited being causes repeated thinking about all things close to us and this leads to desire for fulfilling and finally leads to attachment. If we truly need to do things for others. our thoughts and actions should spring from pure love and sacrifice and not from attachments. Do things with a pure heart and forget them instantly is the way.

Attachment leads to non fulfillment most of the time. Conditions change, dependent things move away, things which arise will pass and so on. This leads to the second problem in samsara called Sorrow or Shokah. When results of our actions of attachments dont bear fruit, we are immersed in misery. We fail to see what we may have achieved even because sorrow is an over powering emotion. Most of the times attachment are emotional and hence implies intense emotions in the form of sorrow. Even if  i have achieved or attained something , it would be hardly seen as significant.

Sorrow is a misplaced emotion because by their very nature , every appearance is impermanent and hence will pass and dissolve. All appearances have to go back because it is intrinsically empty. Only foolishness draws sorrow from such transient things. Even though we criticize evil people for their deeds because they inflict pain on others , a sorrowful person is not considered as evil . Actually a sorrowful person is also committing the same error as an evil person as he is inflicting pain on himself. So just as suicide is considered as murder, a sorrowful person is also doing incorrect things.

When sorrow has sufficiently established itself we are lead to the third problem of samsara which is called delusion or Mohah. This is a very dangerous thing to have. Delusion always prompts us to do incorrect actions. When Arjuna was overcome with Ragah and Shokah his intellect got clouded and he wanted to withdraw from the war. The same people whom he called Durbudhe , became his relatives and whatever they did was overlooked. So delusion had its grip on him. We are not discussing whether war was right or wrong in this context. But we can see how things are progressing in Arjuna's mind as a pointer into our own life.

This is one of the reasons why spiritual masters ask us to calm our mind and intellect before taking decisions. All decisions which are taken with the clouding of attachment and sorrow are bound to be incorrect. It would be emotional and adharmic mostly. When we have calmed our mind through spiritual knowledge and contemplation, most of the actions wouldn't be necessary and if karma is required at all , it would be pure also. On the other hand , actions done with a clouded intellect leads to more incorrect situations which again leads to ragah and sokah and the wheel rolls on.