Problem of Identity

Many people when embarking on the spiritual path feel that it is a journey which takes too long and that it is difficult. When life's problems arise, they forget what they have learnt and get immersed in samsara and after some time , feel that they have lost the way. A few common questions that comes to us are "Why is it taking long?". "Why is not happening for me?".  and so on. Let us look at why this is difficult and also what is more important. It is difficult because of the constant sensory overload of our body into the mind and also the deep rooted beliefs which we have cultivated and have been conditioned over time. But what is more important is not how long it takes , but whether we are maintaining our mumukshavtam  or desire for liberation.

There is a beautiful study in a book called "The three Christs of  Ypsilanti". The author introduces three mental patients each one of whom believed that they were Jesus Christ himself. As we can see it is a problem of identity. As he goes on investigating them, he finds why the problem of identity has arisen in them and summarizes some points which are interesting.
1) Not all beliefs are important to us. They range from central to peripheral.
2) The central beliefs are more important to us , and they are primitive and difficult to dislodge.
3) Dislodging the central belief dislodges lot of peripheral beliefs .

The problem of identity is the most central and primitive belief in us. This is why it is so difficult to dislodge and question. It is one of the reasons why the path is long and arduous. In this book he underlines what he means by a primitive belief. A primitive belief is one which we have about ourselves, our position in society, our relations and so on. Unlike other beliefs they dont come under discussions and is never looked at for scrutiny or analysis. All our actions are guided by them. More importantly they lie at the center and guide other beliefs also and form our emotional responses to many situations in life.

The primitive belief is also constantly guided by the sensory inputs .  All through our life we see constancy of objects , constancy or relations and constancy of self. This leads to our primitive belief to be based on solid facts.

He narrates a story about his two daughters. Once he returned from his clinic and found that the two daughters were quarreling a lot. Repeated attempts to quiet them failed. Now he did a trick
he addressed his elder daughter who was called Ruth as Jane and called Jane as Ruth. Suddenly the two kids stopped and asked " Dad are you playing with us?". He said "No". Now they were confused and started questioning him. They forgot about the quarrel. Now you can see how the question of identity works. As soon you are called as someone else, suddenly that becomes a big problem.

Continuously we receive sensations of the body and questioning the identity based on our body would be equivalent to questioning our sensations and perceptions which hardly  results in sanity.
It shatters our sense of integrity as a person. But looking at the mental patients who strongly believe that they are Jesus Christ and the problems they face leads us to see how their erroneous belief can lead to suffering.

We have seen why the problem of identity is difficult to dislodge. Let us now discuss whether the question is important. Even though it is difficult, each seeing that the problems are all coming from the erroneous primitive belief of who we are is more important. The view of who we are not leads to slow dissolution of the identity. It is this constant view that is more important than how long it takes.
Each experience is an opportunity to view .
So patience is a very important trait in spiritual life . We should constantly try to abandon the trammels of the mind and its desires and stay in our true nature.

Permanency of Experiencer

In the post Experiencer we looked at the fallacy of the belief in the experiencer. This can be seen as discriminating the real from the unreal. In order to look at any experience and understand what is real and what is not, we need to closely look at the existence of the experiencer. In this we will try to understand this from the perspective of the mind techniques to make reality out of nothing. The mind is indeed a strange phenomenon. It can make real things unreal by clouding it , and make unreal things real by grabbing our constant attention to it .  The problems of life is loosing ourselves in these erroneous things mind creates for us. We mistake the subject to be an object and we fail to see the real subject since we constantly are misguided by the mind.  In this post we will try to see how an experiencer which does not exist is created by the mind.

Let us look at a very simple experience. Suppose you are looking at a tree far away. What is the understanding here . " I am looking at the tree". The tree seems to be an object  and perceptions fall on my retina and body-mind system processes it and understands it to be a tree. There seems to be a tree experiencer called "me" . Now actually you will admit that , you never looked at this "me" closely . You always have looked at the tree or whatever object you are experiencing . The "me" in this experience is not looked at. Actually what has happened is this. Consciousness has become aware of the thoughts in your mind about the tree. When perceptions fall in your retina , there are processes in your mind about it . We recognize these perceptions to belong to a category of object called tree. These thoughts are all that is there. Consciousness become aware of this thoughts  in your mind. As long this tree looking is going on , thoughts are there and a "tree experiencer" also seem to exist. It is only a concept because of the conscious recognition of the thoughts in your mind.

Now let us turn away from the tree and look at a movie in the tv. Now there are thoughts about the movie that is happening. Now there seems to be a "Movie experiencer". Again the same process is true. Consciousness is becoming aware of the "Movie thoughts " in your mind and because of this awareness of the movie thoughts , we feel that there is a "me" watching the movie. Now question yourself this. Is the "tree experiencer the same as the movie experiencer"?. Most of would say "Yes".
What gives us this feeling?. The mind uses a technique called memory to achieve this. When the tree experience was going on, impressions are stored in our memory. It is these impressions that gives us the continuity of experiencer. Each experience is disjoint. However the mind uses the technique called memory to give a feeling of permanency of "me" who looked at the tree as well as the movie. All there is are memories of the thoughts of the tree. All there are memories of thoughts about the movie. But constantly reminding us of the past experiences , the mind produces a permanency of the experiencer called "me". Here what is real are thoughts and perceptions in consciousness. What is unreal is an imaginary construct called "me" who is the same as another "me" who experienced the movie.

We can understand this from the perspective of the consciousness as follows. There is pure consciousness everywhere. When perceptions related to a tree falls , there is a tree consciousness in the mind. Similarly there is movie consciousness and so on.

Now you almost see why the body is taken as "me". All through your life, you experience sensations of the body. The fleshiness of your body, the images of your body , etc are constantly experienced. These memories of thoughts can be used by the mind to give you a feeling of continuity of the "me" as far as "body consciousness" is concerned. While all that is there is thoughts related to the perceptions of the body, the mind tells you there is a "me" living inside your body.

In deep sleep there is a complete absence of all object consciousness and there seems to be no "me" there. Again memory is used to give you a continuity of the experiencer.
All these would be concepts only to you, until you start looking for the existence of the experiencer.
Another nice way by the mind is to use projections to create a "me".The mind asks us to consider the thoughts related to a future event and consider the "me" implied in it. Understand that there is only thoughts about a future event . There is no "me" sitting inside that set of thoughts. It is these memories and projections that provide a continuity to the experiencer.

Now look at the truth. Even though you can see there is vague concept of a experiencer, can you deny that there is consciousness which is molded into all these different consciousnesses. The tree consciousness, the movie consciousness , the body consciousness all seems to stem from a common formless , attribute -less consciousness which is illumining all these. Even in sleep you come to know about the absence of all objects through the presence of this consciousness only. So while all the object consciousness are all modifications of the source and is temporary, the existence of the source is never absent. When there is no tree , you realize the absence of tree through it only. Even when you are not experiencing the body as in sleep, you experience the bliss through that only.

So in short the mind fools into believing in experiences through the use of memory and projections. It uses these techniques to give permanency to what is not permanent , which are thoughts and perceptions and an imaginary "me". By producing them it clouds the underlying truth of pure consciousness which was the source of it all. In vedanta we call them sankalpa and vikalpa .
If we can constantly discriminate the unreal experiencer from the underlying essence , how can we ever suffer?. What is there to achieve ? What are life's problems?.

Hiranya Nidhi

All of human life can be considered to be seeking our goals. From the outside we feel there are many goals in life. It is a matter of private philosophy on what someone wants. Some people would like wealth and security. Some people enjoy arts. Some people seek spiritual experiences and so on. Are there many goals in life?. Or underneath these goals is there a common factor?. On the superficial level , we see that there are lot of human goals. But all these goals are not actually different goals if we analyze them closely.

Let us take a simple example. Suppose you want a mobile phone. You read about it, and start to analyze the usefulness it provides. You see people using it and so on after some time you get a feeling that getting that would be useful. Now after a few years when the mobile phone has become slow and it is giving problems for you, you want to dispose of the same phone somehow. So it is apparent that it is not the mobile phone itself that is the pursuit. Underneath your endeavor there is a hidden goal that is being sought. What could that be?.

We all know that what we are seeking in objects, people, situations etc is nothing but Aananda or happiness. So seemingly there are many goals . But underneath these goals the only goal is actually happiness. So can we say there are actually not many many goals in life. But the only goal we have is Aananda . In order to get to it , we are seeking these things.

The vedantic system also tells us that there are two sources of Aananda or happiness. One seemingly comes from the outside world and is called Baghya-Aananda or Vishaya-Aananda .The second comes from the inner most being and is called Atma-Aananda.

 The first one is always conditional. Unless you fulfill lot of conditions , it will not be obtained. While the second one is unconditional . It doesn't depend on anything at all. It is ever present , and never based on anything. Vishaya ananda is borrowed happiness as we need to borrow objects while Atmananda is always available. Any independent thing is always freeing, while borrowed objects will always leave us either today or tomorrow. Vishayananda is impermanent.

Another problem with Vishayananda is un-predicability . There are lot of  unpredictable factors which decide the nature of objects in the world. At one time you find your near and dear talking well and in another instance they are angry or depressed. There seems to be no way to predict when i would get a job and so on.

Atmananda on the other hand is unconditional ,  permanent, intrinsic , natural and is coming from myself . This  Parama Purushartha is unfortunately hidden. That is why we never experience it . That is why we seek it in the outside world. It is like a treasure buried underneath. If there is a treasure in the small land that you own, you would still be poor if you don't know that there is a treasure. Just like that , we all seek various Vishaya in life , since we are unaware of this hidden Hiranya Nidhi ( Golden Treasure).

What is the way out?. If you know about the treasure in your land , what would you do ?. You would start digging . You would want to separate the mud , rocks etc until you reach towards it. The mud rock etc are the thoughts , emotions , etc in your mind. They manifest in our minds as attachments,desires,ambitions, dreams etc. Separating the mud and dirt is the process of reaching and involves  Sravana , Manana and Nidhidhyasanam to find the Nidhi.

The first understanding therefore comes from rejecting the Vishayananda and convincing oneself that i don't want anything. This only comes from a higher understanding. Somehow the seeking should stop. Truly convincing that i am what i am seeking and i don't need anything. The distance to me is zero and it is my striving that has taken me away from me. I am truly beyond the body and mind and i require nothing. Liberation is the freeing from the seeking that we have been doing.