Moment to Speak

Self is I am That, which is the underlying essence of Brahman of unmanifest consciousness, Sat-Chit-Ananda (Existence-Consciousness-Bliss), or Satyaṃ Jnananam Anantam Brahma (Real-Consciousness-Infinite). Self is "I am That", which is unalloyed, unattached, unbounded, unconditioned, unfathomed, uncaused, spotless, eternal, self-effulgent, pure consciousness, and pure essence of Cosmic-Self. Sage Ashtavakra ( Ashtavakra Gita , 2.1-3) affirms with King Janaka that I am truly spotless and at peace — an awareness beyond natural causality. Delusion has plagued me all this time. As I alone give light to this body, so I do to the world. As a result, the whole world is mine, or alternatively, nothing is. Now, through some divine intervention, my true self emerges as I relinquish my physical body and everything else. Sage Ashtavakra ( Ashtavakra Gita , 1.11-18) asserts that if one considers oneself to be free, one is free, and if one thinks of oneself as bound, one is bound. This...

Avidya , or ignorance and illusion, is to live with desires and dualities. The mind is a thought-manufacturing machine that manufactures thoughts to intensify desires through sensual pleasures to an insatiable level. Avidya generates states of opposites—happiness and distress, hot and cold, light and darkness, prosperity and poverty, etc.—and never lands in a state of unity. Vidya is the knowledge of unity through the extirpation of desires and dualities, affirms Yoga-Vasistha (Ch. CXIII). In the Srimad Bhagavad Gita (14.5-14.27), Avidya refers to a state of ignorance or nescience that leads to attachment, illusion, and the cycle of birth and death. The Bhagavad Gita describes Avidya as the root cause of suffering and bondage, contrasting with Vidya , or knowledge. Avidya obscures our true nature and the nature of reality, leading to a false sense of self and an attachment to the material world. Ignorance (Tamas) is a state of delusion and a primary impediment to spiritual adv...

Atman (inner spirit, or Self) is transcendental, Self-caused, Self-effulgent, Self-luminescent, uncaused, unborn, undependent on external sources, unborn, undying, unchanging, and ultimately one with Brahman , or the Cosmic Self, or the Ultimate Reality. Atman is self-existent and the source of its own awareness; no outside force can create it. It is the Ultimate Reality and the essence of consciousness. It is beyond the perceptions of mind and senses. If reality is one, then everything we perceive in the temporal dimensions can be wrong or non-existent. It is because there is no duality, as existence is eternal, imperishable, One and Absolute only. Rest is an illusion, a reflection of the world's transience, seen through our senses. It is better, as Yoga-Vasistha (3.114.42) teaches, to distrust the delusions of this world and disbelieve the blueness of the sky than to labour under the errors of their reality. bhramasya jāgatasyāsya jātasyākāśavarṇavat | apunaḥsmaraṇaṃ man...

Self-opinionated people guided by the sense organs dwell in the ovary of the body-mind-intellect system. Those individuals, Sage Ashtavakra ( Ashtavakra Gita , 1.8-9) proclaims, have succumbed to the "self-opinion" of 'I am the doer' and are engulfed in the forest of ignorance. Sage Ashtavakra argues that these individuals should embrace the belief that 'I am not the doer', fuelled by the knowledge that 'I am the one pure awareness', leading to happiness and freedom from distress. However, these self-opinionated people remain confined to the idea that 'I am the doer,' with characteristics of what the Srimad Bhagavad Gita (16.4-15) says are hypocrisy, arrogance, conceit, anger, harshness, and ignorance. Such qualities are the cause for their continuing destiny of bondage in the Samsara Chakra (wheel of birth and death), as they possess neither purity nor noble conduct nor even truthfulness. The world for them, the Bhagavad Gita contends, is...

Visible is not Real nor Real is visible in this phenomenal world. The Real is One, indivisible, eternal, infinite, imperishable, and in Absolute Existence. Identity is one and indivisible, i.e., Awareness Alone. The underlying essence of Reality is consciousness. Consciousness is Awareness, the Ultimate Reality. It is not a mere characteristic of the individual but the fundamental, all-pervading essence of Reality, the source of our identity and the universe itself. The Upanishads posit that it is the underlying reality —the Brahmān , the Cosmic Self— from which the universe and all beings emerge. I am the one pure awareness, declares Sage Ashtavakra ( Ashtavakra Gita , 1.9) during his discourses with sage King Janaka. It is when one is aware of his own Self,  beyond the body-mind-intellect system, and in one with the Brahmān , the Universal Self, or the Cosmic Self. As a fundamental aspect of Reality, it is not a product of the body-mind-intellect system; rather, it transcends t...

Exercising self-control, as articulated by sage philosopher Swami Krishnananda , entails a gradual evolution towards impersonality from a personality-centric self. He asserts that the self and personality are so interwoven that the affirmation of the self enhances the assertion of personality, and conversely. In this regard, self-control is equivalent and parallel to self-expansion. The controlled component of the self is the personality self, which denies the existence and significance of other selves. The logical constraints of the intellect and the spatiotemporal boundaries of the external world merely reflect how consciousness intertwines with its perceptions; thus, self-restraint necessitates a significantly broader engagement of consciousness than practitioners typically comprehend. The goal of life, according to Swami Krishnananda , is Atma-sakshatkara , or the realisation of the Self, but the method to be adopted in the realisation of this Self is control of the self. Co...

Given human nature, a human being cannot be anything apart from what he is; he may only comprehend information in a manner consistent with his preferences and cognitive abilities, thereby apprehending meaning solely through his own sensual interpretive mediums. Those meanings oscillate in the objectified dimensions, consistent with their transient baseline. It does need a description by any kind of quantitative or qualitative epitaph brought from an external source, because such a source does exist in the phenomenal world in space and time. Human expectations, according to sage philosopher Swami Krishnananda , are merely movements of consciousness toward an unattended goal, and all his endeavors, workshops, enterprises, and projects exemplify his conceptual interpretation of life as a future possibility rather than a current reality. If what he perceives as the entirety of life's values or existence's reality were already present, there would be no motivation to take action i...

If one is known, the other is not far behind. If Reality is one, Truth is one, Existence is one, and Self is one, nothing else remains outside, including the illusionary unreal of Maya, visible only in the Samsāra Chakra (wheel of birth and death). It is all in One, complete, full, imperishable, eternal, and an infinitude of infinity. The scriptures clearly affirm the Reality of Existence and the non-relativeness of Absolute Truth.  If that's the case, exploring both reality and unreality aims to seek to realise the Source in the elevatory journey of Self-knowledge, salvation, and liberation. It is through demystification that one can unravel the veil of ignorance, from an outward projectory orientation that obscures one's identity to an inward journey towards self-realisation. It is not to know what I was or will be; rather, it is to realise that, through conscious effort, I am Brahmān . The scriptures succinctly say Reality is One that may be “ Prajñānam Brahma ” (Intelli...