Enquiry into Truth: Self is real, changeless

What is enquiry into essence? it is the discriminative knowledge of the truth.

The Self is  real.
Everything other than the Self or ”Atma” is unreal.

Tattva Bodha (The Awakening to Reality) By Adi Sankaracharya
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“The discrimination and the determination of what is real / Self and what is unreal / not-Self constitutes the enquiry into Truth.”

“Real is that which remains the same in all the three periods of time. It does not get negated under any condition and from any standpoint. It is changeless, ever the same.”

~  Swami Tejomayananda commenting on the Tattva Bodha

And from other sources, some quoted on this pod, we see the truth lies unchanging in these words. The words, sources and times  change, the idea does not.

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365  p. 372 (December - Light)

365  p. 362 (December - Light)

Re: Enquiry into Truth: Self is real, changeless

“For verily it is the Self that sees, hears, smells, tastes, thinks, knows, acts. He is Brahman, whose essence is knowledge. He is the immutable Self, the Supreme.” (Prashna Upanishad 4:9)

He who knows the immutable, the pure, the shadowless, the bodiless, the colorless, attains to Brahman, O my friend. Such an one becomes all-knowing, and he dwells in all beings. Of him it is written: ‘He who knows that immutable Self, wherein live the mind, the senses, the pranas, the elements-verily such an one knows all things, and realizes the Self in all.'” (Prashna Upanishad 4:10, 11)

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What is the Self?  That which is

• other than the gross, subtle and causal bodies
• beyond the five sheaths : food-body, vital air, nind/emotion, intellect, personality; all of which are like the clothes we wear: a part of the Self, but actually apart from it.
• the witness of the three states of consciousness,: waking, dream, and deep sleep.
  
• and witness of the enature of Existence-Concsciousness-Bliss

Re: Enquiry into Truth: Discrimination of Self and non-Self

There are two aspects to life:
I (the experiencer of the world) and the world (the experienced).

The name, form, quality and experience of every object of the world changes, but I, the experiencer remain the same.

I am never absent, but the world gets negated with every thought. Therefore, I alone am real and all else none other than me is unreal.

But right now I understand myself to be the body which is ever changing.
I identify with the mind, but that too is deceptive.

Then what is the Self which is supposed to be real and unchanging?

The method adopted by the masters to know the Self is called adhyaropa-apavada : negating the super-imposition.

When the not-self is negated in its entirety, what remains is the Pure Self, the Truth.

hence the Self is first defined in negative terms–i.e. in what it is not; before its true nature is asserted.


Tattva Bodha (The Awakening to Reality) By Adi Sankaracharya; Commentary by Swami Tejomayananda

Re: Enquiry into Truth: Self is real, changeless

This is so wonderful!  I cannot tell you how much I appreciate this discussion, your presence in my life.  To say that I no longer feel lonely, doesn't quite go far enough.  Up until now I have had limited exposure to the Eastern religious philosophies.  But everything I read, feel, of your words—causes this most joyous soaring in my heart. How I appreciate both of you, Meenakshi and Eli!!

I have a question, please.  I've been not tormented but plagued rather by the questions: why, where, when, who, how etc etc.  And the answers, I've always felt, reside in what I've come to term as “Oneness.”  I am an extension of All that Is, who lives in me you all of creation.  And this idea of sublime connectedness rises to pure Joy.

But, like the western mystics, I hunger for the awareness of, an experience of the Divine.  And freedom and peace pleeeeease from the kind of commotion that what I call my “thinking” mind cooks up, if left to its own devices.  So I “fall back behind the senses” to what feels like this enormous place of quiet, and peace, and eternal LOVE.  That's where I wish to hang out!  But I read here that All That Is includes the senses.  Well, ok.  I can go with that!

Here's my question.  All that Is (may I say God?) is love and peace and joy and you and I and every quantum wave that soars from this little planet to the outer reaches of where our telescopes can not yet describe — God, Love, Joy, Truth, US, Go(o)dness:  all are components of the Self.

Waitwait.  Here's my question.  Self is real, changeless.  The self is not.  YET, what about the “self?”  Is it not all good too??  If the gross self, not only the worried little distracted mind, but the body, the physical thingness that “I” find myself walking around in, is it not all goodness too? 

You know, yes, the relationship the Western mystics and saints usually end up with, when it comes to the physical body.  Kinda eeeeeek runandhide, push it away, ignore! ignore!, badbadbad.  I have studied in a seminary, side by side with vowed nuns and priests and, and I have never been happier than those times!  Whole rooms would levitate with joy from our common prayers!  WOW.  But I found myself, too, living in this enormous expanded wide-open compassionate heart, and absolutely ignoring, worse distrusting, the rest of the physical.  And it helps not, not at all, the way media advertising common lore silly- schoolyard-titillation that seems to predominate, at least in this part of the world, when it comes to The Human Body. 

NOW.  I find you.  And the promises of Eastern philosophies, of yoga, of chakras!!!.  The visions of energetic ethereal prayer/thought/intention that are described without limit here on Gaia.  Mantras!!  Mantras use the body.  So is not the body intended to be used to magnify the power of our prayers?  When I sing and dance my prayers…amazing things happen … surely that feeling is akin to levitation!  (What would happen, what would happen??, OMG, if I found my mantra?!!!)

How much you give me to think about, ponder, contemplate, soar in joy!  There is so much promise and beauty and goodness and LOVE in this life.  Love IS what it is all about.  And our purpose may be nothing more than to shine it out:  a little pebble has an enormous ripple effect…one that might sow seeds awaken the truth in more and more and more of us.  Wild!  All my silly questions are meaningless, at the very end, I know.  And I've probably posted them in the wrong place.

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Dear Jeannie, you are always sheer delight. Thank you for this. Full of wonderful insights and explorations as always,

Sing out, sing out strong!

Love,

Nicole

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Jeannie,

What an outpouring of thought, emotion, feeling…much of what the self works through!

We're all studying and seeking together; and perhaps part of an answer re the physical body is :

“I' the Pure Self, am a witness to all the modifications of the body. 'I' am neither born, nor do 'I' die with the body.

Knowing that I am different from the body, I need not neglect the body. It is a vehicle that I use to transact with the world. It is the temple which houses the Pure Self within.”
~ from a thread on the gross body in this pod.

In seeking to know the Self/ the Pure Self/ the One/ God/ I AM; this book by a learned sage, Adi Sankaracharya, is first taking the student on the path of learning what the Self is not; so that we can discover what it is.

As you have seen, it requires the use of all our energy/chakras to experience the self. So in the good-bad paradigm; yes- it's all good. However, in order to help us to focus on each energy center; sometimes our path takes us into separations so that we can understand oneness.

Something like hairpin bends, I think!

Your post has also made me want to know more about your experience in a seminary–I'll see if you've blogged about it.

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Yes, Willow, I agree with Nicole -

You are a joy, this place you have posted such thoughtful inquiries and contemplations is just fine and I am sure Meenakshi, and Eli, are happy for the appreciation.

Thank you for luring me in here as well.  I am interested but am often spread too thin and too far these days to do all I would.

Wishing you Love & Happiness & Peace always -

Deb

Re: Enquiry into Truth: Self is real, changeless

Dearest Jeannie,

I love the passion in your questions and to me that is the same as loving You, even if that You is still there as these questions will have long since gone.
That is partly the answer and yet I don't really have an answer to this (to me these are the same) and yet I feel inclined to say what I believe about it because I relate so much to all you are saying.

I believe we cannot find an answer to this question on the level from which the question arises. It is a paradox from that level. We are not the body in the sense that that's all we are and yet we are the body, I personally do not feel an allignment with the statement that ' we have a body but are not the body (or the mind)'. To me that is  a mental split  we make. A distinction we make that in reality is not there. Just as much as I think it is a mental split as we would state that  we ARE the body and identify with just that.   
If All is One and All happens simultaniously we are the body as much as we are not the body (in my humble opinion) . When our bodies are gone we are still there in some form or state of consciousness, perhaps unparticularized but nevertheless there is beingness, consciousness.
Can we realy separate the creation from the creator, yes we can think we do that but I believe it's a mental thing, I think on another level there is no seperation  it's just  an extention of us, a different expression.  All is One.
Are we not merely part of a dance, a dance of Love, a play of endless universal energy in different states of density and grouping , a universal dance of breathing, inhaling, exhaling, imploding, exploding,  in a body expressed through all nerves and cells including my very fingertips and we can experience oneness in this as well, without a body in other ways we can't always see from this dimension yet we can have glimpses of  eternalness.
Oh sweetie I am just rambling on, but that's just because I don't longer believe any “path” that gives us Truth, the Right Answer.  Oh yes I respect and love many path and they can be very helpful and useful but there is a point that you have to let go and know  I Am the Path and the Truth and I am learning to trust those gut feelings that arise in what you call so  touchingly beautiful your “enormous expanded wide-open compassionate heart” .
Anyway, when I read this I immediately had to think of this one poem that I am going to share with you here. It's from Aldous Huxley from 'Island' and  eventhough I definitely believe we are way more that our brain and cells I still felt I wanted to share this here. Why, I have no clue but I don't believe in accidents just in synergy so I'll have to trust my feelings on it.

    “Thought is the brain's three milliard
      of cells from the inside out.
      Billions of games of billiards
      marked up as Faith and Doubt.

      My Faith, but their collisions
      my logic, their enzymes;
      their pink enpinephrin, my visions;
      their white enpinephrin, my crimes.

      Since I am the felt arrangement
      of ten to the ninth times three
      each atom in its estrangement
      must yet be prophetic of me.”

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Jeannie, my sweet sister…

Re: Enquiry into Truth: Self is real, changeless

I am weeping.  I have sat with your comments all the day, and held them in my heart.  How deeply you each have touched me! 

I love the concept of “I' the Pure Self, am a witness to all the modifications of the body. 'I' am neither born, nor do 'I' die with the body.”

And you said, Meenaski, that it requires the use of all our energy/chakras to experience the self.  (But you used “self” not ”Self”…. I'm confused!!) 

Still, if the very essence of our being is a yearning toward and for Love, and here we are stuck walking around in this gross (but essentially good) body/self, seems like experiencing “love force” might be explained upon the Eastern concept of the seven chakras. That would be something like using the gross body to amplify our prayers.  And our ability to feel/experience/discern the knowing that Self is real, and changeless.  I don't know if I am saying it right, but it feels pure WOW to me.  

Yesyesyes, what joy!  Are we not all part of a universal dance of Love, in Oneness, oh how that vision makes my heart sing Alluvya! …I love you… Eli made the point (in dynamics of ethical survival) that the basic loving messages of our various religions are universal and do not vary.  How that resonated in my own heart!  So I too might say that I am not on one path, but perhaps on all paths…that consider Goodness, that embrace and are Love.

Nicole and Deb and Alluvya and Meenakshi and Eli, how can I do without you??, how have I ever done without you, your gentle encouragement, your patient discussions, you humble my heart you let it soar with joy!.  OH you've heard me say it before, I used to feel so lonely.  How I have missed all of you, each of you!!!  Each atom in its estrangement must be prophetic of me.  Of us.  Of Oneness. 

The Self is real, and changeless.  YES.
Peace.  Deep bows. And Oceans of Love!!! 
Jeannie

Re: Enquiry into Truth: Self is real, changeless

Jeannie, I do use “self” Self” interchangeably; it's all one [no pun intended].
And we're even right now not fully in our physical body..now i'm talking from my experiencing.

In India [and in other places too, I'm sure] we gently massage our babies after they are born. I have come to believe that this is to get the soul to be more aware of that physical sheath it has put on.

As we know [from studies by psychologists and watching a baby], in our first few weeks of life, we have no sense of physical separateness. The bedsheet is as much “I” as my own skin–or as much NOT  I. It takes time for that to develop.

If we can be fully aware of the physical body; it does not make us fully unaware of the emotional, relational, connection, expression, intuition, transcendent aspects of the soul [these are the different chakra energies, in a simplified way]. Awareness of the physical actually gets us to be more responsive to its needs. I am seeing that now as I exercise and qigong.

So to me, the saying that the Self/self is not ONLY the physical body, makes sense. And I don't think we are ever stuck into our physical body. We just [sometimes] think we are . And that is the illusion.

Jeannie, I am so thankful for this discussion that is helping us to clarify our thinking…your warmth is just…energizing!

Re: Enquiry into Truth: Self is real, changeless

Jeannie and Meenakshi, wonderful. There is a thread in the Robert Masters pod I believe is related to this in terms of the body's wisdom, and how much we can learn by listening to it attentively, at least I found it very helpful:

http://pods.gaia.com/robert_augustus_masters/discussions/view/341579#341579

Re: Enquiry into Truth: Self is real, changeless

Oh, Meenakshi, what a wondrous wondrous image of a newborn baby being gently massaged “so that the soul becomes more aware of the physical sheath it has put on.”  My heart simply melted with your words! That certainly was not done to anyone I know; much the contrary.  If only each and every newborn everywhere were so treated, and throughout life similar gentleness and loving compassion demonstrated.  Would not this help remove blocks in the self to illumination and flow, help to lighten stigma created through centuries of a western mindset against the gross body?

The corporeal body, the “temple for our soul,” such tricky waters to navigate!  Nicole's link to Robert Augustus Masters reminds us that the damage (and not just physical damage) we have done and have had done to ourselves is eloquently present in our bodies….  But we're not stuck.  Ever.  Meenakshi points out it is only an illusion so to think.  The body is not an obstruction to wisdom.  We only need to shift from having a body to being a body, and from being a body to Being.  And Eli sings that “all wisdom culminates to the final truth, in Love we find the SELF, nowhere else to go.” (What joy!) 

Re: Enquiry into Truth: Self is real, changeless

I have it!  It came to me in the lucid state, out of a dream, just as I was waking up!  

The proper use of the body, the gross self/all that is not-Self,   IS   to amplify prayer/thought/intention.  To act as a conduit!  Not only a sender of prayer but a receiver of discernment back from God, All That IS, Oneness.  That's big stuff.  Self is real and changeless, and boy do we want to be in contact with Self…like as much as possible!

Therefore, we appreciate the capacities for which this body and its gross senses are intended.  To do otherwise, to treat the body and its gross senses with anything but the highest respect, including non-attachment, is in effect to lessen our possible effect for goodness in this earthly realm.

Am I there??  Did I finally say what I should have said in the other link?  I am so sorry it took me so long!  And I probably arrived at a conclusion not so new to you.  Now I will crawl back into my cave and silence.  :)  Thank you, bless you, for your patience with me!  I love you so much.

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Jeanie, looks like you EXPERIENCED. Thank you for sharing.

And none of us is wiser than another or knows more. We are all learning/growing/studying/expanding together.

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Yes, and after every forget I remember.
Thank you all for the reminder..Truth always get me high.

~lars