Spirituality Studies 10-1 Spring 2024 7 Michael James periencing would be a seemingly uninterrupted succession of alternating states of waking and dream without any gap between them. Therefore, since we are now clearly aware of having experienced frequent gaps between alternating states of waking and dream, gaps that we call sleep, in which we were not aware of anything other than ourself, we must not only have existed in such gaps but must also have been aware of existing then. In other words, if sleep were a state in which we were not aware of our existence, we would not now be aware of ever having existed in such a state. Therefore we can logically conclude that we were certainly aware of our existence while we were asleep, and no one who considers this carefully and deeply enough can reasonably doubt this to be the case. Moreover, to the extent to which we investigate what we actually are by being self-attentive in waking or dream, it will become clear to us, no matter how faintly at first, that our own existence, “I am”, is distinct from the appearance of all phenomena, including the person we seem to be (not only the physical body of this person but also all its other components, namely life, mind, intellect and will), and to the extent that it thereby becomes clear to us that we are distinct from all phenomena, it will also become clear to us that we did exist and were aware of our existence in the absence of all phenomena in sleep. What we actually are is therefore not any of the transitory phenomena that appear in waking and dream but disappear in sleep, but only our fundamental awareness of our own existence, “I am”, which exists and shines without a break throughout all these three states. All phenomena are objects known by us, so we are not any object, nor are we even the subject, because the subject who knows all objects is ego, which appears together with objects in waking and dream and disappears with them in sleep. What we actually are is the pure, adjunct-free awareness “I am”, whereas ego is the adjunct-conflated awareness “I am this body”. Therefore, though we now seem to be ego, it is not what we actually are, but a conflation of what we actually are and a set of adjuncts, namely a person, a body consisting of five sheaths. The two defining characteristics of ego are that as ego we are always aware of ourself as “I am this body”, and consequently we are aware of other phenomena. Since in sleep we are not aware of ourself as “I am this body”, nor are we aware of any phenomena, we seem to be ego only in waking and dream but not in sleep, so since we exist and shine in sleep without ego, ego cannot be what we actually are. Therefore we are not any object or even the subject, but only pure “being-awareness” (Sa. sat-cit), which is what always shines as “I am”, and which is therefore the sole reality that underlies and supports the seeming existence of ourself as ego. Since all phenomena seem to exist only in the view of ourself as ego, they depend for their seeming existence upon the seeming existence of ourself as ego, and ego depends for its seeming existence upon the one real existence, namely the pure awareness “I am”. Whereas ego is a transitive awareness, meaning that it is an awareness that is always aware of objects, the one real awareness that we actually are, namely the pure awareness “I am”, is intransitive awareness, because it is never aware of anything other than itself. However, though we can understand by carefully considering our experience of ourself in each of our three states, waking, dream and sleep, that what we actually are is not this body, mind or ego but only the fundamental awareness “I am”, we do not thereby cease to be aware of ourself as if we were this ego, which is what now experiences itself as “I am this body”, because our understanding is merely conceptual. Since ego is a mistaken awareness of ourself, being an awareness of ourself as something other than what we actually are, it can be eradicated only by correct awareness of ourself, so in order to be free of ego we need to be aware of ourself as we actually are. 6 Our Aim Is Not Manōlaya But Manōnāśa So long as we are aware of anything other than ourself, we seem to be ego, because it is only in the view of ourself as ego that other things seem to exist. Therefore in order to be aware of ourself as we actually are we must cease to be aware of anything else, but merely ceasing to be aware of other things is not sufficient, because we cease to be aware of anything else every day when we fall asleep, but ego is not thereby annihilated. Sleep is just a state of manōlaya, a “temporary dissolution of ego and mind”, because ego and mind rise again when we wake up from sleep or begin to dream. Therefore ceasing to be aware of other things is necessary but not sufficient. Not only must we cease to be aware of any other thing, but we must also be aware of ourself as we actually are, as Bhagavan implies in verse 16 of Upadēśa Undiyār:
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