6 Spirituality Studies 9-2 Fall 2023 which is what manifests as breathing and all the other physiological functions that animate and give life to what would otherwise be a lifeless corpse) are always experienced in combination, and since it is a body that seems to be awake (as even the body that we experience as ourself in dream seems to be), not only body and life but also mind, intellect and will (which are the five elements known as pañca-kōśa or the “five sheaths”) are all experienced in combination throughout the states of waking and dream. Therefore, Bhagavan used the term “body” as a collective name to refer to all these “five sheaths”. We rise and stand as ego only in waking and dream, because whenever we fall asleep (or go into any other similar state such as coma, general anaesthesia or kēvala nirvikalpa samādhi), we as ego subside and dissolve back into our source, namely Sat-Cit-Ānanda (Sa. “pure existence-awareness-happiness”), albeit only temporarily, because sooner or later we will rise again as ego in either waking or dream. Since we do not exist as ego in sleep or any other state of manōlaya (Sa. “temporary dissolution of ego and mind”), we are then perfectly happy and do not experience any problems, limitations or suffering, but as soon as we rise again as ego in waking or dream, we thereby impose limitations on ourself by experiencing ourself as “I am this body”, and hence we begin to experience all sorts of problems, dissatisfaction and suffering. Therefore, it is clear from our own experience that our rising and standing as ego is the root cause of all the limitations, problems, dissatisfaction and suffering that we experience. Since ego is a false awareness of ourself, namely awareness of ourself as a body, which is not what we actually are, it can be eradicated only by correct awareness of ourself, meaning awareness of ourself as we actually are. Since it is only as ego that we are aware of anything other than ourself, in order to be aware of ourself as we actually are, namely as pure awareness (awareness that is aware of nothing other than itself), we need to turn our attention back towards ourself so keenly that we thereby cease to be aware of anything other than ourself. This simple but extremely deep and subtle practice of turning our attention back towards ourself, away from all other things, and trying to hold firmly on to such self-attentiveness is what Bhagavan means by the term ātma-vicāra (Sa. “self-investigation”), as he makes clear in the sixteenth paragraph of Nāṉ Ār?, “The name ‘ātma-vicāra’ is only for always keeping the mind on oneself” [3], thereby implying that the term ātma-vicāra is a name for the practice of keeping our mind or attention fixed firmly on “ourself” (Sa. ātman), namely on our fundamental awareness, “I am”. Regarding the final two questions in this set, namely why there is so much emphasis on “I” and its investigation, and whether I could give an argument that sceptics might consider in this regard, the answer is simple: There could not be any awareness without something that is aware, there could not be any knowledge without something that knows it, and there could not be any experience without something that experiences it, and what is aware, knows and experiences is the subject or first person, which is what is always aware of itself as “I”. In other words, the self-referential pronoun “I” (or its equivalent in any other language) is the natural name of whatever is aware, knows or experiences, because it is the name by which it naturally refers to itself. Though we often refer to the body as “I”, we do so because of our confused identification “I am this body”, but the body (and each of the “five sheaths” that comprise it) is an object known by us, so what is actually aware of itself as “I” is not the body but only ourself, the one who is aware both of ourself and of all other things. Therefore “I” is whatever is aware, so it is the knower of all knowledge, the experiencer of all experiences, the perceiver of all perceptions, the seer of all sights, the hearer of all sounds and so on. Without “I”, therefore, there could not be any awareness, any knowledge, any experience, any perception or any other such thing, so “I” is the ground or foundation of all such things. If we try to conceive or imagine the existence of anything without
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjkyNzgx