INSIDE AND OUTSIDE?

I am inside; the world is outside. It is a piquant statement in the context of Supreme Consciousness, Ultimate Reality, and Existence. It pervades all dimensions, subtler of the subtlest and beyond time-space-causation. However, the statement needs to be ascertained in the context of the relationship between subject and object, a projection from all pervading Consciousness. One is real, sentient, conscious, unchanging, and eternal, and the other is unreal, insentient, unconscious, evanescent, and transitory.  According to Swami Krishnananda, in the case of the subject, or inner self, knowing and being are one. But the object, or outer self, is different from knowing. The relationship is dichotomous or continuous, but it nonetheless exists as a part of the cosmic order. The cosmic order is part of the Ultimate Reality. The Ultimate Reality is to be realised consciously through experiencing by way of the application of vivek to discriminate between real and unreal. Secondly, expounding the nature of Self through Dipa or light on Pure Consciousness (Brahman) as only Reality, Sat-Chit-Anand (Existence-Consciousness-Bliss). Thirdly, the purpose of the Self is to realise Bliss, the eternal drive towards the end purpose of human life is to experience Bliss. To fathom Ultimate Reality is easier said than done. Significant difficulty is our perceptual unrealisation of the embodied self vs. the mental thought process towards the world of objects. Either way, mental blockages are there towards illumination of the self for self-realisation. Sage philosopher, Swami Krishnananda, appropriately says that every perception is a movement of the self towards an object. The consciousness has to charge the mind with an intelligence that peeps through the sense organs and locates objects and the world in front of it in a particular juxtaposed manner. He goes on to say that there is a threefold defect in human perception, which includes social relations and everything that we regard as ours or not ours: firstly, by it having to pass through the mentation, the psychic organ, the antahkarana; secondly, by the mind having to think only through the sense organs; and thirdly, by the sense organs having to visualise things as located in space and time. It requires great austerity, supernormal insight, and vision through sense abnegation and control over the body-mind-intellect conundrum.

1. Outline

The relationship between the eternal subject and the ephemeral object is one between the two. This relationship may turn out to be vicious, duplicity, biased, and opaque if we get ourselves derailed in understanding our true embodied self vis-à-vis the profoundness of the momentum in running outside after the objects to gratify our senses, which derives from the body-mind-intellect complex. The world of objects creates serious predicaments for the seekers of Truth. First, by protraying the objects as values for seeking sensual pleasure and gratification; secondly, in some ways, the reaction of the world through objectification is tremendous to be handled by a seeker of the Self for higher elevation in the life journeying process; and thirdly, the mind evolves itself as a stumbling mechanism in the process of delving deeper into reality. It creates perceptual unreality because the self, not the things outside, is the Ātman (inner self or inner spirit) within every being. The perceiver's goal is to make the Ātman perceivable consciously. The inner spirit is unchanging, imperishable, invisible, and eternal. It can only be sensed by a real perceiver and exists outside the range of our conventional senses. Self-aware beings can perceive the Ātman within by turning their senses away from sense things. Instead, it can be described, albeit poorly, as a consciousness of one's inner self, or Ātman, which is embodied in every living thing. It is a raising experience that helps one realise divine awareness, ultimate supreme consciousness, or Brahmān (Cosmic Self) consciousness. In this way, it is a distinct aspect of the ultimate self, or Brahmān. It is every organism or being's fundamental self. When the fleeting gross body (Sthula sarira) dies, it transmigrates, remaining unmanifest until it migrates to another one. It continues in this manner until complete release, or moksha.

Sage Yajnavalkya, while imparting knowledge of the universal Self to King Janaka through sequential question and answer sessions, perspicuously elaborated on the Self, indeed our light. To the question from King Janaka, what is the light that illuminates a person? The answer from Sage Yajnavalkya is the sun. When the sun is set, the answer is the moon. When there is no sun or moon, the answer is fire. When there is no sun, moon, or fire, speech, indeed, is the light. When neither is there, Self is the source of all light that illuminates the pathways, awakens a person, and impels him to work. Sage Yajnavalkya succinctly says that “the Self is the pure awareness that shines as the light within the heart, surrounded by the senses. It is this Self that is one with the sole Reality, the Brahman. This Self is free from desire, from evil, and from fear. The man who is in union with the Self sees without seeing, smells without smelling, tastes without tasting, speaks without speaking, hears without hearing, touches without touching, thinks without thinking, and knows without knowing, for there is nothing separate from him. This state of not having another is the state of unity, one without a second, and that is the world of Brahmān. This is the supreme goal of life, the supreme treasure, the supreme joy.” (Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, 4.3).

2. Scriptures

The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad corroborates the Reality by ascertaining that the individual self—the Brahmān that is immediate and direct, the self that is within all—is identical with the Supreme Self. This is known from Śruti texts as ‘There is no other witness but Him’ (III. vii. 23), ‘There is no other witness but This’ (III. viii. 11), as well as ‘This self has entered into these bodies' (I. iv. 7), and it is inferred from its functions of speech, etc. The Self has been known in a general way, as breathing, speaking, etc., as ‘Witness of vision.’ It suffers transmigration owing to adventitious limiting adjuncts due to the superimposition of outside elements. Intrinsically, it is known as indefinable, to be described only as ‘Not this, not this,’ the Brahmān that is immediate and direct, the self that is within all, the Immutable, the Internal Ruler, the Mighty Ruler, the Being who is to be known only through the Upaniṣads, Knowledge, Bliss, and Brahmān.

There was a story about King Janaka and Sage Ashtravakra about what is real in the awakened and dream stages. King Janaka had a dream that he became a beggar after losing his kingdom in a battle, but when he awoke, he was all a king. A perplexed king asked his advisors to know the reality, but to his utter dismay, he got the answer from Sage Ashtavakra. “King Janaka, neither beggar nor emperor is real. You alone are real. You, yourself, are the truth. The you who was present as pure consciousness in the dream state playing the role of the beggar and who is present in the waking state playing the role of the king—this you who witnessed both these states—is your true reality. Life during the daytime is a daydream; during the night, it is a nightdream. They are both illusions. They are filled with defects and flaws because they constantly change from one thing to another, so they cannot be real. Only you who remain unchanged in all these states are real, free of all change and illusion.”

Sage Ashtravakra goes on to say that the whole world we are in is kshara (temporary) and subject to decay. Whether in the awakening or dream stage, nothing is real. The Ultimate Reality is Brahman or the Supreme Being. He tersely says, ‘When you tried to find out which existence was more real, did you consider that both were false? Your existence as a beggar was false and temporary, and so is your time as a king. When you go to Akshardham, you will remember your time here as an eighty-year dream. At that time, you will wonder, What was the purpose of coming to earth, and how much of that was really accomplished?’

He asserts categorically that everything around us is simply a dream and that we actually hail from Akshardham as an element of the Supreme Self. We must understand that our lives are not eternal, despite the fact that we behave, speak, and go about our everyday activities as if we will be here forever. The only thing left after Aatyantika Pralaya is Akshardham. Next, we must acknowledge that God's Abode is a permanent place and that we are just passing through. It is maayaa (illusion) to reject Akshardham as true and to see this transitory state as real.

The Srimad Bhagavad Gita states that the individual Self is senient and part of the Supreme Self. The soul that pervades the entire body knows it to be akshara, or indestructible. No one can cause the destruction of the imperishable soul. The soul, or inner self, is conscious and sentient. Whereas the body or the external self, both gross and subtler, is kshara, or peishable, insentient, and devoid of consciousness. Spiritual is spiritual, and material is material. That's why weapons cannot shred the soul, nor can fire burn it. Water cannot wet it, nor can the wind dry it. 

The ever-changing physical manifestation is known as adhibhta; the all-pervading form of God, which rules over the heavenly gods in this creation, is known as Adhidaiva; and the one who resides in each and every living being is known as Adhiyajna, or the Lord of all sacrifices, declares the Bhagavad Gita.

 Sri Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita emphasises that one should develop steadfast yogic concentration by closing all of the body's gates, centering the consciousness in the chest, and then pulling the breath up to the head. It is essential, as the world reaches our minds through the senses and their objects. An object of perception leaves a memory when we see, hear, touch, taste, or smell it. Then, when our mind ruminates on these encounters, it begins to reflect and generate recurring ideas that deepen our commitment to the outside world. Therefore, a meditation practitioner needs to take precautions to prevent the constant stream of worldly thoughts that the unbridled senses may produce. The most important aspect of meditation is closing out the world by controlling the mind and the senses.

The Bhagavad Gita tersely affirms that the soul is spoken of as invisible, inconceivable, and unchangeable. That is not the case of externalised material objects of the body-mind-intellect system.

The Katha Upanishad also echoes in similar parlance.

indriyebhyaḥ parā hyarthā arthebhyaśca paraṃ manaḥ |

manasastu parā buddhirbuddherātmā mahānparaḥ || 10 ||

Beyond the senses are the rudiments of its objects; beyond these rudiments is the mind; beyond the mind is atman, known as Mahat (great). The mateial objects being insenient cannot comprehend a sentient and eternal one, i.e., the soul.

3. Remarks

Let's make it optimally clear that the duality of lives, thoughts, and actions is hazardous to the life journey's elevation process to realise the self consciously. The fundamental question, perspicuously stated by Swami Krishnananda, is, "Is it necessary for me to live in this world?"

The answer lies vicariously between inside and outside conundrums. Nobody other than myself knows this answer. My answer is blighted by opaque thoughts, actions, attachments, ignorance, and a lack of equanimity. Artificiality became the hallmark of our existence as we spent our entire time making adjustments to derive maximum value from the world outside instead of the self inside.

-Asutosh Satpathy