11.4 The Intellect Is The Self

1. The fourth opinion says that the intellect controls the mind, therefore the intellect alone is the self. What is the intellect? They say it is cognition (vijnyaana) alone. Therefore this cognition alone is the self. The "kshanika vijnyaanavaadee" Buddhists say that the momentary cognition-nature intellect alone is the self.
 
There is a flaw in accepting cognition as the self. If the cognition is momentary, then who has the cognition or knowledge of it being momentary? That happens to me alone. If I am momentary, then I am created each moment and die each moment. This is contrary to experience. Even when the intellect is absent in deep sleep, knowledge still remains. That is why I am not the momentary-cognition-nature self, the basis of knowledge.
 
In the pulsation that is "I am" (aham asmi), there is an "I" component and an "am" component. The "am" component is existence and the "I" is a sensation in it. The "am" is the clay, and the "I" is a pot. The clay alone is real, the pot is imaginary. Similarly, the "am" alone is real, the "I" is imagined in it.
 
"I am, I am, I am", this pulsation happened three times. First time with the first I, second time with the second I, third time with the third I. There is an imagination of time in the first, second and third I but the "am" is the same in all three. The "am" is one, in the present, immediately experienced and is "is-ness" alone. There is no activity in it. The "I" is a sensation like a wave and the "am" is a self-contained-existence like the ocean. The "I" is like blueness, and the "am" is like the sky. "I" is like the flow of breath, and the "am" is like the wind!
There are changing thought-flows in the mind - I-I-I. In them, the one cognition (vijnyaana) is the self. The flow of momentary thoughts in the shape of I or this are not the self.
 
2. There are primarily three flows in cognition : of matter, of space, and of time.
 
The Chaaravaakas identify with matter and say that the body is the self. The Jain school identifies with space and say : The self sits on the "siddha-shilaa", travels in the "aaloka aakaasha", attains "sankocha vistaara" based on the "yoni" and body. The Buddhist school identifies with time and says that the momentary flow of cognition is the self. But all these are methods of identifying with the intellect in order to point to the self.
 
But then, who is the witness of these identifications? I-I, this knowledge, it is known, therefore it needs an awareness to illuminate it. Space, time, matter - are made visible to the witness. Thoughts that have taken the shape of space, time, matter, as well as the thoughts in the shape of absence of these three have a witness, and that witness is the aware self.