The soul-only wants happiness - and such a happiness that is obtained everywhere, at all times, and from all, for which one does not have to put in effort, that which is not dependent, and that which is always experienced.
Even after harbouring a hope of such high standards, it is a strange matter that there is no consensus on the means for obtaining it. Some believe that you gain happiness if you visit a particular place. Others believe that you become happy if you create a particular situation. Some are striving for gaining objects, some others are engaged in the task of world welfare. Someone is begging for happiness from another, with joined hands, while someone else is blindly trying one thing after another. Many souls, many ideas, many opinions. It is like there is cannabis in the well. Should we enjoy or should we remain stable for happiness? Should we remember something or forget everything? Should we remain conscious or become unconscious? The reason for all this difference of opinion is as follows. We have not ascertained the nature of the happiness we all desire. That is why we engage in temporary, incomplete, action-oriented and subservient joys, and in the process, get fatigue and stress instead of peace!
In the limited space, time, object, person, effort, thought flow, ego of the enjoyer, you cannot obtain limitless happiness. Effort cannot be infinite, since the reaction to effort is rest, whether it is sleep or samaadhi! That which you are understanding as your dear happiness, test it with these parameters: Is it now? Is it here? Is it this? Is it readily accessible? Is it non dependent? It is experienced at all times? That happiness which is now, here, this, readily accessible, non dependent, experienced at all times, it is direct immediate but due to a mistake it is not recognized. Due to that, we require and wait for effort, situation and dependency. This is the play of an intellectual absurdity, improper thought and delusion. For the attainment of dear happiness, all this should be removed.
Fundamentally, we want experiential happiness since there is no visible reality of happiness. Whenever happiness happens, it is always direct immediate. Not the direct immediate behaviour of means and knowledge, but the direct immediacy of witnessed experience. The witness is happiness-nature itself, but due to ignorant thought flow (not knowing one's brahman-ness, it illumines happiness in the form of another. Due to this, it perceives the changes of situations, and accepts changes in happiness also. And it identifies with waking and other states, considering itself to be happy sometimes, and sad sometimes.
It is worth investigating whether we are really accepting a specific form of mental thought flow, with or without an object, as happiness! If that is so, then that specific form will be adjuncted, temporal, spatial. That is why, the attainment of happiness through a specific form will be proven to be a delusion.
In the vision of the essence, happiness is the experience-only of brahman. Due to the temporary nature of transactional happiness, brahman cannot be temporary, since temporality is the object of perception (upalabdhi), and happiness is of the nature of perception (upalabdhi svaroopa), timeless, spaceless and objectless. This means that perception alone is brahman, and brahman is the imperishable reality, the illuminator of all, complete, aware, the most dear in life, and happiness-nature pure knowledge (prajnyaana) alone. In which time, place, state, form, action or without action, given or not given, conscious or unconscious, whichever form or its absence is perceived, there is no purpose of any of these of that pure knowledge-nature happiness. All those perceptions are not different than the pure knowledge-alone, neither are they its modifications. Due to the opposite behaviour (vartana) of pure knowledge from its essential form, they can be called errors (vivarta) but from the absolute standpoint, all those forms of pure knowledge are brahman-nature alone.
What is prajnyaana? It is pure knowledge. In daily usage, the word knowledge is used in connection with the sense of knower and known. The trifecta of knower, known and knowledge is always present in worldly transactions. There is no knowledge in the world that does not have some object or the other, and does not have some arrogator or another. In reality, one knowledge is acting as three forms of knower, known and knowledge. Even so, without the knowledge of non-duality, there is no illusoriness of duality, and the alone-ness (kevalataa) of knowledge remains veiled. In the state of ignorance, this appearing trifecta is an impurity ascribed upon knowledge. For rejection of this impurity, the pure nature of knowledge, pure knowledge, needs to be defined. Fundamentally, knowledge does not require a known since knowledge illuminates the absence of a known also. Absence is an entity not different than the substratum. The difference exists only till there is ignorance of the substratum. The known and the knower require each other. Knowledge does not require even a knower, since knowledge can illumine even the absence of knower-ness (jnyaatritva). Knowledge and knowledge also do not require each other since knowledge is only one. That is why, known-ness and its absence, knower-ness and its absence, non-disconnected than all of these, complete within thee, their substratum and their illuminator is a self illumined knowledge. It does not require anything. It is the illuminator of difference-alone, it is the substratum. That is why, the nature of pure knowledge is devoid of the difference of knower and known.
Here, "known" means scene-only and "knower" means both soul and Ishvara. That is why, devoid of the difference between world, soul and Ishvara, self illumined and self only substratum, iluminator of the unreal duality and light-ness devoid light is the non-dual brahman alone. This ignorance does not require anything since it is the illuminator of ignorance also. Ignorance is real-unreal-different indescribable and is imagined in a veiled form in the substratum. There cannot be a requirement of an imagined entity in the self illumined knowledge. Any product that requires another is illusory and that which does not is real. This very non-requiring reality is brahman. It is called pure knowledge in the Upanishads.
The necklace is known, eyes are the instruments of knowledge and the eye-owner "I" is the knower. The truth is that the disconnected knower has an aware substratum. It is also the substratum of the known and of the eyes. But, since that non-disconnected substratum is not imbibed, it appears in the three forms of knower, knowledge and known. On gaining knowledge of the non-disconnectedness, the appearance-only-ness of the three is destroyed. That is why, the pure knowledge in the form of awareness of the substratum is the truth, and the trifecta is experienced as an illusion. Many knowns, many instruments of knowledge and many arrogators, all of these are the reverse cognitions (vivartas) of that one non-disconnected pure knowledge alone. Not knowing the undivided nature of pure knowledge is ignorance. Knowing oneself and objects as fragments is a delusion. For the removal of this delusion, the investigation of the pure knowledge entity is useful.
What are these trifectas in the pure knowledge awareness? Definitely, these are reflections of awareness (chidaabhaasa). Since there is no other illuminator for illuminating the self-illumined awareness, and since it is unfit to illumine its own non-disconnectedness and awareness, it is illumining itself in a form thats opposite to itself. Like the immeasurable nature of the sky cannot be illumined by the eyes. Then in the form of blueness, as with-form opposed to without-form, the sky appears. Similarly, our inner self alone, being without object, is seen as an external object. Aware in the form of inert, imperishable in the form of perishable, complete in the form of disconnected, non-dual in the form of duality, the self as another, all these appear. Whoever seeks to make pure knowledge into an object, will have to make pure knowledge into the form of inert or disconnected. That is why, it will not be pure knowledge anymore, it will be the reverse cognition of pure knowledge. Therefore, the shruti advises that the investigation of pure knowledge occur in the form of a seeker, not in the form of another: You alone are the pure knowledge brahman. The witness alone is pure knowledge. Through it, the form of result of any action, worship, yoga, or the form of any object of sense, or itself alone in an appearing form, pure knowledge cannot be realized. All means are satisfied once they reveal their respective errors (vyaavartya kee vyaavritti). So much so that even the knowledge arising from the great statements also, after having removed ignorance, itself is removed or falsified, and only the prior pure knowledge alone remains.
We can say that pure knowledge is pervaded in the trifecta of knower-knowledge-known. But the notion of pervader-pervaded is imagined in pure knowledge. The Tejo (Bindu) Upanishad clearly says that pervader-pervaded is illusory. For instance, past, future, present is pervaded by time, but there is no entity called past, present and future independent of time. Then how can something be pervaded by something else? Fundamentally, having accepted chronology, these three states have been imagined in time. The substratum of this trifecta which is time, and the illuminator which is awareness, have no awareness of this trifecta. It is a play of the human mind alone, or in technical terms, is superimposed. Similarly, the knower-known-knowledge trifecta is just a play of the intellect, and the pervasion of pure knowledge in that is also a play of the intellect. Separate from pure knowledge, there is no real trifecta. Then who is pervading whom? In the division-devoid directions, the divisions of up-down, north-south, east-west are always imagined. By the abstraction of direction, in the adjuncted awareness or in its substratum, the reality, the division of direction is irrelevant. Even then, object-oriented divisions such as length, width, height, inner-outer etc. of a pot or a house, all these imaginations are placed on the head of direction as a concept. This is the superimposition of one thing upon another. Is there any pervader-pervaded relationship of directions on east, west etc.? There is never any connection of our true nature with any object, not even the relationship of identification. Can the full, the complete, ever have any relationship of identification with anything?
In one non-dual undivided reality, the division of space etc. is not time-rooted since it is not a modification, it is not movement-oriented since there is no space or action, and is not nature-rooted since the definition of one's nature cannot be applied to another. It is not name-form-rooted either, since they only occur during the time of the means-known transaction. The, just like the division of present etc. in time, like the division of west etc. in space, essentially, the five elements in the realm of brahman, and the names-forms imagined in them, are always illusory. To explain this very point, the examples of dream as well as of the snake on a rope, are given by shruti, scriptures and great people. Dream is used in the investigation of the "you" aspect, and snake-rope is used in the investigation of the "that" aspect, and essentially, in the realization of the oneness, no example is given. That is why, to explain the pervasion of the pure knowledge brahman, an appropriate statement is made with regards to the inner awareness. The substances of the dream state are appearing in that space and time when and where they are always unreal. Similarly, in the pure knowledge brahman, all trifectas along with their objects and differences are illusory, in other words, the visible world is always illusory in pure knowledge. Also, just like the visible snake is illusory during the time of its visibility, in the "that" aspect form undivided awareness reality, this visible world is appearing, but is illusory in all times. Once the illusory nature of the visible world becomes a firm conviction, nothing remains to create a division between the inner self and the substratum-awareness-form supreme self. Fundamentally, division alone is the world, and without existing, it is appearing in its inherent nature form pure knowledge brahman. In the pure knowledge brahman, pervasion and pervaded-ness, both are imagined from the standpoint of transactions, in the absolute sense, it is mere pervasion alone (vyaapti maatra).
In the contemplation of Vedanta, the pervasion of one thing into another is not called pervasion. The pervasion of fire into iron, and that of ghee into milk, these examples are not those of pervasion in reality. This is because their pervasion is separated either by space or action. The real pervasion is the presence of the material cause in its effect. That into which the effect merges after destruction, or that with which the effect is made, that in which the shape of the effect is embedded, that which is present in the form of mass in the effect, that is called the material cause. Like: clay in pot, water in wave, flame in spark, air in breath, great space in pot space, vision of dream seer in dream. Now, in the example of the pot and clay, it is not just clay that is the material cause, but the five great elements alone are the material cause. That is why the sound, touch, form, taste and smell - the five elements are present in all of these. The pot is non-separate from the five elements. Even after the pot breaks, the five elements exist. Similarly, wave, spark, breath etc. should be understood in the same connection. Dream vision is an example of material causation. Rope-snake is an example of an effect due to ignorance of the substratum. They also are not different than their material cause. All these examples are useful in understanding the pervasion of the pure knowledge brahman. However, fundamentally, its pervasion cannot be explained properly. This is because all these examples are in connection with either something that is a scene, or is inert. The pure knowledge brahman is aware. Wherever the aware is the material cause, there, fundamentally, it is devoid of the cause-effect distinction. That is why the pervasion of the aware is the non existence of any substance other than the aware. In other words, it is its fullness alone.
The cause-effect-form pervaded-pervaded notion is in the seen alone, not in its illuminator or its substratum, the aware. That is why the notion of spatial, temporal and particular transformation cannot be connected with the pure knowledge brahman. The pure knowledge brahman is the substratum and illuminator of the absence of space, time and cause-effect. Since space, time and objects, which are illumined by it, are the competitors (pratiyogee) of their substratum-based complete absence, they are illusory. By being a seen, transformational and disconnected also, they are not independent, imperishable and full. In this state, in order to attain the pure knowledge brahman, when, where, in which form and through which process should we investigate?
It is a wonder that we expect to wait for some time, state or situation for searching the pure knowledge brahman! No measure of time is devoid of this pure knowledge. It cannot ever imagine its death, change, absence or birth because pure knowledge is their witness and illuminator. Then why are we unable to attain this which is in the form of substratum and illuminator in each and every moment?
It is a wonder. Even though the pure knowledge is not in the least bit touched by the notion of space, though it is free from the triplet of inner, outer and intermediate space, thought the triplet is imagined on the substratum and illuminator, inner facing and outer facing etc., in these states of space, in situations as well as coming and going, minuteness, bigness, medium-ness etc., devoid of all of these, why is it not available now in this space, since it is the form of substratum and illumination of the disconnectedness of space, when it cannot ever ascribe incompleteness, disconnectedness form transformations? Pure knowledge is the witness aware-only entity of the imagination of presence and absence of space. In order to attain that which is full and attained by nature, why is there a need to requirement to enter a secret realm of intermediate space? Why cannot its perception and investigation happen in the current space?
It is a wonder. In this space, all forms, transformations, types, impressions are becoming the objects of experience. All these are becoming objects of the intellect, which is distinct from the very counter (vivartee) material cause awareness which is illuminating them, but they are non-distinct from it fundamentally. When, in fact, the imperishable, full, non-dual aware-existence is appearing in the form of everything, devoid of space and time. Isn't it a wonder?
That which has never experienced itself and endowed with the division of subject and object, for the attainment of that pure knowledge, what is the need for means-known-formed transaction? If pure knowledge was visible like pot etc., then a visible means of knowledge would become necessary. If it was invisible like the creator of the world, then there would be need for inference. And if there were something else like it, then it would be need to be compared and would be another due to ignorance, and therefore would need words to comprehend. If it were like joy sorrow etc. which are mental experiences, then it would have witness experience (saakshi bhaasyataa). But this all-substratum, all-experiencer, self-illumined, pure knowledge brahman is to be attained. Which instrument is needed or which new instrument has to be created to experience this? It never experiences anything as different than itself, and never becomes the object of someone else's experience. Which instrument is needed here?
Here is the biggest wonder of all. We always want to attain pure knowledge brahman in some time such as samaadhi, in some space such as the abode of Brahmaa, in some form which is the object of intellect. Space cannot be falsified through coming and going. Time cannot be falsified through counter thinking. Subject-object cannot be falsified through like thought flow (tad aakaara vritti). That is why, in the attainment of the pure knowledge brahman, all these methods cannot become immediate means. For that, the purified I-sense is supreme alone. Through this method, characteristics of time (death, change etc.), characteristics of space (inner outer etc.) and characteristics of objects (scene-ness etc.) are clearly perceived as different in the self. No one can ever experience the absence, inertness and lack of love of one's own self. That is why, to attain the happiness-nature pure knowledge brahman, spatial, temporal and object-oriented shapes of joy imagination and joy emotion are not needed. The investigation of the pure knowledge-nature self alone is one's duty.
What is this purified I-sense self? To do this, focus your attention on your I-sense as used in daily dealings. In other words, what is the entity that we refer to as our "I"? Our investigation should always begin with where we are, when we are and what we are, only then will it be successful. That is why, wherever there is arrogation of one sheath or another, of one state such as waking or another, wherever the "I" sense arises, we should investigate whether that is the real "I" or not. If the "I" is used in its impure sense, then either it will be visible in the form of "this", or invisible in the form of "that". Definitely, any usage along these lines reveals the impure form of the I-sense. And then we will not be able to recognize even our waking, dream and deep sleep states, since the self-nature is different than all these three. Prior to this, the discrimination of five sheaths has to be conducted. Then, the waking state of one body will not be our waking state, but in fact, after taking one step back, we will attain our self in the form of the arrogator of the entire waking state. With this state analysis, the contemplation of Vedanta begins, and by knowing the fourth-nature pure knowledge brahman as our own nature, we can be free of ignorance and its effects.
At this time, as we are investigating, researching and purifying the I-sense as humans, transacting with internal and external organs in our gross body, it is clearly experienced that this is the waking state. In this state, the person uses the term "I" to denote his body. He ascribes attributes such as tall-short, fair-dark, fat-thin upon himself and thinks of himself as the gross body. This person takes the actions performed by the organs of action in his body to be his own, and arrogates the notion that "I am the doer of merit and sin". Doer of action, doer of walking, doer of taking, this is the nature of arrogation. When he thinks of himself as the owner of organs of knowledge, he arrogates the notion that "I see, I hear, I taste". He thinks of himself as the doer, knower, enjoyer. He ascribes action and knowledge of the organs of action and knowledge upon himself, then he identifies with the good or bad results upon himself, and even though he is self sufficient, he thinks of himself as happy or sad. Ideas arise due to actions and knowledge, and actions happen according to those ideas. This cycle continues throughout life, becomes the cause of births upon births, and deaths upon deaths. If this state were real, then the doer-enjoyer soul will always remain worldly, and will never free himself from this cycle. This cycle of birth and death alone is called world, and the "I" which is trapped in this world is called the worldly soul.
We need to think about this : What in reality is the soul which is becoming a doer with the adjunct of organs of action, enjoyer with the adjunct of result thought flow and worldly with the adjunct of the imagination of birth and death? If in essence it was disconnected, then in the wordly flow of action, particular knowledge, joy and sorrow etc., its getting stuck would be a natural thing and there would be no point in striving for liberation. But, this disconnectedness has been accepted without any investigation, without any thought or experience. That is why, when something has been believed through blind tradition or thoughtless ignorance-rooted acceptance, it has to be destroyed through the knowledge of the essence. The knowledge of the essence is the knowledge of identity of the self and brahman. Without the knowledge of the identity between self and brahman, this will not be removed. That is why, the process of striving should be begun.
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