Who am I? - The Pilgrimage to the Centre of our Heart
umasreedasan
We used to say, “I ate lunch,” “I am thinking whether to go to library this evening,” “I’d feel happy if I score centum in Maths paper,” and so on. We obviously refer to our form when we say “I”. But from where does this I-ness (the sense of “I”) originally arise within our form? From our body? From our mind? From our soul? Or from yet another Entity lurking beneath our soul?
We can easily examine if the I-ness arises from our soul in all the above three statements. After you woke up from a long dreamless deep sleep the previous night, have you ever remembered how you felt? Take a few seconds now to ponder it over and then answer that question… Most probably your answer will be, “I slept with pleasant peace.” During the dreamless deep sleep, your mind and senses were unconscious as there were no thoughts, dreams or sensory perceptions like hearing. Yet the feeling of I-ness existed because you can recollect only what you experienced.
Therefore, we can confidently say that when we act or think or feel, the I-ness always arises from our soul and not from our body or mind. However, we cannot say if it arose directly from our soul or from some other Entity within our soul; to ascertain this we have to meditate within ourselves.
When we meditate within ourselves on the I-ness, we’ll first perceive the consciousness of our soul within our brain. Normally during meditation we think our thoughts and hear the outside noises. But when we perceive the consciousness of our soul in our brain, we can think our thoughts and hear the outside noises; we can also observe that we think and we hear – Are you following me? From the plane of this consciousness, we’ll be able to observe our own thoughts and our own sensory perceptions. Of course, this will seem a bit weird to you because we are used to believe, right from birth, that we are our mind and senses.
We are not our mind thinking thoughts. Our mind is thinking its thoughts – We are not. We can very well observe our mind thinking its thoughts. Similarly, our brain is hearing the outside noises through our ears – We are not. We can very well observe our brain perceiving the outside noises. The perception of I-ness is neither in our brain nor in our mind but in the plane of consciousness. We do not normally perceive this consciousness in our brain because our brain is not trained to. Since we do not perceive it, we think our I-ness arise from our mind or brain.
But when we train our brain, by means of meditation, to improve its capability of concentration, our brain will start perceiving this consciousness distinct from our mind and brain. It appears with an extraordinary Peace; you’ll always enjoy this Peace in your being, no matter what happens in the external environment – even when your mind and body are agitated and restless.
This consciousness of our soul is called as para prakriti (superior Insentient Principle) by Bhagavad Gita. Our mind and physical body constitute apara prakriti (inferior Insentient Principle). Though this consciousness energizes our body and mind, its sentience is derived from our soul, and therefore, it is called insentient. Thus, we’ll have to search deep into this consciousness to dig out our soul, which is possibly the direct source of our I-ness.
If we continue to meditate on the I-ness (the sense of “I”) into the consciousness of our soul in our brain, we’ll soon end up, as expected, with our soul. This will be evident from the increasing pleasantness of the plane of consciousness. Our soul is called as the kshara Purusha (the Experiencing Sentient Principle) by Bhagavad Gita. Just as a lamp lit in a room illuminates the entire room by means of its rays, the soul located in our heart, illuminates our body and mind through its consciousness. When we perceive it in our heart, our consciousness will be fully dissolved into it. Then we can examine if it is the original Source of our I-ness. We have perceived it only in our head, and we cannot move to heart from head bypassing body. So, our next target is to perceive our soul in our body.
By meditating on our spinal cord, we can perceive our soul in our gross body right from head to feet. We’ll feel our entire body filled with our soul. Now we are ready to move on to our heart to continue our quest for the Source of our I-ness.
On further meditation outside the body, the individuated consciousness (para prakriti) of our soul will disappear into our soul which will appear exclusively in our heart. If we open our eyes and see outside in the space, we can perceive the universal Consciousness of pleasant Peace pervading and immersing this whole world. Our soul is an integral part of this universal Consciousness.
Is it the ultimate Source of our I-ness? There seems to be a problem. Consciousness polarizes itself into the perceiver and the perceived. That is, we perceive from the plane of the universal Consciousness and thus it is our subject and source of our I-ness. But at the same time, it is also perceived by us as a distinct Entity different from the plane of perception. That is, it is both subject and object simultaneously. As long as an Entity maintains duality, it cannot be the absolute Source of our I-ness. Thus, there should be one more Entity within this Consciousness.
On further meditation on the I-ness within this Consciousness, the duality polarization of our Consciousness will suddenly disappear – object Consciousness will merge into the subject Consciousness. Again, the individuation of Consciousness will disappear due to the dissolution of our ego principle, and we’ll perceive It pervading everywhere inside and outside our body. Then, our mind and its thoughts will disappear for a while and an Entity in the form of deep silence extending into the infinite from within our body will be perceived by us within the universal Consciousness. Gita calls this Entity as Kshetranja, the perceiver of our body-mind-soul which are collectively called as the kshetra. This Knower is also called as Kootastha or Akshara Purusha (the Immutable Sentient Principle of this universe) by Gita.
Kshetranja, the Lord of this universe, provides sentience to our body, mind and soul. This is the original Source of our I-ness. When one realizes Kshetranja in one's soul in one's heart, one sees all beings within oneself as one’s Self. When one knows that the Self in all beings is the same Kshetranja, how can one do harm to other beings? Thus, when you perceive Kshetranja within yourself, you automatically get the highest degree of bhakti, called as ananya bhakti (exclusive devotion) by Gita. When we become ananya bhakta, our heart displays hatred towards none in this universe.
Let us summarize our journey to the centre of our heart for Self-Realization:
First, we perceive the consciousness of our soul within our brain in the head.
Second, we perceive our soul within our brain in the head.
Third, we perceive our soul within our body right from our head to feet.
Fourth, we perceive our soul in our heart as an integral part of the universal Consciousness.
Fifth, we perceive Lord in our heart as our Self..
~ umasreedasan.
blog: www.awarenesschanting.blogspot.com
gramana...@gmail.com
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