Mike: I have been self-studying Advaita Vedanta for around 8/9 months now and your blog has helped me a lot in clearing certain concepts. I had a question and I can’t seem to get my head around it and I think you can help me with that. Here’s the question:
When I focus on my sense of being/sense of existence, that is I exist, that I AM which means saying I know I am. This means being aware of awareness itself. Doesn’t this make awareness an object but how can the subject become the object? Is this the reflected consciousness becoming the object? or is the statement I know coming from the ego? I’m in a bit of confusion here.
Rory: I’m not entirely sure which texts, books or teachers you’ve been studying, but it may be that Nisargadatta was among them. His core practice was for students to be aware of the sense of “I”, and it sounds like you have a grasp on that.
What you’ve realised is that this sense of “I am” can be known to you and experienced as a subtle object. Because the scriptures make it clear that the Self cannot be known as an object of knowledge, your question is an astute and legitimate one.
The key is to deepen your inquiry by realising that, yes, you can know your inner “I sense”, but how is that known? What is it that allows you to perceive it?
In order to know this “I sense”, there must be an even deeper, subtler awareness by which it is known.
This awareness, when associated with a body and mind, is the light by which all things are revealed and experienced. While the gross and subtle bodies (and the “I sense”, which I’ll explain in a moment) can be more or less located and known as objects, if you try to find the revealing awareness, you can’t. It doesn’t have a discernible beginning or end. Nor does it have a particular form or location. You can know that it exists, because its existence is self-evident; without it, there would be no experience of any kind. Yet it’s not something you can grasp. You can’t locate it in space or time, nor in any part of the body. Like the light illumining all the objects in a room, it pervades everything and is that by which everything is revealed. But you can’t capture that awareness; you can’t pin it down and objectify it in any way. Each time you think you’re experiencing it as an object, simply ask, “what is it by which this is known?”
The “I sense” that you experience when you turn your mind inward is reflected consciousness, as you surmise; the light of consciousness illumining and enlivening the subtle body (the instruments of mind, intellect and ego). The technical term for it in Vedanta is chidabhasa. The Self is the ‘original consciousness’ and what we experience as the jiva, our individual self and the “I am-ness” at the heart of it, is the ‘reflected consciousness’. Just as the moon appears to shine in the sky but is, in actual fact, just borrowing the light of the sun, so do the jiva’s gross and subtle bodies appear to function as autonomous units, when, in fact, they’re merely reflecting instruments, borrowing consciousness and life from the Self.
So, to summarise, the sense of “I am” you can experience in meditation, is actually the light of consciousness reflected in the subtle body. It’s not original consciousness, which can never be experienced as an object, but which ever remains the light by which all is known and experienced. Whereas the “I sense” comes and goes (we experience it during the waking and dream states but not in deep sleep), awareness is always present and utterly intangible—and yet it’s the factor by which all things are made tangible to us; the very light illumining the objects of the senses and mind. I hope that helps clarify things. This is quite a subtle topic, so let me know if that makes sense.
Mike: Thank you for replying to my email. I truly appreciate you taking out time to explain my question. Yes, I have a better understanding now. You explained it very well and it makes a lot of sense. I just have another follow up question regarding the same and I hope you don’t mind 😅.
Why is it said that the Self is self-revealing/self-aware just like the sun, which is self-luminous? This basically is creating a loop of awareness. I’m a bit confused here.
Rory: You’re most welcome. I’m glad that helped clarify things.
To answer your next question, we describe the Self as self-revealing because it needs no other light to reveal it. When it comes to the objects of the world, we require a light in order to perceive and experience them–whether that be sunlight streaming in the window, or, in the absence of daylight, an electrical light or torch. The sun is often used as a metaphor for the Self because, unlike the objects it illumines, the sun does not need any other light to reveal it. It reveals itself by its own light. So, too, with awareness. Awareness is the light by which all things are seen and experienced. Unlike physical light, however, it isn’t opposed to darkness because it is always present. That’s why even if you’re in a dark room and can’t see anything, awareness is still present as the light revealing the darkness.
Obviously, any metaphor will only extend so far, but it can helpful to think of the Self as an endlessly shining sun with no beginning and no end, and no particular location either, for it pervades all things much as the daylight pervades the objects of a room.
It would be incorrect to describe awareness as a “loop” because a loop necessities an original beginning point and end point. Unlike anything in the maya world, all of which is finite, the Self is infinite and limitless; one, undivided and unchanging. It has no beginning or end, but exists eternally as the very ground, essence and substratum of existence; the eternal noumenon out of which the time-bound phenomenal world arises and subsides like a wave in the ocean of infinity.
As a finite instrument, it’s impossible for the mind to fully grasp/understand the Self. That would be akin to the dreamer trying to understand the consciousness creating and experiencing the dream. So it may well take some time to get a grasp of the teaching and to iron out any doubts or misunderstandings. When it comes to the Self we generally use negative terminology and descriptors, what they call “neti neti“/”not this not this”. Hence we say, the Self is limitless, timeless, beyond duality, beginningless, endless, formless, etc. About the only positive descriptor is “self-effulgent” or “self-revealing” because it shines by itself, requiring no other light and no other “secondary awareness” to reveal it.
Mike: Also, your Bhagavad Gita book, is it from an Advaitic point of view?
Rory: My Bhagavad Gita book is indeed from the Vedantic perspective. I think you might find it helpful as the commentary unfolds pretty much the entire essentials of Advaita Vedanta in a sequential manner. It’s based upon the commentaries of Adi Shankara and some of the greatest Vedanta teachers of the past century, so the pedigree is there. It’s gotten some tremendous feedback from people, so I think I must have done it some justice! The commentary on chapter two is particularly relevant to our discussion.
