Question: How can I know my true Nature, Consciousness/the nondual Self/Witness? This is how I see it. Realization of the true nature of reality is recognized through the luminous quality of the mind, also called awareness. Through understanding of awareness, we understand that all appearances are illusions that are illuminated in the clear light of our mind.
Sundari: Yes, thanks to pure Awareness, all appearances (objects) are known only in the mind, the mirror created by the distorting power of Maya – that which makes the unchanging ever present Awareness seem to have qualities, to be inconstant and changing. But pure Awareness is the fullness that never changes, and it has no qualities. Most importantly, it does not need a mind (mirror) to know itself. It is self-effulgent. It is correct that to realize your true nature as the Self, you need a clear, and purified (sattvic) mind. If the mind is highly extroverted (rajasic) or dull (tamasic), your awareness will be fragmented and directed externally or dull and in denial, respectively.
But recognizing the Self in a pure mind is the start, not end point of Self-realization. A pure luminous mind is self-aware and capable of reflecting Awareness, but it owes its light and its awareness to the nondual Self – Awareness, capital ‘A”. Just like your image in the mirror shines and can be seen by you thanks to Awareness, but is not you. Your reflection in the mirror is an object known to you.
Therefore, the mind, however pure and luminous, is also an object known to you, Awareness/Self. It is capable of thinking, knowing and witnessing because the light of Awareness is shining on it and in it. The question to ask, then, is what does that mean? If you identify with the light of awareness shining in your mind, you are halfway ‘there’, but you are still not free. You are still limited because you are identified with an impermanent object – a pure mind.
Inquirer: With the recognition that all appearances are illusions we cut through clinging bringing relief from suffering.
Sundari: Correct, it is the idea that I am lacking, and the identification with and chasing of objects that is the cause of all suffering. An object is anything known to me, nondual Awareness. All objects appear in the mind just as they would appear in a mirror. You could call them ‘illusions’ but that is not really the accurate term. An illusion is something that does not exist and therefore, cannot be experienced. But objects, whether subtle like a thought or material like a chair, while they are not real (real is defined as that which is always present and never changes) can be experienced because they do exist. Your body (like your mind) is not real, though it seems very real. But it’s not an illusion either, because you can experience it.
However, what many in the nondual world miss is that the appearance of the light shining in your mind, while that is a very refined object, is also just an appearance. As stated, you are the witness of the pure luminous aware mind – as pure Awareness, you are not the mind and you do not need a mind to know yourself. To believe that you do means that you are stuck in and bound by duality. And you will still suffer.
Question: Ultimate peace is attained through recognition of the empty quality of the mind, also called emptiness. Through understanding of emptiness, we understand that all appearances arise from emptiness and dissolve into emptiness, thus everything has the nature of emptiness. This is the ultimate truth that brings liberation.
Sundari: It’s true that no object whether subtle or gross actually has any ‘real’ substance when we investigate the nature of things, and all objects arise from and ‘dissolve’ into Awareness. No object has any meaning other than the meaning we give it, this is true, too. There is nothing to gain or lose in life, it’s zero sum. All the same, the ‘all is emptiness’ idea is a fallacy. There is no such thing as ’emptiness’ or an ‘empty’ mind. No matter how hard we try, we can never stop thoughts from appearing in the mind because we are not in control of the mind. Isvara, or the Causal body, is in control. Even the idea that the mind is empty is just another thought. We can learn to manage the mind very well through guna management, however.
You can spend years in meditation and may achieve a state of nirvikalpa (no thought). But if Self-knowledge does not obtain, when the nirvikalpa experience ends, then you need to chase another experience of nirvikalpa because the main problem – the doer/meditator, the one who believes it must empty its mind of thoughts to experience Awareness – is still there. All you need to ask yourself is: ‘who is it that knows the no thought state?’. It can’t be anything but me, pure, whole and complete, ever full, Awareness. If the doer is negated, then Self-knowledge obtains and you understand that you do not need any experience to know yourself because you are only ever experiencing your Self, Awareness. As nondual ever full ever present unchanging Awareness, you are never ‘in’ any state. All states are in you.
It’s the same with deep sleep. It seems like emptiness because there is no mind present in deep sleep, but it’s not emptiness because Awareness has to be present to know you slept. Again, the problem is only that there is a doer involved, the one that believes it needs to ‘achieve’ a no thought state to know itself. But thoughts are not the problem. Identification with the thinker is the problem.
Forget about emptiness, it’s a Buddhist illusion. You are Pure Awareness, the fullness that knows the emptiness, and the knower of the reflected awareness in a pure luminous mind. While peace of mind is the goal, and it is the springboard for moksa (freedom from suffering brought on by identification with objects), peace of mind (sattva) is not moksa. The mind, no matter how peaceful, ‘empty’, or noisy, is not an obstacle to Self-realization if you know that you are the knower of the mind and whatever goes on in it.
Sundari
