Does the body give rise to consciousness or consciousness give rise to the body? | Advaita Vedanta | Non-Duality
Fact: as long as the body continues to appear in your experience, you will never be 100% sure if it is the body that gives rise to consciousness, or (eternal unchanging) consciousness that gives rise to the body.
This is why all the great sages have advocated the need to turn inwards, away from all sense objects thoughts and phenomena, for deep and total silence of mind and thoughts, so the true nature of what you are can be intuited (without the mind or body or sense objects/world being present), and in this way the birthless deathless eternal and changing self can be realised (again, without the mind. Realisation is not for the mind or by the person).
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THE POWER AND NATURE OF THOUGHT | Law of Attraction | Advaita | Non-Duality
It is open for everybody to discover, when the mind is very still and turned inwards towards the sense ‘I’, which is not a thought, that it is thought that gives rise to the body and is there prior to the body and what we usually call the mind.
The first thought is the ‘I thought’, and it precedes the creation of the body.
Just as we commonly conceive that the mind projects a dream, it is actually the ‘I thought’ that gives rise to or projects the three states of waking, dream and deep sleep. These three states together with the ‘I thought’ are all unreal and illusory, and these must all go for liberation to occur and our true nature to be intuited or realised.
The ‘I thought’ is also known by various other names, such as ignorance, ego, original sin, Maya, the devil, delusion, Brahma, Isvara, ‘the first act of creation’ and the mind to name a few.
This is what is being shared here.
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Shankara: the body and mind are symptoms of ignorance | Advaita Vedanta | Nisargadatta Maharaj
Sri Shankara, both in his commentaries and in his shorter works, often writes that the body and mind are symptoms (or effects) of ignorance, and when ignorance goes, the symptoms or effects of ignorance also go.
He also writes that the body, mind and world can never have any connection whatsoever with What You Truly Are, the Self, Pure Consciousness – and that only through ignorance can a connection between the two appear to be there.
eg. In Vivekachudamani Shankara writes:
195. But for delusion there can be no connection of the Self – which is unattached, beyond activity and formless – with the objective world, as in the case of blueness etc., with reference to the sky.
196. The Jivahood of the Atman, the Witness, which is beyond qualities and beyond activity, and which is realised within as Knowledge and Bliss Absolute – has been superimposed by the delusion of the Buddhi, and is not real. And because it is by nature an unreality, it ceases to exist when the delusion is gone.
197. It exists only so long as the delusion lasts, being caused by indiscrimination due to an illusion. The rope is supposed to be the snake only so long as the mistake lasts, and there is no more snake when the illusion has vanished. Similar is the case here.
198-199. Avidya or Nescience and its effects are likewise considered as beginningless. But with the rise of Vidya or realisation, the entire effects of Avidya, even though beginningless, are destroyed together with their root – like dreams on waking up from sleep. It is clear that the phenomenal universe, even though without beginning, is not eternal – like previous non-existence.
200-201. Previous non-existence, even though beginningless, is observed to have an end. So the Jivahood which is imagined to be in the Atman through its relation with superimposed attributes such as the Buddhi, is not real; whereas the other (the Atman) is essentially different from it. The relation between the Atman and the Buddhi is due to a false knowledge.
202. The cessation of that superimposition takes place through perfect knowledge, and by no other means. Perfect knowledge, according to the Shrutis, consists in the realisation of the identity of the individual soul and Brahman.
205. When the unreal ceases to exist, this very individual soul is definitely realised as the eternal Self. Therefore one must make it a point completely to remove things like egoism from the eternal Self.
Here Sri Nisargadatta also says the same:
SAHAJA SAMADHI (THE ‘NATURAL STATE’) – Sri Ramana Maharshi
Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi explains the nature of self-realisation, also known as sahaja samadhi, or ‘the natural state’. He explains that in the natural state of self knowledge, the body, mind, world and three states of waking, dream and deep sleep are not perceived by the liberated sage (jnani), but only the ignorant onlookers see the sage with an apparent body and a mind:
Ramana Maharshi: ‘So also a Jnani in sahaja samadhi is unaware of the happenings, waking, dream and deep sleep…In sahaja samadhi the activities, vital and mental, and the three states are destroyed, never to reappear.
‘However, others notice the Jnani active e.g., eating, talking, moving etc. He is not himself aware of these activities, whereas others are aware of his activities. They pertain to his body and not to his Real Self, swarupa.
‘For himself, he is like the sleeping passenger – or like a child interrupted from sound sleep and fed, being unaware of it. The child says the next day that he did not take milk at all and that he went to sleep without it. Even when reminded he cannot be convinced. So also in sahaja samadhi.’
~ Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi, Talk 82
The perfect set up for your sadhana (spiritual practice)
Why this talk of ‘turn within’?
Q. Why this talk of ‘turning within’ to realise the Self? There is no within
Tom: There is no within or without. But when one is identified with the body, the self is indicated as being within. When the self is realised, then it is seen there is no within/without. Before realisation, when body-mind still (apparently) appears, to say ‘there is no within or without’ is merely conceptual wordplay and a belief system in operation
Tom Das 