Awareness

Does the body give rise to consciousness or consciousness give rise to the body? | Advaita Vedanta | Non-Duality

~ Tom Das ~ Leave a comment

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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Unbothered, Untouched, Unscathed, and Unharmed

~ Tom Das ~ Leave a comment

This is an edited Satsang conversation between a participant and Tom about ‘surrender’. ‘When I surrender I am happy and my life seems to go well. When I am not surrendered I am bothered and life does not go smoothly’.

Tom gives a helpful, descriptive response (using the cinema screen as a metaphor for the Self ) that he refers to as a “Drishti-Srishti Vada Teaching”, or “a teaching with objects present.

For more on Drishti Srishti Vada and the other levels of teaching, here is the article Tom refers to in this video about the 3 stages of reality

Also highly recommended are Tom’s video on Savikalpa & Nirvikalpa teachings and on Partial nonduality.

This video was recorded live during a Satsang meeting with Tom Das on December 5, 2024 and put together by volunteers.

To download full unedited satsang recordings see here: https://payhip.com/tomdas

To attend satsang, see here: https://tomdas.com/events

The sage liberated in this life (Jnani or Jivanmukta) is not a body-mind entity

~ Tom Das ~ Leave a comment

This was first posted on Facebook here

If you take the Jnani (liberated sage) to be a body-mind entity, then you will think he or she eats, drinks, talks, thinks, feels, acts, does this, does that, etc.

But the Jnani is only pure objectless consciousness, one without a second, the pure true non-dual self. The Jnani has no body or mind, and sees no body or mind or world, all of which are seen by the fictional ego due to ignorance, and are known as duality.*

Metaphorically speaking, the Jnani only sees his own (formless, objectless, worldless, homogeneous) Self.

The false I, or ego, rises up, and it is this false I that experiences and perceives all gross and subtle phenomena.

Turning back towards Source/Subject/Self/I Am, with love, in silence, dissolve into that which you truly are.

This is the only way to discover the truth of yourself, and thereby end ignorance delusion ego and suffering. Anything less than this will not end suffering/confusion/delusion/duality.**

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*This is why Sri Ramana Himself wrote the following verse from Guru Vachaka Kovai:

The sage Self-realised knows not
Whether the transient body comes
And stays, or dies and leaves, even as
The senseless drunkard knows not what
Happens to his clothes.
~ SRI BHAGAVAN 24

This is also the true meaning of the Upanishadic verse, a form of which is here written by Sri Ramana, also in Guru Vachaka Kovai:

There is no creation, no destruction.
None bound, none seeking, striving,
Gaining freedom. Know that this
Is the Truth supreme.
~ SRI BHAGAVAN 28

A version of this above verse is found in the Amritabindu Upanishad in verse 10 and in the Atma Upanishad in verse 2.31. It was later incorporated by both Gaudapada (Mandukya Karika 2.32) and Shankara (Vivekachudamani verse 574) in their writings

**This is why Sri Ramana says in Guru Vachaka Kovai:

291. For those who seek eternal life
The assurance stands: the senses five
Retracted tortoise-like, the mind
Turned homeward to the Self and there
Abiding is pure bliss.

293. Know that these countless things are pictures
In a dream and none is real
Apart from the beholder. Shun
This phantom world of names and forms
And dwell in the pure, blissful being
Of Awareness.

364. When the ego-life dissolves
And dies in silence, then one lives
The life supreme of Pure Awareness.
When the false ego dream-like fades
Into its source, the true Self rises
Of its own accord.

Awareness continues even in Deep Sleep | Sri Ramana Maharshi | Maharhi’s Gospel PDF download

~ Tom Das ~ Leave a comment

The following is from the book Maharshi’s Gospel (Click on the link for a PDF download), Book 2, Chapter 6:

Sri Ramana Maharshi: Do you remember, I told you once previously that existence and awareness are not two different things but one and the same? Well, if for any reason you feel constrained to admit the fact that you existed in sleep be sure you were also aware of that existence.

What you were really unaware of in sleep is your bodily existence. You are confounding this bodily awareness with the true Awareness of the Self which is eternal. Prajnana [Pure Consciousness], which is the source of ‘I-am’-ness, ever subsists unaffected by the three transitory states of the mind, thus enabling you to retain your identity unimpaired.

Prajnana is also beyond the three states because it can subsist without them and in spite of them.

It is that Reality that you should seek during your so-called waking state by tracing the aham-vritti to its Source. Intense practice in this inquiry will reveal that the mind and its three states are unreal and that you are the eternal, infinite consciousness of Pure Being, the Self or the Heart.

Q. Does awareness or consciousness arise in the brain, or is consciousness itself the primary ground of existence?

~ Tom Das ~ 6 Comments

consciousness brain.jpg

Question: Does ‘awareness’ or ‘consciousness’ have a source, eg. is the actual brain organ the source of all manifestations and sensations? Or is consciousness primary and the ground of existence?

Tom: I don’t know the answer to that question. I only know about ending suffering. When suffering ends, one could say that all there is is consciousness, as this is the undivided experience, but this is only an experiential truth, not a scientific one, and so your actual question remains unanswered.

I wrote an article on this topic while back, feel free to take a look: Is everything really consciousness?

Jiddu Krishnamurti: ‘Complete Attention’

~ Tom Das ~ Leave a comment

krishnamurti-profile

Jiddu Krishnamurti used words in a very specific and often unusual way. He, generally speaking, uses the word ‘attention’ to signify awareness without the presence of the ego or chooser, and therefore without resistance or direction. Below is an example, taken from The Book of Life, June 12th:

What do we mean by attention? Is there attention when I am forcing my mind to attend? When I say to myself, “I must pay attention, I must control my mind and push aside all other thoughts,” would you call that attention? Surely that is not attention.

What happens when the mind forces itself to pay attention? It creates a resistance to prevent other thoughts from seeping in; it is concerned with resistance, with pushing away; therefore it is incapable of attention. That is true, is it not?

To understand something totally you must give your complete attention to it. But you will soon find out how extraordinarily difficult that is, because your mind is used to being distracted, so you say, “By Jove, it is good to pay attention, but how am I to do it?” That is, you are back again with the desire to get something, so you will never pay complete attention. … When you see a tree or a bird, for example, to pay complete attention is not to say, ”That is an oak,” or, “That is a parrot,” and walk by.

In giving it a name you have already ceased to pay attention… Whereas, if you are wholly aware, totally attentive when you look at something, then you will find that a complete transformation takes place, and that total attention is the good.

There is no other, and you cannot get total attention by practice. With practice you get concentration, that is, you build up walls of resistance, and within those walls of resistance is the concentrator, but that is not attention, it is exclusion.

Also, see here: If you listen completely there is no listener

Some fundamentals of the path

~ Tom Das ~ Leave a comment

meditation advaita om self-realisation

Rest for a while.
Allow your heart and feelings to lead you:

Gently,
Sink into your heart,
And be still.

Let that Silence overpower you,
Let that Presence stir and move you,
Both inwardly and outwardly,
Guiding your words, thoughts and actions,
Bringing you back to ever-present Stillness.

Know that Stillness as your Essential Being,
And be happy and well.

Let devotion, prayer and gratitude,
Naturally well up as they please,
Purifying the Heart-Mind.
Cleansing the system.

All experiences come and go,
And occur within the depths of awareness,
Which in itself in-essence remains ever-unchanged and unharmed,
Like the screen and the movie projected onto it.

Grounded in the firm knowledge of awareness,
There is no need to hold anything back.

These are some fundamentals of the path.