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This presentation is about the nature of
consciousness, your consciousness and
specifically how your consciousness is
utterly untouched by any kind of misery
or worldly suffering. This presentation
is based on the wisdom of the sages of
ancient India as expressed in the
teachings of advaita Vedanta. How
is it possible for your consciousness to
be free from suffering, loss, failure, pain,
illness? All these are inevitable. We can
minimize suffering in life but we can't
totally avoid it. Then what is the
solution?
The ancient Rishi's discovered that loss,
failure,, pain and illness can't truly
affect you.
They can't even touch you. Why? Because
they don't truly belong to you. How can
that be?
To explain, suppose you are returning to
your car in a parking lot, and parked
next to your car is another car that
happens to be exactly the same color
make and model as yours. From a distance,
you can't tell which car is yours. As you
get closer, you notice that one of the
cars has been badly damaged.
Someone carelessly smashed into the car
and left.
Seeing the damaged car, you start to
worry, wondering if it's your car that
was damaged or the other car. When you
get close enough, you can see that your
car is fine. It's the other car that's
damaged. And you feel a great sense of
relief. Now consider this. The damage
exists, and you see the damage. You
experience it, but it doesn't affect you
at all, because the damage doesn't belong
to you. Since the damage doesn't belong
to you
there's no problem. Suppose this were
true about all the problems of life -
getting a headache, losing a job, miss-
placing your cell phone. Suppose these
problems don't actually belong to you.
And if they don't belong to you, they
can't affect you. That's great, but how
could this be possible? Hopefully this
presentation will answer that question.
According to the teachings of Vedanta.
you are a conscious being. The essence of
who you are then, is awareness or
consciousness. You are the conscious
observer of all that you see. You are the
awarefull witness of everything you
experience. In Sanskrit, we use the word
Sakshi to describe your fundamental
nature as a conscious observer or awarefull
witness. As a sakshi, observer, you are
categorically separate and distinct from
anything you observe. When you see a
bunch of bananas, you are separate and
distinct from the bananas. When you see a
little puppy, you're separate and
distinct from the puppy. And when you
observe your own hand, as the sakshi,
conscious observe,r you are separate and
distinct even from your hand. When you
see your own body, it's known to you in
the same way that the bananas or puppy
are known to you. Your body is an object
observed by you.
Therefor,e you are separate and distinct
from your body because you are the awareful
witness who observes it. Of course,
your body is different from other things
in the world because you feel sensations
in your body, feelings of cold and heat,
pressure and pain. Also, your eyes, ears,
nose, and mouth pick up other sensations -
colors, sounds, smells, and tastes.
All these sensations are conveyed to
your brain. Because of your brain's vast
network of neurons and synapses, you
experience all these sensations in your
mind. As sensations arise in your mind,
you observe them. Each sensation is an
object in your mind, a mental object, and
you are the conscious observer who
perceives them. As the Sakshi, you
witness not only sensations, you witness
your thoughts as well. Like sensations,
thoughts are mental objects. As
thoughts arise in your mind, they become
known to you, the conscious observer, sakshi.
And in addition to sensations and
thoughts, emotions also arise in your
mind. When you feel happy or sad, these
emotions arise as mental objects which
are observed by you just like your
sensations and thoughts. As the sakshi, you
witness a constantly changing flow of
sensations, thoughts, and emotions as they
arise in your mind. To use a modern
metaphor, it's as though there is a
screen in your mind, like in a movie
theater, and on that screen is projected
your constantly changing flow of
sensations, thoughts, and emotions. You are
the conscious observer, Sakshi, who
watches as sensations, thoughts, and
emotions appear on the screen of your
mind.
And as the conscious observer you, are
separate and distinct from whatever you
observe. Really speaking, your sensations,
thoughts, and emotions belong to your
mind, not to you, the conscious observer.
And if your sensations,, thoughts and
emotions actually belong to your mind,, not
to you, then how can they affect you, the
awarefull witness, sakshi. This is one of
the most important discoveries of the
ancient Rishis.
To make these teachings more clear,
suppose you're sitting comfortably in a
theater to watch a movie. When a sad
scene is projected on the screen, you
feel sad, and when a happy scene is
projected on the screen, you feel happy.
This is what happens to you throughout
each day as happy and sad experiences
are projected on the screen of your mind.
When I was a child, most theaters in this
country had
intermission followed by a second movie.
We called these double features. There is
also a double feature projected on the
screen of your mind. The first feature is
everything that happens while you're
awake. The second feature is your dreams.
And your dreams can be really strange
like a science fiction movie. The first
movie represents your waking state, jagrat
avastha, when everything you
experience throughout the day is
projected on the screen of your mind. The
second movie represents your dream state,
swapna avastha, when all your dream
experiences are projected on the screen
of your mind. But what happens in deep
sleep when there are no dreams? That
state is called sushupti avastha.
To understand the state of deep sleep,
suppose the second feature has come to
an end and you remain in the theater,
watching as a screen goes black. You find
yourself in a perfectly dark theater
looking at a perfectly black screen. This
describes the experience of deep,
dreamless sleep.
So, in sushupti avastha, in deep sleep, you
are the awarefull witness of the
silence of your mind. You remain fully
conscious, but there are no mental
activities to be conscious of, just like
sitting in a dark theater watching a
black screen. In deep sleep, you are the
conscious observer of a completely
silent mind. You do not cease being a
conscious observer during deep sleep.
Your consciousness does not blink on and
off like the light bulb in your
refrigerator. Your consciousness reveals
what is happening on the screen of your
mind every single moment, whether you are
awake, dreaming, or in deep sleep. That
consciousness is you,
the essence of who you are. It can't be
an utterly mundane object like the light
in your refrigerator.
To better understand how you remain
fully conscious and deep sleep,
this illustration might be helpful.
Imagine you are standing outside a room,
looking in through the window. The room
is brightly illumined by a lamp located
on the side where you can't see it
directly. The walls of the room are
painted black, but you can clearly see
the furnishings in the room. Now suppose
we remove all the furnishings from the
room, except for the lamp. Then, the room
would still be filled with light from the
lamp, but you would see only blackness.
Even though the light is on, you see only
blackness because there is nothing in
the room to be seen. In this example, the
room with black walls represents your
mind, and it's furnishings represent your
sensations, your thoughts, and emotions.
The light represents your consciousness.
In deep sleep, sensations, thoughts, and
emotions disappear and your mind becomes
totally silent. But even then, your mind
continues to be bathed in consciousness.
You remain present as the awarefull
observer, but there's nothing left in
your mind to be observed, just like the
empty room filled with light. Deep sleep
is like gazing into pure darkness. In
deep sleep, you observe the silence of
your mind.
Everything we have seen so far confirms
what the ancient Rishis taught - that
your true nature as the awarefull
witness is sat chit ananda. Sat means
that which is real, that which is unborn,
uncreated, and unchanging, that which
remains even in deep sleep. Chit means
conscious, being able to illumine your
mind to reveal your senses, thoughts, and
emotions. Ananda is best understood as
being perfectly content and peaceful. But
now we have to ask, how can you be
perfectly content and peaceful when the
screen of your mind is constantly
cluttered with scenes of frustration and
irritation, scenes of sadness and grief,
scenes of hurt and resentment? You can
remain perfectly content only if you are
utterly unaffected by anything projected
on the screen of your mind. As we saw
before, you are separate and distinct
from everything projected on the screen
of your mind because you are the
conscious observer of all that's
projected. So whatever is projected on
the screen of your mind belongs to your
mind, not to you the conscious observer.
Let's conclude by returning to our movie
theater.
Suppose you're watching a movie and come
to a particularly heartbreaking scene.
You'll probably feel sad
you might even cry. But you know that
whatever happens in the movie doesn't
really affect you.
So you enjoy the sad scene. You might
even enjoy crying. Outside the theater,
you also feel sad when sad experiences
are projected on the screen of your mind.
And just like in the theater, those sad
experiences don't truly affect you, the
awareful witness, sakshi. As the
conscious observer, you are completely
separate from the screen of your mind
and utterly unaffected by anything
projected on it. It's interesting that so
many people love sad movies. Someone
might be in tears after watching a movie
and say, that's the best movie I've seen
in years. If you can enjoy a sad movie,
then it must be possible to enjoy the
sad scenes of life as well. Life is like
a really, really long movie with lots of
scenes, lots of happy scenes, and some
difficult or unpleasant scenes as well.
With the help of the teachings of
Vedanta, we can learn that we are okay no
matter what is projected on the screens
of our minds. So, we can sit back relax
and enjoy each scene as it unfolds in
our lives.
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