The five senses and the mind are the instruments through which we experience this world. In the journey of the secular we explored how to focus our mind to enhance our concentration and also how to control our senses. In the journey of the seeker we went deeper into the practice of meditation. Meditation takes us beyond the senses into our mind and how to control our mind. In this article we explore the state of the ‘seer’ and how they are free from the senses and are masters of their mind. The quote from Eckhart Tolle makes this point eloquently.
“The mind is a superb instrument if used rightly. Used wrongly, however, it becomes very destructive. To put it more accurately, it is not so much that you use your mind wrongly - you usually don’t use it at all. It uses you. This is the disease. You believe that you are your mind. This is the delusion. The instrument has taken you over”.
Yoga of Knowledge - Bhagavad Gita: Chapter 2, Verses 56-57
दु:खेष्वनुद्विग्नमना: सुखेषु विगतस्पृह: | वीतरागभयक्रोध: स्थितधीर्मुनिरुच्यते || 56||
य: सर्वत्रानभिस्नेहस्तत्तत्प्राप्य शुभाशुभम् | नाभिनन्दति न द्वेष्टि तस्य प्रज्ञा प्रतिष्ठिता || 57||
duḥkheṣhv-anudvigna-manāḥ sukheṣhu vigata-spṛihaḥ vīta-rāga-bhaya-krodhaḥ sthita-dhīr munir uchyate
yaḥ sarvatrānabhisnehas tat tat prāpya śhubhāśhubham nābhinandati na dveṣhṭi tasya prajñā pratiṣhṭhitā
One whose mind remains undisturbed amidst misery, who does not crave for pleasure, and who is free from attachment, fear, and anger, is called a sage of steady wisdom (2.56)
One who remains unattached under all conditions, and is neither delighted by good fortune nor dejected by tribulation, he is a sage with perfect knowledge (2.57)
In these two verses Lord Krishna describes how the sage of steady wisdom or the sage with perfect knowledge - ’seer’ as we have described it - has completely control of their senses and their mind and are not swayed by their influences.
Become aware of your awareness
Controlling one’s senses and mind is the easiest and hardest at the same time. It is not a step-by-step process, nor is it a state to be achieved. It is not about doing anything actively, nor refraining from doing anything. It is just ‘becoming aware of your awareness’. In his book on Being Aware of being Aware, Rupert Spira makes this wonderful point:
“Allow the experience of being aware to come into the foreground of experience, and let thoughts, images, feelings, sensations and perceptions recede into the background. Simply notice the experience of being aware. The peace and happiness for which all people long reside there. Be aware of being aware.”
Awareness is one of the most primal sensations (even to call it a sensation is misleading) that is experienced, but is difficult to describe. However, Rupert Spira, having realized this true nature of our Self, explains using some great analogies this direct path of realization. I will try my best to summarize some of the key elements, but I would urge the readers to first go to the source of this book and then to the source of your own Self to experience what cannot be described.
I will break up the discussion into five key tenets that Rupert Spira lays out and connect them to describe this statement and link it back to what Krishna says to Arjuna about the state of the 'seer'.
1. Being Aware is the essential, irreducible element of Experience
Our day to day experiences can be viewed as a triple - the object of experience, the subject of experience and the act of experiencing. Let’s say you are watching a movie on your television set. The images appearing on the screen are the objects of your experience; you are the one watching the movie and the subject of the experience; and finally the act of watching is the experience. Central to this experience is your awareness focused on the watching of the movie. If your mind is focused on the meeting you have with your boss tomorrow or what your three year old daughter is doing in the next room then you are not really ‘watching’ the movie, even though your eyes are staring the screen. Hence, awareness of the act is essential for us to claim that we are doing it and also to ’know’ that we did it. If your eyes are watching but your mind is busy thinking about your meeting tomorrow you will not know what happened in the movie. This awareness does not depend (neither is it enhanced nor diminished) on the experience itself and is also not conditioned by the experience. Whether you are watching a love story or a thriller you still need to be aware.
Once the experience (e.g., of watching the movie) is complete the subject ‘knows’ that it watched the movie. This is true of any of our experiences - feeling, perception, sensation, thinking etc. Being aware of our experience or awareness itself is known by the subject. In fact, this notion of awareness and the knowledge of the experience pervades all experiences.
2. Awareness’s nature is to be aware of itself
Having established that the essential nature of all experiences is the underlying awareness of that experience we need to look at what is the nature of this awareness. What does it take to be aware? What do you need to do to make sure that you are aware?
Awareness is by nature self-aware. It is often hidden or veiled by the object of awareness. Going back to our analogy the screen on which the image appears is the awareness. When you are busy watching the movie you are unaware of the screen, but without the underlying screen you will not be able to watch the movie. Similarly, when we transact in our day to day life we are more conscious of our experiences and less about the awareness that was the substratum or essential element for all the experiences.
Another popular analogy used in the Indian scriptures is the comparison of awareness to the Sun. The Sun illuminates all objects - but you don’t need another source of light to illumine the sun. It is self-luminous. In a similar manner awareness is self-luminous or is self-aware.
3. The knowledge ‘I am’ is awareness’s awareness of itself
Imagine you are just about to go to sleep in your bedroom and it is really dark. Your spouse walks into the bedroom and asks “are you there?”; you answer “Yes - I am here”. Did you need to switch on the light or look into the mirror to verify that you were in the room and it was ‘you’ and not someone else!! Clearly not - you are aware of your own existence and this awareness is absolute - you don’t need proof for this knowledge. The knowledge ‘I am’ is present during all of our experiences , is also the subject of every experience, but is often veiled by them just as the screen on which a movie is played is always there but is veiled while watching the movie.
4. Awareness’s nature is pure knowing or absolute knowledge
As we have seen above, to experience our senses, perceive the objects around us, feel our emotions, think our thoughts we need awareness to illumine it. Once illumined by our awareness, we are aware of our experiences and also know that we experienced it. In other words, our experiences result in objective knowledge. However, awareness does not require any special type of illumination - it is self-effulgent. As a result, the knowledge of this self-awareness is a unique kind of knowledge that requires no subject-experience-object relationship and can be considered ‘absolute’ knowledge. Quoting Rupert Spira
“There is no difference between our own being and the knowing of our own being just as there is no difference between the sun and its shining.”
In most religions this absolute knowledge is called God. Our knowledge of our self is God’s knowledge of Himself/Herself. Combining the above three tenets we can say that the experience of ‘I am’ is nothing but ‘being aware of awareness’ which is absolute knowledge or God. This brings home the Sufi saying “I searched for God and found only myself; I searched for myself and found only God”. For a vedantic practitioner this truism is brought out by the mahavakya or great saying ‘Tat tvam Asi” or this awareness (atman) and the absolute God (brahman) are the same.
5. Being Aware of being aware is the essence of meditation and is the Direct path
The next obvious question that our mind raises is how can I be aware of awareness or how can I perform self-inquiry (‘Who am I?’) or how can I realize God. All three are the same question - worded differently. In the words of Rupert Spira
“This returning of awareness to itself, its remembrance of itself - being aware of aware - is the essence of meditation and prayer, and the direct path to lasting peace and happiness”.
Meditation is often discussed as a step-by-step process - the process of focusing our breathing or our attention to a specific form or mantra. Sometimes it is portrayed as something that we refrain from doing - not thinking thoughts, not paying attention to the thoughts that arise. These steps are only useful to the mind that is constantly spreading its attention to different activities. Meditation is truly the disentangling of awareness from our experiences and activities. According to Rupert Spira
“Mind is the activity or creativity of awareness in which awareness itself seems to become entangled. Awareness seems to lose itself in its own creativity; it veils itself with its own activity. Meditation is the disentangling of awareness from its own activity.”
As we have seen above, awareness’s very nature is being aware of itself; there is nothing special to be done; it is a non-practice; there is no path from lack of awareness to awareness; awareness is always illuminating whatever you do; it is the pathless path or the Direct path.
A “seer” is one who constantly abides in that awareness; they are abiding in that awareness whether they are involved in any activity or not; and they are not disturbed or tainted by the activities. That is exactly what Lord Krishna refers to in the verses 56 and 57 as “one whose minds are undisturbed” and “one whose minds are unattached”.
Key Takeaways
Free from senses (Gita verse 2.56-58)
Undisturbed mind
Unattached self
Withdrawing senses from sense objects
Perception & mind
Luminous Self
Exercise for the week
Notice 5 things that you can see. Look around you and become aware of your environment. Try to pick out something that you don’t usually notice.
Notice 4 things you can feel. Bring attention to the things that you’re currently feeling, such as the texture of your clothing or the smooth surface of the table you’re resting your hands on.
Notice 3 things that you can hear. Listen for and notice things in the background that you don’t normally notice. It could be the birds chirping outside or an appliance humming in the next room.
Notice 2 things you can smell. Bring attention to scents that you usually filter out, either pleasant or unpleasant. Catch a whiff of the pine trees outside or food cooking in the kitchen.
Notice 1 thing you can taste. Take a sip of a drink, chew gum, or notice the current taste in your mouth.
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