Spirituality Studies 10-1 Spring 2024 17 Michael James Therefore when Bhagavan says “Since one power of the Supreme Lord is driving all kāryas” (Ta. “sakala kāriyaṅgaḷai-y-um oru paramēśvara śakti naḍatti-k-koṇḍirugiṟapaḍiyāl”), what he implies is not only that God is making everything happen as it is meant to happen, but also that in accordance with what is meant to happen he makes us do whatever we need to do or ought to do. When such is the case, “instead of we also yielding to that, why to be perpetually thinking, ‘it is necessary to do like this; it is necessary to do like that’?” (Ta. “nāmum adaṟku aḍaṅgi-y-irāmal, ‘ippaḍi-c ceyya-vēṇḍum; appaḍi-c ceyya-vēṇḍum’ eṉḏṟu sadā cintippadēṉ?”). In other words, when God is taking care of everything in this manner, making everything happen as it is meant to happen and making each of us do whatever we are meant to do, why should we rise as ego thinking that we must bear the burden of responsibility for taking care of ourself and others? Our only real responsibility is to be steadfastly self-attentive and thereby surrender ourself completely to God, knowing that he is taking perfect care of everything, including ourself and all our loved ones. To illustrate this with a powerful analogy, in the fourth and final sentence of this thirteenth paragraph of Nāṉ Ār? he asks rhetorically: Though we know that the train is going bearing all the burdens, why should we who go travelling in it, instead of remaining happily leaving our small luggage placed on it, suffer bearing it on our head? [24] The train in which we are all travelling is the power of God’s grace, which is bearing the entire burden of our life along with all other burdens, so if we surrender all our cares and concerns to him by being so steadfastly self-attentive that we subside back into our own being without ever rising to think of anything else, we can travel happily in the lap of his grace, free of the burden of any cares and responsibilities. If instead we do not surrender all our cares and concerns to him, we will suffer unnecessarily, like a passenger on a train who insists on carrying their luggage on their head instead of placing it on the luggage rack. 13 Knowing Ourself Without Adjuncts Is Itself Knowing God Since it is the nature of ourself as ego to constantly attend to things other than ourself, believing that our survival, comfort and happiness depend on our thinking of such things and speaking and acting accordingly, we cannot surrender all our cares and concerns to God without surrendering ourself entirely to him. However, though we can surrender, renounce or give up everything else, we cannot give up what we actually are, so the “self” we are to surrender is not what we actually are but everything that we now mistake ourself to be. Everything that we now mistake ourself to be is what is called upādhi, which is a Sanskrit word that means “something mistaken to be another thing”, a “substitute”, “fraud”, “deception”, “disguise”, “false appearance” or “limitation”, and which is generally translated as “adjunct” in the sense of something that we add to or superimpose upon ourself by identifying it as “I” or “mine”. Ego or “soul” (Sa. jīva) is therefore a conflation of what we actually are with a set of upādhis that we mistake ourself to be, namely a person or body consisting of five sheaths (the physical body, life, mind, intellect and will) and everything associated with this person, including all its actions and experiences. Bereft of all such upādhis, therefore, ego or jīva is nothing other than what we actually are, namely pure “being-awareness” (Sa. sat-cit), which is what exists and shines eternally as “I am”, and which is what is otherwise called God or brahman (the one ultimate reality, which is the infinite, indivisible and immutable whole, the fullness of being), as Bhagavan implies in verse 24 of Upadēśa Undiyār: By being-nature, God and soul are just one substance. Only adjunct-awareness is different. [25] “By being-nature” or “because of being-nature” (Ta. “irukkum iyaṟkaiyāl”) implies “because their real nature is pure being”, so “by being-nature, God and soul are just one substance” (Ta. “irukkum iyaṟkaiyāl īśa-jīvargaḷ oru poruḷē āvar”) implies that what both “God” (Sa. īśa) and “soul” (Sa. jīva) actually are is just one “substance” (Ta. poruḷ or Sa. vastu), namely pure “being” (Sa. sat). What makes them seemingly different, therefore, is only “adjunct-awareness” (Ta. upādhi-uṇarvu), but what is aware of the seeming existence of “adjuncts” (Sa. upādhis) is only the jīva and not God, because God is just pure “being-awareness” (Sa. sat-cit) and therefore never mistakes himself to be anything other than that, so in his clear view there are no adjuncts at all, either for himself or for the jīva, and hence he sees the jīva as nothing other than himself. Since all adjuncts are just an illusory appearance, they do not exist independent of our awareness of them, so “adjuncts” (Sa. upādhis) are nothing other than “adjunct-awareness” (Ta. upādhi-uṇarvu), which is the false awareness “I am these adjuncts”, and which is what defines and distinguishes ego, the jīva, because without adjunct-awareness ego
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