6 Spirituality Studies 10-1 Spring 2024 that is our own real nature, it is necessary for us to investigate what we actually are, so “self-investigation” (Sa. ātma-vicāra), which is investigation of our fundamental awareness, “I am”, is the “principal means” (Sa. mukhya sādhana), in the same sense that a major river into which many tributaries flow is the principal means by which the water from all those tributaries is to reach the ocean. Since the ocean we are all seeking to reach is the ocean of infinite happiness, which is the state in which we are eternally and immutably aware of ourself as we actually are, and since we cannot know what we actually are without investigating ourself, all other spiritual practices are like tributaries that must eventually lead practitioners to the great river of self-investigation, which alone can discharge them into the ocean of infinite happiness. 4 Though We Always Know Ourself, We Do Not Know Ourself as We Actually Are When Bhagavan says in the above passage that it is necessary for oneself to know oneself, that implies that in our present state, in which we are still seeking happiness as if it were something other than ourself, we do not know ourself, but what exactly does he mean by “oneself knowing oneself” (Ta. “taṉṉai-t tāṉ aṟidal”)? Do we not already know ourself? In a sense we do, because knowing ourself is a prerequisite for knowing anything else, since whatever else we may know, we know it as “I know this”, meaning that we know ourself as the first person or subject, “I”, the knower of all other things. In what sense, therefore, did he mean that knowing ourself is necessary? In this context “knowing ourself” means being aware of ourself, but there is never a moment when we are not aware of ourself. That is, we are always aware of the existence of ourself as “I am”. However, though we know that we are, we do not know what we are, because we now know ourself as something other than what we actually are. Therefore what he means by “knowing ourself” is not just knowing that we are but knowing what we are, and “knowing what we are” means not just knowing some factual information about our real identity such as “I am brahman” (in which brahman is a term that refers to “the one infinite, indivisible and immutable whole”, which is the ultimate reality of ourself and all other things, and whose nature is sat-cit-ānanda, “being-awareness-happiness”) but actually being aware of ourself as we actually are. 5 If We Are Not What We Now Seem to Be, Then What Are We? So what is it that prevents us being aware of ourself as we actually are? At present we are aware of ourself as if we were a person, a bundle consisting of “five sheaths” (Sa. pañca-kōśa), namely a physical body, the life that animates it, and the mind, intellect and will that seem to function within it. This bundle of five sheaths that we now mistake ourself to be is what Bhagavan generally referred to as “body”, as he points out in verse 5 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu: The body is a form of five sheaths. Therefore all five are included in the term body. [2] Throughout our states of waking and dream we are aware of ourself as “I am this body”, so why does he say that this is a false awareness of ourself, and the root cause of all our problems? We cannot be anything in the absence of which we still exist, nor can we be anything that we are not aware of in any state in which we are aware of our existence. In dream we are aware of ourself without being aware of the physical body that we now take ourself to be, and now we are aware of ourself without being aware of the seemingly physical body that we took ourself to be in dream, so neither of these bodies can be what we actually are. However, the mind, intellect and will that we take ourself to be now are the same mind, intellect and will that we take ourself to be in dream, so are these what we actually are? They cannot be, because we are aware of our existence in sleep without being aware of any of these things, so since the only thing we are aware of in all three states, waking, dream and sleep, is our own existence, our very being, “I am”, we cannot actually be anything other than this. Some people may object to this, arguing that we were not aware of anything in sleep, so it is not correct to say that we were aware of our existence then. It is true that we were not aware of any phenomena in sleep, not even of the passing of time, but we were nevertheless aware of our own existence, because if we were not aware of our existence while we were asleep, we would not now be so clearly aware of having been in a state in which we were not aware of anything else. That is, if we were not aware of our existence in sleep (in other words, if we were not aware of being in that state, in which we were not aware of anything else), we would not now be aware that we were ever in such a state, so what we would now be aware of ex-
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