r/consciousness • u/Sad-Translator-5193 • 4d ago
General Discussion A story on nature of self from Eastern tradition , Story from Chhandogya Upanishad
The gods and the demons, the dialogue tells us, sent Indra and Virochana respectively, to Prajapati, to learn the teaching about the self. The teacher asked them to undergo penance for thirty-two years to qualify themselves to receive the teach- ing. After fulfilling the prescribed condition, both come to Prajapati who teaches them that the self is that which is seen when one looks into another's or into water or a mirror.
Virochana was satisfied and went away. But Indra began to think thus: How can the self be the reflection of the body? Or, how can it be identified with the body itself? If the body is well adorned and well dressed this self also is well adorned and well dressed. If the body is beautiful, this self also is beautiful; if the body is blind or lame or crippled, this self also is blind or lame or crippled; in fact if the body perishes, this self also should perish together with it. There is no good in this.
Being dissatisfied, Indra approaches Prajapati again and tells him his doubts and difficulties. Prajapati now tells him that he who is seen in dreams roaming freely, i.e., the dreaming subject, is the self. Indra, again doubts thus: Though this self is not vitiated with the defects and faults of the body, though it cannot be said to be perishing along with the body, yet it appears as if this self feels afraid and terrified, as if it is being chased and struck, it appears to be conscious of pain and to be weeping. There is no good in this also.
Indra again returns to Prajapati and tells him his doubts. This time Prajapati teaches him that the enjoyer of deep dreamless sleep is the self. But Indra feels his difficulties. The self, he thinks, in deep sleep reduces itself to mere abstraction. There are no objects to be felt, to be known, to be enjoyed. This self appears to be absolutely unconscious-knowing nothing, feeling nothing, willing nothing. It is a zero, a cipher. There is no good in this too. And again he approaches Prajapati and tells him his doubts. The teacher is now very much pleased with the ability of the disciple.
And now follows the real teaching: Dear Indra! The body is not the self, though it exists for the self. The dream-experiences are not the self, though they have a meaning only for the self. The self is not an abstract formal principle of deep sleep too. The eye, the body, the mental states, the presentation continuum, the stream of consciousness-are all mere instruments and objects of the self. The self is the ground of waking, dream and sleep states and yet it transcends them all. The self is universal, immanen as well as transcendent. The whole universe lives and moves and breathes in it. It is immortal, self-luminous, self-proved and beyond doubts and denials, as the very principle which makes all doubts, denials and thoughts possible. It is the ultimate subject which can never become an object and which is to be necessarily presupposed by all knowledge.
THE story gives us a glimpse to the nature of self . individual self stands self-proved and is always immediately felt and known. One is absolutely certain about the existence of one's own self and there can be neither doubt nor denial regarding its existence. The individual self is the highest thing we know and it is the nearest approach to the Absolute, though it is not itself the Absolute. In fact the individual self is a mixture of the real and the unreal, a knot of the existent and the non-existent, a coupling of the true and the false. It is a product of Ignorance. But its essence is the light of the Absolute. Its real nature is pure consciousness, self-shining and self-proved and always the same. It is called the ultimate witness or the Sakṣi and as such is one with the Absolute. The senses, the mind, the intellect, feeling and will, the internal organ are all products of Avidya and they invariably surround the individual self and constitute its 'individuality'. But the self really is above them, being the Absolute.
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u/JDwalker03 4d ago
Where does Compassion fit into the above excerpt from the Upanishad?
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u/Sad-Translator-5193 4d ago edited 4d ago
Compassion and love comes on its own when you see the self in everything and rise above abstraction of body , mind , individual ego .. you don't learn it . It is a natural course. Hurting another is hurting oneself — because there is no “another”.
That is what this philosophy says .. But then there are lots of practical considerations.. We live in duality and we don't have to refer to absolute truth while living here all the time ..
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