Knowledge of the self is freedom from the self || On Advaita Vedanta (2019)
अन्यत्र धर्मादन्यत्राधर्मादन्यत्रास्मात्कृताकृतात् । अन्यत्र भूताच्च भव्याच्च यत्तत्पश्यसि तद्वद ॥
anyatra dharmādanyatrādharmādanyatrāsmātkṛtākṛtāt anyatra bhūtācca bhavyācca yattatpaśyasi tadvada
Nachiketa said: That which you see as other than righteousness and unrighteousness, other than all this cause and effect, other than what has been and what is to be—tell me, that.
~ Katha Upanishad, Chapter 1, Valli 2, Verse 14
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सर्वे वेदा यत्पदमामनन्ति तपाँ सि सर्वाणि च यद्वदन्ति । यदिच्छन्तो ब्रह्मचर्यं चरन्ति तत्ते पद्ँ संग्रहेण ब्रवीम्योमित्येतत् ॥
sarve vedā yatpadamāmananti tapāṁsi sarvāṇi ca yadvadanti yadicchanto brahmacaryaṃ caranti tatte padṁ saṃgraheṇa bravīmyomityetat
Yama said: The goal which all the Vedas declare, which all austerities aim at and which all men desire when they lead the life of continence, I will tell you briefly: it is AUM.
~ Katha Upanishad, Chapter 1, Valli 2, Verse 15
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एतद्ध्येवाक्शरं ब्रह्म एतद्ध्येवाक्शरं परम् । एतद्ध्येवाक्शरं ज्ञात्वा यो यदिच्छति तस्य तत् ॥
etaddhyevākśaraṃ brahma etaddhyevākśaraṃ param etaddhyevākśaraṃ jñātvā yo yadicchati tasya tat
This syllable AUM is indeed Brahman. This syllable is the Highest. Whosoever knows this syllable obtains all that he desires.
~ Katha Upanishad, Chapter 1, Valli 2, Verse 16
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एतदालम्बनँ श्रेष्ठमेतदालम्बनं परं । एतदालम्बनं ज्ञात्वा ब्रह्मलोके महीयते ॥
etadālambanaṁ śreṣṭhametadālambanaṃ paraṃ etadālambanaṃ jñātvā brahmaloke mahīyate
This is the best support; this is the highest support. Whosoever knows this support is adored in the world of Brahman.
~ Katha Upanishad, Chapter 1, Valli 2, Verse 17
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Questioner: Can you please elaborate on what the Rishi refers to as AUM and what he means by AUM being the best and highest support?
Acharya Prashant: In the Upanishads, AUM is used as a powerful symbol of transcendence. It consists of three sounds: A, U, and Ma. These correspond to the three states of consciousness.
AUM begins where one currently is. Obviously, there can be no other place to begin with. You can only begin from where you are. So, AUM begins with A, which is your current state of consciousness. What is your current state of consciousness? The one in which you perceive the facts of the world; the one which you call as the waking state of consciousness; the one in which you perceive yourself as the body, are body-identified, and the body is the consumer of the various objects in the world. That is A. A is the beginning, whether in the alphabet, varṇamālā , or in AUM. A pertains to your current state of consciousness.
So, the journey begins from A. Then AUM says, transcend A. And how do you transcend A? You transcend any state of consciousness only by knowing it well. That is the way of the seeker: know your waking state of consciousness; know the material, know the facts of the world, know your gross actions, because they are the easiest to know. The world is perceivable; your actions, too, are perceivable. Know them. A refers to your most easily accessible layer of consciousness, the most superficial layer of consciousness, and hence A is most easily available to be known.
And then you move to U. U refers to that state of consciousness which remains unavailable to your usual conscious self but nevertheless deeply impacts your functioning, your life, your mind. This is the state of consciousness that manifests itself when you go to sleep. In the Upanishadic parlance, U would pertain to your identity as taijasa , and obviously that means A pertains to your identity as vaiśvānara .
Or you could take a slightly different route, and you could say A pertains to all that which is sthūla (gross, material), A pertains to the domain of sthūlaśarīra (gross body), and correspondingly, U pertains to the domain of sūkṣmaśarīra (subtle body). Whichever way you look at it, one thing is obvious: The domain of U, which is the deeper level of mind, is more difficult to know than the domain of A. It’s easier to watch your actions than to watch your thoughts. It’s easier to watch your thoughts than to watch your dreams.
One who has transcended A enters U. And if you can transcend the U-mind as well, then a greater challenge awaits you: Ma, which is the karaṇaśarīra (causal body), which is the domain of the mind in which your identity is that of prājñā , which is the level of consciousness in which the world is gone, the various branch vṛtti , tendencies, are also transcended, and all that remains is the mūla aham-vṛtti , the deepest ‘I’-instinct.
So, in the course of AUM, in his journey through AUM, what is the seeker doing? The seeker is penetrating to deeper and deeper levels of his mind. He started off from where he was, which was the most superficial level, the waking state of consciousness, in which the saṃsāra is there, the world is there, the viśva is there and the vaiśvānara is there. And then he went deeper into his mind, and what did he encounter? U.
What does U refer to? All the stuff that you do not usually come to see; it remains hidden, and it presents itself sometimes only in dreams, and then you are shocked. Don’t your dreams surprise you sometimes? You say, “Where did this come from?” It didn’t come from anywhere outside of you; it was always present in your mind. It’s just that it existed a bit deeply, so you were not cognizant of it. When the state of consciousness changed when you went to sleep, then that which was a little deeper in the mind presented itself. What is the symbol used to represent that? U.
A says, watch your visible actions, watch your gross thoughts. U says, now, come on, can you be a watcher of your various latent tendencies as well? What are the latent tendencies that you usually cannot watch but show up in dreams? Anger, fear, lust, insecurity, greed—many of these remain suppressed in the conscious mind. But once they find that the guard of consciousness has been lowered, then they merrily come forth and start dancing. So, U says, overcome that which is deeply hidden in your mind.
And then the challenge is Ma. Ma says, now encounter the fundamental problem, the final challenge, which is the pure ‘I’-tendency itself, ‘I’-tendency bereft of everything else. The moment the ‘I’-tendency does not have anything else, you start enjoying. You know what is happening as you are graduating from A to U to Ma? You are leaving the world behind. When you come to Ma, the world has indeed been left totally behind.
In deep sleep there is no world at all. However, the potential for the world to spring back still exists. That is why suṣupti is not samādhi ; that is why suṣupti is not final; that is why that enjoyment does not last. You are woken up, and the world comes back to you and grips you and arrests you. Nevertheless, it gives you a taste of what it means to be worldless. That is why deep sleep is so relaxing: you become worldless. The world is gone. And because the world is gone, you are in bliss.
Ma says, overcome this bliss also, because this bliss is deceptive. Why is it deceptive? It is not going to last. Every night you experience that bliss—does it last? It deceives you. So, Ma says that even the blissful experiences that you get in the path of spirituality have to be overcome. All great experiences are a barrier.
Ma is the most blissful experience you can ever get. There is no experience more relaxing, more soothing, more tempting than the experience of deep sleep. You can craft and design the most alluring experiences for yourself, whether through the worldly route or through the spiritual route, but no experience can beat the experience of deep and relaxing sleep. AUM says, overcome that as well. You cannot stop at Ma. Ma is a great and final hurdle; you cannot stop there. So, even Ma… (lets the sound linger and reduce gradually) has to keep petering away. And then you enter the fourth beyond these three.
That is the message of AUM. AUM is both the method and the destination. When you say AUM, you are on one hand reaffirming your commitment to move beyond A, and at the same time you are journeying as you utter AUM. Every time you say AUM, you are actually saying, “I am starting from A, going to Ma, and then leaping beyond Ma.” That beyondness, that transcendence is the purpose of all spirituality. Go deeper, deeper, deeper into yourself, and then disappear. That is AUM. A, U, Ma, and then gone, nothing.
So, AUM resonates, resonates, resonates; there is an echo, there is an echo, there is an echo; and then nothing is left. The echo keeps getting fainter, fainter, fainter; the world is going, going, going, going, going—gone. That is AUM. A, U, Ma—gone. Now nothing remains. Not even Ma remains. Not even the final shred of ‘I’ remains.
You have gathered what Ma stands for, right? Ma stands for aham , the final ‘I’-tendency. That does not just disappear usually in one stroke. How does it go? Aum… (lets the Ma linger and fade away) . This is you melting away. This is your own disappearance. It’s you who is now…
(Silence)
That is the reason why the worship of AUM and repeated recitation of AUM has so much been advised and favored. Every time AUM disappears into nothing, something about you also melts and disappears. Aum… Where did the sound go? It’s not the sound that is fading away; it’s you who is fading away.
You are asking what does the Rishi refer to as AUM, I spoke on it, and then you ask, “What does he mean by AUM being the best and highest support?”
When you are stuck in A—what does A refer to? The state of consciousness you are contained in; the state of consciousness you are identified with, the world that you live in. That’s where you start from—A. So, when you are contained and arrested, withheld, chained in A, then what is your only hope? Freedom. AUM is the song of that freedom. AUM says, freedom in three steps—A, U, Ma, and gone; A, U, Ma, and free.
Therefore, the Rishis are saying that AUM is your best and highest support. Because, after all, what support does a prisoner need? What is the only support that a prisoner wants? That which will take him to freedom.
So, AUM is the root, AUM is the method, AUM is the way, AUM is the reminder. You are at A, but you need not stay at A. Move deeper into yourself, deeper into yourself; the more you will know yourself, the more you will be free of yourself.
Knowledge of self is freedom from the self.
And finally, the knower of the self himself vanishes, dissolves away.
