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You need freedom from the cage, not lessons in flying || Acharya Prashant, on Vedanta (2021)
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4 years ago
Brahman
Consciousness
Light
Self-Knowledge
Upanishads
Liberation
False Self
Subject-Object Relationship
Description

Acharya Prashant explains that to see, two lights are needed: an external light that must fall on the object, and an internal light that must be present within the perceiver. Without this internal light, one would be blind even in a room flooded with external light. Light connects the subject with the object; it forms the relationship between the seer-subject and the seen-object. In other words, light is at the base of the world itself, the seen world. Brahman is described as the light behind the light, the truth behind the world, and the foundation of all experiences. For a subject to experience any object, something special is needed, and that special thing is Brahman. An unconscious or dead man, for example, has the entire world around him, but he experiences nothing. Brahman is at the foundation of all experiences. The sensual objects and the sensing mechanism can be present, but without a miracle, there would be no sensation. That miracle is called consciousness. If consciousness were merely a property of matter, science would have been able to duplicate it. But you cannot have artificial consciousness. Brahman is the light of lights, that which the self-knowers know. This is tricky because the self-knower comes to know the non-existence of the self. The self-knower does not remain existent anymore; the false self falls. Knowing the Self is not an addition to one's knowledge base but an exercise in acknowledging the deficiency of one's existing notions and beliefs. The self-knower becomes free of knowledge. Therefore, Brahman is just liberation from false knowledge. Brahman is nothing in particular, just freedom. You don't have to create anything; you have to get rid of a lot. You have to let the bird out of the cage, and then the flight happens on its own.