Mahavakyas 4: Aham Brahmāsmi

Aham Brahmāsmi (अहम् ब्रह्मास्मि) – “I am Brahman” (Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 1.4.10 of the Yajur Veda):

brahma vā idamagra āsīt, tadātmānamevāvet, aham brahmāsmīti | tasmāttatsarvamabhavat; tadyo yo devānām pratyabubhyata sa eva tadabhavat, tathārṣīṇām, tathā manuṣyāṇām; taddhaitatpaśyannṛṣirvāmadevaḥ pratipede, aham manurabhavaṃ sūryaśceti | tadidamapyetarhi ya evaṃ veda, aham brahmāsmīti, sa idaṃ sarvam bhavati, tasya ha na devāścanābhūtyā īśate, ātmā hyeṣāṃ sa bhavati; atha yo'nyāṃ devatāmupāste, anyo'sāvanyo'hamasmīti, na sa veda, yathā paśurevam sa devānām | yathā ha vai bahavaḥ paśavo manuṣyam bhuñjyuḥ, evamekaikaḥ puruṣo devān bhunakti; ekasminneva paśāvādīyamāne'priyam bhavati, kiṃu bahuṣu? tasmādeṣām tanna priyam yadetanmanuṣyāvidyuḥ || 10 ||

This [self] was indeed Brahman in the beginning. It knew itself only as “I am Brahman.” Therefore it became all. And whoever among the gods had this enlightenment, also became That [Brahman]. It is the same with the seers (rishis), the same with men. The seer Vamadeva, having realized this [self] as That, came to know: "I was Manu and the sun." And to this day, whoever in a like manner knows the self as "I am Brahman," becomes all this [universe]. Even the gods cannot prevent his becoming this, for he has become their Self.

(tr-Nikhilananda)

Meditation Number One

If awareness equals consciousness minus Maya,

then the original sin is the concept of consciousness itself, I am;

meditate on a concept long enough and suddenly it disappears

into the pure potentiality that is consciousness, n'est-ce pas?

Fountains of Consciousness

 *

In the land of seven billion fountains,

there’s only water.

This fountain apparatus is here for just one purpose—

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turning the life force of consciousness

into a shimmering sky of self-awareness:

clay/pot, rope/snake, silver/mother of pearl!

*

Fountain/water is just more metaphor

in the name of self-awareness.

You’re welcome.

Love, Nonduality 13

*

The world is made of definitions—

invoking one reality, indivisible, with nondualty for all.

*

Neither the outer, inner, thinker, doer,

nor even lover, be.

*

But love is the empress of duality.

Love is the one in the land of two.

*

Love doesn’t own its own doing.

Love doesn’t think before love does.

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There is no 'in love' and there is no 'out of love'.

There’s only whole love.

*

Yes, there is no love in nonduality,

but there’s nonduality in love.

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footnotes

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shankara called this world of definitions, namarupa, name-forms;

between namarupa and brahman is maya.

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some call maya 'unevolved namarupa'; 

that's fine by maya.

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advaita talks about the five sheaths 'covering' atman;

i shall be calling them the five great superimpositions.

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they say the inner, the outer, and the thinker dies, while the doer transmigrates.

but the lover neither dies nor transmigrates.

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LOVE IS REAL MAYA

yes, between nonduality and duality is maya.

*

from pov duality, maya is the goddess of paradox;

but from pov nonduality, maya is love.

*

Tattva Ah-ha!

1.

The absolute reflecting in the dream is like a sky of awareness.

The absolute permeating the dream is like an ocean of consciousness.

The absolute deconstructing the dream is like a mountain of mind.

2.

Awareness witnesses self-awareness. Self-awareness is a reflexive universe, unmanifest to manifest to realization.

Consciousness is conditioned by the three states, the five superimpositions, the seven stages, the nine natural numbers, and eleven.

The mind thinks reality is nothing because the mind thinks the mind is everything. Oh, mind, you don’t know nothing.

3.

Darkness for the sake of darkness is unconscious materialism.

If awareness is unconditioned consciousness, conditioned consciousness is the ten thousand points of view.

After the molecular stage of total material subjugation, conditioned consciousness begins to wiggle its organic light fantastic.

4.

I-am is this conditioned consciousness escaping the hyphen in self-awareness.

Relax, I am, and float upstream. I-am is like the light of awareness burning through the rock of space-time. 

Call this latency, this organic actuality, this growing is-ness, this vehicle of self-awareness, this outbreak, onset, uprising, energy, je suis, jesus, animation, anime, anima, animus, aham, ah-ha!

footnotes

That’s the nondual absolute. The absolute reflecting in the dream is this one godhead, three gods, seven powers, and ten thousand points of view. In order to neti neti, one must first this this.

Unevolved name and form is the unmanifest. Evolutionary name and form is the manifest. The nondual absolute is beyond the manifest and unmanifest.

I think I am, I think I am, I think I am. I know I am, whatever. Aham yoga is like advaita tantra for the masses. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

I’m not

Iambic

For no principle

Cherry blossom time

In Northeast Massachusetts

April Twenty-three

Awareness reflects,

Permeates, and deconstructs

Each maya blossom

Four Views of Ouroboros (A18)

1.

My space of awareness is the same space of awareness as absolute awareness.

As the I of me is the same I as that, there is no me for I am that.

2.

As duality is a case of mistaken identity, nonduality is the highest quality of all dualities.

Nonduality is the penultimate view of the ultimate view of no views.

3.

Similarly a true materialist knows there can be no division in a universe.

Neither is there some prime particle that’s not a wave of consciousness.

4.

It’s not that doing happens but that the doer happens is the secret of duality.

And samsara sure loves company.

footnotes to four views

a.

There is one awareness in which this world is appearing at a theater near you.

The eye through which I see God is the same eye through which God sees me; my eye and God's eye are one eye, one seeing, one knowing, one love. ~Meister Eckhart

b.

If duality is the disease, nonduality isn't the medicine. Nonduality is the ease.

Nonduality is not a practice. Duality is a practice that got out of hand.

c.

I contain paradoxes.

As in a dream, the material world is the light of consciousness filtered through the great prism of seven thoughts.

d.

One knocks three times.

Like the silver screen, there is one awareness. Like a movie, there's our world. In the audience, there's a gasp of revelation.

Vivekaka (A17)

Without shit and stuff, self-awareness isn’t. Look, it’s not shit’s fault I've been identifying with it. 

And who am I to be holier than shit? It’s all Isvara.

Awareness is self-aware. Self-awareness appears to be a self-reflexive universe. Why?

Maya isn’t saying. But there’s a koan for that. Cue laughtrack.

Enlightenment is happening every nanosecond like brain cells bursting in an open head of space. 

There's nothing I can do about it but understand I’m undergoing it and stop my fighting it.

I’ve been identifying with this mind ever since I turned organic to escape the rock molecular dreamstate I found myself within. Now it’s time to finally disidentify.

This may take a kalpa or two.

There's a fine fine line between belief and faith. Leave it to religions to always cross it.

Real inquiry isn't blind, my secret friend. Tattvamasi.

Sonnet Ghazal Anandamaya (A16)

NAME WHAT YOU KNOW BUT ONLY FOLLOW THE UNKNOWN

X = maya. Solve for why.

If mind dreaming is the stuff of Freud and Jung, consciousness dreaming is the stuff of Einstein and Shankara.

I was raised Roman Catholic so let me tell you how liberating it is to slowly wake up from a guilty dream and suddenly realize you’re not it’s doer.

Out of the five great superimpositions, only four transmigrate. Anandamaya doesn’t, lover.

Absolute awareness is self-aware of course. And the paradox of such dissemblance appears to be a universe, but is nothing but the self-shining consciousness that absolute awareness is. Now that’s self-awareness.

There are three states of consciousness, five great superimpositions, and seven evolutionary stages of self-awareness. It’s eleven o’clock. Do you know where you are in this matrix right now?

Suddenly in the dominion of anandamaya, the monkey mind awakens.

It's not as much living in the present as not living in the past or future.

Since anandamaya is fully manifest in deep sleep, one doesn't really fall asleep as much as filler up on bliss.

Number nine ad infinitum follows the seventh substage of the seventh stage as the mind of eight has verily been blown sideways.

There's a binary system behind all appearances consisting of some kind of yin and yang. There's a valley spirit behind all such duality. Call it paradox, koan, or maya.

Isvara is just a vedantic name for what the new age calls the universe.

For in the metaparadigm of consciousness first, the universe of materialism is known as universal consciousness.

As individual consciousness has a name, universal consciousness has a name. As universal consciousness has a name, there is no name for the absolute, noumenal, godhead, tao, brahman.

Wander Way (A15)

I, Lalla, tried beyond trying in my search,/ Discovering only my efforts had redoubled./ No matter what I did the door remained bolted./ By resolving only to stay there did I see/ The door was my own doing. ~Lal Ded

Truth isn’t intellectual nor intuitive but being only. There’s no doing truth. Understanding is the waiting. Doing is the door. Being is the way.

The practice of attention-minus-thought is not a practice, but my default. Reminding myself of this is the practice.

By the way, there’s nothing wrong with attention including thought, when aware thought is just a tool and not some identity which eclipses the waking day.

It’s also good to remember the lover does the doer. Anandamaya is the link between the so-called individual and universal consciousness.

When dreaming, the mind is like a perpetual motion machine. The secret is to let it spin when not in use, without being hypnotized by its random thoughts.

Deconstruction is the loving doing. Understanding tattvamasi is the waiting. Being is the way. Zhuangzi calls this way wandering at ease.

Consciousness Sonnet A14

Street legal for the first time in two years

and every one of my years is worth five

of yours or vice versa, how does that exactly go?

The great blue heron will be seventeen!

And it’s been fifty years since my last confession.

How long since Sergeant Pepper taught iambic?

My mother at age ninety-three agrees

consciousness is the youth of ten thousand summers.

Yes, it's another paraverse on consciousness—

I fell into the looking glass 09;

there’s nothing else for me to write about now.

This so-called individual consciousness is

the same absolute self-shining consciousness as

that universal consciousness, prior the maya.