Of Consciousness and Things

Consciousness is I, and you are I, and we are I, the Walrus says to Tweedledum and Tweedledee.

Everything appears in consciousness including neuroscientists out looking for the source of consciousness in its particular appearances.

Consciousness is the expression of reality as self-awareness is in being the unknown. Be before you die or not. I am either way.

afterword

Identifying with the mind is not a problem if one understands the mind is just the tool of consciousness. This is the definition of devotion.

On the other hand, thinking consciousness is the child of the mind is madness. In other words materialism is 21st century madness. And politics is the method of madness.

Devotion to consciousness is the great turning. Devotion to consciousness is like karma yoga. Devotion to consciousness is like the power of now.

Absolute awareness is nothing if not self-aware. Don’t ask how the sausage of self-awareness is made. I was made for self-awareness. Even evolution says it’s so.

Remember, consciousness has nothing to prove. The empire of the mind spends billions to prove consciousness is a product of the mind. Consciousness is not a product of the mind, period.

Mandukya 7 Translation Fantasia

Reality is not a dreamlike thought. Reality is not a waking form. Nor is reality a thought-form. Reality is not the sleep of no-thought. Moreover, reality is not sentient nor insentient.

~Mandukya 7 part-a (tx-aumdada)

It is unperceived, unrelated, incomprehensible, uninferable, unthinkable, and indescribable.

~Mandukya 7 part-b (tr-Nikhilananda)

“Always experienced as the unbroken I-sense”, “in which all phenomena cease; and which is unchanging, auspicious, and non-dual.” “This is what is known as the fourth (Turiya). This is the Ātman, and this is to be realized.”

~Mandukya 7 part-c (tr-Swartz, Gambhirananda, Chinmayananda)

Notes

If the Upanishads are the well of truth, and the Mandukya is the essence of that truth, then its seventh verse is its distillation. It could be said the Mandukya 7 is 100✓.

Chinmayananda divides this verse in three and I agree with such a division. I have been using several translations in reading the Mandukya, and I wanted to take the best and build a more perfect seventh verse, which is the most important verse, in that it presents for the first time in this Upanishad the Fourth, Reality.

First, I wanted to create my own interpretation of the first part which clearly presents the negation of the three states presented in the first six verses. According to Sankara, the Mandukya 1-6 defines the snake of illusion as the waking state, dreaming state, and deep sleep state. And by negating these three states in Mandukya 7, the rope of the fourth stateless state, Turiya, or Reality, is revealed.

My transcreation is admittedly self-esoteric but I wanted to make the allusion to the three states very clear as well as equate them with thought and form while still emphasizing the negation. A more conventional translation by Gambhirananda reads: "that which is not conscious of the internal world, nor conscious of the external world, nor conscious of both the worlds, nor a mass of consciousness, nor conscious, nor unconscious." Since 'prajnam' is repeated in this part, G is more correct. I went with a little spiritual (or grammatical) incorrectness here instead.

For the rest of the seventh, I chose the parts of the translations of Nikhilananda, Gambhirananda, Chinmayananda, and Swartz, the four best translations of the Mandukya and Karika in my experience, ringing most true. 

In the second part, I chose Nikhilananda, who translates this section (adṛṣṭam-avyavahāryam-agrāhyam-alakṣaṇam acintyam-avyapadeśyam) with a succinct poetic clarity that follows the crisp Sanskrit faithfully.

For the first section of the third part, I chose Swartz who translates the all-important ekātma-pratyaya-sāraṁ in a most unique way, emphasizing that all this negation does not result in either nihilism or nirvikalpa samadhi but experiential self-awareness (as he has written, "Self knowledge takes place in the mind, but if the mind is non-existent how can it take place?").

Chinmayananda translates the phrase as "traceable through unbroken Self-awareness" which is great but for some reason in the actual translation changes it to "essentially of the Self alone" which is not as great, but still better than "whose valid proof consists in the single belief in the Self" by Gambhirananda. I feel the use of belief to be so wrong!

I chose Ghambhirananda for the second section of the third part though. It is a nice presentation of the positive aspect of the verse without taking it too far like the "all peace, all bliss" of Nikhilananda.

For the third section I chose Chinmayananda over Nikhilananda. They are almost identical, and since N came before C in time, one could make the argument for N. But where C goes "this is to be realized," N goes "this has to be realized," so I went with C instead. I choose is over has. Also, it works out nicely including all four of these fine translations here. So serendipitous in fact, harih aum!

Plan 211102tu3x321 from Beyond

No-thought is the unmanifest but the unmanifest is not reality.

Thought is manifestation and no-thought is the unmanifest.

Absolute reality is beyond thought and no-thought.

The unmanifest is brahman but reality is parabrahman.

No-thought waits at the gateless gate for reality to open it.

In the cosmic causelessness of things, maya is the only cause and effect.

endnotes

1. as deep sleep is the absence of duality, beyond the unmanifest is the presence of nonduality.

2. if manifestation is thought form, and thought is dreaming, lucid dreaming is seeing through thought-form.

3. no snake is not no rope.

4. gate, gate, paragate, parasamgate.

5. “Relax and watch the ‘I am’. Reality is just behind it. Keep quiet, keep silent; it will emerge, or, rather, it will take you in.”

6. for non-apprehension is the cause and misapprehension is effect.

afterword

koan and maya are two sides of one coin.

power is not absolute. thus absolute power corrupts absolutely.

love is the knot.

neti neti and the gospel of doubting thomas.

the only way is the tao of wu wei.

awareness is nothing if not self-aware. self-awareness is nothing but maya.

Maya, Jake, and Mystery Ed

Absolute awareness is inherently, naturally, spontaneously self-aware. Only Maya makes you think I’m not.

There’s nothing wrong with self-awareness unless you take a side. Absolute awareness is nothing if not self-aware.

Self-awareness is the crossroads of modern evolution and sudden enlightenment. Both roads are disappearing here.

Spontaneous self-awareness is this space-time of the same. Maya meets Jacob. The road is ever dust and dew. By its wayside, a horse is pissing on a mirror.

On Mandukya etc Translations

Mandukya / Karika/ Sankara translation update. Nikhilananda has copious end notes, most of which are insightful. But too often a note ends with an untranslated devanagari script. Gambhirananda has much fewer notes. That is not a bad thing. In reading the Mandukya with the Karika, and especially the commentaries of Sankara, one of either Nikhilananda or Gambhiranda is necessary.

But I’ve determined the Chinmayananda translation is also necessary. Not only is it the only one to include the romanization of the sanskrit, allowing for textual analysis, but the commentary has grown on me. Sometimes too long-winded but often insightful in a down-to-earth way. Chinmayananda translates the Mandukya and Karika but not the Sankara commentaries, although he often refers to key segments in his own commentary.

I always like including a third translation for triangulation purposes. Swartz is not a necessary translation, but a good third one. Especially for a westerner. Mandukya and Karika; no Sankara.

I say all this after reading the first Karika which includes the Mandukya and the second Karika which is a logical presentation of illusory duality. But I’ve gone back to the first because the Mandukya is worth reading three times quickly.

First, they say the Mandukya is the distillation of all Upanishads. Second, Gaudapada is the fountainhead of all advaita. Third, the Mandukya first appears in Gaudapada’s Karika, not necessarily meaning he wrote it as much as he rediscovered it.

psst, on the Mandukya and Gaudapada front, The Method of Early Advaita Vedanta: A Study of Gaudapada, Sankara, Suresvara and Padmapada, by Michael Comans, is really good.

Paraverse on M1&2

If an object is its name,

and aum is the name

for the manifest,

past, present, & future,

& the unmanifest,

and universe is brahman,

then aum is brahman,

and atman is brahman,

and this self-shining consciousness

divided into three states

& the stateless state,

aum.

If a rose is a rose is a rose, and a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, then aum is the name for that sweetness.

Spoiler alert! There are three states of consciousness: no thought, thought, and thought-form.

The fourth state of consciousness is the stateless state of pure awareness.

In street lingo, deep sleep is no thought, dreams are thought, and the waking world is thought-form.

Between the unmanifest and manifest is thought. That's basically the secret. 

Beyond the manifest and unmanifest is reality. That's the truth.

That Self-Awareness Show

In self-awareness, the self-shining consciousness of atman is the self, the absolute brahman is awareness, and maya is the hyphen.

And the universe is the reflexive space surrounding this said hyphen. Consciousness falls into a deep sleep and dreams a way out.

Awareness witnesses self-awareness whereas the mind sees only one side at a time. As Zhuangzi says, for every this there is a that.

footnotes

1. kalpayaty-ātmanātmānam-ātmā devaḥ sva-māyayā

~Gaudapada K2-12a (tr-chinmayananda)

2. there are seven states of consciousness: light, nuclear, atomic, deep sleep, thought, form, enlightenment.

3. see Julian of Norwich. again.

afterword

Self-awareness is where the science meets the metaphysics. Self-awareness is where maya works.

I’ve been trying to put the paradox of self-awareness into words and maya was there all the time.

The snake is a rope but a rope is a rope is a rope. All metaphors must end. The true physicist works in nonduality. Atma deva sva maya.