06 Dec 2014
[Datta Jayanthi Day] Shri Lakshman asked: “Shri Ramana Maharshi gave lot of weight to the ‘I’, which is discarded by you now in order to eradicate the ego, which is a by-product. I like to hear your explanation in the light of the great sage Shri Ramana Maharshi”.
Swami Replied: Shri Ramana Maharshi did not give weight to the concept of ‘I’. Lot of weight was already given by Advaita philosophers to the ‘I’ representing the God. If Shri Ramana Maharshi colluded with this concept, He would have advised the spiritual aspirants to search for the ‘I’, which is the source of the entire creation and there cannot be another source of ‘I’ or God. He advised to search for the source of ‘I’. This clearly indicates that ‘I’ is not God since there is no source of God. What is the source of ‘I’? If you say that awareness is the source of ‘I’, it is not correct. The reason is that everybody knows that the source of ‘I’ is awareness and hence, there is no need to search the source of ‘I’. A specific vibrational mode of the awareness is ‘I’ just like he or she or it or any item in the creation. Nobody will ask you to search the source of golden chain, which is obviously gold. Nobody will ask you to search for the source of earthen pot, which is obviously the mud of the earth. There is no need of search here since the cause is very clear. Similarly, everybody knows that awareness is the source of the thought ‘I’. The source of every thought is awareness only. Shri Maharshi asked the disciples to search for its source. Here, the ‘I’ as a thought is a specific modification of awareness like the golden pot is a specific modification of gold. If one has used such a big word ‘search’, it never means that you should search for gold, which is the visible source of the golden pot. The search for the source of golden pot means the search for the source of gold, which is the gold mine that is not visible to you since it exists in some far place. Gold mine is the root source of golden pot and here, the search indicates gold mine and not the gold. If the source of golden pot, which is the gold mine, is known to Maharshi, He should have clearly mentioned it by saying “search for the gold mine, which is the source of the golden pot”. Since He did not mention the name of the source of ‘I’, it means that the ultimate source of ‘I’ is only unimaginable, i.e., God. No preacher or teacher will ask the students to search the cause of something, which is already known to him. Such possibility may be in a game or examination for sometime. There also, the answer is revealed after sometime. Shri Maharshi never gave the answer throughout His life regarding the source of ‘I’ and the question forever remained as it is without the answer. This clearly indicates that the ultimate source of this creation consisting of various forms of energy, various forms of awareness or nervous energy, which are the thoughts and various forms of the matter is the unimaginable God. This unanswered question thrown by Shri Maharshi clearly establishes that the unimaginable God alone is the source of this entire creation. His silence regarding the source of ‘I’ indicates that the source is unimaginable and cannot be mentioned by any word. All the words indicate the imaginable items of the imaginable creation. Thus, the silence indicates that the ultimate God is beyond all imaginations. People think that Shri Ramana Maharshi is a supporter of the present Advaita philosophy, which is misunderstood text of the followers of Shankara. The original Advaita philosophy of Shankara indicates that the unimaginable God entering and identifying with a human being, in the case of human incarnation, should be taken as a single unit since you cannot isolate God from the human being in that particular case of human incarnation. Thus, the Advaita philosophy is discussion about human incarnation but not the discussion of human beings.
A word can represent any specific item or a bundle of specific items. The word like ‘Sudha Nilayam’ represents a single house. The word ‘Mumbai’ represents a group of houses. According to the intention, the usage of the word is established. ‘I’ represents the awareness if you like such specification in the case of Advaita philosopher. In the case of the general human beings, the same word ‘I’ can also represent a bundle of items like materialized body, mind, intelligence etc. ‘I’ is a word like any other word. When you say ‘I’, it means only the bundle of body, mind, intellect etc. There is nothing wrong in it. The usage depends on the norm of a tradition.
In the Gita, the Lord told that the egoistic fellow feels (Manyate) that He is the doer. Hence, this is the theoretical phase due to the verb ‘feels’ and this has nothing to do with the practical phase. In this theoretical phase, ‘I’ denotes the doer blended with ego and not a simple basic ‘I’ as the doer. In this verse, you should note three words used by the Lord: Kartaa (doer), Aham (‘I’) and Ahamkara (ego). Here, the ‘I’ is infected by ego. You cannot separate the ‘I’ from ego. Just like the finger poisoned by the snake bite should be cut off, the egoistic ‘I’ should be also cut off. Then the doer of the work disappears. But, the work always requires the existence of doer. Therefore, in the place of doer, God is kept as the doer. God certified Himself as the doer as said in the Gita (Kartaa Bhoktaa Maheswarah, Kartaaramapi Sarvasya…). All this operation is in theoretical phase only. When the practical phase appears, God is not the doer (Viddhyakartaara mavyayam) because you are doing the work. In the practical phase, you can generate the word once again, which is the simple basic ‘I’ only. Now, the question comes whether God is not the doer in practical phase and whether God is brought only in the theoretical phase in order to cut the ego. This can be clarified with the help of an example. The fan moves due to current present in it. Everybody says that the fan is moving and nobody says that the current is moving. Current is the actual mover in the hidden state, which is the theoretical phase. In the practical phase, which is the state of exposure, the fan is the mover.
Question: If this is so, God is the real doer of all the works and hence, all the fruits good or bad should be enjoyed by God only and not the individual soul. Please explain this?
Answer: The fruit of the work depends on the direction of the work and not mere work. When you shoot the enemy in the war, you are rewarded. When you shoot a good citizen in society, you are punished. The fruits are different for the different directions of the work. Direction is according to the individual soul. God is like the gun and the shooter is like the individual soul. The killer is the shooter and not the gun. The work of killing is done by the gun only in both cases and so God is the doer of all the works. The potential doer is only God. The individual soul is also the doer because the fruit is coming to him only. Therefore, the doer can be either God or individual soul. In order to destroy the ego, God can be taken as doer in the theoretical phase. In practical phase, the individual soul can be taken as the doer that enjoys the fruit of the work. The Gita said that God is also enjoyer (Bhokta). The fruit enjoyed by God is the entertainment, which is always good but the fruit enjoyed by the individual soul may be also bad for its wrong work. This wrong work can be avoided by cutting the ego. Ego is the root of the sin. God enjoys good fruit and also likes the individual soul also to enjoy the good fruit. Therefore, He preached the way to cut the ego through the Gita. The verb used in the practical phase is ‘Kuru’ (do) as said in the Gita (Kuru Karma…). If God does not preach the spiritual knowledge to differentiate good and bad, certainly, God will be entitled to the intentional crime. The reason is that you may say that God is enjoying by exposing you to the freedom in an atmosphere of good and bad. You may also say that such freedom spoiled you to do bad work and this is sadism since God is enjoying through such entertainment. Your argument is totally wrong because God has given you the intelligence to discriminate good and bad. He is also preaching that you should do good works and get good fruits only. The freedom given to you brings the fruits to you only and the intensified preaching of God avoids the link of the fruit to God and also avoids even a trace of intentional crime to be linked to Him. The Lord says in the Gita that the fruit is linked to the intentional aim of the doer and not linked to the mere inert work (Samkalpa Prabhavaan…).
In this context, the word ‘I’ has its normal significance only like any other word. A word is generated to represent a single item or a bundle of similar items or a bundle of different items. It just depends on the context of the norm used. If you say ‘Mumbai is a great city’, the word Mumbai stands for all bundles of different items like houses, roads, parks, human beings, petty animals like dogs etc. A few players from Mumbai city won the cricket game played with players from Singapore. In this context, you say that Mumbai wins over Singapore. Here, the same word Mumbai denotes only a small group of human beings, which is a bundle of similar items. Similarly, ‘I’ can be used to represent the bundle of different items like body, mind, intelligence, general awareness etc. In fact, generally, ‘I’ is used by any human being in this context only. When you say ‘I will beat you’, here ‘I’ represents your body also which is going to beat, your mind that provokes the body and the intelligence that decided to beat. When you say ‘I think like this’, the ‘I’ denotes only your mind, which is a single item. You can also represent ‘I’ for the awareness only, so that you become free from the bonds of mind related to your body like wife, children, etc. When these bonds vanish, you will not have any tension and live with happiness. For such a good specific use only, Shankara fixed this ‘I’ to awareness only. Any norm is allowed because any word is not registered through a specific item only. This awareness is not God but is the supermost item of creation. Any greatest item can be called as Brahman. The Veda is also called as Brahman in the Gita because it is the greatest among all the books. You can use this ‘I’ to denote God also in the case of human incarnation. When Krishna says ‘I am the doer of all works’, here the word ‘I’ denotes the unimaginable God present in the body of Krishna, Who is different from the soul also. When you pray Krishna, you say ‘You are everything’. Here the word ‘You’ stands for God. When you address the people about Krishna and say that He is the greatest, here He is God. Can you contradict any of these three contexts? In these three contexts, ‘I’, You and He denote God. In such case, how can you say that ‘I’ alone is God? In Shankara’s philosophy, ‘I’ denotes the pure awareness, which is greatest in the creation and hence, called as Brahman but not God. The reason for fixing ‘I’ to pure awareness is that everybody should feel that he is the pure awareness and get rid of the worldly stress called as salvation or liberation. All the other items of the creation are denoted by ‘You’, which cannot affect the pure awareness in any way (Yushmadasmat pratyaya… Shankara’s commentary). Thus, such norm has specific purpose of liberation.
The unimaginable God identifies Himself with an imaginable human being and in such case, ‘I’ is also used to denote the unimaginable God or even to denote the unimaginable God along with soul and body. When Krishna said “I am the Creator”, here the ‘I’ indicates the unimaginable God only differing from all imaginable components like awareness, body etc. When Krishna said “I am lifting this hill on My finger” here ‘I’ denotes not only the unimaginable God but also the associated body. The body of Krishna here becomes unimaginable since the lean finger of the tender body of a boy is lifting the huge hill. Here, the unimaginable God is identified with the inner soul as well as the external body (Antarbahischa… Veda). When God is not identified with the body and limited to the soul only, the same finger was cut to bleed even by the sugarcane. Thus, even in the human incarnation, ‘I’ represents the total bundle of body, mind etc., in one place and in another place, ‘I’ represents the unimaginable God only, Who is totally different from the imaginable body, mind etc. In an ordinary human being, the unimaginable God is absent, but here also ‘I’ can represent the soul and body in the case of the normal usage of humanity and in the case of the scholar aspiring for liberation, ‘I’ represents the soul or pure awareness only. Liberation from stress (salvation) has no link with God. The possibility of ‘I’ denoting God appears only in the human incarnation and not every human being. In the case of all other human beings, ‘I’ can stand for body and soul as well as for the soul alone.
Shri Ramana Maharshi did not say to search for ‘I’, but said to search for the source of ‘I’. If ‘I’ represents God, what is the necessity of searching for the source of ‘I’, which means the source of God? God has no source since He is the ultimate source. If the ‘I’ in Him is God, He should have ordered the illness of His mother to disappear. He did not do so. He prayed Lord Shiva (Arunachaleswara) to remove the illness of His mother. He, as a soul, prayed the God and the fruit was also seen denoting that the unimaginable God is different from the imaginable invisible soul and the imaginable visible body.
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