Mandukya_Upanishad

etween Rāma and Rāvana? It was like the battle betweenRāma and Rāvana! This was all that the poet could say.“Space is like space, ocean is like ocean, and the Rāma-Rāvana-battle was like the Rāma-Rāvana-battle.” So, also,is the Ātman. The Ātman is like the Ātman. You cannot saythat the Ātman is like this, or that, because it isincomparable, and any comparison attempted would be areference made to something that has come out afterwardsas an effect. That would be a travesty of affairs, indeed.Therefore, it can be designated only asekātmapratyayasāram, the Essence of the consciousness ofSelfhood and Oneness. It is, if at all, definable by threeinteresting terms – ekatva (Oneness), ātmatva (Selfhood)and sāratva (Essentiality). It is the essence of all things, andit is One, and it is the Self. It is the Self, and, therefore, itcan only be One. It is the Self, and, therefore, it is theEssence. The Self is that which knows itself, not by a meansbut by its own existence. It is Existence knowing itselfwithout any external proof. Perception, inference, verbaltestimony, comparison, etc. do not apply here in the case ofthe knowledge of the Ātman. It cannot be inferred by logic,induction or deduction, and it cannot he perceived, itcannot be compared, it cannot be described by words. It isthe Self, which means that it is not beheld by someone else.The Self is beheld by itself alone. Here, Self and Existencemean one and the same thing. Existence is Self; Existence isthe Ātman. The Self is non-objectifiable, non-alienablefrom its own essence. The knowledge of the Ātman isintuition, which is a non-relational apprehension of Reality,independent of the operation of the senses and the mind,102