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ody.We aren’t our feelings and emotions for the same reasons we aren’t theI AM THE INTELLECTThe third pernicious layer of ignorance is our identification with ideas,thoughts, and ideals. "I'm a doctor, lawyer, communist, capitalist, Christian,Republican, mother, father, gay, black, lesbian, beautiful, ugly, rich, poor,intelligent, stupid etc. are spiritually incorrect statements. The "I" is theAwareness in whose light all ideas are known. The intellect is not the Selffor the reasons listed above.I AM THE EGOTwo technical Vedantic words, jiva and ahamkara refer to differentbut related ego ideas. A jiva 20 or ego is the Self embodied, a living being.Plants and animals, insects and microbes, as well as humans are embodiedbeings. This definition says nothing about the views of these egos, what theythink about themselves or the world, or how the behave. These embodiedbeings, you and I, are variously conceived of as “rays” or “emanations” ofnameless formless Consciousness, “man cast in the image of God.” The jivasare apparently separate from Consciousness. Just as a wave is the ocean in alimited form, the jivas are said to be embodied Consciousness. Thoughactually the one Self they seem to be different entities owing to theirassociation with many bodies.Ahamkara is a compound. Aham means “I” and kara means a notionor idea. So ahamkara is the notion or idea a jiva has about itself. Egos whohave no notion they’re one with the Self have a plethora of ideas aboutthemselves. This more reasonable and helpful definition sees ego not as aninherently flawed person but as a perfect being temporarily flawed by anincorrect self-concept - the idea that it is separate from the world, from otherbeings, and from the Self. 21The ego is not the Self because it lives and dies, is a object ofperception, subject to change, and limited.The knowledge of who I am not is only useful until I wake upwhereupon it dissolves into the limitlessness of my re-discovered identity.20 Jiva means “to live.”21 If the ego is merely a false concept and not real it can be destroyed by knowldege.14
"The world like a dreamfull of attachments and aversionsseems real until the awakening."(6)We all believe the desires, feelings, emotions, thoughts, ideas, fears,intuitions, opinions, memories, etc. constantly playing in our minds are real.Though temporarily existent, they are not ultimately real, i.e. substantial andenduring. Reality, the Self, exists in all periods of time, past, present, andfuture, before the past and after the future, and in all states of consciousness,waking, dream, and deep sleep and beyond. Reality, unlike everything weknow, doesn't depend on anything else for its existence nor can it be resolvedinto anything else.The inner phenomena projected on the screen of Consciousness as ourpersonal worlds are only a flow of tendencies and short-lived subjectiveevents devoid of lasting meaning - like a dream. In a dream everything seemsreal to the dreamer. Someone kisses me and I feel love. One of my thoughtsin the form of an angry beast bites me and I feel pain. As soon as I wake up,however, I see that, with reference to my present state, it was all unreal.Self knowledge is waking up from the belief that the waking, dreamand deep sleep state “worlds” are real. “World” means field of experience,the experiencing subject and the experienced objects. As revealed in thefollowing analysis, 22 that any or all of these worlds are considered reality issimply an opinion.THE WAKER, DREAMER, AND DEEP SLEEPERAs human beings we are not one, but three experiencing entities. Thefirst, the waking state ego (See the bottom left third of fig.1.) isConsciousness, the Self shining through the body-mind-intellect bundleexperiencing the world of material objects and the world of feelings,emotions, thoughts, ideas, memories, etc.Everyone primarily views him or herself as a waker. When I say “me”in common conversation, I am referring to myself as a waking state entity.22 This powerful prakriya is not actually included in Shankar’s Atma Bodh. In fact the three state analysis isthe subject of the Mandukya Upanishad. I’ve included it here because it illustrates the idea in this verse. Ina small book entitiled “Mandukya Upanishad,” I’ve given a comprehensive version of the teaching.15
Page 1 and 2: SELF-KNOWLEDGE"I am composing this
Page 3: REMOVING THE WALLIf happiness or un
Page 8 and 9: "Action cannot remove ignorancefor
Page 10 and 11: lowing blissful cosmic experiences,
Page 12 and 13: Something tells me this knowledge s
Page 16 and 17: The belief that I am a waker comes
Page 18 and 19: If I’m the sleeper ego, the bliss
Page 20 and 21: itself out and disappears back into
Page 22 and 23: imaginations; ego, filled with self
Page 24 and 25: The next few days saw many experien
Page 26 and 27: here, however, the subtle part, the
Page 28 and 29: state manifests as awareness and ac
Page 30 and 31: At this point in the text the “No
Page 32 and 33: time when it was appropriate? Greed
Page 34 and 35: Simply knowing that everything is a
Page 36 and 37: in the light of the Self.”(19)Tho
Page 38 and 39: ationalized or self-validating cred
Page 40 and 41: through which the Enlightened Being
Page 42 and 43: Of course the idea of a deluded Sel
Page 44 and 45: Since ultimately all transactions,
Page 46 and 47: Nearly everyone has, at moments of
Page 48 and 49: The complex process of experience i
Page 50 and 51: can't. The creative process is, acc
Page 52 and 53: eautifully mixed by the Mind (see "
Page 54 and 55: (Intellect's preoccupation with the
Page 56 and 57: attentioninwardsubtle bodystilledag
Page 58 and 59: attitudes, especially those which e
Page 60 and 61: specific results. For example, we t
Page 62 and 63: DESIRE IS STRESSOne major source of
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Meditation and Self knowledge go ha
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Put together, the sattvic elements
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Sleep is a symbol for ignorance, an
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THE BODYNo particular physical posi
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THE BREATHThe breath, as you’ve u
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If the ego insists on intruding, ma
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of objects in the Self alone and ex
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(40)One symptom of enlightenment si
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“As dawn dispels darkness before
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Listen carefully to the next conver
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This, the last, and the next five v
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Imagine Consciousness arranged in l
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nothing more is to be seen, and whi
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The word, it is said, "killeth." Ho
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agitationattentionfactor“Third Ey
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OM TAT SAT94
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