5. When a pot is destroyed, the sky enclosed by it becomes one with the universal, un-particularized sky. So also, when the body perishes through jnana, the Jiva becomes one with the Brahman.
As long as a pot is intact, it contains the space within its enclosure and gives an illusion that it contains the sky to that extent. When the pot is broken, the space within is no longer seen in illusion. It remains where it is, unlimited.
The human body is like a pot. The life principle within is like the limited space. The Self is reflected as individual soul (atman) within. When the gross-body perishes on death, the individual atman merges into the Self which is eternal and unattached.
6. It is mind that creates all the adjuncts limiting the Atman like the bodies – subtle and physical, qualities and karma. And Maya, the Lord’s power, is what brings this mind into being, and because of the mind, man has this entanglement in the cycle of birth and death.
Everything in the world is dependent upon the mind, upon one’s mental attitude. On examination, the mind itself appears to be unreal. But we are bewitched by it. With mind controlling our activity, we seem to be running after mirage.
The mind flits in all directions all the time and is unable to find happiness anywhere. Like the lion in a cage, the mind is ever restless, having lost its freedom. It is never happy with its present state.
The mind alone is the cause of all objects in the world. The world exists because of the mind-stuff. The mind vainly seeks to find happiness in the objects of this world. When the mind is transcended, the world vanishes, dissolves into its source.
Creation of the mind is but agitation in Infinite Consciousness. And the world exists in the mind. It seems to exist because of imperfect vision, imperfect understanding.
It is the mind that creates the body by mere thoughts, just as the potter makes a pot out of clay. It creates new bodies and brings about the destruction of what exists, and all this is by mere wish. Within mind exist the faculties of delusion or hallucination, dreaming and irrational thought. It creates the appearance of the body within itself. But in ignorance, one sees the physical body in gross physical vision as different from and independent of the mind.
Every embodied being has a two-fold body. One is the mental body which is restless and which acts quickly and achieves results. The second is the physical body, which does really nothing. When the mind confidently engages in self-effort, it is then beyond the reach of sorrow. Whenever it strives, it surely finds the fruition of its striving. On the other hand, the physical body is only physical matter. Yet the mind deems it as its own. The mind experiences only what it contemplates. If the mind turns towards the Truth, it abandons its identification with the body and attains the supreme state, overcoming the state of samsara – the cycle of birth and death. Hence one is to endeavour with the mind to make the mind take to the pure path.
7. A light is a light as long as there is mutual relationship through contact between oil, its receptacle, the wick and the flame. The trans-migratory existence of the Jiva is a situation arising from the combination of several factors. Being a modification of sattva, rajas and tamas, the constituents of Prakrti, samsara is a state of constant flux.
Mind is the individualized consciousness with its own manifold potentialities, even as spices have taste in them. That consciousness is the subtle or ethereal body. When it becomes gross, it appears to be a physical or material body. That individualized consciousness itself is known as the Jiva or the individual soul when the potentialities are in an extremely subtle state. When the Jiva sheds its individuality, it shines as the Supreme Being.
Even as an error of the past can be rectified and turned into good action by self-effort today, the habits of the past and the corresponding impressions (samskaras) can be overcome by appropriate self-effort. However, the notion of the Jiva-hood can be overcome only by the attainment of liberation.
8. In this process of birth and death of the embodied being, the Atman is never born, and never dies too. Birth and death apply only to the body, the adjunct of the Atman in embodiment. The Atman on the other hand is the self-conscious Witness – beyond what is gross or subtle, the support of everything like the akasa, changeless, endless and incomparable.
For an aspirant, the ‘I’ consciousness is atman. The atman is self- conscious. All cognition involves some kind of memory or recollection. All cognitions are acts of consciousness directed towards particular sets of objects.
There is what the psychologists call logical memory. There is intuition. The forms of memory and intuition become possible only when the atman is latently self-conscious. To cognize an object, the atman is to direct the mind towards it through the relevant sense. The intent to direct the mind presupposes consciousness. It is a result of the atman voluntarily directing its consciousness through an idea generated in contact with the mind.
When the atman is in no way connected with the gross-body except that it is associated with it for manifestation, it takes the nature of the witness consciousness (saksi-caitanya) which witnesses that it is knowing, cognizing, experiencing urges, emotions, etc. This corresponds to the idea of Spinoza of the mind knowing both itself and matter. Husserl’s idea of the witness is similar to this concept.
If the witness consciousness, that is, the ‘I’ consciousness, that is, the atman knows the existence aspect of an object and if the existence of the object is different and separate from the atman, how can the atman know the existence of the object? The witness consciousness witnesses and is, therefore, directed towards the experience it witnesses. It is directed outwards.
