ADVAITA SIMPLIFIED – Part II: The Sensor lacks no “thing”
ADVAITA SIMPLIFIED
In progressively ascending order of Difficulty* for mind to understand
(* – Difficulty implies that some effort is needed in re-orientating the habitual pattern of the mind to a new worldview)
Step 5: You cannot locate the Sensor within your body-mind.
Normally we think the sensing-feeling capacity is within our head (or heart for emotions). But if you try to localize it somewhere in the body, you will find it is not possible to identify its location. Yet you feel vaguely that it is somewhere there in a placeless space. So no spatial coordinates can be given to it. No locus can be specified within or outside the body. It is beyond the confines of space.
Experiment: 1. Close your eyes and try to locate within you where exactly the sounds from the street or the room next are heard. Can you locate a place?
Eperiment : 2. Can you experience your brain?
Step 6: The Sensor functions always in the present “now” only.
You can never sense something that has already gone (past) or what is yet to come (future). Memory of a past event or a thought about a future event may come to the mind. The actual event does not exist in the present experience now. What you sense is the thought of it in the “Now.”
Metaphor: Thermometer: The thermometer can sense the temperature always in the present now. It cannot tell the temperature that was a minute ago or what it will be at this time tomorrow. Any temperature measured in the past can only be a record outside the thermometer. The thermometer has no past or history. Similarly, whatever scene emerges before you in the now, only that scene is sensed. Any past knowledge/experience stored lies in the memory and outside the Sensor. So you as the Sensor have no dimension of time. You are beyond time.
Experiment: Knowing time: Close your eyes and examine: is there a sensory organ for you to detect time (not looking at a clock but time as a dimension) in nature? Can you feel time? [Hint: Time and Movement of time (as past, present, and future) are only imagined. The Sensor by Itself is prior to the concept of time.]
Step 7: The Sensor doesn’t have any objectifiable qualities.
We can perceive or feel any “thing” that has dimensions of size, weight, time, texture, taste etc. But it is not possible to describe the Sensor in any such terms. It does not have any attributes of size, shape, color, weight or other qualities. It is not affected by anything that it senses. Nor does anything sensed will stick or cling to it.
Metaphor: TV Antenna: The detecting ‘sensitivity’ of the antenna has no attribute to itself – in terms of size, shape, weight, taste etc. (Here do not think of the antenna rod but consider only the invisible quality to receive a signal). The TV antenna receives humorous or sad images, colorful or black and white pictures, celebratory or morose news, songs or other programs. The antenna is not affected by any of the content or the quality or the language of the program. Nor do any programs stick to it.
Step 8: There is only one Universal Sensor common for all.
You do not have the Sensor within your body-mind nor do you own or possess it (Step # 5). It is not a physical asset of yours. Similarly, your neighbor/friend/dog also does not own or possess it. It belongs to nobody. There are not hundreds and thousands of Sensors; it is one undivided single Sensor common (to) in all.
In fact, it is not that so many of us (Sensors) are looking at one common world; it is as many worlds as we are being looked at by one common Sensor through each of us.
Metaphor: Sight-seeing Tower: Imagine yourself standing in the center atop a sight-seeing tower and look through different windows. You are One but there are as many different skylines views as the windows.
Step 9: You, the Sensor, are alone; there are no others.
It looks as if ‘others’ are there and are also sensing (with their Sensors). But it is you alone sensing. The ‘apparent sight of others being there and sensing’ is only a scene appearing to you, the lone One Sensor.
Metaphor: Dreamer-you: You may dream yourself watching a scene with several of your friends. The dreamer-you and the dream-friends are all the creation of your mind only. Though the dream-friends appear to have their own vision and mind, it is your own mind appearing as many in the dream. Only your mind exists and the others in the dream do not have separate minds of their own.
Step 10: Sensor is conscious, Sensor exists, and Its name is universally “I”.
Your capability to sense is Consciousness. You must exist to be conscious. You must be conscious to know that you exist. Being (Existence = sat) and Knowing (Consciousness = chit) are not two separate things. They are one and the same. The shorthand sign for the Consciousness-Existence combine is “I” with which we ID ourselves.
Thought/Feel Experiment: Examine for yourself if you need to have any external proof to say that you exist. You know you exist; you also know you are conscious. Existence and Consciousness are in fact not two separate entities. It is one Existence-Consciousness. And that ‘One’ is You.
When we mistakenly feel that the ‘Existence-Consciousness’ (= ‘I’) is contracted to a “me” located inside my body, we refer to it as ‘ego’.
Step 11: Sensor is infinite and contains All (lacks no ‘thing’):
Because Existence-Consciousness is not localized anywhere, no space and time coordinates can be ascribed to it (Steps # 5 & 6). In other words, it is unlimited, not finite or infinite. You are that Existence-Consciousness-Infinite. Being Infinite, there are no boundaries to it and hence there is no scope for any other thing to exist (beyond its borders). When there is no other thing that exists, what is there for You (i.e. Existence-Consciousness-Infinite) to ask or to desire? Therefore, you lack nothing. The absence of “a lack” is desirelessness. Another name for desirelessness is Happiness. So You are Sat-Chit-Ananda (Existence-Consciousness-Happiness).
Experiment: Infiniteness: Close your eyes and think of all the things that you ever wanted. Imagine that you have expanded your body limits (or house) to contain all those things within your humongous body (or house). If a new want arises, bloat your body more to take that also in. If you desire to get rid of something, you can imagine infinite power to yourself to annihilate it. With unlimited boundaries, with nothing different from you, there is nothing left out to be further desired. Such an ending of desire is beyond the polar pairs of happiness-unhappiness, acceptance-rejection etc.
(To Continue: Part III: Objects arise when names are assigned to delimited shapes.)
