ADVAITA SIMPLIFIED – Part V: Origination of Pain and Suffering
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 18: An imaginary “me” and “mine” begin with the claim of ownership to some of the “objects” generated in Step 16.
Dividing the one whole image into many forms (by partitioning it) and then assigning a name and unique identity to each part will create the illusion of there being many objects disconnected and separate from each other.
Repeated exposure to and contact with only a limited number of the proximally existing parts within that whole image, produces attachment with those parts. Attachment produces an affinity for them. Affinity leads to possessiveness. These selected parts are then claimed as “mine” with possessive feelings. A claim of “ownership” gets established over them.
The objects which are not claimed as “mine” automatically become “not mine.” They are considered to be external, “not-mine” and are seen to be the “other.” The name given to the “other” is the “world.”
Thoughts and images seen internally coalesce into a “me.” When the “me” claims ownership to some of the actions that take place in the whole image as “mine,” a “doership” (agency for action) is established.
Thus a ‘me’ and a ‘world’ are co-created. Over the course of time the ‘ownership’ and ‘doership’ further reinforce the concept of a “me” or self at a limited locus (within the body) and a world or a “not-me” located out there.
Notice that the “me” and the “world” are all within the reflected image only. Therefore, a “separate me” in the reflection has only a fallacious appearance. It does not have true existence but only an imagined existence.
The name given to it in Advaita is chidabhAsa (= ego – See Thought/Feel Experiment in Step # 10). The name given to the “world” is saMsAra.
Metaphor: A character in the Movie: Suppose you are watching a movie on the TV screen. You sympathize with the main character and identify yourself fully with it. You forget yourself to be outside the movie and you and the character become one. An identity gets established between you and the character. The shape of the pixels that seem to move together is the body of the character and you take it to be your body. The apparent ‘personality’ of the character is the ‘ego’ or chidabhAsa.
But note that the particular character with which you have identified yourself is still within the total image on the screen. In fact, what has real existence is only the one continuous screen which appears in the shape of that character at that place and time. Has the character a separate existence devoid of the screen?
Video 1 : Is there a real permanent you? : A ‘self’ in you does not exist – it is a construct. It is imagined. It is a collection of all experiences in life, not a permanent entity having experiences. Water is not something to which hydrogen and oxygen are attached. Hydrogen attached with oxygen is water. Self is an illusion and Neuroscience agrees. “There is no center in the brain where things do all come together”, Julian Baggini, Editor-in-chief of the Philosophers’ Magazine, quotes Neuroscientist Paul Broks. (Please note: I am referring to the first eight and half minutes of Julian’s talk. The later part is not relevant for the present discussion).
Additional Reading: “Where lies the ‘Person’ of our Personality?”
Link: http://www.advaita-vision.org/where-lies-the-person-of-our-personality/
Video 2: This is Non-duality: Part 9 – The Ego and the World Co-Evolve:
Link: http://compassionworks.com/blog/posts/talks-with-ramesam-this-is-nonduality—oct-30-2011/
Step 19: Physical pain is the effort made by the imagined “me” to perpetuate itself.
“Me” is an outcome of an imagination, a thought; but all thoughts are transitory.
Therefore, the ‘me’-thought requires constant efforting to preserve its continuity. Its struggle for perpetuation is an energy expensive action. It has to gather energy from outside of itself. Procuring energy (in form of ‘food’) and securing the energy that has been procured is a tiresome and painful process for the body-organism which imagines the separate ‘me’ to be present inside its body. The more the intensity of the effort required in keeping the body intact (facilitating the survival of the separate “me”), the greater will be the pain that the organism experiences. The ease with which it is accustomed to get the energy becomes dis-ease.
Step 20: The problem gets compounded by being judgmental about the imaginary objects as friends or foes helping or threatening its survival.
The pain gets exacerbated with the constant need to choose favorable things that help its security and avoid unfavorable things that endanger its safety. The classification of the objects and actions as favorable or unfavorable exercising preference-rejection, likes-dislikes, wanting-not wanting or, in short, the play of the polar pair of opposites compounds the pain.
Step 21: Psychological suffering is the effort of the limited “me” to expand itself to be the whole image back again, transcending its own finiteness in time and space.
The pain of being a limited and contracted entity triggers a desire to surmount all the limitations. It goes in search of happiness. The contracted finite ‘me’ struggles then to expand itself infinitely so that it would contain everything within itself and would consequently lack nothing. It hopes to include within itself the entire multiplicity of objects such that it does not feel any lack and thereby avoid threats from other objects.
The efforting that goes on from being contracted to become infinity in search of happiness is psychological suffering.
At some point in this suffering, the contracted ‘me’ seeks to be the original Self. It looks for an escape from the appearance of multiplicity. This seeking is also a suffering. The more it imagines itself to be removed from the Original, the more is its suffering.
Video: This is Non-duality: Part 10 – A few Seconds of Meditation:
Keeping my identity as a finite limited entity is pain. Trying to expand myself to be Infinity or trying to be Brahman is suffering.
Link: http://compassionworks.com/blog/posts/talks-with-ramesam-this-is-nonduality—oct-30-2011/
(To Continue : Part VI: The separate person is action)
