Sentient & Insentient
Those of us who are culturally western start out with a material view that does not leave any obvious door open for oneness. Upbringing, society, and science all tell us in so many ways that we are completely separate from everything, and anything of “nature” is created or existing for our use and gratification. This notion is so embedded in our culture that we generally fail to notice it. We take it for granted. Then, our first introduction to Sankhya cosmology or Vedanta philosophy, seems to corroborate this view by telling us two things: 1) the Self is Sentient and Nature is insentient; and 2) the Self and Nature are completely distinct. But there is a significant gulf between the western and eastern concepts of Sentient and insentient.
The western idea is based in materialism, i.e. matter is real and the only substratum to everything. Even apparently religious people can have this default view. “Insentient” popularly means anything that does not have a brain and is capable of demonstrating individual will. Therefore, brain and mind, often taken as the same thing, are considered sentient. It then follows that sentient beings are products of nature and partake of birth, growth, disease, old age, decay, and death. This fuels the perspective that “everything is separate from me.” This may sound like “the Self and Nature are completely distinct,” but, truly speaking, the Self has been confused with Nature by according Sentiency to matter (brains). This is not what the eastern teachings intend, and it leads to the wrong result. Under the material view, one’s life is spent pursuing objects, including people, for one’s happiness or avoiding them for the same reason. Because external objects are considered real and separate from oneself, one suffers when they are lost, stolen, decay or die, or when one tires of them.
In contrast, from the Vedic perspective, the category of the insentient is based on something being the effect of cause, which is the effect of another cause. This process continues from gross, to subtle, to causal, and so on until one traces them all to an uncaused Source that is the non-material Witness and conscious Self permeating all effects – the one Sentient principle. The western idea of Sentient and insentient is left in the realm of gross matter only. The Vedic idea of insentient assumes that there is a continuing cycle of evolution and involution witnessed by a unitary Sentient principle, which is the basis for the oneness of everything. Nothing is produced or created; everything is at all times; it is either manifest or unmanifest. Consciousness, the Sentient principle, is unchanged by either of these two states and is their substratum.
While preparing the current issue of Nectar of Non-Dual Truth (#29), SRV’s annual publication, I came across this quote by Swami Aseshanandaji in the transcription of his lecture, “Facing our Fear”:
“Western man accepts manifoldness in the universe to be real. As long as he accepts manifoldness to be real, he will not accept oneness of existence to be real. Shankara says that this Maya – nama rupam – name and form, constitute Maya. But the essence of Maya, and the background of Maya, is infinite Spirit. And there is no distinction between the real subject behind the psycho-physical being of man, and the real object behind the phenomenal universe. But it must ultimately be subjective, not objective experience. Western man accepts objective experience only. However, if you look, in meditation, behind the phenomenal universe, you will see the infinite Spirit, the Eternal Subject. And that will be possible only when you have accepted an illumined soul as your guru.”
One problem with taking on the two core teachings given at the beginning without understanding the Vedic perspective on Sentient and insentient is that it can lead to an immature rejection of the world and beings. Since Consciousness, the Self, alone is Sentient, and Consciousness is unchanged by phenomena, like the dreamer is unchanged by dreams, one may jump to another wrong conclusion. This issue is addressed in the following quote from Lex Hixon in a transcript of a class he gave on Gaudapada’s Karika (also in Nectar #29):
“It is very important to notice that some yogis and mystics mistake pure awareness for Absolute Consciousness. In other words, they simplify themselves away from the structures; they go into some high state of meditative concentration where they are experiencing pure awareness, and they think, ‘This is It!’ From that standpoint, then they think, ‘Well the world must be unreal,’ because pure awareness has no structures in it. When they open their eyes again and they see the buses going up and down the streets, and they see people suffering, then they think, ‘Well this must be all unreal. The real thing is pure awareness.’ This is a very serious error in spiritual life, and it cuts away the whole idea of compassion and responsibility which is more essential to high mysticism than it is to just ordinary life.”
In closing, the teaching that the Self and Nature, the Sentient and the insentient, are completely distinct must be attained, according to the Vedantic seers, in order to realize the Self is all there is and It alone appears as the Sentient and the insentient. This results in the perspective that everything is within oneself – knowledge, objects, and beings. This reminds me with what Love and sense of Cosmic Motherhood Sri Sarada Devi accepted all as her children – objects, animals, and people.
