Nirvana Shatakam – Verse 2, Part 3:

The Story of Śikhidhvaja and Cūḍālā

I would like to begin with the story of King Śikhidhvaja – Śikhi-dhvaja, if dividing it into syllables helps us remember it. Śikhidhvaja was a powerful king who had experienced every pleasure available to a human being. He had wealth, authority, luxury, sensual enjoyment, a kingdom, and a queen. None of these experiences had given him the lasting freedom he was seeking.

Śikhidhvaja therefore concluded that liberation must require complete renunciation. He left his kingdom, went into the forest, and gave up almost everything. All that remained was a simple cloth, a bowl, and a walking staff. He practised austerity and subjected the body to great discipline, yet the peace he sought remained elusive.

One day, a wandering sage approached him. This sage was actually his queen, Cūḍālā, who had already gained liberation while continuing to live in the palace and participate in the responsibilities of the kingdom. She had not needed to abandon her life because her inquiry had taken place within the mind. Disguised as a sage, she asked Śikhidhvaja whether his renunciation had brought him the peace he was seeking.

He admitted that although he had given up the pleasures of the world, he had still not discovered the peace that has no end. Cūḍālā told him that perhaps he had not renounced what truly mattered. Śikhidhvaja looked around, noticed his few remaining possessions, and assumed that she must be referring to them. In frustration, he threw his bowl, clothing, and staff into the fire. Standing before her with nothing, he declared that now he was truly a renunciate.

Cūḍālā told him that this was still not it. The problem was not a physical possession but a mental conclusion. He had not renounced the idea that the Self was somewhere away from him and that he had to give up enough things, perform enough austerities, or reach some extraordinary state before he could discover it.

The truth he was seeking was the very consciousness that had illumined his life in the palace. It was the same consciousness illumining:

• • The forest
  • The body undergoing penance
  • His frustration at not finding liberation
  • Even the thought, “I am still a seeker”

The surroundings had changed dramatically, but awareness had not changed at all.

This is the central lesson of the story. You may get rid of the carpet, the flowers, the books, the computer, the boss, the manager, the children, and practically everything else. You may stand there with nothing, but what do you still have? You still have the very same mind. It may be temporarily soothed by the new environment, but its fundamental patterns remain.

Therefore, the renunciation required for Self-knowledge is subtler than merely rearranging the external world.

What Is Neti Neti Actually Doing?

Q: What is the purpose of neti neti?

In the previous inquiry, we used pañcakośa-viveka, the discrimination of the five “as though” covers, through the method of neti neti – “not this, not this.”

The purpose of neti neti is to distinguish the knower from what is known. The body, breath, mind, thoughts, and emotions are all known to me. Therefore, none of them can be the essential knower.

Q: Does saying “I am not the body or mind” mean that I must physically separate myself from them?

No. Vedānta is not asking me to:

• • Make the body disappear
  • Stop breathing
  • Eliminate all thoughts
  • Reject emotion
  • Destroy the mind
  • Enter an extreme state of tapas

If I conclude, “Thoughts are not the Self, so I must stop all thoughts to find the Self,” I have misunderstood the teaching.

The body does not have to disappear for awareness to be recognized. The breath does not have to stop, and the mind does not have to become permanently silent. These are objects known to me. Neti neti is a method of discrimination, not a programme of destruction.

Q: How does Vedanta use what is known to reveal the subtle knower?

To understand this method, Vedanta uses the logic of śākhācandra-nyāya: the method of pointing out the moon through the branch of a tree.

Śākhācandra-Nyāya: Using the Known to Reveal the Subtle

Suppose the sky is cloudy and I can see the moon, but you cannot. Simply pointing into the vast sky may not be enough. There may be too many clouds, lights, or other distracting objects. So I begin with something obvious.

I first ask you to look at the trunk of a nearby tree. You see it clearly, and we establish agreement. Then I direct your attention to a particular branch, then to a smaller branch, perhaps to a fruit or a bird, and finally to the empty space just beyond the tip of the branch. There, you recognize the moon.

What do the trunk, branches, leaves, fruit, and birds have to do with the moon? On one hand, absolutely nothing. The moon does not belong to the tree. On the other hand, these objects served as the means by which your attention was carefully guided to the moon.

The five kośas serve the same function. We begin with the most obvious reality available to us: the physical body. Then we examine the breath, sensations, thoughts, emotions, understanding, and the subtler dimensions of experience. Each is provisionally indicated and then negated: “It is known to me, so it cannot be the essential knower.”

The kośas are therefore stepping stones. We use the very instrument we have been given – this body and mind – to recognize the reality because of which the instrument is known.

Why Must the Negated World Be Brought Back?

Q: Does the inquiry end when I conclude, “I am not the body or mind”?

No. If the inquiry stops with the conclusion, “The body is not I, the mind is not I, and thoughts are not I,” we create a new duality:

• • The Self over here
  • The not-Self over there

That is still dvaita – two realities. Vedānta says that reality is non-dual, and non-duality means “not two.”

Therefore, after provisionally distinguishing awareness from everything known, the teaching must bring the entire world back and reconcile it with awareness.

Q: Why is Self/not-Self discrimination only provisional?

Initially, I distinguish the subject from the object because I am habitually identified with objects. I say:

• • “I am this body.”
  • “I am this thought.”
  • “I am this emotion.”
  • “I am this role.”

Vedānta loosens that identification by showing that everything I observe changes, while I, the one aware of those changes, remain present.

However, if I then conclude that awareness is completely separate from the body, mind, and world, I have created a sophisticated form of duality. There is now a spiritual Self and an apparently non-spiritual world.

That cannot be the final vision because Vedānta clearly says that everything is the Self. We must therefore understand the relationship between awareness and the objects initially negated. This is where the traditional example of clay and pot becomes important.

The Pot and Clay: What Is Actually Real?

Q: What does the pot-and-clay example demonstrate?

Suppose we have a clay pot. At face value, we call it a pot because it has a particular name, form, and function. It can carry water, store grain, or serve some other useful purpose. If there is only one pot in the village, people may even begin fighting over it because of its functional value.

Now ask a simple question: Can you remove the clay and still retain the pot?

No. If the clay is removed, there is no pot left. The pot depends entirely upon the clay for its existence, but the clay does not depend upon that particular pot. The pot may be broken, reshaped, or made into something else, while the clay remains clay.

Q: Are “pot” and “clay” simply two words for the same thing?

No. “Pot” and “clay” are not synonyms. If you go to a shop and ask for a pot, you do not expect someone to hand you an unformed block of clay.

The pot has a distinct:

• • Name
  • Form
  • Function

Yet it has no independent substance apart from clay.

This establishes a particular relationship:

• • The pot is dependent.
  • The clay is relatively independent.
  • The pot is a name and form.
  • Clay is its substance.

Q: What is destroyed when the pot is smashed?

The name, form, and function called “pot” disappear. The clay does not disappear; it simply obtains in another form.

This leads us to question what we mean when we call something real.

Q: How does Vedānta define satyam, the real?

Vedānta defines satyam as that which obtains equally in the past, present, and future. It does not come into being, undergo essential change, and disappear.

In the clay-pot example:

• • Before the pot existed, clay was present.
  • While the pot existed, clay was present.
  • After the pot was broken, clay remained.

The pot came and went, but the clay persisted.

Q: What is mithyā?

The changing name and form are called mithyā. This does not mean that they are absolutely nonexistent.

The pot:

• • Is available for use
  • Has a valid function
  • Can carry water or grain
  • Can be bought, sold, damaged, or repaired

Nevertheless, it has no independent existence apart from its material cause, clay.

Satyam and Mithyā: Independence and Dependence

Q: What is the satya-mithyā relationship?

Satyam is that which is independent. Mithyā is that which depends upon something else for its existence.

For example:

• • A carpet depends upon strands.
  • The strands depend upon cotton or synthetic fibre.
  • That material depends upon subtler components.
  • Those components depend upon still other causes and conditions.

We do not need to be scientists or know every detail about atoms, particles, or molecular structures to conduct this inquiry. We simply need to recognize the principle of dependence.

Q: What happens when we examine objects closely?

Whatever object we examine turns out to be a collection of:

• • Parts
  • Causes
  • Conditions
  • Names
  • Forms
  • Functions

The closer we look, the less independently substantial the original label becomes.

For example:

• • “Carpet” resolves into strands.
  • “Body” resolves into cells, organs, systems, food, and elements.
  • “Thought” resolves into memory, attention, impressions, language, and mental activity.

Q: How does attention shape our experience of life?

Out of an entire memory or situation, the mind selects one detail and makes that the centre of experience.

Where attention flows, energy goes. What I repeatedly attend to becomes, for me, the experience of life.

Yet attention itself fluctuates. Anything that fluctuates cannot be absolutely real according to Vedānta’s definition.

Q: Does everything in the world have this dependent nature?

Yes. Bodies, minds, environments, and states of experience all arise, remain for some time, and disappear.

Even space and time are experienced dependently:

• • Space is experienced through perception and according to the observer’s standpoint.
  • Time is measured through change.

Consciousness alone does not appear as another changing object within this chain. It is that because of which every link in the chain is known.

Thoughts Are More Pots

Q: What happens when the mind hears a teaching like this?

The mind immediately creates more concepts. It may say:

• • “I understand this theoretically, but I do not experience it.”
  • “Perhaps I need to stop thinking.”
  • “Maybe one day I will find consciousness.”
  • “I am not yet enlightened.”

But each of these is simply another thought.

Was the thought present a moment ago? No. It arose in time, remained briefly, and will disappear. Therefore, it is another form, another pot, another season passing through the mind.

Q: Is it realistic to expect the mind never to change?

No. The mind’s function is to:

• • Think
  • Remember
  • Inquire
  • Compare
  • Imagine
  • Feel
  • React

Asking the mind never to change is like asking the seasons never to change. How long are you going to wait for the weather to become permanently perfect – no wind, no rain, the sun at exactly the right temperature, and the clouds arranged just as you like?

The seasons are designed to change, and the mind is also designed to move. The coming and going of thoughts is its nature.

Q: Why do we take the mind’s changes so personally?

We generally do not take the seasons personally because they seem to be outside us. The mind is more intimate, so we take every movement personally.

A thought arises, and immediately I say: “This is me. This says something final about me.”

Vedānta asks us to begin looking at the mind differently.

Q: What is the relevant question regarding thought?

The relevant question is not: “How do I stop every thought?”

The relevant question is: “Because of what is this thought known?”

A thought is known. An emotion is known. Confusion is known. Even the thought, “I do not understand awareness,” is known.

Therefore, awareness has not been displaced. Wherever the thought is, awareness is present as that because of which the thought is revealed.

The Relative Knower and the One Awareness

Q: What is the relative knower?

At one moment, the mind functions as a thinker. Later, it becomes an enjoyer, a bhoktā. At another time, it is:

• • A doer
  • A feeler
  • A hearer
  • A taster
  • An inquirer
  • An experiencer

These identities change according to the activity taking place.

The relative knower knows that the class is happening now. Later, that same relative knower knows that the class has ended. It knows breakfast, conversation, driving, vacuuming, pleasure, discomfort, agreement, and conflict.

All these roles appear and disappear.

Q: What knows the changing knower?

What is present when the mind is thinking, enjoying, acting, doubting, remembering, or sleeping?

Throughout every changing experience, one simple fact remains undeniable: “I was there.”

Call it “I,” Ātmā, Brahman, awareness, or consciousness. We must give it some word, but the word is not the point.

The point is that every experience reveals an invariable presence. Experiences change; the fact of awareness does not.

Q: What contemplation can weaken identification with thought?

Remind yourself repeatedly: “This thought is witnessed. Therefore, I, awareness, have not been displaced.”

Slowly, this begins to weaken the deeply conditioned habit of looking only at the content of the mind.

Psychological Preparation and the Strength of Mental Patterns

Q: Does Self-knowledge automatically remove all psychological patterns?

No. Although Self-knowledge reveals that awareness is untouched by thought, this does not mean that unresolved psychological patterns automatically disappear.

Repetitive thoughts are deeply conditioned patterns, and some may be strongly wired into the body and brain. For example:

• • “I am not good enough.”
  • “I am clever.”
  • “I am unattractive.”
  • “I must always please others.”
  • “I must always be in control.”

Such patterns may persist even after one has understood the basic teaching.

Q: How should persistent psychological patterns be addressed?

They may need to be addressed psychologically. Often, an opposing and more accurate thought must be deliberately introduced until the original pattern loses some of its force.

Vedānta does not deny the need for this work. If numerous unresolved patterns continually pull the mind into conflict, a person may have little energy or motivation left for subtle inquiry.

Q: Why can a person understand the teaching but still struggle to assimilate it?

Everyone can understand the logic that the pot depends upon clay and that thought depends upon awareness. The difficulty is not necessarily an absence of intelligence.

The difficulty is often the strength of the mind’s conditioning.

A person may understand a sentence for one moment and then be carried away by twenty other thoughts.

Q: What role do yoga and psychological preparation play?

Yoga and psychological preparation help create a relatively composed, healthy, and available mind that can remain with the teaching.

The progressive disciplines of yoga help settle the vṛttis and prepare the mind for knowledge.

Vedānta’s caution is that a quiet mind should not be mistaken for the Self:

• • Mental composure is a preparation.
  • It is a valuable support.
  • It is not the final reality.

Does External Simplicity Have a Valid Place?

Q: Is there value in simplifying one’s external life?

Yes. If life is unnecessarily complex, reducing its complexity can lessen mental entanglement.

The following can make inquiry easier:

• • Fewer distractions
  • Fewer compulsive inputs
  • Fewer unnecessary commitments
  • A more deliberate environment
  • More time for reflection and study

Q: Does simplification mean abandoning all responsibilities?

No. Simplification must be intelligent. We remain responsible human beings who require:

• • Food
  • Shelter
  • Money
  • Relationships
  • Mutual support

Even a sannyāsī who has renounced possessions still depends upon someone to provide food. No embodied person is completely independent of the world.

Renunciation therefore does not mean irresponsibly abandoning everything. It means reducing unnecessary entanglement while fulfilling appropriate responsibilities.

We simplify enough to create space in the mind, but we do not imagine that freedom will be produced merely by changing the furniture, throwing away the phone, or moving into a forest.

The forest may reduce certain stimuli, but wherever I go, the mind comes with me.

From Objects to the Order Behind Creation

Q: What do we discover when we examine the world?

We find not only matter but also an extraordinary degree of order:

• • Atoms combine into molecules.
  • Molecules participate in cells.
  • Cells form tissues and organs.
  • Organs work together as bodies.
  • Bodies form families, communities, and civilizations.

The point of this inquiry is not to compete with science. Science can explain the structures, processes, and material mechanisms involved.

Vedānta asks another question: What is the organizing principle because of which these components participate in an intelligible and interconnected order?

Q: What evidence is there of an organizing intelligence?

The same elements can appear as a tree, fish, bird, tiger, or human body. Each body has a specific structure and function.

For example:

• • The digestive system relates appropriately to food.
  • Plants relate to sunlight.
  • Living beings relate to their environments.
  • Physiological and psychological processes occur without conscious human intervention.

You do not personally instruct:

• • The heart to beat
  • The hair to grow
  • Food to digest
  • Cells to repair the body
  • Hunger to arise
  • Memory to function
  • The nervous system to respond to stimuli

An intelligence far greater than the individual mind is already operating through the body and the entire world.

Q: What does Vedānta call this lawful, organizing intelligence?

This intelligence is called Īśvara. If the word Śiva is meaningful to you, call it Śiva. The name is secondary.

The essential point is that creation is not merely a collection of disconnected objects. It is an interconnected order governed by:

• • Physical laws
  • Physiological laws
  • Psychological laws
  • Ecological laws
  • Moral laws
  • Causal laws

The laws of dharma and karma are included within this order.

Q: Is Īśvara an entity located outside the universe?

No. Īśvara is not merely an entity parked somewhere outside the universe.

Īśvara is the intelligent cause manifest as the laws, structures, and functions of the entire universe.

When the body moves out of balance, the same order provides discomfort as feedback. When the mind becomes unhealthy, it too communicates that something requires attention.

Māyā and the Dream Analogy

Q: How does a dream help us understand māyā?

In a dream, the mind manifests as:

• • People
  • Sounds
  • Colours
  • Sensations
  • Space
  • Time
  • Events

The characters may appear perfectly real. You may hear familiar voices, recognize faces, have sincere conversations, and become fully invested in the dream’s story.

Upon waking, you recognize that the entire dream was made of impressions, memories, and knowledge within the mind. The dream person and dream world were not made of a substance separate from the mind.

The mind possessed the power to project itself as an apparently external world and then participate in that projection.

Q: How does Vedānta apply this analogy to consciousness?

In a comparable manner, Vedānta says that consciousness has a power called māyā. Through this power, names, forms, laws, functions, and experiences become manifest.

Consciousness itself, however, does not undergo an actual transformation. It remains what it is while the universe appears in its presence.

To clarify this, the tradition distinguishes between two kinds of material cause:

1. 1. Pariṇāmi upādāna kāraṇam
   2. Vivarta upādāna kāraṇam

Pariṇāmi Upādāna Kāraṇam: A Changing Material Cause

Q: What is a pariṇāmi upādāna kāraṇam?

It is a material cause that undergoes actual change to become its effect.

Milk becoming cheese is a traditional example. Once the milk has become cheese, you cannot squeeze the cheese and retrieve the original milk. The material cause has transformed.

Q: How does the dreaming mind function as a changing material cause?

The dreaming mind continually reshapes itself into dream people, places, sensations, and events. One mental form gives way to another. The mind undergoes modification to obtain as the dream world.

Knowledge and power within māyā similarly manifest as the changing structures and functions of creation. They become expressed as:

• • Laws
  • Objects
  • Bodies
  • Minds
  • Experiences

At this level, constant manifestation and transformation are taking place.

Vivarta Upādāna Kāraṇam: An “As Though” Transformation

Q: What is a vivarta upādāna kāraṇam?

It is a material cause that appears to change without undergoing an essential transformation.

Clay and pot can illustrate this. The clay appears as a pot, but throughout the pot it remains clay.

Gold provides another example. Gold appears as:

• • A ring
  • A necklace
  • A bangle

Yet gold does not stop being gold.

Q: Is gold hidden somewhere inside the ring?

No. Wherever the ring is, gold is present. You do not need to search deep within the ring to find the gold.

The ring is not covering gold. The ring is gold appearing with a particular name, form, and function.

Q: How is consciousness the vivarta upādāna kāraṇam of the universe?

Consciousness is the material cause that “as though” appears as all names and forms while remaining unchanged.

Wherever there is:

• • A thought
  • A body
  • Breath
  • A sensation
  • An emotion
  • A perception

Consciousness is present as that because of which it is known.

Q: Is consciousness hidden behind experience?

No. Consciousness does not need to be reached through a special tunnel in the mind.

Even the frustration, “I cannot find consciousness,” is illumined by consciousness.

You cannot get rid of what is real.

Does Consciousness Require Samādhi?

Q: Does consciousness become available only in samādhi?

No. A common spiritual conclusion is that consciousness will become available only in samādhi, whether savikalpa or nirvikalpa. Vedānta questions this conclusion.

If consciousness were present only in a special state, it would come and go with that state. Anything that comes and goes is not satyam.

A state of silence begins, remains for some time, and ends. The same is true of:

• • An altered state
  • A profound meditation
  • A particular experience of bliss
  • A state of mental absorption

Therefore, no state can be the limitless Self.

Q: Is awareness more present in silence than in mental disturbance?

No. Silence is known, and a disturbing thought is also known.

What knows the silence? I do.

What knows the disturbing thought? I do.

Awareness is no more present in the silence than it is in the disturbance. The quality of the mind may be very different, but the awareness because of which that quality is known remains unchanged.

Q: Does this mean that a composed mind has no value?

A composed mind is certainly more conducive to understanding. Yet composure does not manufacture awareness.

Awareness is already present:

• • Before the quiet state
  • During the quiet state
  • After the quiet state

Sat and Cit: What Cannot Be Negated

Q: What remains as objects are reduced to their causes?

As we continue reducing objects into their causes, names and forms keep changing:

• • Pot resolves into clay.
  • Clay resolves into elements.
  • Elements resolve into subtler particles.
  • These resolve into still subtler realities.

At every stage, however, one fact remains:

• • The pot is.
  • The clay is.
  • The atom is.
  • The particle is.

The forms can be negated, but the “is-ness” cannot be negated. This invariable existence is sat.

Q: What is cit?

Every object, thought, concept, and state is known. Particular things may appear and disappear, but the fact of awareness cannot be removed.

This invariable consciousness is cit.

Q: What does Vedānta mean by sat-cit?

Vedānta reveals sat-cit – existence-consciousness – as the final reality of all things.

Names and forms are mithyā, dependent realities. They appear, function, and disappear, but existence and awareness are never displaced.

Q: Are knowledge and power themselves absolutely real?

No. Even knowledge and power are ultimately mithyā.

A concept becomes manifest in the mind and then becomes unmanifest, giving way to another concept. Knowledge appears in specific forms and changes.

Awareness, however, is present both when a particular knowledge is manifest and when it is absent.

Q: Are sat and cit two separate realities?

No. Sat and cit are not two separate substances.

What is absolutely existent is self-revealing consciousness, and consciousness is not nonexistent. There is nothing apart from sat-cit, manifesting through māyā as bodies, minds, objects, sounds, sensations, laws, and experiences.

The Three States and Turīya

Q: Why can none of the three states be absolutely real?

The waking state appears and is displaced by the dream state. Dream is displaced by deep sleep, and deep sleep is displaced by waking.

Since each state comes and goes, none of them can be absolutely real.

Q: Is awareness present throughout waking, dream, and deep sleep?

Yes.

• • In waking, the waking world is known.
  • In dream, the dream world is known.
  • Deep sleep is subsequently recognized: “I slept,” or, “I did not know anything.”

That recognition indicates that the absence of particular mental experiences did not eliminate awareness.

Q: What is turīya?

The Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣad calls this awareness turīya, “the fourth.”

It is not literally a fourth state appearing after waking, dream, and deep sleep. It is called “the fourth” only as a teaching device because it is that because of which the three states are known.

Imagine a luminous thread passing through three beads:

• • One bead represents waking.
  • One represents dream.
  • One represents deep sleep.

The beads come into view one after another, while the thread continues through them all. That thread is like turīya.

Q: Is turīya one more experience or state?

No. If there were five states, we might provisionally call it the sixth. The numerical label is not the reality.

The point is that awareness is not one more state or experience. It is that which illumines every state.

For this reason, it is clearer to speak of different levels of mind, experience, or alertness rather than different levels of consciousness.

Consciousness itself has no levels. Experiences vary; the light because of which they are known does not.

Movement, Experience, and the Appearance of Continuity

Q: How does the mind present experience as continuous?

The mind presents reality as a continuous flow, much like a film appears to contain seamless movement even though it consists of individual frames.

Experience is shaped by:

• • The senses
  • The processing mind
  • Memory
  • Attention

When the eyes close, the visual portion of waking experience is withdrawn. When the waking mind resolves, the waking world is no longer available.

Q: Why is experience considered mithyā?

Experience depends upon many conditions:

• • The senses depend upon the body.
  • The body depends upon physiological systems.
  • Those systems depend upon the larger order of nature.

Anything dependent upon conditions is mithyā.

Q: Is movement absolutely real?

From the standpoint of names and forms, everything moves and changes.

From the standpoint of sat-cit, nothing ever leaves existence-consciousness to travel somewhere outside it. Movement occurs within the appearance, while the reality of every appearing form remains unchanged.

Doership, Responsibility, and the Necessary Balance

Q: Is awareness the doer?

No. When the body suddenly reacts to lightning or a loud sound, an entire system responds:

• • The senses
  • The brain
  • The nervous system
  • Conditioning
  • Evolutionary mechanisms

Awareness illumines the reaction but does not perform it.

Q: Who, then, is the doer?

The doer is relative to the body-mind instrument. The person acts, chooses, enjoys, and experiences within the empirical order.

Yet even the choices of the person arise from prior causes:

• • Conditioning
  • Tendencies
  • Preferences
  • Circumstances
  • Relationships
  • Events the individual did not independently create

Did you choose every person who would enter your life? Did you choose the tendencies with which you were born? Did you design your heartbeat, digestive process, or nervous system?

Clearly not. An immense order precedes and supports the individual’s apparent choices.

Q: Can this teaching be used to avoid responsibility?

No. A person cannot commit a crime and casually say:

“It just happened; awareness did nothing.”

Within the relative order, actions produce consequences, and the person remains accountable. We are responsible for using the body-mind instrument appropriately.

Q: How do we balance actionlessness and personal responsibility?

The balance is subtle:

• • At the empirical level, I acknowledge my actions.
  • I learn from mistakes.
  • I apologize when necessary.
  • I accept appropriate consequences.
  • I live according to dharma.
  • At the absolute level, I understand that my essential nature is actionless awareness.

Confusing these levels creates either excessive guilt or irresponsible behaviour. Wisdom holds both without collapsing one into the other.

Ignorance as the Fundamental Distortion

Q: How can “sin” be understood in this context?

A “sin” may be understood as a distortion or misapprehension of fact.

Someone is late, and I immediately conclude that they are betraying me, when in reality they are simply stuck in traffic. I take a fact and impose a false interpretation upon it.

Q: What is the most consequential distortion?

The most consequential distortion is the misunderstanding of who I am.

I take myself to be a limited body-mind person and overlook the awareness because of which the body and mind are known. This is the fundamental ignorance that perpetuates the search for completion.

Q: Where does ignorance belong?

Ignorance belongs to the mind, so it must be removed in the mind.

We do not remove ignorance:

• • From the finger
  • From the body as a physical object
  • From awareness itself

Awareness was never ignorant. The mind carries the mistaken conclusion, and the mind must be exposed to the appropriate pramāṇa, the means of knowledge, until the mistake is corrected.

In this sense, Vedānta is ultimately mind work. It does not produce the Self; it removes the misunderstanding concerning the Self.

Seeing the Same Reality in Other People

Q: Is it enough to recognize awareness only within myself?

It may be relatively easy to understand, “I am awareness,” while sitting quietly at home. The more challenging question is: What about everyone else, especially the people who annoy me?

Q: How does the wave-and-ocean example help?

At face value, one wave is different from another. Each has its own:

• • Size
  • Shape
  • Force
  • Location

Yet the substance of every wave is the same water. The differences are valid at the level of name and form, but they do not divide the underlying reality.

Similarly, there is a provisional difference between me and my parents, siblings, partner, children, colleagues, and strangers. Our minds, bodies, histories, and personalities differ.

Yet the awareness illumining one mind is not essentially different from the awareness illumining another.

Q: How can this understanding become a practical contemplation?

While speaking with someone – especially someone emotionally close to you – take one or two seconds to recognize:

“The awareness because of which this person’s thoughts are known is the same reality because of which my thoughts are known.”

You do not need to announce this to them. In fact, perhaps keep it secret. Just recognize it internally.

Q: Does seeing everyone as Īśvara mean abandoning boundaries?

No. It does not mean:

• • Surrendering your boundaries
  • Allowing others to mistreat you
  • Agreeing to every demand
  • Refusing to protect yourself
  • Abandoning practical intelligence

You still protect the body and mind, communicate clearly, and act according to dharma. Non-duality does not erase practical intelligence.

Q: How can this recognition affect conflict?

It can take the edge off conflict and create a little space in which compassion becomes possible.

You begin to see that another person’s behaviour arises through their conditioning and present level of understanding, just as your reactions arise through yours.

The relative differences remain, but they are held within a deeper sameness.

Q: What is the ongoing practice?

The ongoing practice is constant remembering.

In the middle of a conversation, argument, or emotional reaction, take a moment to recognize the awareness illumining both minds.

One second is enough. Repeated over time, these moments have a compounding effect.

The Self Is Present Wherever the World Appears

Q: What is the relationship between consciousness and the world?

Wherever there is a picture, there is the canvas. Wherever there is a pot, there is clay. Wherever there is an ornament, there is gold. Wherever there is a thought, there is awareness.

Therefore, the world does not conceal consciousness. The world is consciousness appearing through names and forms.

Q: What happens to the body and mind that were initially negated through neti neti?

They are brought back and reconciled with awareness:

• • The body is not separate from consciousness.
  • The breath is not separate from consciousness.
  • The mind is not separate from consciousness.
  • Thoughts are not separate from consciousness.
  • The world is not separate from consciousness.

This reconciliation completes neti neti.

First, I recognize:

“I am not limited to any particular name and form.”

Then I recognize:

“No name and form exists independently of me, awareness.”

Q: What is the relationship between thoughts and awareness?

The relationship is satya-mithyā.

Thoughts depend upon awareness for their revelation, but awareness does not depend upon any particular thought.

A thought may say:

“I am not enlightened.”

But that thought is itself mithyā. It arose, was known, and will disappear. The awareness that reveals it remains untouched.

Another thought may say:

“I will find consciousness in the future.”

That too is only a thought. Wherever that thought appears, consciousness is already present.

The seeker and the sought are not two independent realities.

The Search Is Based Upon an Assumed Separation

Q: What assumption is contained within every spiritual search?

Every search implies that something is missing.

If I am seeking the Self, I have already assumed that:

• • The Self is elsewhere.
  • I am presently separate from it.
  • I must reach it in the future.
  • I must produce a special experience to discover it.

Otherwise, who would be searching for what?

Q: What was Śikhidhvaja’s fundamental mistake?

He assumed that the truth was unavailable in the palace but might become available in the forest.

He thought that if enough forms were discarded, he would finally reach the formless Self.

Q: How did Cūḍālā correct his misunderstanding?

She showed him that whatever he experienced was already illumined by the awareness he sought:

• • Pleasure
  • Renunciation
  • Discipline
  • Frustration
  • Thought
  • Silence

The imagined distance between the seeker and the sought existed only as a conclusion in the mind.

Q: How does the spiritual search finally end?

The search does not end because the seeker obtains a new object called consciousness.

It ends when the original assumption of separation is understood to be false.

Every Human Pursuit Is Ultimately a Search for Mokṣa

The next verse of the Nirvāṇa Ṣaṭakam makes the striking statement:

na me dveṣarāgau na me lobhamohau
mado naiva me naiva mātsaryabhāvaḥ
na dharmo na cārtho na kāmo na mokṣaḥ

“I have neither likes nor dislikes, neither greed nor delusion, neither pride nor jealousy. I have no dharma, no artha, no kāma, and no mokṣa.”

Q: Why does the verse say, “I have no mokṣa” or “I have no desire for liberation”?

This sounds strange because the entire spiritual life seems to be centred upon liberation.

Yet the statement becomes understandable when we examine what every human pursuit is actually seeking.

Q: What are people ultimately seeking through ordinary pursuits?

Every pursuit is an attempt to gain freedom from some form of limitation:

• • A child reaching for a toy seeks freedom from a sense of incompleteness.
  • A person seeking wealth seeks freedom from insecurity.
  • A person pursuing pleasure seeks temporary freedom from dissatisfaction.
  • A person pursues dharma to gain freedom from inner conflict and the pain of seeing oneself as disintegrated.

Thus, every pursuit is ultimately a pursuit of mokṣa – freedom.

Q: Are there really many unrelated human goals?

No. There is one underlying goal appearing through many forms:

“I want to be free from limitation.”

The more ignorant I am, the more I imagine I have endless options:

• • Perhaps this object will complete me.
  • Perhaps that relationship will complete me.
  • Perhaps another achievement will complete me.
  • Perhaps another experience will complete me.
  • Perhaps another spiritual state will complete me.

As understanding becomes clearer, I begin to see that there is only one real option: freedom from the compulsion to keep looking for completeness through more options.

Q: Why must even the desire for liberation eventually be understood differently?

The desire for liberation is another thought arising in the mind.

The Self is never bound, so the Self does not require liberation. Awareness does not become free at some future moment. Freedom is its nature.

Therefore, the Nirvāṇa Ṣaṭakam declares, “I have no desire for liberation,” not because liberation is unimportant, but because I am already that freedom.

I am of the nature of pure existence, consciousness, and fullness. I am the auspicious reality because of which all experiences are known.

Cidānandarūpaḥ śivo’ham śivo’ham
I am of the nature of consciousness and fullness. I am Śiva, I am Śiva.