You ARE That, Always and Forever!
Your true nature is formless, limitless presence-awareness. It is unborn and eternal.
How can that which is formless and limitless be born (or reborn) or subject to any bondage and limitations?
Our true nature is presence-awareness. It is everyone’s own direct, immediate experience.
You ‘exist’ and you ‘know’ you exist. This is the common experience of everyone.
It cannot be refuted or denied. You cannot deny your own existence or being. Nor can you refute your own awareness.
All spiritual seeking is due to mis-identification: identifying limitless awareness-presence with limited body-mind-senses complex.
Let’s investigate why, in our essential nature, we are not the ‘body-mind-senses complex’ that we take ourselves to be.
The real nature of a thing is that which never changes; for, that which changes cannot be real. This is the fundamental test of reality, according to Vedānta, the science of reality.
Our true essential nature should always be with us. It should not change.
Let’s apply this test first to our body.
Our experience shows that our body is constantly changing. If you look at your picture when you were 5 years young and compare it with your pictures when you were, say, 10 or 15 or 25 or 35 years of age, you will realize that your body has obviously changed over time. But your sense of “I” in your body–that, this is “me” in all these pictures–has not changed.
Similarly, our identification with body changes from one state to another. During the dream state, for example, we do not possess our waking body; and in the deep sleep state, we become completely oblivious of our waking and/or dream body. Thus, our body cannot be our true nature as it is not always with us (refer to your dream and deep sleep experience) and it is constantly changing (refer to your pictures at the age 5, 20, 30, and so on).
The same is true of the mind and the sense perceptions. Mind is nothing but a collection of thoughts, feelings, etc. Our thoughts, perceptions, feelings, emotions, etc. are constantly changing. They come and go. And so does our ego, the I-thought. Thus, my body, mind and senses cannot be my true nature. Hence, I am not the body, mind, senses that I mis-take myself to be.
Now, let’s examine our experience to find out what does not change or what does not come and go.
The felt sense of our awareness-presence does not come and go. It cannot be negated or thought away.
Hence, this awareness-presence is our true nature since it is always with us.
Body, mind and senses are mere appearances in this unchanging consciousness which is our essential nature.
Cognizing that I am not the limited body-mind-senses complex, but formless, limitless awareness-presence–the Witnessing Consciousness (sākshi-chaitanya)– is the ending of all seeking and becoming!
All seeking springs from a sense of inadequacy or incompleteness. When we experience the fullness of our being–our formless, limitless svarūpa, the sense of incompleteness disappears on its own, like darkness before the shinning sun.
How can we experience the fullness of our being? By directing our attention to the ever-present sense of being-awareness that is everybody’s common, universal experience. Śrimad Bhagavad Gītā tells us how to direct our attention to the Self in the last half part of the verse 25 of its sixth chapter:
आत्मसंस्थं मन: कृत्वा न किञ्चिदपि चिन्तयेत् || 6. 25||
ātma-sansthaṁ manaḥ kṛitvā na kiñchid api chintayet
Having steadfastly established the mind in the Self, the [yogi] does not think about anything else.
Kaṭhopaniṣad calls this prakriyā of establishing the mind in the Self, adhyātma yoga:
अध्यात्मयोगाधिगमेन देवं मत्वा धीरो हर्षशोकौ जहाति || 1.2.12 ||
One who, by the yoga of meditation on his Self, comprehends Atman within oneself as God, leaves joy and sorrow far behind.
Śankara’s commentary on this mantra is quite revealing: चेतस आत्मनि समाधानमध्यात्मयोगः
Establishing the mind in the Self is called adhyātma yoga.
Attainment of this yoga is ultimate purport of all the Vedāntic texts.
Adhyātma yoga is the art of directing one’s attention toward the unchanging Witnessing Consciousness within.
This Witnessing-Consciousness is our true nature; it is the substratum–adhishthānam–of all our bodily experiences, sense perceptions, memories, feelings, and emotions.
This is the real meaning of the key pointer in the Upanishads: You are That (tat tvam asi).
The word “That” here means the unchanging, presence-awareness within us, that witnesses the appearance and disappearance of perceptions, sense experiences, thoughts (including I-thought).
Upon hearing it, a sincere seeker directs her or his attention toward the witnessing consciousness within and “re-cognizes” that I am not a limited entity that I mistakenly take myself to be.
My true nature is limitless awareness (aham Brahma asmi).
Upanishads declare: You “are” That (timeless, changeless, presence-awareness).
Upanishads do not say, You “will” become That, by doing this or that spiritual practice!
YOU ARE THAT–timeless, spaceless, formless, limitless, Presence-Awareness– right here, right now; always and forever! Your nature is eternal, ever-pure and conscious, and of ever-free: Nitya-shuddha-buddha-mukta svabhāva, says Ādi Śankara.
This is the udhaghōsh of Vedānta: There is one Absolute Reality, without a second. That reality is of the nature of pure consciousness. It is the inmost self of everyone and everything. You are That!
The following verse from Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad 6.11 captures the essence of what we have so far been saying:
एकः देवः सर्वभूतेषु गूढः सर्वव्यापी सर्वभूतान्तरात्मा
कर्माध्यक्षः सर्वभूताधिवासः साक्षी चेता केवलः निर्गुणः च॥ ~श्वेताश्वतरोपनिषत्
ekaḥ devaḥ sarvabhūteṣu gūḍhaḥ sarvavyāpī sarvabhūtāntarātmā
karmādhyakṣaḥ sarvabhūtādhivāsaḥ sākṣīi cetā kevalaḥ nirguṇaḥ ca ||
One Divine Being who alone is, lurking hidden in all beings, all pervading, and is the inmost Self of all beings. He impels and presides over all work and is the abode of all things living. He alone is the One Witness, the Absolute, free from any attributes.
Reclaim your pristine true glory and be done forever with spiritual seeking and relentless becoming.
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