#31. The Self, The No-Self And Beyond | Vigyan Bhairav Tantra

Namaste DMS community and everyone else.

A very warm welcome to all of you in this daily live meditation session with me,

Dhyanser.

We're meditating on 112 meditation techniques of Vigyan Bhairav Tantra.

Are you conscious or not?

This is a question that comes on this path of meditation.

Am I conscious or not?

When you meditate,

When for the very first time the awareness is more towards yourself,

More towards all your senses,

Then this question arises,

Am I conscious or not?

And then you hear in this discourse,

In other discourses,

Wherever,

Through all these spiritual discourses,

Throughout traditions,

Throughout all these different practices,

That you are not conscious,

You are asleep,

You need to wake up.

Naturally,

This question arises,

Am I conscious or not?

How do I judge whether I'm conscious or not conscious?

Similar question was raised in our community by a meditator who,

After the meditation,

After going through different techniques,

Raised this question to oneself,

Am I conscious or not?

Let us hear this question,

Explore this question,

Because this question is relevant for all of us.

If you have asked this question,

This is the time,

This is the session to explore this question further.

If you have not yet explored this question,

It will come at some point of time in your life.

So,

Let us hear this question.

The meditator asks,

Am I in a conscious state or not?

I would like to know how do you perceive the conscious state?

Rather feeling your body until to the deepest cell of your body,

Or do you perceive what is happening around you?

Sounds,

Wind or sunshine on your skin.

My experiences are so different,

Mostly I feel my breath and I'm without thoughts.

I believe to be in a conscious state,

But don't feel my body.

Is that still a conscious state,

Or am I just concentrated and not in meditation?

Hope I could make myself clear.

The primary question in all these questionings,

In all these questions is,

Am I in a conscious state or not?

I,

What you call as I,

That first word in your sentence,

That I,

It can never be in a conscious state.

That I which begins your sentence when you say,

I do this,

I do that,

I am in a conscious state or not.

This I can never be in a conscious state,

Because this I is the unconsciousness.

Words are very limited and the topic is very delicate.

Please listen and understand.

I is the unconsciousness,

This sense of I,

This narrative that we have,

This construct that we have,

Where everything starts with the I,

Is the unconsciousness.

Otherwise there is only consciousness.

So I can never be in this 100% pure conscious state.

I can have some sense of being aware,

Because there is sense of perception,

Because there is sense of self,

Which we call as self-awareness,

Which gives us this false notion that I can be in a conscious state,

Or I is where consciousness begins,

Or I can experience consciousness.

Without I,

When you strike off this I,

Then only there is a possibility of true consciousness.

I would like to know how do you perceive the conscious state.

This consciousness,

This conscious state,

It cannot be perceived.

See that perception,

Feeling,

Thought,

All of these are ways to grab.

These are the ways to objectify something and to grasp that,

To bring this in one's own understanding.

But consciousness cannot be objectified.

You cannot think about it,

You cannot feel it,

You cannot approach it in any way where you can objectify it.

Just the way you have objectified all other experiences into perception,

Into whatever way you are grabbing that experience that you are calling,

That I am experiencing,

That same approach cannot be applied to consciousness.

In a fascistic state,

A judge came out of the courtroom,

Laughing really hard and all the time laughing.

His fellow judges,

They were in the meeting room where they were also resting after their court proceedings.

They listened to this laughter of this one judge,

They said,

What is the matter?

Why are you laughing so hard?

If it is such a great joke,

Can you share it with us?

He said,

Well,

I don't want to share it with you because exactly for this joke,

I gave a 10 year sentence to another person.

The same approach which you have for your thought,

Which you have for your perception,

Same approach does not apply to consciousness.

And this journey from unconsciousness to consciousness so full that we call as enlightenment,

This is the entire journey of the spiritual process.

Every meditation that you do all along this journey of your spiritual growth,

This movement,

If you see,

If you were to understand it in some way,

In some illustration,

In some visualization,

Which is somewhat similar to reality,

But is not the reality,

Is this movement,

This journey is from unconsciousness to consciousness,

All the way to enlightenment.

That enlightenment is that state where is only consciousness,

There is nothing else.

So in order to map your experiences on your spiritual journey,

You can see it in a different way.

So,

Create this map for yourself.

In that map,

The first step is unawareness,

This asleepness,

This being robotic about things,

Being completely unaware of what you're doing while you're eating,

While you're walking,

While you're even thinking,

You're simply unaware.

You're just involved in the process,

You're unaware and you're functioning.

That is where everything is very gross,

Very crude.

And when you come across spiritual discourse,

When you come across some light of someone else from somewhere else,

Or from your own meditations,

From the very first time,

From this very first step on unawareness,

You gain this awareness of the outside.

Your sense perceptions once again are brightened,

Which you can call as now I am mindful.

You call the second step as now I'm mindful.

And here the meditator is also reflecting this in the question saying,

Do you perceive what is happening around you?

Sounds,

Wind,

Sunshine on your skin.

This you can call it as the second step or the second stage of being aware from unawareness to awareness,

Where you suddenly have once again,

These sense perceptions open and you're there along with these sense perceptions.

And you can see once again,

You can touch once again,

Feel once again,

The same situation which you were otherwise also in unawareness going through,

Now you're in awareness in that situation,

In that mindfulness.

And that tremendously changes the experience of every moment.

Because suddenly you realize every moment is different.

The same five senses are creating a completely different experience from moment to moment.

Life becomes from mundane,

Dull to exciting to something where new is happening all the time.

So that could be put as a major second step.

The third step is when this awareness starts to turn inwards,

Where you can call that third step as self awareness,

Where the more you meditate,

The more you contemplate on spiritual topics.

You realize that this awareness which you are projecting outwards through the five senses and seeing and experiencing this world,

The same if you turn inwards,

Suddenly you see you become aware of I am.

You see who is this one who is becoming aware,

Who is this one who is experiencing all this.

This is the third stage and again the questioner is asking and it's integrated in the question,

Rather feeling your body until the deepest cell of your body.

Mostly I feel my breath and I'm without thoughts.

Here the meditator is demonstrating that yes,

There is awareness also turning inwards.

The awareness is finally turning inwards,

Exploring the body,

Exploring the breath,

Exploring the mind,

Exploring the self.

What is this inner space?

So this turn is towards the self.

Then after this third stage,

Then comes the fourth stage which is exploring the no-self,

The awareness turning towards no-self.

This is something which has to be understood very very carefully because it is a very delicate topic.

When your awareness is towards yourself,

Everything is turned towards you,

All your awareness is towards you.

There is also something which is the absence of you,

The no-self.

So just like in a photographic film,

You have an object in the film and if you take the negative of that film,

You have the absence of that object.

That fourth stage of awareness of no-self is like that negative of a photographic film where while you are aware of yourself,

Suddenly the question arises,

What if this self is not real,

What if I am not real?

Then this awareness turns to the no-self.

What is this no-self?

What is this emptiness all around?

Is the same emptiness in me?

What is there outside?

All these questions in this stage of development moving from unconsciousness all the way towards enlightenment towards full 100% consciousness being consciousness.

So this is the fourth and the fifth when your awareness is so expanded that it can contain the self,

It can contain the no-self.

Both it is aware of and at the same time it can discard the both.

It is considering the self,

It is considering the non-self and it is at the same time discarding both.

When you have this awareness where it is all-inclusive and all-exclusive at the same time,

If that awareness has reached to that dynamism,

To that spread that is beyond a plane,

Beyond a space,

Then there is only consciousness.

In words,

More cannot be said.

In words,

It is very difficult in rationals,

In the construct of words to grasp that,

But all of us are moving towards that consciousness.

The whole effort of these sessions,

The whole effort of this journey is to whatever we do,

Whatever discourse,

Whatever meditation technique,

The flow is from unconsciousness to consciousness towards enlightenment.

Let us hear what Bhairava has to say in Vigyan Bhairava Tantra,

In the vibration of Tantra,

How to do today's meditation technique,

Which is somewhat also related to this journey,

Especially of the step from self-awareness of the self to the awareness of the non-self and moving beyond.

The technique is,

Feel an object before you,

Feel the absence of all other objects but this one.

Then leaving aside the object feeling and the absence feeling,

Realize.

The first step is to feel an object before you,

Feel the absence of all other objects but this one.

So three steps in this technique,

The first step is that you bring awareness to one object,

You bring all your awareness to one object so that there is all energies,

All thoughts,

All emotions,

All your thinking process,

All your energies,

All your meditation is on one object.

And that object could be yourself.

You can try this technique with other objects as well,

Your breath,

You can even use an external object like a rose flower or a painting or a natural scenery,

Whatever you like.

But for this meditation,

We will use ourselves,

We will turn our awareness inwards towards ourselves so that there is only ourselves in our awareness.

That's step number one.

Step number two,

Shifting the awareness from the self to the absence of the self,

Towards the no-self,

Towards the sense that all the energies are focused on yourself and there is this emptiness,

There is this absence,

There is this no-self,

Shifting your focus,

Your awareness towards this no-self.

Then as a third step,

Then leaving aside the object feeling and the absence feeling.

Third step is you leave both the object that you had in focus and also this absence feeling.

So the object feeling and the absence feeling,

Both the self and the no-self,

They both have to be left,

Both have to be dropped,

Then you are in the ultimate.

Realize.

Let us practice this in our silence,

In our meditation for the next minutes.

Please close your eyes and take a posture that is comfortable for you.

With your body relaxed,

Your awareness turned inwards.

Take a drawing your attention,

Your feeling,

Your thoughts,

All your energy towards yourself.

This sense of self.

Feel yourself.

All your focus directing towards yourself.

All your focus directing towards yourself.

More deeper,

Stronger.

This feeling of the self.

This presence of yourself in this moment.

One pointed focus.

Making self-self.

Now,

Shift to the absence,

To whatever is in me.

Not yourself.

Awareness.

Feeling.

On no-self.

Everything that is not yourself.

Allowing the awareness,

The feeling to expand in no-self.

Allowing the awareness,

The feeling to expand in no-self.

Allowing the awareness,

The feeling to expand in no-self.

I am leaving.

I am leaving this feeling of no-self and of the self that both dissolve,

Disappear.

Drop both and simply stay silent.

I am leaving.

I am leaving.

Self in no-self.

Let both go.

Drop both.

I am leaving.

I am leaving.

And very gently and slowly bringing awareness back to the self,

To your body.

To your breath.

To whatever gives you this sense of self.

To open your eyes.

Maintaining this silence,

This awareness and this taste,

This experience of both the self,

The no-self and something beyond.

For those who are not yet a part of this Sangha,

Of this community,

Of this Sannyasa,

On this journey that we are taking together from our unconsciousness to our consciousness,

In whichever situation,

In whichever aspect of our life we are in,

If you wish to be a part of this group,

A part of this community,

You are more than welcome to join this community in the making,

In the formation.

If you are interested,

Please write me an email at hello at dhyansay.

Com with your introduction,

With your interest in the community,

With your wish,

What you would like to have from the community and what would you like to give back to the community.

Thank you very much.

Namaste.