This is a continuation of our class discussion into the spiritual text called ‘Drg Drshya Viveka ‘ by Swami Vidyaranya. The title of this piece indicates the answer to the question ‘Are you the Seer or the seen?’ The self is always the Seer , in fact it is the only Seer. Everything else in this world including this body, thoughts ,emotions is all the Seen .
Student No4:
I will start with analogy. Me being a software professional, when I want to fix a problem sometimes we go ahead and dig into the code without knowing how the code is written. This makes it hard for me to fix the problem. But knowing what is inside and knowing the connections makes it easier for me to fix the problem.
This text I have attended all classes except 1 helped me clarify first of all how things are connected.
Verse no 6:
चिच्छायाऽऽवेशतो बुद्धौ भानं धीस्तु द्विधा स्थिता । एकाहङ्कृतिरन्या स्यादन्तःकरणरूपिणी ॥ ६॥
This verse segregates the pieces and tells me what is inside me. It talks about Reflected Consciousness, antak karana and ahankara. And how consciousness is staying away from all this.
It also helps me understand, when the consciousness hits the intellect and you have reflected Consciousness. Aunty you used the the classic example of mirror. My reflection is there in the mirror and I am falsely saying that reflections is me. This text helped me understand that this is the problem . Now we know the problem . we need the solution. We can fix this problem by removing ignorance. The ego is falsely identified with consciousness and slowly and steadily uncovering ourselves with the knowledge . And then knowing that I am not the reflection in the mirror , I am who I am standing right here.
Student No 5:
There are 2 things
How is this study helping me:
I am a little thin skinned, Praise doesn’t affect me , but if somebody criticizes me, I will feel hurt . After reading this text, what I have started doing is I separate myself from my thoughts and I see myself as the Saakshi and I see the thoughts in my mind. I know that its only a thought. I as a Saakshi try to witness my thoughts and this helps put things in perspective.
The next things i want to discuss Maya.
Maya has been a fascinating word for me. I was very young and I did not the word, but often I would wonder what if this was all a dream . Now that we are learning about this in shloka 13 and 14, where they talk abt maya. whatever we are perceiving in this world, from gross to subtle is because of maya.
शक्तिद्वयं हि मायाया विक्षेपावृतिरूपकम् । विक्षेपशक्तिर्लिङ्गादि ब्रह्माण्डान्तं जगत् सृजेत् ॥ १३॥
Here in the shloka they talk about 2 powers that maya has, veling and projection. The power of projection is why we are seeing everything in this world and avarana shakti hides our true nature of sat chit ananda and we start identifying with our body, thoughts, emotions etc. Aunty, you gave us the the example of the movie screen where all the action takes place, but when the movie is turned off, screen alone exists. Similarly everything we see is unreal except for consciousness. Its like the the world is changing against this substratum that is not changing.
Student No6:
Few yrs back I accidently started listening to Swami Sarvapriyananda ji’s Drk Drishya Viveka lecture, I did not know much abt it, it was fascinating to go thru the exercise of eyes, seer , etc.I listened to it bit but never really understood. Then I did the Self Unfoldment class and through that learnt abt the 5 koshas and the 3 states of waking etc and started understanding more abt the philosophy and semantics. What struck me is from shl 1 onwards its a very logical approach , where the eyes are seeing , the scene is changing, the eyes are not changing. one level subtler, mind is seeing eyes are changing . Mind is not changing. The next level is subtler and you are witnessing that the Saakshi, the self is the seer and the Saakshi is never the seen. We know all this then, why are we not realized souls ? That is because we continue to identify ourselves with this body which is called the Taadatmyam which covers the truth that we are sat chit annanda. The avarana shakti it covers the truth and we are not able to see the actual truth . It sets up the relationship between the Sakshi and this body. With respect to the saakshi the body is inert . How does it become sentient? Reflected Conschiousness makes it enliven the body. The example of the iron ball which is cold and black, but in the presence of fire it becomes red and hot. It appears like one object but it is not but because of the fire it looks like it is . One gets superimposed on the other.
छायाऽहङ्कारयोरैक्यं तप्तायःपिण्डवन्मतम् । तदहङ्कारतादात्म्याद्देहश्चेतनतामगात् ॥ ७॥
How does it help me in daily life?
we do everything for this gross body ,That attachment that you have to be a certain way, you have to protect it, that extreme attachment goes away. In a difficult situation happy or sad you become the Saakshi. It gives you perspective to put yourself out of the situation, Its a powerful exercise, which helps you deal with sorrows, anger , and even happiness. I cannot use the technical words but from my level this is where I am .
Student no 7:
We are in South Africa.
I just want tell you some of my findings my self.
- We we’re going to safari rides since three days, before taking Vedanta courses I used to think all the animals are different than me, now every animal I see they are just like me, reflected consciousness and I was smiling at them
- The driver tells us to see both sides roads, if we see any animals he will stop, I was seeing some dry wood or rocks I saw as animals then I realised that whatever I want see my mind seeing . Whatever we want see in the world we see that.
- There was two Lions one killed Impala and eating other one was protecting. Before I use to think it was sin to kill, now Lion have to eat to survive it is doing his dharma. If lion kills for no reason then it is adharma. One other thing I thought lion is not killing Athma just the body.