An enquiry — Where is Ego?
Note: This post is for serious spiritual seekers. It can be used as a vedantic meditation or nidhidhyasan. A prior reading of the post Jiva and Brahman would help those who are not very familiar with the Vedantic concept of Jiva and Brahman.
This post is a recount of sage Uddalaka’s contemplation as mentioned in Yoga Vasistha, where he enquires into the existence of ego and its relationship with the Self or Consciousness. This is a powerful self-enquiry which can be read and contemplated upon during meditation practice.
In the great mountain known as Gandhamadana, once lived a sage known as Uddalaka. Even when Uddalaka was a young boy he aspired to attain supreme wisdom through his own effort. As a young boy he had little understanding and had a restless mind. He however engaged himself in austerities, study of scriptures and other practices to attain the highest wisdom.
While sitting alone one day, the sage reflected thus:
What is liberation, which is said to be the foremost among the objects to be attained, upon attaining which one does not experience sorrow and is not born again? When shall I rest permanently in that state? When will the mental agitations caused by desires and cravings cease? When will I be freed from thoughts like, ‘This I have done’, ‘This I shall do’? When will my mind cease to undergo perversities though living in relationship here, even as the lotus lying on water is not tainted by it? When will my mind attain utter quiescence?
Thus reflecting, sage Uddalaka continued his practice of meditation, and concentrated his attention on the latent tendencies in the mind.
Rejecting the mind
Uddalaka reflected, O’mind, what have you to do with this world appearance? Wise men do not come into contact with what is called pleasure, which turns into pain later on. He who abandons the supreme peace that lies within and goes in search of sense pleasure, abandons a delightful garden and goes into a bush of poisonous herbs. You may go wherever you like but you will never taste supreme peace except through perfect quiescence. Hence abandon all hopes and desires, for all these seemingly wondrous objects of nature either of being or non-being, are not meant for your happiness.
Do not perish like the deer which is trapped by the sound of music and bells, nor like the male elephant which is trapped with the help of female elephant, nor like the fish whose sense of taste leads it to its death on the hook, nor like the moth which is attracted by the sight of a flame and perishes in it, nor like the bee whose sense of smell leads it to the slower, trapped in which it is destroyed when the flower folds up for the night.
O foolish mind, all these perish being subject to just one sense craving (the deer by the sense of hearing, the bee by the sense of smell, the moth by the sense of sight, the elephant by the sense of touch and the fish by the sense of taste). But you are a victim to all the five temptations; how can you have happiness? Just as the silkworm spins its cocoon and gets caught in it, you have woven the web of your own concepts and are caught in it. If you cling to this ever changing phenomenon called the world, you will surely perish in sorrow.
O mind, I am the egoless infinite and homogenous consciousness; I have nothing to do with you who are the cause of the ego.
Questioning the existence of Ego
The infinite self cannot possibly be squeezed into the mind. The consciousness that, through the process of self limitation, is confined to finitude is known as the mind (Reflected Consciousness). This is the result of ignorance and hence I do not accept this. I have carefully investigated, I have observed everything from the tip of my toes to the top of my head, and I have not found anything of which I could say, ‘This I am’, Who is “I” ? I am all pervading consciousness which is itself not an object of knowledge or knowing and is free from self-hood.
In this body in which there is flesh, blood, bone etc., who says ‘This I am’? Motion is the nature of energy, thinking is inherent in mind, old age and death are natural to the body — who says ‘This I am’? This is the tongue, these are ears, this is nose, and these are eyes — who says ‘This I am’? I am none of these; nor am I you, O mind, nor these concepts. I am but the infinite consciousness, pure and independent. ‘I am all this’, or ‘There is no I’ are both expressions of the same truth; nothing else.
Even as the cloud sitting on top of a hill does not belong to the hill, though I seem to be associated with sorrow, I am independent of it. In the absence of self knowledge there arose ego-sense; but now I am free of ego-sense. Let the body, the senses and so on be or perish — I have nothing to do with them. The senses exist in order to come into contact with their own objects for their own sake; who is I that is deluded into thinking ‘I see’. These eyes etc. see or experience their objects naturally, without being impelled to do so by previous conditioning. Hence if actions are performed spontaneously without mental conditioning, their experience will be pure and free from memories of past happiness or unhappiness. Hence, O senses, perform your functions without being hampered by memory. This memory or mental conditioning is not a fact in truth. It is not independent of the infinite consciousness. It can thus be easily dispelled by merely not reviving it in consciousness. Hence O mind, abandon the perception of diversity and realise the unreality of your own independence from the infinite consciousness. That is liberation.
The ego sense is a vain delusion, the mind is like a mirage and the objects of the world are inert substances. Who is it that says ‘I am’? The body is an aggregate of flesh, blood etc., the mind vanishes on enquiry into its nature. What is the ego? The senses exist and are engaged in self satisfying activity all the time, nature is nature and its qualities interact with one another (like sight and light, hearing and sound, etc.) and what is, rests in itself — where is the ego?
The Self, which is consciousness, exists as the supreme self of all, everywhere in all bodies at all times. Who am I, what am I made of, what is my form, made by whom? What shall I acquire and what shall I reject? There is nothing which can be called ‘I’ and which undergoes being and non-being. When there is no ego sense in truth, how can that ego-sense be related, and to whom? When thus it is realised that there is no relationship at all, then the false notion of duality vanishes. Thus, whatever there is, is one cosmic being (Brahman or the self).
There is no substantiality in any substance in truth, the self alone exists. Even if one assumes the substantiality to be real, there is no relationship between that and the self. The senses function as senses, the mind exists as mind, the consciousness is untouched by these — what is the relationship and how does it come into being. Just because they exist side by side it is not right to assume a relationship; a stone and an iron rod may lie side by side, totally unrelated to each other.
It is only when this false ego-sense has arisen that the perverse notions ‘This is mine’ and ‘That is his’ arise. And, when it is seen that all these are tricks of the false ego-sense, these unreal notions cease to be. There is in truth nothing else but the self; hence I realise that all this is one cosmic being or Brahman. The delusion known as the ego-sense is like the blueness of the sky; it is better not to entertain that notion, but to abandon it. After having abandoned the very root of ego-sense, I rest in the self which is of the nature of peace.
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