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Understand that experiences belong to and are created by the mind. In the mind level no thought is an addition, no thought is really an emergence or an extinction. It is all a play of the mind. Mind is unlike matter and energy. Being consciousness or sentience, it has got the inscrutable power of putting up any kind of projection, display or manifestation.

Understanding experience

Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru. Jai Guru. All our experiences are in the level of the mind. All of you will agree with it. While sleeping our body moves left and right. We are unaware of it. Any experience, by its very nature, is not physical, not an object. The world consists of two constituents – matter and energy – neither of which possess the power or potential to experience. Our body is made up of matter and energy. How can the inert body experience anything?

That we have a body is itself an experience. Experience by its very nature is beyond the ken of matter and energy. Just as we say ‘I have a body’, we also say ‘there is a world’. Both the body and the world are experienced by the mind.

A product of the mind cannot be physical! Since birth, so many thoughts you have had. Can you extract a thought and show it to me? All that we perceive in the world is to be judged on this fundamental factor.

What is the reality, then?

About such a situation, our Rishis say:

न निरोधो न चोत्पत्तिर्न बद्धो न च साधकः ।
न मुमुक्षुर्न वै मुक्त इत्येषा परमार्थता ॥

Gaudapada on Māṇḍūkya Kārika 2.32

There is no dissolution, no birth, none in bondage, none aspiring for wisdom, no seeker of liberation and none liberated. This is the absolute truth.

This śloka appears in Ātmopanishad (verse 31) as well as in Gaudapada’s Kārika for Māṇḍūkyopanishad. It throws light on the relevance and reality of a number of plural things. Nirodhaḥ (dissolution), utpattiḥ (birth), baddhaḥ (one in bondage), sādhakaḥ (one who pursues), mumukṣuḥ (seeker of liberation), muktaḥ (the liberated) – all these are mentioned. The question is: are these factually found? Are they really there? What is the status of these?

Mind alone is there

Nirodha means dissolution or pralaya. The word ‘dissolution’ primarily denotes a certain idea related to the world. An idea is a unit of knowledge. Only the mind has evolved it. In other words, it is the mind that formulates and expresses it. It is a mental notion. The same is true about utpattiḥ, baddhaḥ etc.

Any idea or concept of the mind does not have an independent existence. The idea is co-existential with the mind. Besides the mind it has no separate existence, like waves in water.

No wave is there besides the ocean. No bubble is there, besides the ocean, and the ocean is nothing but water.

Understand that experiences belong to and are created by the mind. In the mind level no thought is an addition, no thought is really an emergence or an extinction. It is all a play of the mind. Mind is unlike matter and energy. Being consciousness or sentience, it has got the inscrutable power of putting up any kind of projection, display or manifestation. It manifests wakefulness, sleep and dream. Dream is an internal creation. Wakefulness is seemingly an external one, and sleep is an inward one. All these are expressions or manifestations of the mind.

Are objects real?

The mind never undergoes any change whatsoever in producing a thought. If the thoughts are mind’s own display, which cannot have any material or gross or objective ground, are they not reducing themselves to nothing? This is the meaning of this wonderful verse. You must do vichara (truthful introspection) and probe into your own mind! Find that mind is supra-material and it does not require a place, like any other object, to be. It is itself present. Where it is present – we cannot say. Not being a physical entity, the Consciousness is not in space and time!

In the mind we have letters, figures, phrases, images. All these are only seemingly there. They cannot be really there! So many thoughts evolve from the mind. Suppose the mind was somewhat like a physical entity with weight of one thousand tonnes; and let us assume that from this ‘substance’ are derived thoughts and ideas. With millions of thoughts and ideas evolving continuously and then disappearing – the substance must have got reduced – to something like 900 tonnes! But it never happens like that – mind remains as ever!

I think there is a basic difficulty with the people. They are not able to think and understand that experience is not in the body-level. It is not in the matter-energy level. It can only be in the sentience; and sentience is non-matter, it is supra-matter. It does not swell, it does not increase. It has got inscrutable power to give you any kind of a notion.

So, all these are notions of the mind and as notions, they have no existence separate from and apart from the mind. What more?

Nothing is ever born

न कश्चिज्जायते जीवः संभवोऽस्य न विद्यते ।
एतत्तदुत्तमं सत्यं यत्र किंचिन्न जायते ॥

Māṇḍūkya Kārika 3.48

Never is a jīva born; nor does birth of this world ever take place. This is the best and the most supreme truth – reality in which nothing is ever found to be born.

Janma means something new. It is birth, like an addition. Addition never takes place in reality. Understanding and realizing this is the pinnacle of advaita. Na kaścit jāyate jīvo – Jīva is not a fact. It is an idea. As an idea it has got no existence separate from the mind. No idea born can be separate and remain forever. Similarly the birth of the universe is another idea. That is also not separate from the mind. Na baddho – nobody is bound. Bondage is just another idea. Na ca sādhakaḥ – the seeker and the striving soul is another idea. There is no seeker of liberation and none liberated! This is the ultimate!

Know and become free

So, the right enlightenment is one where you understand that all these are only notional. The notion producer, Consciousness alone is. Hence all the notions are unfactual, not separate, not concrete, not objective; not at all there.

With this knowledge, the mind becomes free. It becomes absolutely relaxed knowing that there is nothing like bondage ever in reality.

Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru. Jai Guru.

Vicharasethu Feb 2025