Why Stay in the Ego?
We’ll continue with Thus Spake Ramana. We have arrived at number 86, and here Ramana goes very deeply into the core of the essential issue.
“What is Atma Sakshatkara?”
OK, does everyone know? Do you know what the word means?
Atma you know, right? Sakshatkara is translated as realization, so it is the term for Self-Realization. When we read that in translation, this is the term in Sanskrit, Atma Sakshatkara. But Ramana’s asking what is Atma Sakshatkara really?
“You are the Atma, the Self, and that is Sakshat.”
Now, what does Sakshat actually mean etymologically? Ramana says it means here and now. Here and now. In other words, Realization equals immediacy. OK? This is the key point: immediacy. And this is the secret as to why Sakshatkara cannot be attained. You cannot attain immediacy. Any effort you make to attain Self-Realization takes you away from it because you are always already in immediacy. But as soon as the mind has any impulse at all, you have lost the Sakshatkara. So we are constantly actually in it, and we’re losing it through every thought, every impulse, every emotion—everything that takes us away from immediacy.
So the question is not how do we gain Self-Realization, but how do we stop losing it? Because it is our default position, our automatic state. When there’s no fault there is the default, and the default is the blissful Self. But who stays in immediacy (because of mental chatter)?
So Ramana says:
“Where is the place for kara then?”
There’s Sakshat, but kara? Kara means a doing, right? Karma comes from this. So:
“You cannot accomplish Atma Sakshatkara. This very question of how you accomplish it shows that you think you are not the Self, you think you have to do something to reach the Self.”
That’s the illusion: the belief that you’re not the Self, the Godself, the ultimate Absolute Reality—that belief is the problem.
“Or you think there are two selves, one to realize the other. In either case,” Ramana says “it is absurd.”
So the problem with consciousness is it is not immediate when there is language being emitted in the mind. And when that language is in the imaginary register, the consciousness will believe that it is its self-image, which is its body form, acting in a world of images—that’s the imaginary register. Now by images we mean all of the five senses that produces images, not just visual images. But there are sonic images, images of smell, of taste, of touch, all the senses—that is what produces the illusion of a world. If you believe you are a bodily being in a world you are in the imaginary register, and you cannot be in the state of immediacy.
So that belief has to be given up because that mediates your experience. It takes you away from the here and now. And the here and now is beyond time and beyond space. It takes you into the eternal realization of the uncreated Self. But as soon as there is identification as a body in a world, you’re in an imaginary fantasy production and the mind will continue, then, to produce narratives about your fate in the world, or your desire: “What do I want? What do I need? What do I want to get away from?” But the mind is always in a state of chaotic attempts to improve its position on its little chess board of belief about how it can maximize pleasure and minimize pain, etc., etc.
All of that takes you away from Self-Realization. Now if one rises into the symbolic level of consciousness, then the mind will produce thoughts that will recognize that you’re in a dreamfield, and that the character that you thought you’ve been playing in the dream is not really you, and you’ll be able to attain neutrality toward your own character and all the other characters, because in the symbolic level, or soul-consciousness, you’ll realize that all the characters are aspects of yourself, and whatever is happening is somehow a message to get something that will awaken you to the illusions that you are still under in the dream.
So the symbolic is the way of getting out of the imaginary, but then you’ve got to get out of the symbolic, because you have to wake up from that dream as well, in order to be in the here and now. And if you don’t wake up from that then there will never be liberation, bliss, freedom from the wheel. The symbolic register is not stable because it is a response and a balancing, a counter-balancing of the imaginary. But once the imaginary has been recognized for the illusory nature of its own activity and its own conceptualizations, then the symbolic level beyond the concepts can take one to the Real, and then the mind can reach silence, and open up to the infinite intelligence of the Real. OK?
Audio File: Why Stay in the Ego? – Audio File.MP3
This Post Has 2 Comments
Carol Livezey
11 Aug 2021Thank You Shunyamurti for your teaching. Is there a marker for when we KNOW our ego is dissolving??? I am grateful for all you give to us.
Vajra Sat Yoga
16 Aug 2021Dear Carol,
Thanks for your question and for your lovely offering of gratitude to Shunyamurti. We forward all questions and comments, but he is not always able to reply due to his intensive schedule. However, please know that he will receive this message. And we hope you will join with us for our next livestream retreat where you will have the opportunity to ask your question live. In the meantime, we send you much peace and many blessings, and offer gratitude in return.
Namaste.