Seeker of truth has to realize the fact that, when one cannot see into a man’s mind he can only say he cannot accept that there is a multiplicity of minds, he can only see his physical moments but not his mind moving. Hence one can neither accept nor deny the theory of multiple individual souls. It is unproven hypothesis. To say that each mind is different is unproved, because no one has ever seen the mind. One cannot say where it starts and stops; no one ever measured its thickness, no one is aware of its location. All is supposition, not proof.
There are two factors--the experiencing capacity and that which is experience. The experiences are all passing away and are therefore unreal. Without the knowing capacity i.e. the experiencer in existence, there could have been no such thing experience. What is meant by word experience? Experiencing implies two factors, the experiencer or the experiencing capacity, or that which is aware; and the experience. Without these two factors one cannot use the word experience. One finds the experience always passes away.
Waking/dream are mere is only a seen/objects, no matter how exalted it be. Waking/dream never touches the formless witness, but formless witness remains always in the seen as its formless substance. It is erroneous to believe that the more one thinks, the more he will get. Thought remains as a thought and gives you back only a thought not truth. One has to become aware of the fact the thoughts arise only within the waking/dream. Thus one has to trace the source of the three states not the source of the thought to unfold the mystery of the duality.
One can only know an experience when one discriminate between it and the state of mind when it was nonexistent just as he knows a black by its contrast to white.
The only certain thing about the waking is that it is forever changing; it changes into deep sleep and deep sleep changes in to dream, no one can prevent this change it is happening on its own accord. In contrast to the three states the self/ witness of the three states is the only thing of whose unchanging character one can be certain. Through the self/ witness one becomes aware about all the changes in consciousness, remaining itself relatively constant, as a standard of reference for them.
The term witness, Seer, Self is used in a non-dual sense, without reference to the three states witnessed, absolute awareness, not relative.
Experience is present in feeling. Mind is an experience. Feeling is a kind of experience. Experiences, feelings, will are all modifications, nothing more. Even if it is of God, it is still in the feeling.
Birth, life and death and appearing and disappearing apply to waking/dream. Therefore birthlessness is the characteristic of the witness of the three states.
If by consciousness one means awareness of the experience of duality, i.e. when waking/dream are present. Unconsciousness means the absence of duality, not the absence of the capacity to know; unconsciousness does not mean the nonexistence of that which disappears from consciousness, it merely means that mind has ceased its functioning.
Finally there must be a kind of awareness which one do not understand and which is still existent when the waking/dream experiences are absent.
Analyzing between the formless witness and the three states gives the seeker a key to analyzing all statements, all revelations, all assertions, and all gods even. It tells one that anything that can be made known by the formless witness is but an idea; or illusion, mirage never reality and helps him to bifurcate mentally and realize what is real, and what is unreal.
As long as a person clings to the belief in causality, he will find cause producing effect. But when this attachment to causality wears away, cause and effect become non-existent.
Consciousness usually means a duality, something to be conscious of is implied. Therefore it is an unsuitable word to indicate the pure objectless awareness which exists prior to thought. The ego, the individual self is not the self, which is the Witness because it often disappears even during waking as in reverie when one is lost in the art and music.
v Does consciousness mean a duality; knowledge, knower and known? Does consciousness mean that which is capable of knowing, non dual wisdom? Is one conscious of anything in deep sleep?
One is conscious of it only when he is in the waking experience. Consciousness there may be with or without waking/dream experiences.
The Idea of an object does not prove the object exists. Ego is only an Idea within the waking/dream. The ego/body/world exists together and disappears together along with waking/dream. When one thinks of the "ego" alone he is in the grip of duality. The formless witness knows the appearance and disappearance of the waking/dream as a whole, not ego alone.
Trying to overcome the ego alone is impossible. One has to get rid of experience of duality, by mentally focusing the attention on the formless witness of the three states. The witnessed [three states] appears and disappears; the formless witness is never known to be appearing and disappearing. That which appears and disappears is not the permanent.
People think negating means negating the objects and they think that it is impossible to negate objects. “They are thinking negating the objects as a person within the waking experience. It is not so, it is the negating the three states, on the base of the formless witness/soul.
Since the three states are made of the same essence, they are non-different, but appear to change. The three states are of the same essence as soul/consciousness, is non-different from it but appears to change and be different from it.
One cannot say how the waking /dream have appeared; only that they are and they are in the mind and are the mind. When mind is there they are present. Absent of mind, absent of waking/dream.
True Self is not this body, nor this world; true self is the seer of both. The body may be moving within the world in waking/dream, but the true self/soul seeing the changes. The body is born and lives within the waking/dream but true self/soul remain the witness of these changes. True self/soul is the Witness, the Awareness.
Seeker of truth should not imprison himself in his own creation by imagining the mind/’I’ to be limited to the physical body. Just as space fills both inside and outside of bottle, so the true self /soul permeates the whole waking/dream.
One can't see the three states independently without the true self/soul. "Time, Space and Causation" are mental and present only in waking/dream. The essence of the three states themselves is Atman alone.
Mysticism encourages people to be lazy, to think the external objects are created by Iswara and internal objects created by Jiva. Both Iswara and Jiva are man’s creation. Seeker of truth should not waste his time in talks of Jiva and Iswara disputes; rather inquire into the nature of Ataman.
There is no such thing as knowing the knower. That knowledge implies two factors, and the knower [soul/self] not being something to be seen, can never be known as such.
When one speaks of relation, one deals only with the known world within the waking/dream. When the known [waking/dream] goes, he says that because he actually sees the known [waking/dream] going; but he can never see the knower go. He can only say "he does not know" about it. One cannot speak of the known [three states] without the formless knower. But when the known [three states] has vanished, there is nothing to be said about the knower.
The act of conceiving in thought demands two factors. One cannot conceive the Formless Witness, the seer or knower, because he can say nothing about it, without making it an object. It cannot be pulled down to the level of an object, the seen.
The duality of formless witness and the seen[three states] is not the same as the duality of two things in the objective world within the waking/dream, for here both are known and seen, whereas there one is known; the formless witness remaining unknown and all one can say of it is "he cannot make any statement about it. It is incomprehensible.
“If formless witness disappears, as does the three states then one must posit another seer to replace it; but in fact no one has ever seen its disappearance. One never uses the word formless witness without the three states. It has no meaning apart from it.
Self is not a thing unknown to any one at any time. Let a man think. As soon as waking experience comes, there must be a knower there before in order to know that he is in waking experience.
The formless witness exists before the waking appears or the thing is seen; otherwise neither knowledge nor sensation could happen. The formless witness is always there. Even if one say it can be reached only at the end of a long path, it is impossible for it to be ever absent even while he says this.
The knower alone makes it possible for one to know anything at all. “Though, thus quite self-evident, easily known, quite near, forming the self, Ataman appears, to the unenlightened mind as unknown, very remote, as though he were a separate thing. Those who do not look at the seer, the witness, and perceive it is the only thing that neither comes nor goes, are deluded, and turn outward towards things objective, which run away.
So long as one is ego bound he only runs from one object to another, from one idea to another, impermanent and unreal, he ignores the Atman and is ignorant. There is no time for them to think about the formless witness, since they are engrossed in their god, belief and their own accepted truth or materialistic life.
Soul in illusion is called mind! When illusion ceases, it sinks back and is only itself/soul. The essence, the substance or material of the three states it is then called Atman/soul, the true Self, and the Seer.
