Without knowing ‘what mind is in actuality' how you can know the consciousness? Playing with words is not spirituality. The consciousness is the cause of the mind and it, it’Self’ is uncaused. Preaching teaching is not wisdom. only through perfect understanding and realization of ‘what is what' leads to the realization of the truth, which is hidden within the form, time, and space and it is without the form, time, and space.
The consciousness is not an object, but it’s the subject. Knowledge of both object and subject is ‘Self’-knowledge or Brahma Gnana or Atma Gnana.
The Soul is the innermost ‘Self’. ‘I’ is not the Soul. Holding 'I' as ‘Self’ is holding the falsehood as a reality. There is a need to know what is ‘I’ before indulging in pursuit of truth.
Dualist Sages including many sages and thinkers could not distinguish between ‘I’ and ‘’’Self’’’. They hold 'I' as the ‘‘Self’’. Their highest was the Jiva. They are so much attached to the 'I' that they do not want to think that 'I' does not exist. Again they are unable to detach the ‘I’ from the Real ‘‘Self’’.
The dualist object: - If everything else is false then the statement I am Brahman is it’Self’ false, the but when one says non-duality is false, there must be the awareness, the consciousness, behind the very statement. You will also go, die. One has to rely upon that which is permanent. The formless witness of the ‘I’ alone is permanent. Anything that one says is a witnessed (waking), but there is the formless witness (consciousness) there before any statement could be made.
They mean the body by “I", but it is the formless witness which is the real “‘Self’ ". Theists dualists did not, or could not analyze further than ‘I’ on this point because they thought the ‘I’ without the body as ‘Self’.
WHAT IS ‘I’?
The ‘I’ disappears as deep sleep, so what is the use of being attached to it? It is impermanent and illusory.
There is really no ‘I’. The ‘I’ is present in the form of mind. And the mind is in the form of the universe. The universe appears as the waking or dream. The ‘I’ or mind or universe or waking or dream dies disappears as deep sleep.
One that appears as ‘I’ or the mind or universe or waking or dream is nothing but the consciousness and it disappears as deep sleep is also consciousness. In deep sleep, it is in its formless nondual true nature. The one, which witnesses the coming and going, of the three states, is also the consciousness. Thus, the witness and the witnessed are one, in essence.
Thus, the universe is a reality on the base of the ego. You are the ego. Ego is the false ‘Self’ within the false experience (waking).
The universe is unreal on the base of the Soul, the innermost ‘Self’. The Soul is present in the form of the consciousness. The seeker gradually will grasp and realize the unreal nature of the universe (‘I’ or mind).
Individuality is illusory because the ‘Self’ is not an individual because ‘Self’ is formless and it pervades in everything and everywhere in all the three states. .
Dualist Sages have written big volumes about the soul. Yet they are quite ignorant of the fact that the ‘I’ about which they write itself’ comes and goes and has no permanent existence, is only an idea after all.
What is it that appears as the ‘I’ and disappears as the ‘I-less? It is the Soul, which is present in the form of the consciousness.
Do not make the mistake of holding the ‘I’ as the Self because it is not permanent. ‘I’ disappears and becomes ‘I’-less.
‘I’ is an illusion and the ‘I-LESS’ is real and eternal. The ‘I-LESS ‘appears as ‘I’ and ‘I ’‘disappears as I-LESS.
Bhagavad Gita: ~ The permanent is always there, only the transient ‘I’ comes and goes. (2.18)
The ‘I’ hides the truth of the whole.
The earliest ancient sages used the word ‘I’ to the witness of the three states not to the ego as moderns use it and think the ‘I’ without the body is the Self. The seeker has to understand the fact that the fact that ‘I’ is not the Self, but the witness of the ‘I’ is the true Self, which is eternal.
That is why Ashtavakra Gita 16:10:~ If you desire liberation, but you still say "I," If you feel the ‘Self’ is the ‘I’, You are not a wise man or a seeker. You are simply a man who suffers.
