Elusive Consciousness

Author(s): Narendra Bhandari, Surendrasingh Pokharana, Jitendra B Shah
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 15

Although self is transcendental, ever-existing, self-revealing and blissful, due to nescience and due to socialization process, self mistakenly identifies itself with the body(gross), mind(subtle) or with the world of objects and experiences pleasures and pains. When self is thus identified with non-self, it is called an "empirical self". When self identifies with particular physical body, he assumes name and form as his empirical identity. Ego is the basis of one's empirical identity. It is this empirical self which carries out entire range of activities and experiences resultant pleasures and pains through three states of consciousness, namely, Waking (Jagrata), Dreaming (Svapna) and Deep Sleep (Susupti). The fourth state of consciousness as described in Indian psychology is the state of transcendence (Turiya) in which self is experienced as it is without its mistaken identification with non-self. Mandukya Upanishad describes four states of consciousness in detail.
Self as basis of conscious Cognitions & Emotions:
According to Indian psychology, it is the self which makes each phenomenological experience a subjective conscious experience. All cognitions and perceptions are converted into conscious, subjective experiences due to mistaken identification of self with non-self, i.e. due to ego. Similarly, all our pleasures are also due to blissful nature of self. In other words, Just as the consciousness aspect of self is the fundamental basis of all our cognitions, the bliss aspect of self is the fundamental basis of all our enjoyments. According to Indian psychology, whatever happiness we experience in day-to-day life is due the blissful nature of self only, there is no happiness in outside world or in body or in mind. The ultimate source of happiness is the blissful nature of self. When the blissful self identifies with the objects, or with body and mind, we experience happiness. Brhadaranyaka Upanishad also says that whatever happiness the person experiences from any source, is due to the blissful nature of self only. (Br.Up. 2.5.1)
Just as the dog, trying to eat the hard bone, bleeds from his own mouth and then relishes the taste of the blood stuck on the bone, which is nothing but his own excretion, similarly, it is the self only, which through its essential quality of bliss, imparts happiness to worldly objects. Upanishad says that there is no bliss in anything finite, and self, being infinite or imperishable, is blissful
Although bliss is the essential quality of the self, it is not experienced all the time because it is covered by ignorance. So, just as darkness shows absence of light, the experience of pain is veiling of the blissful nature of self due to ignorance.