Enlightened Vision of the Self

Author(s): Akalankadev, Devendra K Goyal
Publisher: Radiant Publishers New Delhi

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THE ENLIGHTENED VISION OF THE SELF
pure consciousness and Being which is one of revealing and the revealed. There can be no consciousness which is not of the nature of revealing and there can be no revealing without a content to be revealed. The revealing and the revealed (pure consciousness and Being) are thus integrally related in the revealment of Being in pure consciousness. In this relation, pure consciousness is the locus of experiencing, and the plentitude of Being forms the content of experiencing, however transitorily it may be. Without either of them, the experiencing or revealment of Being which occurs in pure consciousness will be inexplicable and therefore both may be said to exist in integral unity. In this relation of integral unity, pure consciousness experiences Being as the ground of its own being, and this relation is not dualistic since pure consciousness does not experience Being as divided from it.83... there is complete absence of duality of any kind in this highest state of pure 'objectless transcendent subjectivity. Duality however sets in with the descent of pure consciousness to the state of observing the mental states without involvement. Since this duality is free from any egoistic attachment or conflict, the 'transcendent subjectivity of pure consciousness, however, remains unaffected in this state in spite of duality and not being objectless'.84
In the worldly existence full of treachery, deceit, hatred, violence, imperfection, ignorance, frustration, suffering, ungratefulriess and the transitoriness of name, fame, possessions, riches and relations, etc., there comes a time when the nothingness, meaninglessness or worthlessness of all of them is disclosed in a dread or anxiety. The consciousness, then, undergoes serious devaluation and ceases to evoke any feeling, interest or desire in consciousness; in the absence of all its reaction, ideas, desires or emotions, consciousness experiences a void or ‘emptiness' in itself. But "if consciousness faces dread and lives with the presence of nothingness in its own being, there comes about the possibility of revealment of Being in the ‘overtness' of its own being;"85 for consciousness is imbued with the characteristic of saparpazasam (scaparaprakasham in Sanskrit), i.e. illuminating not only other objects but also illumining or revealing itself to itself (i.e. soul) 86 and therefore retains that characteristic in both its poises, intentional