ISJS Transactions 2018 07 To 09 Vol 02 No 03

Author(s): International School for Jain Studies
Publisher: International School for Jain Studies

Page 54

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unmanifest awareness which is the Self. Once in the Self, "I Am", "attention" and "other" remain, but the awareness that permeates them has become Self-aware. Later "I am, attention and other" become seen as spanda, which is the technical term for vibrating, manifesting sakti. Then one abides in the Self."
The meaning is that when you are no longer in pure awareness, simultaneously your attention is occupied with fluctuations and you become identified with this and "I am" sets in. The fluctuations are of course "other", but as soon as you have "attention" and "other", "I am" pops up and you identify either with the fluctuations of the mind or with the attention beholding the fluctuations. Otherwise one merges with the fluctuations."
When one meditates and his mind is full of thoughts, gradually his involvement with the thoughts subsides and suddenly he is in pure awareness. Once he is in pure awareness it does not matter if there are thoughts in the mind or not, because he is entirely out of them. Some samādhis have thoughts, some don't, but in both you are not involved with either of the three: "I am", "attention" or "other". If one stay in that state of samādhi one of two things may happen:1) Fluctuations of the mind go away, 2) Fluctuations of the mind go berserk. In either case it is his job to remain uninvolved with the fluctuations. One should stay in pure awareness and remain self-aware pure awareness. If we can remain there, everything is fine. if we cannot, however, then the fourth verse of the first chapter of Patanjala Yogasūtra becomes true and we get so caught up in the fluctuations that we lose the sense of pure selfaware awareness. Once awareness is no longer aware of itself, attention sets in relation to fluctuations of the mind (other), and you get either caught up in the fluctuations as an observing ego (I am), or one get identified with the fluctuations and actually believe he is in that moment are some thought or feeling (also I am).
So, we can say that ignorance is misery and that it can be warded off by ceasing to identify with impulses and actions as well as with fluctuations in the mind. That's why Patañjali first explains that 'to the wise man life is misery', then he states that the misery which is not yet come is to be avoided." What is interesting here is that the cause of misery and the means to ward off misery are the same as the cause of ignorance and the means to ward off ignorance. The cause of that which is to be warded off is the identification of the seer and the seen."
Shrimad Rajchandra says same thing in his famous work Ātmasiddhi. He says, "That which causes bondage is the path to bondage and that which causes liberation is the path to liberation. The soul's state in which the causes of bondage are destroyed is the path of liberation and so it leads to the end of the soul's cycle of birth and death." Jainism clearly declares that the chief cause of soul's bondage is the soul's feeling of oneness with its actions. Actions of the past life may fructify in the present life but if the soul develops attachment to them it gets further involved in the cycle of birth and death. If the soul develops non-attachment and equanimity or indifferent to them the knots of actions get gradually loose and it is freed from them. It is also freed from fresh actions as it is nonattached to all that is the not-self. Shrimad Rajchandra mentions same thing in the next verse of Atmasiddhi: "The fundamental knots of bondage and action are three-attachment, aversion and ignorance. That by which these knots can be loosened and destroyed is the path of liberation."-48
Describing the kaivalya, Patañjali says that there being absence of ignorance there is absence of junction, which is the thing to be avoided; that is the kaivalya of the seer." Kaivalva