Elusive Self
The Non-Self Looking
Non-self observing the self: creeks, rivers chasms dark scales fall away
Looking for, looking at, the elusive self. Who is looking?
Who is moving and who is still?
Who morphs a million times a second into a blur of really-hard-to-grasp, and who takes it all in stride
Shankara agrees with the Upanishads: Atman is Brahman.
Atman is unconditioned. Brahman is unconditioned. The two are One.
The Buddha called this One: Emptiness — perhaps the Little Emptiness and the Big Emptiness, equally boundless, equally empty, equally each other.
The Buddha called Atman a Non-Self.
The Buddha defined what we think of as the self as: the Five Aggregates (form, feeling, perception, thought, consciousness — all in a neat, mobile bundle).
How, then, does the Atman, the Non-Self, get a good look at the blur of ingredients that constitute the oh so cherished and ego-dominated self?
How does he sharpen his discrimination, differentiation, discernment?
How does he slow down the rush of oncoming and receding nows that he might get a good, close look at a single instant?
To me, there is only meditation. The quiet room with eyes closed and thoughts stilled and gone. What’s left when all else has departed is that which never arrived in the first place and so cannot depart — Atman.
The first time I came across this concept, this relation between Brahman and Atman (it was in 1968, in southern Sweden) it rang a bell so clearly that I could not help but laugh: oh, how true!
I have walked many a road since, and the concept has faded in and out (mostly out) over the years but it never abandoned me (or I it). At ground zero, I always agreed, always knew, Atman is Brahman is Atman is Brahman is Atman, it could never be otherwise.
Recently, I’ve re-come across Shankara, that eighth century Indian genius who took it upon himself to shake Hinduism awake again and resurrect the truth of the Upanishads — hailing thought well above ritual once again. And here he comes, bearing gifts, telling me over and over and over: Atman is Brahman. Brahman is Atman. You are Atman. You are Brahman.
Atman is the non-self that does the looking and who understands what is sees, Brahman is the non-self that does the looking and who understands what it sees.
The relative, aggregate self, is simply so much local terrain: creeks, rivers, chasms, weather systems of jealousy and deserts of hunger, droplets of love and caverns of hatred — never a dull moment; the poisoned corner of Atman hanging on for dear life singing “me, me, me” while checking his new smartphone for text messages and recent selfies.
© Wolfstuff
