AWARENESS

: Awareness is infinite and not bound by space, time, name, form, cause or effect. Awareness is beyond imagination and explanation.(achinthyam and anirvachaneeyam). Akhanda bodam is the expression of Awareness. While Awareness is the swaroopam, Akhandabodam is the swabhavam. Vedantins use the term Brahman and Akhandabodam for Awareness and Consciousness respectively.Once we talk about Brahman, we bring that AWARENESS to the level of consciousness because as already said AWARENESS is anirvachaneeyam. At the level of Consciousness only we have concepts – sankalpams.The first and foremost concept is ‘I’ which is personified as Ishwara. Next is ‘I am’ which is represented as prapancham. Then comes ‘I am so and so’ with name and form that is jeeva. In these three concepts – Ishwara, Prapancham and the jeeva we revolve. Other concepts like Maya, Gunas, kudastha, time and space, cause and effect are the off-shoots of the above three. To make it more clear let us take the analogy of Ocean. Water forms the ocean; on the surface of the ocean there are waves; again, there is individual wave. Water is the reality – AWARENESS- Ocean is Consciousness – Ishwara - ; waves seen on the surface represent Prapancham and the individual wave is jeeva. These concepts are explained in vedantic texts as ‘Bheeja jagrat’, ‘Jagrat’ and ‘Maha jagrat’. All these three concepts arise out of Maya (samashti agnanam).

We know for certain that we exist. This Existence and the Knowledge of it in the collective form (samashti) are known as Absolute Existence and Absolute Knowledge. The substratum for this Absolute knowledge and Absolute Existence is Akhanda bodam i.e., Consciousness (personified as Iswara). To make it more clear let us take the analogy of a bird. The bird-consciosness with its two wings Existence and Knowledge soars high to the infinite AWARENESS. (Garuda spreading its wings and carrying Vishnu is probably symbolic of this!) This idea should come to us when we see Vishnu on Garuda – Vishnu representing AWARENESS, Garuda representing Consciousness and its two wings representing Existence and Knowledge!

It is said that only a part of that Divine Infinitee is appearing as prapancham as sung in a suktham ‘Padosya Vishwaboodhani thripadasyamritham divi’. It is AWARENESS itself causing the appearance of the prapancham for the purpose best known to ITSELF. Everything is a kind of sports!

Two popular analogies to explain the prapancham are ‘snake and rope’ and ‘mirage and desert’. When we get the knowledge of the rope, the snake disappears. In the case of mirage and desert, the mirage continue to exist even after our gaining the knowledge of desert. Manifestation of Viswam is thus unreally real like the mirage and really unreal as the snake!

AWARENESS is explained (although unexplainable) in three stages – Imaginary, relative and absolute. In the imaginary stage, only the snake/mirage appears and we are disturbed/deceived by it. In the relative stage, we know the unreality of the mirage as well as the reality of the desert and so we are not disturbed or deceived by the apperance – superimposition of the mirage. In the absolute stage (it is not a stage actually) we are absorbed in AWARENESS. There is none to identify the rope or desert. We become one with that. Imaginary and relative truths are only ‘vivartham’ in Brahman (Absoulte Reality or Awareness )

When we remove the sankalpams from Consciousness it is pure AWARENESS. There is a saying : “sankalpanam parobandah: thatabhavo vimukthatha:” Manifestation, Expression, Appearance – all these are sankalpams only. AWARENESS IS that is the truth. When objectification ceases manifestation ceases. In the mahavakya “Tattwamasi” the Absolute truth is established in ‘Asi’ i.e. ISNESS. Both ‘tat and twam’ merge with ‘asi’. (In the inquiry “are you not the same Devadatta whom I had seen years back in Kashi?” the time and place and name and form are kept aside when once the ‘isness’ of the person is realised)

From the Relative stand point the manifestation can be attributed to Consciousness which itself is a reflection of AWARENESS. AWARENESS manifests out of sheer Bliss – as sung in Taithreeya Upanishad – “Anandam Brahma”. In Mandukya Upanishad the fourth quarter of OM is explained thua “That which does not perceive either internal objects or external objects, which is not a mass of perception, which is neither perception nor non-perception; that which cannot be seen, which cannot be described, which cannot be grasped; which has no special identity, which cannot be thought of ; which is the essence of AWARENESS ; that in which the prapancham ceases to exist; SHANTAM, SHIVAM, ADWAITHAM”