About Consciousness versus Awareness:
One of the characteristics of TM teachings has always been the conflation of two terms - consciousness and awareness. The result is that we liberally use the term “pure consciousness” or occasionally “pure awareness” in our tm-speak. These terms are ways that we conceptually identify a reality that is neither waking, dreaming or sleeping. Usually we call it “the forth state” or “transcendental consciousness”. Supposedly, this terminology describes an “experience” of “transcendental consciousness”. It is described as 1.) remaining “awake inside in a state where knower, knowing and known object are united”. Another way of describing it is 2.) “dissolving the process of experience into the experiencer –thus leaving the experiencer awake and alone within their own nature.” Based upon such descriptions, this terminology then attempts to translate and define two Sanskrit yoga terms 1.) “samprajñata-samâdhi” and 2.) “asamprajñata-samâdhi”. However, finding comparable words in English to translate these types of Sanskrit yoga terms is notoriously imprecise. Consequently, scholars have resorted to all kinds of substitutions – ranging from religious vocabulary to phenomenological terminology to try to establish the meaning of yogic ideas. We also find similar substitutions in the tm-speak displayed here on FFL. Along this line, something worth considering is the blind inter-operability of two words often seen here – consciousness and awareness. So - why should these words be problematic? By definition, the word Latin sourced English word “consciousness” means an “object-defined” attention - whether that object is material, sensory or mental. This word therefore signifies an attention that is not only object focused but also one that is inherently “objectified” by its own operations, functioning and nature. Thus the obvious question - what is a “pure consciousness” (i.e. consciousness without an object)? Is it the opposite of impure Consciousness? If indeed “impure consciousness” means attention to an object, then also any attention to a mantra is also “impure”. Even if the adjective “pure” is added to the word “consciousness” to signify a simple or unmixed consciousness, then still, by definition, it signifies a consciousness that is intentionally oriented, actively engaged and objectified. If the adjective “transcendental” is added to the word “consciousness” then we have merely redefined the word to imply a consciousness that is mystical or supernatural. However, by definition, consciousness always means “consciousness-of”. Thus the label “pure”, simply contrives itself into the term “pure consciousness” so that it seems to be a reality that is other or beyond our immediate experience. Contrary to this, the Sanskrit word “cit”, is the word usually translated as “consciousness”. This word in Sanskrit (cit) actually means “awareness”. “Cit” has the verbal root meaning of “to perceive” and “bright” – each furthering the sense of “naturally luminous” or “self-radiant”. It thus is more accurately translated by the English word “awareness” which means alertness, illumination, recognition and realization. So what does this mean in the TM context? It means that the Awareness we now have while reading these FFL posts is the foundational reality for any accurate definition of yoga and Advaita. This is especially true when explaining the reality of human nature and its development. Your own awareness (svachaitanyam, svasamvedana, svajyotish) is already the most definitive reality. Thus in Advaita, it is this very “one’s-own-awareness” that requires no alteration, no modification or transformation because it is already the most evident yet generally unrecognized reality. The central insight of Shankara’s Advaita is that this “one’s-own-awareness” is at once both mundane and ultimate. His source is the Upanishads, which state that Brahman can be pointed out by the triple indication : “satyam, jñânam, anantam” – reality, awareness, limitlessness. In case you have doubts, here is the etymology: Consciousness = the state of knowing an external object or a subjective perception. The etymology of this Latin-based word “consciousness” is “co/con/com (= with) + scîre (= to know) + ness (= state, quality, condition)”. Yet contrary to this Latin based word is the more simple and native English word “awareness”. This is an “Old-English” source-word that conveys a simpler and clearer root meaning – i.e. vigilant or watchful; closely observant, alert or attentive. Shankara makes an important point in Upadesasahasri Shankara did not extol yogic nirvikalpa-samaadhi (non-conceptual absorption or transcendence). Rather, speaking from the understanding that the Self (Atman) is already nirvikalpa by nature, he firmly contrasts the true nature of the Self and the mind: As I have no restlessness (viksepa,) I hence have no absorption (samâdhi). Restlessness or absorption belong to the mind which is changeable. A similar view is expressed in 13.17: How can samadhi, non-samadhi or anything else which is to be done belong to me? For having meditated and known me, they realize that they have completed [all] that needed to be done. and 14.35: I never seen non-samadhi, nor anything else [needing] to be purified, belonging to me who am changeless, the pure Brahman, free from evil. In 15.14 Sankara presents a critique of meditation as an essentially dualistically structured activity: One [comes] to consist of that upon which one fixes one’s mind, if one is different from [it]. But there is no action in the Self through which to become the Self. [It] does not depend upon [anything else] for being the Self, since if [it] depended upon [anything else], it would not be the Self. Furthermore, in 16.39-40, Sankara implicitly criticizes the Sankhya-Yoga view that liberation is dissociation from the association of purusa and prakrti, when he says: It is not at all reasonable that liberation is either a connection [with Brahman] or a dissociation [from prakrti]. For an association is non-eternal and the same is true for dissociation. One’s own nature is never lost. Thus, it is evident from the above that Sankara implicitly rejects both the emancipation of yoga, namely, that liberation has to be accomplished through the real dissociation of the purusa from prakrti, and the yogic pursuit towards that end, - that is, the achievement of nirvikalpa or asamprajata samadhi. Read it and sleep.
