I, Me, My Phone – 10 and final part Thus I say, I am a man (whereas the body is male); I am unhappy (whereas the mind is unhappy); The mind is feeling, intellect is thinking. The ahamkāra is doing the action assuming ownership and doership. The prānas are keeping the body alive. But I say, ‘I am doing it’. But I still don’t know myself and yet I consider this gross physical body, the subtle body as myself. I have superimposed idea of ‘I’ on this equipment. And also I have superimposed idea of equipment on myself. Worse, I even assume the condition of the equipment as my condition. All because of this avidyā – of not knowing myself... And identifying with them I say, I am hungry, I am anxious, I decide.... I consider myself as the doer and I perform the actions and use the equipment. This is the jiva briefly. …… Swami Nikhilananda, Head Chinmaya Mission, NCR, Delhi (Speaking Tree, TNN, February 16th, 2014 I, Me, My Phone – 10 I the jiva too, (as yet) I do not know who I am, but I consider myself as the equipment I use, the equipment with which I relate to the world -- the BMI. Hence I know myself as my body, as my mind as my intellect. (This is the same attachment that I develop for the mobile phone which helps me know who I am in relation to others in my Contacts list.) I, Me, My Phone – 9 Now going back to the deep sleep state, in that state jiva is totally cut off from the BMI which he has been calling ‘myself’. When I wake up and think of the sleep state I know was present there but I do not know who I am. Not knowing myself is avidyā. This we experience in the context of the mobile phone as well. I am holding on to it. I call it mine. I am using it. I am interacting with the world with it. But I exist without the mobile phone. Who am I, I am not clear, but when I use the mobile phone, I know myself in relation to others. That is why the moment the plane touches down, everyone switch on the phone – to experience a sense of ‘I’ in the context of calls received and calls made! I, Me, My Phone – 8 The samskāras (records) in the antahkarana are still there. They have not died. The (old) samskāras merely get carried forward into the new equipment, and get expressed through a new medium. I cannot say ‘Oh, I have made lot of phone calls from this mobile instrument, so let me remove the sim card, put it in another instrument, and nobody will find me!’ No.... that is not so. Because the sim card has not changed, the bill will come to me, the old user. Similarly, with the jiva, the antahkarana (mind, buddhi, chitta and ahamkār) and prānas – together called subtle body -- do not die with the death of the body. With the death of the body only the brain which is the outer physical equipment, dies. The thinking is done by the mind, intellect. Brain does not think. I, it is just an equipment. This gross physical equipment is required for the intellect to function. Without that it cannot function. Just as the seeing faculty needs eyes to function, the hearing faculty needs the ears to function, so too the intellect and mind need the brain equipment to function. So what dies is only the brain. I, Me, My Phone – 7 I am there as the User, the jiva. That ‘I’ generally takes on another body when it leaves the current body (on death). When the user of a mobile phone sees another model with (for example) better features, he selects the new instrument. The exiting of the old phone makes it a preta (dead body) when the sim card and batteries are removed. When the sim card is put into the new phone, the user id is activated all over again but in a new body. That is called rebirth. What happens in this rebirth? The records of the calls and messages from the old phone now shift into the new phone. I, Me, My Phone – 6 There is also the fourth – Turiya. The fourth is like when the mobile phone is on silent mode. When I am not disturbed by the mobile but the vyavahar - transaction in the mobile phone can go on. This is the state of a jivanmukta. A jivanmukta lives in this world, see the world, performs actions but he is free. There is also a state brought about when the sim and the batteries are removed. The phone is now dead. This is akin to when the antahkarana and prānas cease to function; when the body dies. Where is the ‘I’? I, Me, My Phone - 5 We use the phone to interact with the world outside, to call, to message and so on. Every aspect of the phone is brought to use. When we fly, we turn the phone to ‘flight-mode’, playing games and accessing applications like notepad and contacts. The phone is in swapna awastha, exactly like the jiva’s dream state. I, Me, My Phone - 4 If we switch off the phone, although the batteries are functioning, there is no incoming or outgoing communication and you cannot access the information or applications either. Thus, when the batteries or prānas continue to run, but my BMI is ‘switched off’, the phone is in deep sleep; I, the user, keep the phone down and relax. In the same way, the jiva in deep sleep, becomes one with his master, the Cause, his real Self, i.e. Brahman. The Jiva’s BMI tool kit is in deep sleep, switched off, only batteries (prāna) working and ‘I’ unifies with Brahman. These are the three states of Waking, Dream and Deep Sleep or Jāgrat, Swapna and Sushupti. I, Me, My Phone - 3 We use the phone to interact with the world outside, to call, to message and so on. Every aspect of the phone is brought to use. When we fly, we turn the phone to ‘flight-mode’, playing games and accessing applications like notepad and contacts. The phone is in swapna awastha, exactly like the jiva’s dream state.... to be continued I, Me, My Phone - 2 The sim card contains the user identity and records of samskāras of out-going and in-coming calls. All the samskāras are there in the sim card. The sim card is like the antahkarana - mana, buddhi, chitta and ahamkāra. The karmendriyas and jnānendriyas are like the keyboard. So if the phone is the body and its sim card, antahkarana, then who is the jiva? The one who uses the phone is the jiva or Prājna, the user of the BMI. The user is not the part of this phone, just as the jiva is not part of the body.... to be continued I, Me, My Phone - 1 The ‘I’ is separate from the BMI, that the body, mind and intellect that are applied to when we deal with the world. Similarly, my mobile phone is also an appliance to help me deal with the world and is not Me. The mobile has an outer body, a battery, and a sim card. Similarly, the outer body is like our gross physical body, the battery, our panch prānas, which remain awake even when we switch off the phone. Then there is a clock in the mobile that runs even when the phone is switched off, our beating heart which ticks on even when we are in deep sleep....... to be continued
Posted on: Sat, 15 Mar 2014 03:38:22 +0000
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