I am not you, Mind!

Sage Vasishtha

Uddalaka continued to contemplate thus:

The infinite Self cannot possibly be squeezed into the mind, any more than an elephant be squeezed into a wood-apple fruit. The consciousness that, through the process of self-limitation, is confined to finitude (and therefore to concepts and percepts) is known as the mind: this is the result of ignorance and hence I do not accept this. the ego-sense is only a child's concept and it is believed in by one who does not investigate the truth.

I have carefully investigated, I have observed everything from the tips of my toes to the top of my head: and I have not found anything of which I could say, "This I am'. Who am "I"? I am the all-pervading consciousness which is itself not an object of knowledge or knowing and is free from selfhood. I am that which is indivisible, which has not name or change, which is beyond all concepts of unity and diversity, which is beyond measure (small and big) and other than which naught else is. Hence, O mind, I abandon you who are the source of sorrow.

In this body in which there is flesh, blood, bone etc. who says 'This I am'? Motion is the nature of energy, thinking is inherent in consciousness, old age and death are natural to the body - who says 'This I am'? This is the tongue, these are ears, this is nose, this is motions and these are eyes - who says 'This I am'? I am none of these, nor am I you, O mind, nor these concepts: I am but the infinite consciousness, pure and independent. 'I am all this' or 'There is no I' - both are expressions of the same truth; naught else is truth.

Alas, for so long I have been victimized by ignorance: but, luckily, I have discovered that which robbed me of self-knowledge! I shall never more be the victim of ignorance. Even as the cloud sitting on top of a hill does not belong to the hill, though I seem to be associated with sorrow I am independent of it. In the absence of self-knowledge, there arose ego-sense: but now, I am free of ego-sense. Let the body, the senses and so on be, or perish - I have nothing to do with them. The senses (the eyes etc.) exist in order to come into contact with their own objects for their own sake: who is the "I" that is deluded into thinking 'this is I' or 'I see' etc.? These eyes etc. see or experience their objects naturally, without being impelled to do so by previous mental conditioning, their experience will be pure and free from memories of past happiness or unhappiness. Hence, O senses, perform your functions without being hampered by memory. This memory is not a fat, in truth: it is is non-different from and not independent of the infinite consciousness. It can, therefore, be easily dispelled, merely by not reviving it in consciousness. Hence, O mind, abandon this perception of diversity and realize the unreality of your own independence from the infinite consciousness: that is liberation.