ANNETTE NIBLEY, THE SELF-EFFACING NON-DUALIST

ANNETTE NIBLEY, THE SELF-EFFACING NON-DUALIST

[How many of us really seriously care for our dreams? Remember too that almost all of us go through at least 4-5 dreams every night when we go to bed. We look at our wakeful world as the reality and consider a dream to be just that – ephemeral, irrelevant to and unconcerned with our daily life. What happens if you can clearly see that your wakeful world is nothing but an extension of the dream? Will you be any more interested in the awake world or what goes on in it?


Annette Nibley (http://www.whatneverchanges.com/) is an example for one who lost all interest in the waking-dream of life. She gives no weight to the idle chatter and machinations of the mind – what we call our life. Nevertheless, she is ready to help with True advice if one approaches her. She does not talk to what you think what ‘you’ are, but to that unknown or unknowable ‘inner you.’ She can be brusque and ask you to ‘shut up’ if the dialog goes vain, but next minute she can speak to your ‘heart’ holding your hand and guiding you to ask the real question.


Annette started out as a Christian like most Americans, but became a run-of-the mill New Age seeker in about 1980. It was Nisargadatta Maharaj’s "I AM THAT" that really stopped her quest of nearly 25 years. Seeing John Wheeler validated her understanding and Stephen answered a lot of her subsequent questions over the years. She started a website of her own in 2005 to help fellow seekers. Her writings and advice are always simple, clear, to the point, eruditely expressed and compassionate.


When I requested Annette for a write up for the Blog, she politely stated that she had nothing to write about. When I suggested that she could give a message on Advaita, she said that there could not be a teaching without a ‘question.’ When I asked her to share some details of her own life story, she was extremely reluctant saying that “she was not the point here.” She added: “The person is only the carrier, and its life is just another life.” Here are a few examples of her short crisp write ups gleaned from different sources -- ramesam]

1. The End (2008):

I am no longer burdened with the concerns of the world that you are. I have no connection to that world. I see sights and hear sounds, and all kinds of stuff goes on, but I'm not emotionally attached to any of it. I walk around in your world, but it doesn't touch me.

I still see a framework within which things operate - objects, bodies, actions, relationships - but what happens within that framework is unimportant to me. I have no interest in what happens.

I just live. I get up, do a day's worth of stuff, and then it's time to go to bed. And the next day I do that again.

And what I notice is: there is freedom itself, just being free. There is joy itself, just being joyous. There is life itself, just living. That's all. Not "me" being those things - those things being themselves. Nothing, being nothing.  So how did this happen to me? How did I lose interest in the world? How did I step out of this picture? How do I see only joy, only freedom?

Well, I stopped believing in the unreal. When I got a good look at the intricate fabrication called "me" that I had been taught to build and reinforce for many decades, and found it to be a fabrication, all of the emotional attachment to events and objects and people was rendered irrelevant.

Now, if you think this emotional attachment is what makes us "human," and you like that whole human experience of action and reaction, desire and satisfaction of desire, read no further. The rest of this essay will not interest you.

If, on the other hand, you find "humanness" to be the equivalent of insanity, and seek the eternal peace and love that is promised by every holy man and woman that ever walked the Earth, then maybe you will be interested in what follows.

If what you want is out of this game completely - out of the insanity, off the wheel of human suffering - then direct your attention to one thing only, and that is: Is this - the separate me that seems to be real - real? Am I real?

I don't know what led me to this inquiry inward, to the question of the veracity of the sense of "me." Many things. Reading "I AM THAT" and meeting John Wheeler really began turning my thinking around, but it was just a bunch of coincidences that led me to those things. So who knows? But I do know that the focus was turned inward, to the question of "I" - not a psychological inquiry into what made me tick, or what my obstacles to "awakening" were, but to the question of whether there actually exists an "I" at all.

Up to that point, my search had been a normal one. The first twenty- five years of it were focused outwards, on what could be gotten, by me, for me, to end my pain. I was looking in the wrong place. Looking outward only brings more of the same insanity. Something finally led me to discover the final question: Am I real?

If it is found that "I" am not real, then all of the concerns I have been wanting to be free of apply to no one! This is a radical, drastic ending; it is not a palliative for the old mindset. This is done in private, not in public. This is done alone, not in a group, not even with a guru. This is really a solo flight.

I never did desire enlightenment. I never wanted some kind of blissful state. I had enough "bliss" from all the bad habits I had cultivated to get me through the day. I didn't need another diversion. What I did need was to end the pain of feeling alienated from my own source. It was this pain of feeling cut off that led me on this journey. Millions - billions! - of people never face, feel, or even notice that pain, and are never called to make this drastic move. But when you feel it, it's got to be dealt with. There's no option. Eventually, the pain will be eradicated at the root.  So what is the most noticeable thing about this, in my experience? No thought. There is registering of sensory information, and there is registering of some passing mental activity, but all of it is immediately let go of. Nothing lingers from one moment to the next. Nothing niggles at me, nothing needs to be planned or remembered. My mind is at peace.

This is what I always wanted. I just wanted my mind to be at peace. I wanted to quit wanting. I wanted to quit feeling like more was needed. I wanted to stop. I wanted my mind to stop.

Is this what enlightenment is? I don't know. I know that I'm not looking for anything anymore. I know that my day is filled with ease and flow, and I see softness in the hearts of all people, no matter what they project. I have no concerns and no worries. So whether this is enlightenment or not is of no interest to me.

And in the three years that I've been writing about this experience, the sense of a solid, individual person has been lessening. Now, after three years, there is no more sense of a separate person at all. Learning I was a separate "me" took time; the unlearning of it also took time.

I still function completely normally. You wouldn't know the difference. My closest friends probably notice that I'm not fearful anymore, and I don't try to control things. They probably notice that I rarely go anywhere, that I find pleasure in the simple things, and that my life has become very peaceful. Some of my habits have changed. But my life appears pretty much the same, from the outside.

What now? Can I tell you how to find out that you are not real? At this moment, nothing like that is arising, but perhaps it will. I don't think it's possible to tell another person how to begin or conduct this inquiry. Yours is unique, it is intimate. It is your business. What you need will come to you when you need it.

If I offer a pointer, it assumes that you are "ready" to hear it like I was when I met John Wheeler. Otherwise, you'll just continue the way you are going, and you'll distort my words into something that fits your existing mental view. But just in case you really are done with looking to your mind for solutions, this would be a solid pointer:

Ask, Am I real? Look for no other information. Ask no other questions. Find out if you are real - that's all. If you are not real, then the boundary between you and the source of all life is not really there, is it? If the boundary between you and the source of all life is not really there, then you would notice yourself as the source of all life, wouldn't you?

2. You Don't Need a Suitcase (2009):

I had many misconceptions at one time about what "this" looked like - this freedom, or whatever - and it always looked like something I could imagine or create from the experiences I already had, extrapolating from what I already knew. But this can't be imagined. This is a total surprise.
I always expected more life goodies, like peace, happiness, ease, a fulfilling relationship, perfect health, respect from my peers, and also, I expected that everywhere I laid my eyes there should be some feeling of total bliss - shock and awe every moment for the joyous bounty that is in front of me, if only I could see it without my own limiting selfish mind standing in the way of me and the truth. I would see every cell of life animated before my eyes, because I would not be distracted by petty stuff. How frustrating that I could not see this psychedelic world I surely lived in!

But this was all selfish imaginings. I wanted more for me, spectacle for me, drama for me, peace for me, adoration for me, love in every moment, for me. And this turns out not to have anything to do with me. And the surprising thing is, it's joyous! It's love, it's life, it's freedom, all unfolding naturally in my path - but none of these things is for me. They are there, they have always been there, when I'm not conjuring up a problem; life, love, and joy are there, but they don't need me. And interestingly, the "me" was made entirely of those problems I'd been thinking of. Without calling up a problem, there is no "me," and all that remains is impersonal life, impersonal love, whatever you want to call it. Nothing that "I" want, because if I can imagine it, it's just part of the prison.

So any idea you have of what this is - it is not. It can't be. This can't be something conjured out of your existing memories, which is all you have as a self. So if you go to any idea of what you must have in order to feel like you "have" it, that can't be it. It can't be thought of, it can't be imagined out of what you know. So you can stop trying to second-guess this. This arises only in what is not known. All that is known or imagined, or can possibly be known or imagined, is part of the prison.

All that remains is living, with no problems. Is it really as simple as that? Yes, it is. But is that my living, with no problems? No, it's not mine. When no problems are conjured up to think about, no "me-ness" arises; which tends to reinforce the idea that this livingness is impersonal; and that tends to reinforce the idea that there is nothing to lose, because nothing in the general "livingness" can ever be lost. So the validation starts building on itself, and the problems are conjured up less and less, until they are seen to never have existed at all. So, where was the "me"? Where was it, ever? Did it ever exist?

The point I've been trying to make is: don't be under the misconception that you can set a goal of "having this" and work towards it, by reading, watching videos, going to seminars, or meditating about it. That is just stuff your mind already knows and wants. Prison.

Subtract, and don't add. Don't add another goal, don't add another seminar. Drop one of your suitcases today, and drop another tomorrow, and don't pick anymore up, and see what happens. Drop the suitcase of opinions. Drop the suitcase of "I know I'm right." Drop the suitcase of "It has to be this way or I'll die." Drop the suitcase of "I have to do something to be free." Don't pick up another one.

If you accidentally stumble across a place where you don't know anything at all - your mind is blank and can't find a single thing that means anything - stick around for a while. Feel around, get to know the place. It doesn't mean you've failed, it means you're beginning to let go of your death grip on your suitcases.

Let them all drop. You don't need a suitcase where you're going.

3. Hereness (2009):

This clear space of “hereness”, is it present? You don’t need to ask this, because you know it to be true. It is the one thing you have no doubt about.

Of course, you have plenty of doubts: you doubt whether this non-duality stuff is true, you doubt that you understand what is being pointed to. You have doubts about the possibility of ever ending your seeking. Those things can really agitate the mind sometimes. But not this. This is not even a question. It is simply so obvious and so present that it never occurred to you to doubt it, to not doubt it, or to question it.

This clear space of “hereness” is so obvious that it never even occurred to you to acknowledge it.

4. The New Compassionate Shift (2010):

Yes, there has been a shift in my writing. I was taking a very hard non-dual line in my writing, even calling out Great Freedom for being dualistic, but I found it finally not to resonate completely with me – particularly, with my experience as a human being, which cannot be swept under the carpet, as strict non-duality tries to do.

It’s not that anything I said in my prior response was wrong; it’s that it’s not helpful. And the point here is to be helpful. I realize it was helpful to a degree, to really pinpoint that misidentification with the “small I” and be aware of the misidentification as the cause of all suffering. But when the experience of the life is still unsatisfying, as it unfolds over time, then something else needs to be done. There need not be any dissatisfaction. In fact, we are entitled to deep, abiding love and peace as our moment-to-moment experience, and this is indeed something we learn to deepen more and more over apparent time. So I now agree with you that it is a gradual process, though I may have argued with you about that before.

Non-duality applies to there being no time, no space – nothing but THIS, which is unchanging, undivided, presently eternal. So you can see, then, that THIS does not touch this apparent world of moving parts. Though THIS is what you really are, it does not intersect with the world of apparent objects. So it does not intersect with the experience of a human being, which arises due to false concepts.

So you have this “false” experience of being human, and yet here it is. And you have non-duality, which does not acknowledge the existence of anything false, and does not acknowledge time. So basically, if one insists on a strict non-dual stance, he removes the tool by which he can affect the suffering that is falsely there. That hamstrings us, basically. Even though your human experience is falsely there, it’s still there! And it needs to be addressed.

So what you have been practicing with Great Freedom is good, since it helps you to stay in the “pray without ceasing” injunction of St. Paul, because this “without ceasing” is really the key. The key to what? The key to having your human experience align more and more, over time, with THIS, with God – with the qualities that are unknowable, and yet are what the reality of the human being is, when the conceptual shell of its falsehood is worn away. What are we, anyway? We are nothing but THIS, God, One Power, One Law. So nothing in reality changes; you are always just this ONE. But your experience changes. As you say, it’s a gradual process.

So I am recommending now, when people are dissatisfied, that they seek out other writings and teachings. I don’t think that throwing more non-duality at the problem fixes it, because the fact that one has “an experience” means that the concepts of non-duality are unable to touch you as you are right here in the false, apparent world, and uproot that experience. Non-duality does not uproot or improve anything.

There is no growth or process possible in non-duality. Non-duality is a true assessment of the way things are, but it does not make a bridge from the Absolute to the experience of selfhood, time, and learning. That bridge is to be found elsewhere, in whatever way works for you. The important thing is to be faithful about it and devote yourself to it, and in this way, the abiding peace of God is found within, and it grows as you become more and more attracted to this inner goodness, and less attracted to the phantoms of the outer world.

I am finding a lot of solid, reliable teachings which make this bridge without throwing away the truth of non-duality – which address the need for a process, in the experience, of replacing the consciousness of the individual with the one Christ consciousness – the consciousness which is aligned perfectly with God. Many of the Christian mystics and healers have this message right, and I found that when I went looking for it, there was much support for such a bridge.

Finding this bridge is a personal matter. Whatever you’re led to do – let God lead you. Great Freedom is good, but for me it kind of lacks the juice. The juice is important, but it’s different for everybody. I went back into some traditional Christian stuff, for inspiration, and for that experience the music and rituals evoke of being in the holy presence of God. I’m reading some Catholic and Orthodox saints, the Bible, and Paramahansa Yogananda’s commentaries on Jesus and the Bhagavad Gita. I’ve also found that Joel Goldsmith (The Infinite Way) speaks to me; I had a health issue I wanted to deal with, and Goldsmith addresses healing. I use Stephen Wingate’s site as a guide often – he spends a lot of time checking things out, and always has interesting leads that are reliable. Mostly what I rely on, however, is quiet, solitary contemplation. Lots of it.

Remembering that you are not a separate, individual person – but that you are in actuality THIS – pray without ceasing, with no thought in mind of personal gain, but just for the sake of THIS itself. What else is there?

Non-Dualist Jerry Katz, The Man With A Mission

Non-Dualist Jerry Katz, The Man With A Mission

[Jerry Katz, author and broadcaster, is an unassuming, simple and clear minded person with a Yogi-like attitude. Understanding of “I am” happened to him when he was still a boy. He was self-driven in the realization of the final Truth that he is none other than what Awareness is. But he wears his laurels loosely as if they do not belong to him. He takes all shades of Advaita in his stride with a remarkable ability to see “That” in an apparently meaningless poem to highly informed application of Quantum Physics to Vedanta via Direct path or so called Neoadvaita or a whole variety of methods and approaches. He is an active promoter of bringing about a convergence in Science and Advaita. His writings and reviews sparkle with crystal clarity and subtle observation. He abhors artificial grading and discriminatory rating. (Link: http://nonduality.org/about/ ) Jerry‘s mission is simple; but the task is overwhelming: Take Advaita to the ‘streets.’ However, he is cut to the job with unswerving devotion to the cause.
John of Non-duality Magazine (NDM) recently interviewed Jerry on a wide range of topics. The full Interview is available at: http://www.nondualitymagazine.org/nonduality_magazine.2.interview.jerrykatz.htm
John has been kind to let me present here a few excerpts from the interview -- ramesam]

JERRY KATZ
Interview with Non-duality Magazine

Excerpts:
 
NDM: Can you please tell me about your awakening, how and when this happened?
 
Jerry Katz: In anyone's spiritual biography you can identify turning points, moments when truth is stumbled into. Those moments could take the form of a sudden awakening, or a question, or a realization of some kind. You stumble into those moments. You can't plan for them to happen and, you know, stop off for a sandwich on the way to experiencing the stumbling. There's nothing linear about stumbling into truth. If it was linear you would see the stumbling block and walk around or over it and never stumble. It is said in the Kaballah that the stumbling block is in your hand. It's not separate from you. You stumble upon yourself.

For most people there is more than one stumbling. I call them initiations. I had several initiations into my true nature as "I Am." They occurred between the ages of 7 and 10. I knew they were important and meaningful but I never knew how to live life with them. So I forgot about them until around age 25, when I revisited them. What got me to revisit them was dissatisfaction with life and the sense that there was something more meaningful I needed to find out about. It was clear that I needed to investigate my early initiations into "I Am."

I spend a couple of years writing about my early experiences, feeling them, investigating them from different angles, and wanting to be stabilized as this "I Am." After about two years, in 1977, that stabilization happened and was marked with the spontaneous utterance, "There is only one day." Everything was seen as one day, or perhaps you could say one moment; in today's language you could say I was living in the now. However, in my words it was as though there was only one day.

The one day feeling lasted for about ten years and then it gave way to an immediacy of awareness as the "I Am" itself apparently dissolved.

Another way of talking about this progression is to say that I started out aware of awareness, then there was the sense that I was awareness, which was aware of me, and finally there is only awareness.

So that's a story of awakening. There is still everyday life, problems, limitations in expression and ability; or is there?

**

NDM: Then when you finally realized that you are "only awareness". At this point what kind of a vasana load did you have?

Jerry Katz: There's no realizing that you are only awareness, even though to talk about it one might say, "I am only awareness," or "There is only awareness." It is enough -- it is too much -- to say there is only awareness. To say anything beyond a variation of, "There is only awareness," "There is only this," further diminishes the statement or confession of what is.

Having said that, there was and still are habits and negative psychological states. They are not so extreme. Most importantly it is realized that are not me. Still, one must live responsibly in the world. To exercise a bad habit and to dismiss it by declaring, "Well, yeah, it's bad but it's not me," is an abuse and neglect of discipline.

I am sure that having experienced the "I Am" conditioned me early on toward a life of simplicity. Even though it was not until the age of 25 that I began to investigate my sense of "I Am," prior to that the initiation into "I Am" exerted an influence upon my life. That's what initiation is all about: it is a deep penetration of truth at a cellular level. Compare initiation to a so-called aha experience. The latter is more superficial and activates an energy which tends to burn itself out quickly or which gets channeled toward seeking and self-improvement rather than resting in knowing. However, aha moments are useful in living effectively; it's important to have realizations about the nuts and bolts of day to day living.

**

NDM: What are your thoughts on neo advaita. Saying that there is No morality. No right or wrong. No meaning? Please See interview with Suzanne Foxton. www.nondualitymagazine.org/nonduality_magazine.1.suzannefoxton.htm

Jerry Katz: I like the neo-advaita movement. It doesn't replace traditional advaita or anything else. It is another offering, that's all. Neo-advaita is nothing new. It simply focuses on the portion of advaita that confesses the reality of what is. Neo-advaita is a partial teaching, but for a given individual it could be a whole teaching, depending on what one is ready to receive.

Suzanne said, "There is no right or wrong." That's true. That's the pure confession of neo-advaita. The Avadhuta Gita makes such statements over and over again: "How can I speak of good and evil? I am free from disease -- my form has been extinguished."

The Avadhuta Gita and a few other texts are more "neo" than neo-advaita. Neo-advaita writings or discussions probably always have contained within them some instruction, some suggestion of what to do in order to realize what the neo-advaitin confesses. The Avadhuta Gita has no such instruction. The Avadhuta Gita doesn't tell you to investigate anything. It doesn't tell you to follow the I Am, as Nisargadatta has urged. It doesn't tell you to Full Stop, as 'Sailor' Bob Adamson advises. It doesn't suggest you inquire into who you are, what you're doing, why you're here, what the truth is, or anything at all. It just confesses. Period.

Neo-advaita is not as extreme as some very old writings. Neo-advaita is an evolution, a morphing of those writings and at the same time a morphing of traditional advaita. The morphing, the evolution continues, and watching that evolution is the delight of being involved in the world of nonduality.

NDM: Yes, but Avadhuta Gita is also reading material meant for the use of advanced students.

Jerry Katz: It is appropriate for today's mainstream nondual spirituality audience, I feel. Even James Swartz, a current and strong proponent of the stepwise teaching of traditional Advaita Vedanta, includes Avadhuta Gita style of confessions in his book How to Attain Enlightenment. For example, he says, "I am neither a person nor a non-person ... I am not male, female, or neuter ... I have never lived or died ... I am pure knowing, even though there is nothing to know." The entire book explains details about life, practice, experience, and those confessions occur at the end of the book in a section called Beyond Enlightenment. With the proper preparation, such as delivered by Swartz in his book, or with a strong intuition of truth, these confessions and the Avadhuta Gita itself become understandable. I wrote a series of verses based on the Avadhuta Gita, called The Wild Song of Standing Free, which is available online here: http://members.upnaway.com/~bindu/windsong/stafreeindex.htm.
I wrote that in 1997, before I went on the Internet, and it served to prepare me for the adventure of introducing nonduality to a mainstream audience and to deal with all the people I would be encountering.

NDM: The Ashtavakra Gita is also from the absolute level.

Jerry Katz: Yes, The Ashtavakra Gita is more popular than the Avadhuta Gita, too.

**

NDM: Yes, ok. When you said earlier. "Such a questioning is an inquiry. If you inquire from time to time, "Is this the relative level?" "Is this the absolute level?" at what level do you find yourself upon making these inquiries?

Would not that depend on the level you are at. For example, how could a non realized person even know the difference with out "knowing" the absolute level? If you are not the absolute, all you know is the relative? You can understand it to a degree, but cannot "know" it. The knowing only comes with realization.

Jerry Katz: The inquiry is sufficient if a person has had only an intuition of the absolute. However, I don't recommend doing inquiry just for the heck of it. Behind all efforts there must be the hunger to know who you are. Inquiry is a powerful tool. One must find an inquiry that truly draws their attention.
**

NDM: What are your thoughts on Sri Aurobindos intermediate zone? Do you think this could be an explanation for Adi Da and Osho? Please see here. www.kheper.net/topics/gurus/IMZ_guru.html

Jerry Katz: You'll see in my work on nonduality that I have never been into rating gurus. I like some and don't like some, but I don't rate. One of the qualities of my work has been to create a list of gurus/teachers/realizers/confessors which included just about anyone who spoke with some real knowing of the realized state. I don't see that some people are more enlightened than others. It doesn't interest me too much -- except in a gossipy way.

Seekers and students need to connect with their own inner knowing, their own inner hunger for truth, and to allow the inner force to be one's teacher and guide. That, in fact, is the Guru. One may then be led to this or that teacher. If so, from a practical point of view one should learn as much as possible about a prospective teacher.

NDM: When you say" There's no realizing that you are only awareness, even though to talk about it one might say, "I am only awareness," or "There is only awareness." It is enough -- it is too much -- to say there is only awareness. To say anything beyond a variation of, "There is only awareness," "There is only this,", further diminishes the statement or confession of what is."

So what is it that "knows" that it is awareness? What is this knower that knows this and how does this knower get to know this?

Jerry Katz: There is no knower and no knowing of it. There is only it. As far as getting to know this, it is said that Direct Path teachings can facilitate that. These days Greg Goode might have the best handle on the "There is only awareness" realization.

NDM: It obviously isn't "seen" as neo advaita people say because a seer cannot see itself no more than an eye can see its own pupil?

Jerry Katz: Yes, it isn't seen. It is. To say "It is," is, again, too much, which is why silence is a teaching.
**
NDM: What do you teach by the way. Do you have a method of teaching. Do you do satsangs or anything like that?

Jerry Katz: I don't teach or give satsang. My work is to bring nonduality to mass consciousness in a variety of ways: Through websites, email forums, a blog, twitter, radio appearances, conference development, public speaking, organizing local gatherings, interviews, publishing e-books, individual correspondences, encouraging and supporting various people in the field of nonduality, writing book reviews. Of course a lot of teachers do those activities, and more, too. If I did teach there wouldn't be any method. I would look at what each person requires and offer direction and guidance that is right for that person.

NDM: How long have you been doing this work of bringing non duality awareness to mass consciousness?  Can you please elaborate a little more on your work and the impact this has had?

Jerry Katz: I first went onto the Internet in November, 1997. My intent was to bring nonduality "to the streets," to the spirituality mainstream. At the time, nonduality was a topic and a word largely reserved for discussion within ashrams, the circles of certain teachers, and university departments of philosophy and religious studies, and as well as part of the lesser known teachings of the world's religions.

The best known nonduality teaching is Zen, which belongs to Buddhist tradition. I wanted to introduce nonduality as a broader Zen. To do that, I introduced the word "nonduality" itself and colored it according to a vision. Just as the word "Zen" has a certain magic and power to it, it is my opinion that the word "nonduality" has its own significant meaning or "color." I have tried to keep nonduality wide open and all-embracing.

Many people are involved in bringing nonduality to the mainstream. I have provided online spaces for people to gather and talk about nonduality in whatever way they wished and have welcomed and encouraged a number of people. Over the years the broad teaching of nonduality and the word "nonduality" itself have entered the spirituality mainstream and even the general mainstream.
Lives are impacted in different ways. There's a peaceful, holistic, harmonious, Yogic side to nonduality which benefits a person's life. It is more about coherence and oneness. Then there is the jarring and harsh side of nonduality -- the bottom line nonduality -- in which our ego strategies are seen through or split wide open. Knowing who you are requires a cutting away of who you think you are. Practically no one is exempt from that harshness since layers of ego strategy are constantly re-constituting. For living life effectively, I highly recommend the holistic, Yogic type of path. Seeing who your really are, which is the atmosphere in which this effective life is lived (and which it actually is) requires that one question the effective life even while living it. It's tricky business and only those who have no other choice will engage in it.

Ardhanareeswar – The Bilateral Human Brain

Ardhanareeswar – The Bilateral Human Brain

The half-man half-woman Ardhanareeswar represents the union of Shiva and Shakti, the basic tenets of creation, the unchanging Consciousness and Drive that gives motility. The cosmic dance of Ardhanareeswar symbolizes the beginningless cycle of origination and dissolution of the world. Traditionally the feminine Shakti is shown to be the left half of the body and the right half is Shiva.

A story in Shiv Purana says that Brahma, the Creator, was not happy with the way the development of human beings was going on. So he prayed to Shiva. Shiva released his Shakti part and instructed her to be born as the daughter of Daksha, thus creating an active role for her in the world. The classical Indian picturization of Ardhanareeswar stops with the body and does not tell anything of the brain in the head.

We are now well aware that our brain consists of two distinct units (left and right hemispheres) interconnected by a bundle of 300 million axonal fibers. The right brain controls the left half of the body (including the left part of the face) and the left brain controls the right half of the body.

Characteristically the right hemisphere oversees a set of qualities which are typically associated with feminine traits and the left hemisphere oversees the masculine traits. The ancient Indians depicted correctly the left half of the human body to show Shakti (female quality) and the right half as Shiva (male)! This does clearly indicate their awareness of the human anatomy.

The work distribution between the left and right brains is broadly as given below:

Left Brain Functions:

1. Language Skills; 2. Numerical counting; 3. Reason/Logic; 4. Analytical and Scientific Skills and 5. Control of the right side of the body.

The left brain works like a serial processor, one task at a time in a sequential manner and is reductionist in approach, classifying things into clear yes/no boxes. It is truthful to the details. It is uncomfortable with uncertainty and looks for logical closure of issues.

Right Brain Functions:

1. Insight; 2. 3-D Visualisation; 3. Art/Music; 4. Imagination; and 5 Control of the left side of the body.

The right hemisphere specializes in reacting to emergencies, organizing items spatially, recognizing faces and processing emotions. It works more like a parallel processor, taking in many aspects at one time and giving a comprehensive holistic picture. It can live with esoteric and fuzzy ideas.

"The great pleasure and feeling in my right brain is more than my left brain can find the words to tell you", said the Nobel Laureate, Dr. Roger Sperry.

The divergent response in the way the right and left brains function is famously illustrated in the twitch in the smile of Bill Clinton when he was grilled on the Lewinsky affair. When he tried to cover up the truth in answering a question, the right side of the face (governed by the left brain) had half a smile on the lips (delivering calculated words) whereas the left side was twitching with uncontrolled gestures!

Left Brain and Right Brain Personalities:

All of us use both the brain hemispheres all the time. Still, we tend to be dominated by the characteristics of one or the other hemispheres.

In case the connectivity of the two hemispheres is ruptured (either because of an accident or surgically disconnected for pathological reasons), the behavioral response of the individual looks as though he is being instructed by two independent control centers in the brain. Scientists have been able to learn much about the way brain functions from these split brain studies.

Prof. R. Wiseman, Neuropsychologist and Magician, suggests easy and entertaining ways to discover whether you are left-brained or right-brained. One way is to clasp your hands casually and see whether right or left thumb is positioned on the top (see the picture). If the left thumb comes on top, you are right brained and artistic, adventurous and accommodative. If the right thumb is on the top, you are analytical, fluent with words and conservative.

You would hardly get a prize to guess which way Dr. Albert Einstein, the greatest of all Scientists, would clasp his hands!

                                                             







Here is Rupert Spira, the Non-dual philosopher, clasping his hands and see which thumb is positioned on the top.




Where is “self”?

Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, Neuroscientist and anatomist, describes in a fascinating detail how a blood vessel exploded in her left brain hemisphere in late 1996 and as a result how the left part of her brain completely deteriorated in its ability to process information. “On the morning of the hemorrhage I could not walk, talk, read, write or recall any of my life,” she said. With her right brain only functioning she felt, “I am an energy being connected to the energy all around me through the consciousness of my right hemisphere. We are energy beings connected to one another through the consciousness of our right hemispheres as one human family. And in this moment we are perfect. We are whole. And we are beautiful.”

The experience of Dr. Taylor gives the impression that our little self, the “me” (which gives me the feel of a 'separate' person) is located in the left part of the brain. That is not true. Subsequent research by others showed that the “self” could be on the right side. But actually it now looks that there is no identifiable “I”-spot in the brain representing a 'me'. The “self” is perhaps a gateway of a set of neuronal networks that act as a node at that point of time for “me” related information depending on which set of neuronal networks are called to action at that specific time.

The Advaitic teaching on the origination of “I”-consciousness matches well with the above neurological model. Brain constantly goes on sensing the environment. As long as just the sensations happen no harm is done. For example, “When you look at a glass in front of you on the desk, it sets off a lot of reactions in your brain. Part of your brain categorizes it: "That's a glass!" Another part of the brain thinks about the glass's shape and size, its exact location, and what you would have to do with your hand and arm if you were going to reach out and grab it. All that activity goes on even if you just look at the glass.”

But if a claim of “me or mine” is made on what is sensed (the sensed object need not be a physical thing; it can be a thought in mind, a bodily sensation, or a thing perceived out there), “I”-consciousness pops up. The particular neural network node cognizing and identifying the object with a ‘name and form’ will be then the “I” at that particular moment. Depending on the ‘object’ sensed, the neural network node may be shifting in the brain.

Evolutionary Origins of the Right and Left Brain:

There is an evolutionary reason for the origin of two brain hemispheres. I shall present here a few extracts from the paper of Prof. P.F. MacNeilage, Prof. L.J. Rogers and Prof. G. Vallortigara published in Scientific American in July 2009.

Peter F. MacNeilage is a professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin. He authored the Book The Origin of Speech published by Oxford University Press in 2008. Lesley J. Rogers is an emeritus professor of neuroscience and animal behavior at the University of New England in Australia. Giorgio Vallortigara is a professor of cognitive neuroscience at the Center for Mind/Brain Sciences and in the department of cognitive sciences at the University of Trento in Italy.

Excerpts:

The division of labor by the two cerebral hemispheres—once thought to be uniquely human—predates us by half a billion years. Speech, right-handedness, facial recognition and the processing of spatial relations can be traced to brain asymmetries in early vertebrates.

The specialization of each hemisphere in the human brain was already present in its basic form when vertebrates emerged about 500 million years ago. The more recent specializations of the brain hemispheres, including those of humans, evolved from the original ones by the Darwinian process of descent with modification.

The left hemisphere of the vertebrate brain was originally specialized for the control of well-established patterns of behavior under ordinary and familiar circumstances. In contrast, the right hemisphere, the primary seat of emotional arousal, was at first specialized for detecting and responding to unexpected stimuli in the environment.

The left hemisphere became the seat of self-motivated behavior, sometimes called top-down control. (We stress that self-motivated behavior need not be innate; in fact, it is often learned.) The right hemisphere became the seat of environmentally motivated behavior, or bottom-up control. The processing that directs more specialized behaviors—language, tool-making, spatial interrelations, facial recognition, and the like—evolved from those two basic controls.

Sheep can recognize the faces of other sheep (and of people) from memory and that the right hemisphere is preferentially involved. Similar behavior is also observed in monkeys.

In humans neuroscientists have recently recognized that the right hemisphere specializes in face recognition. Prosopagnosia, a neurological disorder that impairs that ability, is more often a result of damage to the right hemisphere than to the left.

Memories stored by the right hemisphere tend to be organized and recalled as overall patterns rather than as a series of single items. In contrast, the left hemisphere tends to focus on local aspects of its environment.

The uneven proportion of left- and right-type individuals in many populations thus indicates that the imbalance must be so valuable that it persists despite the increased vulnerability to predators. Rogers and Vallortigara have suggested that, among social animals, the advantage of conformity may lie in knowing what to expect from others of one’s own species.

What are the relative roles of the left and right hemispheres in having self-awareness, consciousness, empathy or the capacity to have flashes of insight? Little is known about those issues. But the findings we have detailed suggest that these functions—like the other human phenomena discussed here—will be best understood in terms of the descent with modification of pre-human capabilities.

MacNeilage has proposed that the making of syllabic utterances is an evolutionary modification of routine chewing behavior, which first evolved in mammals 200 million years ago.

[Please see the comments for some interesting latest scientific research results.]

Added on 25 Oct 2011:
Video of about 11 minutes:
"How have our two hemispheres evolved to relate -- and how did their relationship create our consciousness, our culture, and our ability to understand our own brains?"
http://www.ted.com/talks/iain_mcgilchrist_the_divided_brain.html?utm_source=newsletter_weekly_2011-10-25&utm_campaign=newsletter_weekly&utm_medium=email

Added on 22 Dec 2011:
About left-brain/right-brain differences: 
"The scientists found that signals coming from the left hippocampus led to a strengthening of long-term electrical connections between neurons. This strengthening of connections is a widely accepted model of learning and memory in the brain. It is thought to be associated with how we lay down new memories.In contrast, there were no such changes with signals coming from the right hippocampus.There was a striking difference. It suggests that the left and right hippocampus in the mouse have distinct functions in learning and memory processes."
http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-12-left.html

Added on 09 Jan 2012:  
How does our brain know what is a face:

"On the left side of the brain, the fusiform gyrus — an area long associated with face recognition — carefully calculates how "facelike" an image is. The right fusiform gyrus then appears to use that information to make a quick, categorical decision of whether the object is, indeed, a face.

This distribution of labor is one of the first known examples of the left and right sides of the brain taking on different roles in high-level visual-processing tasks,  although hemispheric differences have been seen in other brain functions, most notably language and spatial perception."

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-01/miot-mhd010912.php

Added on 02 Mar 2012:
When one side does not know about the other one
"Whenever we are doing something, one of our brain hemispheres is more active than the other one. However, some tasks are only solvable with both sides working together. Based on a pigeon-model, they are proving for the first time in an experimental way, that the ability to combine complex impressions from both hemispheres, depends on environmental factors in the embryonic stage."
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-03/rb-wos030112.php


Added on 19 Mar 2012:
The split brain studies: 

"Through studies of this group, neuroscientists now know that the healthy brain can look like two markedly different machines, cabled together and exchanging a torrent of data. But when the primary cable is severed, information — a word, an object, a picture — presented to one hemisphere goes unnoticed in the other. The brain isn't like a computer, with specific sections of hardware charged with specific tasks. It's more like a network of computers connected by very big, busy broadband cables. The connectivity between active brain regions is turning out to be just as important, if not more so, than the operation of the distinct parts. The left-brain interpreter, Gazzaniga says, is what everyone uses to seek explanations for events, triage the barrage of incoming information and construct narratives that help to make sense of the world."
http://www.nature.com/news/the-split-brain-a-tale-of-two-halves-1.10213?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20120315

Added on 21 Apr 2012:
Your left side (of face) is your best side:
"Your best side may be your left cheek, according to a new study by Kelsey Blackburn and James Schirillo from Wake Forest University in the US. Their work shows that images of the left side of the face are perceived and rated as more pleasant than pictures of the right side of the face, possibly due to the fact that we present a greater intensity of emotion on the left side of our face."
 http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-04-left-side.html

Added on 06 June 2012:
Are emotions and feelings the domain of the right hemisphere only?
"Ours is the first study from patients with dementia to show that language-based areas of the brain, primarily on the left, are important for extracting emotional meaning from music. Our findings suggest that the brain considers melodies and speech to be similar and that overlapping parts of the brain are required for both."
http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-06-musical-long-held-view-left-brain-right.html

Added on 03 Nov 2012:
'New beginning' in split-brain research:
"Split-brain research has been conducted for decades, and scientists have long ago shown that language processing is largely located in the left side of the brain. When words appear only in the left visual field –– an area processed by the right side of the brain –– the right brain must transfer that information to the left brain, in order to interpret it. The new study at UCSB shows that healthy test subjects respond less accurately when information is shown only to the right brain. While hemispheric specialization is considered accurate, the new study sheds light on the highly complex interplay  –– with neurons firing back and forth between distinct areas in each half of the brain.This study shows that the strength of communication across the brain changes dynamically, when information is exchanged between the right and left hemispheres via the corpus callosum, which connects both sides of the brain."
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-11/uoc--us110112.php

Added in Nov 2012:

Uncommon features of Einstein's brain might explain his remarkable cognitive abilities:

Portions of Albert Einstein's brain have been found to be unlike those of most people and could be related to his extraordinary cognitive abilities, according to a new study led by Florida State University evolutionary anthropologist Dean Falk.

Falk, along with colleagues Frederick E. Lepore of the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and Adrianne Noe, director of the National Museum of Health and Medicine, describe for the first time the entire cerebral cortex of Einstein's brain from an examination of 14 recently discovered photographs. The researchers compared Einstein's brain to 85 "normal" human brains and, in light of current functional imaging studies, interpreted its unusual features.

"Although the overall size and asymmetrical shape of Einstein's brain were normal, the prefrontal, somatosensory, primary motor, parietal, temporal and occipital cortices were extraordinary," said Falk, the Hale G. Smith Professor of Anthropology at Florida State. "These may have provided the neurological underpinnings for some of his visuospatial and mathematical abilities, for instance."

http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-11-uncommon-features-einstein-brain-remarkable.html#inlRlv

Added on 4 Oct 2013:
Well-connected hemispheres of Einstein's brain sparked brilliance?:
"The left and right hemispheres of Albert Einstein's brain were unusually well connected to each other and may have contributed to his brilliance, according to a new study conducted in part by Florida State University evolutionary anthropologist Dean Falk.

"This study, more than any other to date, really gets at the 'inside' of Einstein'sbrain," Falk said. "It provides new information that helps make sense of what is known about the surface of Einstein's brain."

The study, "The Corpus Callosum of Albert Einstein's Brain: Another Clue to His High Intelligence," was published in the journal Brain. Lead author Wei wei Men of East China Normal University's Department of Physics developed a new technique to conduct the study, which is the first to detail Einstein's corpus callosum, the brain's largest bundle of fibers that connects the two cerebral hemispheres and facilitates inter-hemispheric communication.

http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-10-well-connected-hemispheres-einstein-brain-brilliance.html

Added on 23 Oct 2013: 
Right brained? Left brained?  A 30 sec test:
http://sommer-sommer.com/braintest/

Added on 22 Nov 2013:  
Different gene expression in male and female brains:

UCL scientists have shown that there are widespread differences in how genes, the basic building blocks of the human body, are expressed in men and women's brains.

Based on post-mortem adult human brain and spinal cord samples from over 100 individuals, scientists at the UCL Institute of Neurology were able to study the expression of every gene in 12 brain regions. The results are published today in Nature Communications.

They found that the way that the genes are expressed in the brains of men and women were different in all major brain regions and these differences involved 2.5% of all the genes expressed in the brain.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-11/ucl-dge112113.php

Quantum Mechanics and the Brain

Quantum Mechanics and the Brain -- A NeuroQuantologic Perspective by Sultan Tarlaci, M.D.

[Dr. S. Tarlaci (www.neuroquantology.com) is a practicing Neurologist of Turkiye spearheading the new branch of science he calls NeuroQuantology. It is a marriage between (Cognitive) Neuroscience and Quantum Mechanics.


Dr. Tarlaci has been kind to let me highlight a few selected paragraphs from one of his latest articles (over 10,000 words) titled “A Historical View of the Relation Between Quantum Mechanics and the Brain: A NeuroQuantologic Perspective” published in the June 2010 issue of the peer reviewed Journal NeuroQuantology recently made available online. (http://www.neuroquantology.com/journal/index.php/nq/index). -- ramesam]

Quantum Mechanics and the Brain: A NeuroQuantologic Perspective
By Sultan Tarlaci, M.D.
ABSTRAT: Over the past decade, discussions of the roles that quantum mechanics might or might not play in the theory of consciousness/mind have become increasingly sharp. One side of this debate stand conventional neuroscientists who assert that brain science must look to the neuron for understanding, and on the other side are certain physicists, suggesting that the rules of quantum theory might influence the dynamics of consciousness/mind. However, consciousness and mind are not separate from matter. Submicroscopic world of the human brain give rise to consciousness and mind. We are never able to make a sharp separation between mind and matter. Thus, ultimately there is no “mind” that can be separated from “matter” and no “matter” that can be separated from “mind”. The brain as a mixed physical system composed of the macroscopic neuron system and an additional microscopic system. The former consists of pathway conduction of neural impulses. The latter is assumed to be a quantum mechanical many-body system interacting with the macroscopic neuron system.
***
[Select Paras from the article are reproduced below}

We do not know what the glue is that binds neural activity to sub-cellular molecular mechanisms, and the mind as a whole to the brain, but at the same time, in physics we more or less know the nature of gluons, which hold matter together.

Neurobiologists treat the brain and its parts as classical objects, and when they progress to smaller scales, give no importance to quantum mechanical effects. In this way, classical physics remains without mind or consciousness.

With the rise of quantum mechanics in the 1900s, the search in physics for a place for “something else” alongside matter began, and unfortunately, the searchers were physicists and not neuroscientists. Consciousness, which at first entered into the philosophical interpretations of quantum mechanics, was eventually incorporated into the equations. Classical physics contradicts the idea of free will, and connections were sought with quantum mechanics, which made random choices.

In 1963 computer scientist James Culbertson, in line with a long tradition of “panpsychism”, proposed that consciousness is an aspect of space-time, and all objects are to some extent conscious. According to relativity, our lives are in a region of space-time. Our brains show us a film of matter changing in time. All space-time events are consciousness and are in the consciousness of other space-time events.

Evan Harris Walker presented a model of synaptic tunneling between nerve cells [in] 1970.

[B]rain surgeon and researcher Karl Pribram (Pribram, 1971) and physicist David Bohm proposed that the brain worked like a hologram.
In 1977, the neuroscientist John C. Eccles suggested that the regions between the nerve cells of the cortex might operate in a quantum mechanical fashion.

According to Eccles, the interaction between mind and brain “is not by energy, but as if in a flow of information.”

[Penrose, 1989] claims that consciousness is created by quantum mechanical operations carried out in the brain cells by means of objective reduction. According to Penrose, the place in the brain where quantum mechanical operations take place is the microtubules found in concentration in the brain cells.

Hameroff devoted a large part of the next ten years to understanding how the microtubules could act like a computer network inside the brain cells (2001).

Penrose-Hameroff theory became one of the main foundations of the quantum mechanical theory of consciousness.

[I]t was postulated that conventional synaptic activity influences and is influenced by quantum state activity in the microtubules. This part of the process is referred to as 'orchestration' hence the theory is called Orchestrated Objective Reduction.

Stapp’s [1995] quantum model of consciousness has three bases. 1. The Schrödinger process, which is mechanical and deterministic, and predicts the state of the system; 2. Heisenberg’s process, which is a choice made consciously. According to the theory of quantum mechanics, we know a thing when we ask a question of nature. We affect the universe with the question. 3. The Dirac process is that an answer must be given to the question which we asked. The answer is totally random.

Yasue tried to prove that quantum mechanical effects had a function in recording memory, and that consciousness arose from an electromagnetic field interacting with the electric dipole field of water and protein molecules.

Physical Brain does Operate Quantum Mechanics

Quantum mechanics however turns man from an automaton into a personality with a mind that has an active role to play in wave function collapse.
Quantum mechanics must be brought into the working of the brain and human behaviour because they are related to ionic nerve transmitters and atomic operations. For example, when neural electrical stimuli reach a junction between nerve cells, calcium ions enter the cell and cause the release of neurotransmitters. Ions and ion channels have very small dimensions. The opening of the channels and the movement of ions, as with other movements of ionic atoms, is a quantum mechanical event. Thus, the ions that enter may or may not cause the release of neurotransmitters from the vesicles in the nerve cells. The released neurotransmitters may or may not affect the sensors. This behaviour can only be described in terms of quantum probabilities. Such a quantum effect at a single nerve ending may not be important, but when this happens in a brain with 1015 synapses between nerve cells, classical physics is incapable of explaining it.

For today, rather than hoping to find new molecules and brain structures to explain the working of the brain and consciousness, we need new ideas on the interaction of molecules that will help us more. In this sense, the quantum mechanical approach may open up new avenues.

If we can define the oscillation of neurotransmitters in the synapses as being quantum mechanical, the sum total of synaptic activity in the brain may give an integrated brain wave function. At any moment in time, the potential state of observed events may be subject to superposition. That is, in the brain all alternative choices exist together at any one time, which Gordon Globus called a “plenum of possibilia.”

Physical Brain does not Operate Quantum Mechanics

Quantum mechanics and the word “quantum” have been added to many money-making enterprises.

Quantum mechanics is necessary to understand the atoms of the brain, it is needed to understand the atoms of a stone in just the same way, but there is no need to make inferences using quantum mechanics about a stone’s consciousness.

The idea underlying these statements is that ‘inexplicable’ events are somehow connected to ‘inexplicable’ quantum mechanics.
Today, materialism has been replaced by psychology, and reductionism by a holistic view.

[Q]uantum mechanics works without involving consciousness; it fits in with all observations and all the principles of physics (Song, 2008). However, this is unfortunately ignored in the popular press, because it does not support their preference for mystical nonsense.

Quantum events according to the Schrödinger equation are linear. The nervous system however shows non-linear events at all levels.

The brain is not a closed system containing energy and information, it is an open system relating to meaning and thought.

The bottom line is that consciousness has been inserted into quantum mechanics, and this is an unnecessary complication. But it doesn’t end there. Afterwards, the place of consciousness becomes assured by creating answers to the wrong questions, whereas in fact quantum mechanics has nothing to say about the relationship between consciousness and matter.
The new quantum holism feeds our obsessions and tells us we are a part of the non-living cosmic mind. In this way, traditional religions are being modernized. A mystical physics is basically a wrong understanding of Hindu and Buddhist philosophy.

The main argument against the quantum mind proposition is that quantum states would decohere too quickly to be relevant to neural processing. Possibly the scientist most often-quoted in relation to this criticism is Max Tegmark. Based on his calculations, Tegmark concluded that quantum systems in the brain decohere quickly and cannot control brain function (Tegmark, 2000).

Since 2003, neuroscience and quantum physics have been growing together by examining two main topics. One of these is the problem of measurement in quantum mechanics. The measurement problem has brought many other still unanswered questions in its train. The other main topic of NeuroQuantology is quantum neurobiology:

NeuroQuantology provides the motivation to break down this resistance and open a new door to quantum neurobiology (Tarlaci, 2010).

Any new information that we have gained about consciousness and the brain will open up even bigger questions. If there is one thing we have learned from the course of science up until today, it is that in understanding completely our brain and consciousness, we cannot jump over our own shadows.

Bhakti Yoga

Essay By Dr. K. Sadananda

[Dr. K. Sadananda (http://www.advaitaforum.org/) is a research scientist specialized in material science. He worked with the USA Naval Labs until his recent retirement. Starting from a VisishTadvaita environment, he shifted to J. Krishanmurti and later moved on to traditional Advaita under the tutelage of Swami Chinmayananda. He has been teaching Vedanta for over two decades and has been conferred with the title of “Acharya” by the Chinmaya Mission. His easy style of narration laced with wit and unerring focus on the essence of Vedanta earned him a large following on and off the internet.


I am deeply obliged to Dr. Sadananda for readily consenting to post the following interesting write up by him on Devotion.  -- ramesam]

On Bhakti Yoga

By Dr. K. Sadananda

Krishna talks of only two paths in Bhagavad-Gita (Ch. III-3) – one is karma yoga for those whose mind is set in yoga of action and the other is jnaana yoga for those whose mind is in yoga of knowledge. Bhakti yoga is not specifically mentioned. The reason is very simple – both have common theme and that is yoga. Yoga means one’s mind is yoked to the higher nature of reality. That demands commitment towards the higher, that is Bhakti or unwavering devotion towards the goal. Hence karma yoga is Bhakti through action and jnaana yoga is Bhakti through knowledge. Thus, Lord Krishna does not consider Bhakti as a separate yoga since it is the bottom line for both karma and jnaana. Nevertheless, Bhakti is emphasized throughout Gita. For example,

samoham sarva bhuuteShu na me dveShyosti na priyaH|
ye bhajantitu maam bhaktyaa mayi te teShu caapyahaM||

“I maintain equanimity to all – I do not favor or disfavor anybody. However, those who worship me with devotion, they are in me and I am in them” -- BG. IX-29.

Karma yoga involves Iswaraarpita buddhi that is offering action as the prayer to the Lord. When action itself becomes a prayer, then we have to make sure what we offer is the best that we can; therefore, dexterity in action is essential for a karma yogi – yogaH karmasu koushalam -says Krishna.

The whole of 12th chapter is called Bhaktiyoga with the emphasis on –

etu sarvaaNi karmaani mayi sanyasya matparaaH|
ananye naiva yogena maam dhyaayhanta upaasate||
teShaamaham samudharthaa mRityusamsaara saagaraat|
bhavaami na ciraatpArthaa mayyaaveshita cetasaam|

“Those who surrender all their actions in me, and meditate on me without any other thoughts, and those who have surrendered everything and whose minds are fully abiding in me, I shall ere long uplift them from the thralldom of the cycle of birth and deaths.”

Shankara defines Bhakti in VivekachuudaamaNi as –

moksha kaaraNa samaargryaam bhaktiH eva gareeyasii|
swaswaruupanusandhaanam bhaktirtyabhidIyate|
swaatmatatvaanusandhaanam bhaktirityaparE jaguH||

“Of all the paths for liberation Bhakti is the supreme. Bhakti is continuous contemplation on one’s own essential nature. Others say that continuous contemplation of the truth of one’s own Atma is Bhakti.”

Atma jnaana vicaara is therefore supreme Bhakti as per Shankara. Krishna classifies devotees into four groups as ArthaH (who thinks of me when in despair), arthaarthii (who prays for prosperity, artha), jignaasu (who desires to know Me) and jnaani (who knows Me), and says jnaani is the highest bhakta since “he loves me the most and I love him the most.”

Hence Bhakti is not a choice here but is the essence in all saadhanas. We shall examine what is involved in Bhakti or devotion in order to understand how a karma yogi perceives bhakti in relation to jnaana yogi, and why Krishna says jnaani is the highest Bhakta.

There is a difference between devotion and love (a word used in common parlance). Love towards a higher is devotion. Love towards lower is actually lust but mistakenly called love. Hence one rises in devotion while one falls in love!

Now what is higher and what is lower? Higher is that wherein the mind becomes calm, quiet and dissolves itself. Dissolving implies all mental agitations are sublimated at the altar of love. This is also called prapatti – a term which has a special significance in VishiShTaadvaita. In Gita we find that until Arjuna surrendered, Krishna did not start teaching – shiShyatvoham saadhimaam tvam prapannam – I am your disciple (prapanna) and I am ready to subject myself to your discipline. That should be the attitude of a student as Krishna himself enumerates that one should approach a teacher with that attitude of surrender – tat viddhi praNipaatena praripraShNena sevayaa – That is devotion towards the teacher and the teaching is essential for knowledge– Only in that attitude of devotion the mind becomes free from agitations and ready to learn. In contrast, lower is that wherein the mind gets more and more agitated – one cannot sleep or eat or do anything constructively since mind is always pre-occupied – that is what happens when one is falling in love.

Love or devotion can be classified into three types: 1) Means Love 2) End-Love and 3) Self-Love. Means love is love of the means to achieve some goal in mind – that is the path to reach the goal. Some are so obsessed with the means that they forget the goal and fanatically fight for the means. We can remind ourselves the story in Gulliver’s travels where the two Lilliputian countries fight among themselves – the issue is how to break the egg – One country says Egg should be broken from the fat end while the other insists on breaking from the thin end. The Means became more important than the end. Religions try to survive by arguing that theirs is the only means to reach the goal and declaring that all other means will lead to eternal hell. Some are ready to kill others in support of their cause to save life of the unborn babies. Since I love the end or the goal so much that I tend to love the means too. That is one kind of love. But some love the means only to get to the goal they want. Once the goal is reached there is no more love for the means since the mission is accomplished. I love my uncle so much since I like to have the wealth that he has; but once I got that wealth, uncle is of no importance; in fact he is considered a nuisance.

How is this related to Bhakti? For the most of the people, God’s love is only a means-love. That is God is considered as a means to achieve some goal in mind. What I love is actually the goal that I want, and means is only a way to get what I want. Everybody has lots of desires – for self and also for family (spouse, children, grand children, etc.) and ‘this’ includes health, wealth, position, power, etc. which are projected as the goals of life. I want to be on the good side of God, since I have learned that He is the one who is the giver. Hence I go from temple to temple, one holy place to another, of course with a big list of what I want from Him. I will make sure I do not forget to prostrate to all the gods in the temple (nowadays there are many in each temple) to make sure that I am not blacklisted by any one of the Gods there.

Whenever we go to a temple, the priest asks during sankalpa that involves informing the God who we are and why we are praying the Lord, - our gotram and our star, etc, so that when God sends the goodies he has the right address. Pujari has a standard wish list for all; he repeats it for everybody without even asking what we really want. Thank God, Krishna lists us also as one of his Bhaktas under the category of artha arthiis – that is all those who are always with begging bowls, however much he has already given. That is called Means-Love.

The second one is called End-Love, not end of love. God itself is the end not the goodies that he gives. I do not care for the goodies, what I love is God. This kind of love is rather rare and is what is really emphasized in most of the devotional paths. The nine modes of Love are the modes of expressing this love towards God. He is the master and I am the servant is the one that is mostly emphasized in VishiShTAdviata. The service according to them involves serving the forms of God – through daily puja and idol worship etc. This Bhakti is exemplified by the twelve Alwars in the vishiShTAdviata tradition. Their Bhakti includes not only serving God but also serving the Bhaktas of the Lord. It is easier to serve the Lord than serve the bhakta of the Lord. In Mukundamaala Kulashekhara Alwar says – tat bRitya bRitya paricaaraka bRitya bRityasya iti maam – I am the servant of the servant of the servant.. .

There is an interesting communication between an advaitin and vishiShTaadvaita. Advaitin signed his letter as so2ham meaning He is me – the mahaavaakya. Obviously the vishiShTaadvaitin did not like that. He put da- in front making it as daaso2ham (I am (His) servant). When advaitin saw the letter he put another –sa- in front making it sadaa so2ham – (eternal identity of He and ‘me’). Of course the vishiShTaadvaitin put another da in front of it making it daasa daaso2ham – servant of the servant. The extended communication is still going on!

The third type of love is the Self-love that Shankara emphasized in the above quoted sloka from VivekacUDAmaNi. This is considered as the supreme love. How can Self love be the supreme love? Yajnavalkya says to his wife Maitreyi in Br. Up. – aatmanastu kaamaaya sarvam priyam bhavati – essentially we love everything or anything else only because we love our selves. I love this – this can be anything (means-love) or even God (end-love) – not for the sake of this but for my sake. I love ‘this’ only because ‘this’ that I love gives me happiness. Hence whether it is means-love or end-love the real love is only self-love. What I love is actually the happiness that I hope to get more than the thing itself. Hence even God lovers do not love God for God’s sake. What they really love is self-contentment or fulfillment. They want to be complete without any inadequacies since full and contented mind is a happy mind. Shree Vidyaaranya says in pancadasi – the love for oneself is the supreme and expresses as – maanabhuuvamhibhuuyaasam – Let me not cease to exist or Let Me Be All the Time. I love myself so much that I want to live eternally. Lakshmiidhara Kavi also makes the same statement in Advaita Makaranda – ahamasmi sadaabhaami kadaachinnaahapariyaH – I am not only existent and conscious but also ananda swaruupa since never I dislike myself.


A jnaani is the one who loves himself – since he revels by himself in himself – atmanyeva aatmanaa tuShTaH, and he has no desire for anything else including God since he has discovered that the God he loves is nothing but his own essence. I am in everyone’s heart; and heart in Vedanta means the very core of one’s individuality. Hence Krishna says jnaani is he who realizes - sarva bhuutastam aatmaanam sarva bhuutaanicha aatmani –that he is the self in all and all are in himself – he is jnaani and that jnaani is the one Krishna says is the supreme bhakta. The self realization is also God realization as Krishna himself in the very next sloka says– yo maam pasyati sarvatra sarvan ca mayi pasyati – those who see Me everywhere and everything in Me.

Hence pure Bhakti should culminate in jnaanam. Therefore, Self-love is God-love – not a God separate from him – it is the culmination of Bhakti where lover and loved have become one - that is advaita. In advaita, Bhakti reaches its pinnacle – and that is moksha or liberation. That is the culmination of Bhakti yoga – same as culmination of jnaana yoga. Hence, Shankara’s definition of Bhakti – swaswaruupa anusandhaanam bhaktirityabhidiiyate.

(The above write up is inspired by a talk given by Swami Paramarthanandaji).

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DEVOTION
By Rupert Spira

My nephew Dr. Chandra alerted me about a short write up by Rupert on Devotion. Rupert kindly permitted me to reproduce it here.

Question: Is there a place for bhakti or devotion in this [Advaita] approach?

Rupert: To be truly devoted means to give our whole self to the object of our devotion at all times. Therefore, the only object worthy or even available for such devotion or love must be something that is always present, for we cannot give ourselves completely to something that is intermittent.

There are no true objects of devotion because all objects are intermittent. Only Consciousness is ever-present and therefore, only Consciousness merits true devotion. And what could give Consciousness this devotion? Obviously an intermittent object such as a body or a mind cannot render devotion to something that is present when it is not. Therefore only Consciousness is able to impart this devotion to itself.

So, it is only Consciousness that can be truly loved and it is only Consciousness that can truly love. However, Consciousness does not love and is not loved. It is love.

So, the highest form of love or devotion is simply to abide as Consciousness, knowingly.

Any other sort of devotion would be the devotion of any imagined entity towards an imagined object.

However, the imagined entity that looks for a direction in which to turn and for something to turn towards, does not realise that the ‘attention’ it is ‘using’ for this purpose is already the Consciousness that it seeks. It is like a current of water searching the ocean for water.

Every object or direction which appears as a possible recipient of the mind’s devotion is an object that it has created within itself and cannot therefore be the true object of its devotion. Any object is simply more mind.

As the mind searches for a direction in which to turn, it is, without knowing it to begin with, tracing itself back to its source.

Finally, having explored all directions, it comes to a dead end. It comes to the knowledge that there is no known direction in which it can turn nor is there an object worthy of true devotion. In short, the mind cannot know what devotion is.

With this understanding the mind falls silent, which means it dissolves and what is revealed is devotion.

Devotion is what we are, not something we do.
* * *
The investigation within the mind for the true object of devotion is sometimes known as self-enquiry or higher reasoning. It is a concession to the mind that thinks it has the capacity to direct its attention at will towards an object.

However, this is not a process of the mind going towards its source, although it may appear to be so to begin with. It is rather, the dissolution of the apparent mind in its source.

[Note: Only something that is not the source could dissolve in its source, so the idea of the dissolution of the mind in its source is part and parcel of the mind’s belief that it is something other than its source. In other words, the idea of a source from which something emerges is a dualitic idea which itself ‘dissolves’ upon understanding that there is no independent entity, mind or object.]

How could a mind go towards Consciousness? In what direction would it go?

It is rather the source itself, Consciousness, that gradually reclaims the mind.

In taking the shape of mind, Consciousness seems to become something other than itself. It seems to become separate, other and outside. At the end of every perception, Consciousness folds the mind back up within Itself and, as a result, ceases to seemingly veil itself with its own creativity.

However, even that formulation is not quite right: the mind has no other substance other than Consciousness so there is nothing there to be dissolved.

When an image that seems to veil the [TV] screen fades, leaving only the screen in view, did the image really dissolve?

The image was only made of screen. However, by seeming to become something other than itself (the landscape on the screen) the screen seemed to become hidden by taking the shape of the landscape and the subsequent fading of the image seemed to reveal the screen.

Likewise, the mind is an appearance within Consciousness, made only of Consciousness, but has the capacity to seem to veil the Consciousness out of which it is made.

In self-enquiry or higher reasoning the mind fades like the image on the screen, leaving only the background of Consciousness in plain view.

It is not the mind that undertakes this process, any more than it is the image in the landscape that is responsible for its own dissolution. The mind does nothing. The mind is not an independent entity with the capacity to do or not to do anything.

In fact, it was always only Consciousness that was in plain view, simultaneously the background and the foreground.

[Note: One of our esteemed members of this Blog, Cathy has a different take on "Devotion" at her Blog .]