You Are Not An Object, You Are the Knowing Subject

6 months ago
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The delusory power of māyā first of all causes us to forget that we are the knowing subject (pure consciousness), then it causes us to wrongly identify with the objects that we know (mind, body, etc).

You are not an object, you are not a 'this' or a 'that', you are the observer. Or to stay with grammatical language, you are the subject, anything known to you is an object. What a fundamental distinction! You are the knower, the subject, anything known to you is an object.

It's so fundamental, but when you just grasp that one basic idea - you are the knowing subject, anything known to you is an object, you take that a little bit, the consequences are amazing! Because your body is known to you, how can it be you? Your senses are known to you, how can they be you? Intelligence, thoughts, emotions, all of this is known to you, by definition, anything known to you, is not you.

How absurd it would be to say "My glasses are known to me, therefore I am the glasses". Absurd, right? Here, watch this one [holds up a piece of paper] this paper is known to me [to which you might say] "I'm not paper!", but look at this, the paper is known to me, and the paper is white, therefore I am white, pretty silly, right? Because whiteness obviously belongs to the paper, not to the body. But look where that one goes! The body is known to me, the body happens to be white, therefore I am white, ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous.

How we label ourselves, the body happens to be male or female, therefore I am male or female. The body happens to be young or old, therefore I am young or old. This is all wrong thinking. That's the result of ignorance (avidyā) and that's what we address through Vedānta.

Anything known to you is not you - a table is known to you, not you. Your body is known to you, not you. Your thoughts are known to you, your emotions are known to you, therefore not you. Okay, now we'll proceed....

Speaking in this video is Swami Tadatmananda.

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