3) An iterative argument to identify the true Self / 'I AM'.

First and foremost question one should ask is : ” How is an observer able to see a huge mountain as it ‘is’ when only a small image is formed by the eye-lens on retina ? So, in reality, we should sense/see only that small image, but how does it get enlarged again in same proportion as that in reality “. As far as my search goes, biology or physics has no answer except for ” the brain somehow does the work “. And, even if we say we are seeing, who is that “We” that we are speaking of here ? Have you ever wondered, when some one ask you “Who are You” ? If YES, that is awesome ! because that is the starting step for understanding the existential universe. If NO, no prob. This article would stimulate you to think so !

Let us dive !

Now, let us take a well built human body with life (i.e a person :P). Now, he has all the five senses working. What we do in the following experiment is, hypothetically, switch off his senses one by one and see what happens to his perception and reality (define ?).

~~SIGHT~~: The person now can not see i.e. he is unable to respond to photons falling on his eye. There are cases when eyes are good, nerves are good, yet a person is blind. So, problem with brain ?? or some thing else ? think ! what ever the case, a blind man is what we achieved here.
Now, if we (the common healthy man) see the moon at night, and ask him if he can see, he would obviously say NO, unless he is witty and opts to say ” yaa, I can also see a person who looks just like you jumping off the craters on the moon 😛 “.
So, Does the moon exist ? There are two kind of answers:
1) YES. It is fault of the blind man that he can’t see, not that moon doesn’t exist.
2) No. The question should be re-framed to ” Does the moon exist to him “. Without specifying an observer, the existence of an object has no meaning.
Now, which one is TRUE, is left to the reader according to his thinking. I would choose the 2nd one. The reason being ” unless, I measure, I can’t assert some thing “. Now, if ” I ” that I just spoke of, is same in every one then it would lead to the first option. Else, no. So, is the same ” I ” in every one ? lets see.
~~HEARING~~: Now, if he is deaf also, then he can see or hear. So he touches and senses the world. Remove the touch, he is left with smell and taste which are of no use in most cases to perceive what is to be perceived by other senses any way. So, we finally removed all other ~~SENSES~~.Now, this sense(s)-less person is still alive, right ? just because his senses are cut, he will not be dead — (like in coma or paralysis etc which are partial states of our extreme hypothesis). Now, actually, we do not even have means to communicate to him how he is perceiving the world. Let us say, we probed his perception some how and see how he is perceiving the world (actually, we are superimposing our imagination, but let it be — that is intuition !).
The main Q to be asked to him is
“do you still know that you EXIST ?”
He would (wittily) reply
” You just asked me, so I might be existing, unless u r mad enough to talk to a corpse 😛 “. or
” Yes, of course. Only thing is world do not exist for me any more ! “.So, our intuition would say that even without senses, one can LIVE. So, there is some thing else that which is governing the life. What is it ? lee’s proceed further.Now, See the following image:
(mysterious CUBE :P)
Concentrate on the inner cubic space. Do you see it as an empty space having cubic boundary on three sides ? or a solid cube whose three sides are visible ? (One can also pose the same problem as do you see the cube inward or out ward — its a daily life confusion which we all ignore just as we ignore an ant on the road :o)
If, we use laws of bio-physics, we would say the same set of photons are released from the screen of monitor, and reaching and the same image is formed on retina. So, same electrical signals go to the brain. Now, What is intervening to disturb our perception, as if we are hit by our little sister on head ? It is definitely not brain, because neural connections (though adapt) would not oscillate between in and out cube, simply without a reason / cause.That we attribute to some thing called “MANAS” or “MIND”. What is it any way ? and why ?
— > Mind is that with which, we perceive this world ! Then what about the senses about which, we spent a whole paragraph ?
— > Se Mr / Miss, take an example of a rope in the dark. If one sees / touches the rope, same electrical signals flow to brain. But in the dark, we some times mistake it to be a snake (if we lived in villages, for example. Or take a window curtain dangling due to wind. We mistake it to a thief / ghost etc.) In these cases, though sense organs (the connecting wires) send the signals, to the brain (processor), MIND interferes and modifies the signal according to some scheme (which is based on karma theory which relates experiences and tendencies of past and present life – which I would be writing in an another post) and so, brain doesn’t receive the same signal sent by the organs, but a deformed signal and hence the element of fear.Same thing is happening in case of Cube. Our mind with its nature of “Chanchala” or “Ever Moving / non-resting” creates a confusion. But, if u fix u r mind and u want to see IN cube, then u will in a little time, for some time, until the mind changes that fixture.So, MIND is more important independent of senses. So, the Senses-Less man is able to say that he is alive, because he is able to still “fell” his existence some how and he has mind. So, can we attribute Life to MIND ? i.e is Mind cause of LIFE ?. I say a Big NOOOOOO. Why ? Let’ see 😀
—- > We just saw that MIND has a special property — i.e to jump thought to thought or thing to thing like a wild monkey. So, There should be a trainer for it. We some times see, we have a choice to follow our mind. i.e. we some times are angry at our beloved ones because mind acts so. But, If we are at a party, we just do not shout at them, we control. So, there is some thing that controls MIND too and hence, LIFE / SELF can’t be attributed to MIND alone.
So, what is this that controls Mind ?
It is the WILL originated from EGO – or the feel of ” i am ” (here I have used a small i am for a reason to be clear soon enough). It is common experience that when we practice meditation, we can control our feelings which originate from MIND, yet controlled by us / i-am feeling. ” we say — i have to be calm, i have to be cool” etc. So, There exists an i-am feeling even for that blind man. So, he knows he exists. Does this mean, this i-am feeling is ultimatum and cause of life / existence ? ..heehe … still one more final step is there What is it ?I would explain the final step, once I put all that I have spoke in an orderly fashion according to a great poem by a great seer. Actually that which I just explained in this post has been taught be seers very long ago. One example is ” Drig-Drishya-Viveka — discrimination between the seer and the seen ” by Adi Shankaracharya.—> here, I am taking eye for any sense organ (symbolically)
First stage, an object is the seen and eye is the seer.
Second, Eye is the seen and Mind is the seer (because, we can change the eye ball positioning with mind — if my mood is dull, I would roll my eyes off :P)
Third, Mind is the seen and Ego is the seer (because, Ego can observe the mood swings. Mood it self cant observe mood, so There must be some thing else behind the mind and we called it Ego or i am)
Fourth ???The final thing –> Can you observe your own i-am ?Can we observe our own i ?
YES. Don’t we say ” i am hurt”, ” i am happy”, etc etc. Who is supervising this i-am ? That which is behind this ego, we call it by big i — i.e. I – AM. This is final step, because, if it were not, some thing else would have supervised it and we would have had noticed. Also, this I-AM is same for all is what I claim. How ?
If you cross the ego stage of any person, the final step is immutable. i-am, MIND, SENSES and objects — all were mutable by environment or karma theory or what ever. But this that supervises all, is immutable as for mutation or a change, we need a cause (a superior officer), but since this is final step in the iteration, this is immutable. So, This must be the LIFE itself or its essence.So, I-AM the soul, atman, what ever you call is that which dwells in every one of us. Yoga, meditation, prayers etc try to remove the apparent dominance of i-am (the ego covered with maya / illusion) and helps the I-AM to shine as is which when happens, we call it Realization / Samadhi.That’s it. If more needs to be clarified, suggestions are welcome. Thank You Guys !

Dr. Tejaswi Katravulapally

PhD (Quantum Physics), M.Sc. (IIT Madras), B.Tech. (LNMIIT).

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