The mystery of the self-soul

backwaters's picture

Average: 5 (2 votes)

Hi! I am really happy and blessed to have found this site and to be amongst you deep thinkers. Thank you for this opportunity to express some of my opinions and doubts. I have a question for you. Please respond in any way you find appropriate:

From experience, my real nature is pure awareness. I can only be. I can never experience my “Self” in an objective way. So when we switch our attention through the body to the inner energy field, again it is just a form of identity isn’t it? How is identifying with the inner body any better than identifying with your body or thoughts or emotions? In the end isn’t all that just content and I am not content but consciousness without content. Why would it matter one way or the other then?

Is this due to an urge to improve upon our content, to replace dysfunctional patterns with more adaptive ones? Then content seems important. Because I am just pure awareness, change is not my nature, so evolution is for the content then? Is shaping better content the reason for manifestation? Is content what we call soul? If my true self can be compared to an energy wave, then is soul the data that this energy wave carries? Sort of like a radio wave carrying a music program which gets expressed when received by the right apparatus. Just as the self-soul or the energy wave carrying data needs a human brain for its current level of manifestation?

I look forward to reading your comments. Peace.

joejo's picture

Duality and All One

To discriminate between Seer and the Seen is a good exercise but for a man of the world is would be difficult to ignore that seed and tree or means and end are not two different things. In the end there is no duality.

The world comes out of Absolute and is never separate from it. The tree is known from the fruit it bears. Our actions are a reflection of our conditioning and there is a definite need to change the content. The discrimination between the Seer and the Seen also radically leads to change in content (conditioning) by challenging our basic assumptions.

Ignorance is lack of and wrong knowledge. It needs to be replaced by adequate and right knowledge. As regards our Self one needs do nothing but as Sun is not reflected in muddy water the pure consciousness (I Am) is not reflected if the content is not purified (unconditioned of unwholesome conditioning and prejudices).

We cannot refrain from not doing and we introduce our biases in all that we do thereby our actions bring us to contradictions both inwardly and outwardly. To be not biased is to change the content.

joejo | Thu, 02/20/2014 - 12:57
backwaters's picture

Thank you Joejo for this

Thank you Joejo for this very deep and wise answer. “To be not biased is to change content.” is brilliant. Does this mean it is best to remain in the state of pure awareness and to observe the inner and outer space with dispassion because that seems to replace ignorance with right knowledge. Sometimes by the grace of the Absolute Eternal Reality, we discover our true self but the content still leaves something to be desired. The manomaya neta seems to be in line and reflecting well but there are heavy burdens and areas of darkness that need healing. What then? I humbly seek more advice.

backwaters | Fri, 02/21/2014 - 06:09
joejo's picture

Awareness and Sincerity

Awareness is always pure but we lack sincerity to acknowledge it. We have to learn to be sincere and that which prevents this is said to an inscrutable force called Maya or the veiling and projecting power of Absolute Almighty.

However Maya cannot veil the Absolute totally and it shines forth as a sense of "I AM" in core of our heart. This core is said to be blocked by a knot of the Heart which are the conditioning's or influences that strength the "I am Body Idea".

Hurt or darkness can sustain only if this "I am the Body Idea" persists.

"Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought." All of us have these inner songs (Carlos Casteneda in teachings of Don Juan though in different context) and one needs to not Identify with them.

Non Identification and being aware are the key but easier said than done. One must start from where he is and work towards removing those conditioning's that re-enforce "I am the Body" idea and at least cultivate a body of knowledge arrived at through hard work search and enquiry that negate this Idea.

joejo | Fri, 02/21/2014 - 13:16
joejo's picture

Veils Tradition

Please check the following link which gives an explanation to veils tradition.

joejo | Fri, 02/21/2014 - 13:58
backwaters's picture

Thank you so much for the

Thank you so much for the link. Blessed are those who know the mystery of the veils of light.

A few sweet songs are playing in my head then! :)

backwaters | Sat, 02/22/2014 - 09:11
avi's picture

Gradual diminishing of identification

This is a very good question!

The way to complete dis-identification goes through identification to more subtle and more subtle objects. Each step eliminates some of the "side effects" of the previous identification and eliminates the previous identification itself(temporarily or permanently, as long as you are identified with the more subtle object). It's like a drug addict who moves from heroin to methadone and so on.

This is not just a theory, you are experiencing it when you are moving from the identification with the body and/or mind to identification with the inner body (the body vibration, the energy field, the shiva shakti) or with the I-thought (Ramana Maharshi's Self Enquiry) or with the observer and so on. Suddenly you are not identified with the body (and sometimes the mind), suddenly your samskaras (conditioning) don't bother you so much, suddenly the ego is absent, suddenly the fears and desires of the body-mind do not affect you.

Imagine to yourself what it is to be identified only with the Self. And even beyond that, not to be identified with anything, just being.

avi | Thu, 02/20/2014 - 19:20
backwaters's picture

Thank you Avi for this clear

Thank you Avi for this clear perspective that you have provided. So according to you, everything is just an addiction and the goal is just to be.

backwaters | Fri, 02/21/2014 - 06:10
avi's picture

A goal may be to be free

A goal may be to be free (just being is a means) but actually there are no goals, there is an inner whim to set free and the mind comes afterwards, claims ownership and sets a goal as if there was a conscious decision.

Most of our mechanical behavior is based on addictions. Originally, this was a positive mechanism aimed at survival of the body-mind instrument but mankind misused it and overused it as beautifully explained by nancy pro in

avi | Fri, 02/21/2014 - 07:57
backwaters's picture

Thank you Avi for the link.

Thank you Avi for the link. Nancy Pro does make a good point. All that pain that was suppressed is still there and saps energy and dysfunction stems from it and therefore it is important to bring awareness to it.

New insight: - It appears that thoughts and behavior that increase awareness or presence is desirable. This is a choice to be made every moment? The one who is awake must increasingly bring awareness into all aspects of existence so that “asathoma sath gamaya, thamasoma jyotirgamaya and mrithyoma amritham gamaya.” This may be a reason for becoming aware of the inner body, pain or other bodies. Perhaps we could then say that awakening for some is just the beginning. There is a whole new journey to be made?

backwaters | Fri, 02/21/2014 - 12:27
Quantum's picture

Distance from thoughts

The distance away from thoughts is well being.

It does not seem to matter what the object of attention is--breath, innerbody, feet against the floor, hands, middle of chest, hara, dan-tien, a tree, taste of tea, washing a cup, etc. As long as attention is removed from thoughts, thoughts go away with no attention to feed them. The mind calms down, becomes less distracting, calm abiding is then experienced. Insights come.

When agitated, it means you are in your head. Lost in thoughts.

Meditation is not what you think.

Good to get out of the head.

Quantum | Fri, 02/21/2014 - 17:21
backwaters's picture

Well said, Quantum! Thank

Well said, Quantum! Thank you for commenting.

backwaters | Sat, 02/22/2014 - 08:19