Beingness Has No Boundaries (Ashtavakra Gita 1.12 and 1.13) - 8th October 2016

Verse number 12: You are Self, the solitary witness. Okay, now we're talking. You, the solid, all-pervading one. You are free, desireless, forever still. The universe is but a seeming in you. You are Self, the solitary witness. We saw this in the morning. You are perfect, all-pervading. We just saw that it is the same awareness which is even playing as Consciousness; therefore, it is the same one awareness which is all-pervasive. You are perfect, all-pervading one. You are free, desireless, forever still. We saw that this awareness is not changing, is not moving, is not in any way participating in a tangible way in this play; therefore, it is always free and without desire. Even the concept of desire doesn't apply at all to awareness.

Then the last line is very beautiful: The universe is but a seeming. The universe is but a seeming in you. Just like what we were saying, the finger is just a seeming within the hand; it is not separate from the hand ever, see? So all of this, as Guruji also says, is one big seeming. It seems like all these separate ones are appearing. There are beings, you see? All of this play of this world is appearing and disappearing, but it is all one big seeming. So when we see that everything is contained within my being, that is why I ask you these questions: What are the boundaries of your being?

Okay, let me take up this topic because this might be live for some of you. Many times when we have the experience of being, it can quickly seem like it is contained within the body that is here. Many also say 'the being within this body.' But when we actually check what happens, we find that that which we define as the body—our experience of the body—is just a set of sensations. And if you were to focus right now on the body and the boundaries of the body, you will find that a set of sensations seem to define the extent of the body, is it? And then when we check where are these sensations experienced, we find that even these sensations are experienced within my being, and my being is not bound by them. This beingness, this I amness, is in no way bound by these boundary sensations of the body.

Then we come to see things in the right light. We see that it is the cloud which is within the sky and not the sky inside the cloud. Just like this cloud of the body is an appearance within this being, just like all other appearances, but it is not being which is contained in this body. So then when Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi said 'the Heart,' you see, what did he mean? The Heart, you see, it's important to see that for most of us the sense of beingness seems strongly correlated with the area of the physical heart. But when he was talking about the Heart, he was not speaking about the physical heart. He was talking about that sense where the sense of being seems to emerge from, that seems to correlate with a sensation of the physical heart. So when he talked about Heart, he was referring to Atma.

But in this way, so this I amness for many can have this seeming point of center, seeming point of origin, or the core of being—this Heart. And for many it can seem like there is no center; it is just being. In fact, to correlate it with the body seems absurd to them. So both are valid perspectives based on what is the direct experience of the being that you are having.