By Turaj Hafezi
An essay in relation to Yoga Teacher Training,
Yoga Vidya Gurukul, Nasik, India
July 23rd, 2009
The concept of awareness has explicitly or implicitly been the focal point of many studies within the fields of psychology, philosophy, and not least of religions. Even though awareness seems to be related to practically every aspect and experience of life, a closer look at its nature raises several non-trivial questions. This essay is about the yogic view on the awareness and its associated aspects such as the mind, intellect, consciousness and the soul.
The very basic question is what exactly we understand by awareness? And how it is different from or related to our mind, intellect, and consciousness? Is complete awareness only limited to one single object or thought (one-pointedness) or can it be broadened to a wider context? Can awareness be broadened to the state of pure consciousness?
When we examine the Kriya Yoga tradition, the awareness is defined as the conscious attention of thoughts on objects, either external or internal, without necessarily being one-pointed [1]. The word awareness then implies a relationship between the activity of perception and the ability of the perceiver (or the mind). In other words, awareness refers to an individual who knows that her attention is at a particular place or on sequence of thoughts. So if the individual does not know that she is perceiving something then she is not aware.
This definition is practical when awareness is examined isolated. However in the yogic literature different terms and concepts are applied in somehow ambiguous ways to refer to the mind, consciousness, the pure consciousness and the soul, which challenges this isolated definition, and which troubles explaining the awareness in relation to them.
Bhagavad Gita, India's holy script of ancient times [2] describes briefly, and yet completely, the relationship between the perception (kshetra or the field) and the perceiver (kshetrajna or knower of the field) and the elements of which they consist. A thorough inspection of all these elements would surely be out of scope of this brief essay. However, scrutinizing the consciousness in the field of perceiver, and examining the mind and intellect in the field of the perception are utmost relevant for our discussion:
According to the yogic principles, there is just one conscious state of being, of perception, of knowledge, which is referred to as chetana in Sanskrit [3]. Chetana is changeless and endless. One can suggest (deduce) that chetana in terms of Bhagavad Gita is the same as the perceiver or the knower of the perception, i.e. kshetrajna. Chetana is the pure self, soul or the pure consciousness, which exist beyond senses, illuminating them all, sustaining everything, without any attachment, without any attributes, but yet perceiving all the attributes of the field or kshetra [2, song 13, sloka 14]. Swami Niranjananda Saraswati gives a thorough discourse of how chetana is divided into the three fields of experience: Wakefulness or conscious mind (jagriti), dream or subconscious mind (swapna), and sleep or unconscious mind (nidra). He explains further on that the awareness should not be confused with consciousness (chetana) – or the knower of the field (kshetrajna) or the soul.
According to Swami Niranjananda, awareness is related to an aspect of the buddhi, which in most of yogic literature is often translated as intellect. Awareness is an attribute or an expression of the buddhi, but it is not equal to buddhi. This subtle distinction at the first sight might sound like a non- important difference or as an intellectual entertainment, but as a matter of fact it contains the key explanation to understanding the shift from the sphere of the mind to that of pure consciousness or the soul:
The intellect is commonly understood as the ability of analysing, comparing, deducing, structuring and storing information and knowledge for later application. Buddhi on the other hand is not bound by external concepts of right and wrong, but also depends on the a priori, or sort of internal, perception of being. It is the intellect which gives birth to the single-pointed or partial broadening of the awareness. However, the complete broadening of the awareness to the stage of the pure consciousness requires more than that, i.e. accessing the realm of the inner truths which seems to be the gateway to the ultimate truth or pure consciousness.
Now, assuming this is true, one can by withdrawing the senses (pratyahara), practise one-pointed concentration (dharana) and meditate on a single gross object by exploiting the capabilities of the intellect as a function of the buddhi. The intellect would also through long practice sustain the process of broadening the awareness of one object to several objects in the field of wakefulness (jagriti). However expanding the awareness from the field of wakefulness to the field of the dream and further to the field of sleep of consciousness seems to require more than just ability to analyse, structure and deduce. Based on the distinction between full capabilities of buddhi and intellect, it could be suggested that broadening the awareness to the rest of the realm of consciousness, i.e. dream and sleep, would require access to the internal perception of the truth within. This requirement is probably the single most important distinction between the early and advanced stages of meditation, i.e. moving from dhyana to the ultimate yoga (state of seedless union or nirikalpa samadhi).
A concluding word on this discussion could be that awareness and consciousness are not the same. However extended utilization of the capabilities of buddhi, beyond the intellect, makes it possible to expand the awareness to all fields of consciousness. Yet, while consciousness is changeless, access to it is not granted without meditative and dedicated effort of expansion of awareness. And while consciousness is endless, maintaining the state of the seedless union or nirikalpa samadhi is not. One could only guess whether this also would be possible through practicing Mahasamadhi, but that would open an entirely new chapter in this discussion, which without doubt would exhaust this essay.
References
[1] A systematic Course in the Ancient Tantric Techniques of Yoga and Kriya, Swami Satyananda Saraswati, 1981.
[2] Bhagavad Gita, The Beloved Lord's Song, Graham M Schweig, 2007
[3] Yoga Darshan, Vision of the Yoga Upanishads, Swami Niranjananda Saraswati, 1993
Other sources
Yoga Sutra of Patanjali, Translated from Sanskrit and commented by Swami Prabhavananda & Christopher Isherwood, 1983
God Talks with Arjuna, The Immortal Dialogue Between Soul and Spirit, The Bhagavad Gita, Sri Sri Parmahansa Yogananda, 1995.
