Confusion

For years, I’ve found Nisargadatta’s discussion of the relationship between consciousness (“I am”) and the body to be somewhat puzzling. The standard Vedantic view is that the ontology is, in the apt words of Francis Lucille, a “one-way street”: whatever is lower is dependent on the higher while whatever is higher can’t be dependent on the lower. Since, from a standard Vedantic view, consciousness, understood here (i.e., in Nisargadatta’s idiosyncratic teaching) as “I amness,” is higher than the body, it follows that it can’t be dependent on the latter.

Not so for Nisargadatta for whom there seems to be a more intimate relationship between consciousness and the body. Here, to cite but one example, is what he has to say in The Ultimate Medicine: “And what is the body? It is a mere aid for the sustenance or endurance of the ‘I am’ principle” (pp. 190-1). Elsewhere and not infrequently in the same text, he tells us that “I Amness” requires the body.

What gives, and what does any of this mean for real practice?

Sense 1: The Body As Localization (Category: Space)

In what follows, I’m going to argue that there are three senses in which Nisargadatta expounds upon the relationship between consciousness and the body. The first falls under the category of space.

When you “go into” the sense of “I Amness,” what is it? It’s conscious presence. But there’s a bit more to say: conscious presence “feels as if” it’s centered “here” and thus cannot be “everywhere.” Metaphorically speaking, one could say that conscious presence is like an aura, a presence that, going into and is just beyond the physical form, is nonetheless and significantly “pulled back to earth” by the body-sense. In other words, the sense of the body–this form–is precisely what provides consciousness with a sense of a specific spatial location, with the sense of “being a center here.”

The crux for practice is to slowly, or swiftly, understand that this localization or limitation, this being a center or this being a point of reference, is a fiction. One can abide (a la Silent Illumination) or else gently yet deliberately probe (e.g., are there any borders or boundaries in my direct experience?).

Sense 2: The Body As What Makes One Feel Time-bound (Category: Time)

The quote I cited above alludes to a second sense. This is that when the “parents made love,” there ultimately arose this “child principle,” that of “I Amness.” Putting the point less figuratively, we can remark upon the seeming ‘fact’–actually hearsay–about how identification with the body has entailed believing that one has been born and hence that one shall die. Since “I Am” requires the body in order to endure, the implication is that “I Am,” being on ‘this side’ of manifestation, is thereby caught, however subtly this may be, in temporal duration. That is, it seems as if “I Am” has come into being, and it likewise seems as if “I Am” will go out of being.

This is, of course, both true and untrue: it’s true in the sense that “I Am” is manifest and, naturally, everything that’s manifest is time-bound, yet it’s untrue in that the svarupa, or essence, of “I Am” is the Absolute, which, necessarily, is beyond time.

Coming to practice: abiding as “I Am,” one can explore: without the use of any concepts (i.e., thoughts), do I find any sense of “before” and “after,” of time “passing”? When there is no thought, there can be no time.

Sense 3: The Body As Indicative Of I Am’s Ontological Dependence (Category: Sat and Asat)

In Advaita Vedanta, a crucial distinction is that between sat and asat. The former refers to self-existent Reality while the latter indicates whatever cannot, so to speak, stand on its own two feet. An illustration: there can be no (sensible, apparent) world without mind; therefore, the (sensible, apparent) world is dependent for its temporary existence on mind (forms).

Likewise, for Nisargadatta, “I Am” requires the body (form), for without form it would necessarily be the Absolute. The body, meanwhile, is dependent on “I Am”/life force because without consciousness/life force the body would be nothing but a corpse. Consciousness is the knowing aspect that is no different from the power or animating Shakti aspect.

What does this imply? That Self-inquiry must go beyond “I Am” (since it’s ontologically dependent) in order to discover what is ontologically self-same. What, then, is “that only thing” that can stand on its own two feet?

Interpretation: Precarity, Instability, Volatility

While I haven’t found Nisargadatta state anything about what follows, my intuitive understanding, based on practice, is that “I Amness” is, in virtue of what I laid out above, precarious, unstable, volatile. It can’t hold the line.

Meaning: on the one hand, one is indeed to “stabilize in ‘I Am’” (as Nisargadatta often enjoins us to do). On the other hand, because “I Am” is ‘inherently wobbly,’ it must either “go out” and identify with the body (such is bondage) or else surrender and be involuted back into the Absolute (which is Total Freedom). The essence of sadhana is the latter.

In terms of the longing to return to the Source, earnestness or love alone suffices: earnestly or lovingly be “I Amness,” and God–the Absolute–will, so to say, take care of the rest.