Question: If I am the Self, how come I don’t know that I am the Self?

Let’s revisit Shankara’s discussion of how superimposition works. According to Swami Prabhavananda, superimposition unfolds in two phases:

In the first phase, “The inner Self,” Swami Prabhavananda writes of Shankara’s view, “is therefore present in our normal consciousness as ‘the object of the ego-idea’–a literal translation of Samkara’s phrase. The superimposition of the ego-idea upon Existence is our first and most important act as human beings” (The Spiritual Heritage of India, p. 287).

Let’s take some time to understand this interpretation. Right now, you know that you exist. “Bare” or “raw” existence is self-evident. And yet, a subtle thought (let’s call it) qualifies Existence by insisting that “I am somebody.” Hence, the truth–which is “I am” or even “I am that I am”–is apparently limited as is evident in the following construal: “I am such a one.”

What has just been described is, of course, “the birth” of ahamkara: the ego or I-thought. And Swami Prabhavananda suggests quite rightly that the rising of the I-thought coincides with the rising of the apparently separate, apparently objective world.

Now we can turn to the second phase: “Then the ego-idea, reaching outward, as it were, identifies with the body and the body’s mental and physical attributes and actions” (p. 288). Something uncanny is afoot here. It’s already peculiar that aham–that is, the real and only I–should believe that it is qualified (the first phase). Even stranger is my belief that I–that is, the light of Consciousness–am identical with a gross object when such just isn’t possible. It’s not possible for the Absolute, Itself, to be gross matter. (Of course, it’s not only possible but actual that so-called gross objects are, in truth, the Absolute.)

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We’re offered a pathway home, as it were, since all that needs to happen is for us to “go back the way we came” (Ramana Maharshi).

First, investigate gross objects–the world and the body–to see that they actually appear to Consciousness. Indeed, the world is but sense perception; sense perception is actually mind stuff; and mind stuff is actually reducible to Consciousness. As for the body, it’s not actually physical stuff; it’s also mental stuff: it’s undulating vibration. And this undulating vibration is actually made of Consciousness.

Second, open to any I-thought (or ego-form). Investigate it to see that it’s actually not limited by any factor. The true nature of the so-called ego is “I am that I am”: the unqualified Self.