Happiness #2

The fullness and completeness of our true nature is obscured by a veil of ignorance, just like clouds veil the sunlight in the sky.

According to the Vedic philosphy, our true nature is vast, limitess, boundless and yet we feel limited by our body, mind and senses. When I was first introduced to this concept in my teacher's training course, I was completely mindblown. The concept of the knower and the known. If an object is known to me, then I am separate from the object. If a table is known to me, then I am not the table. If my body is known to me, then I can postulate that I am not my body.

But when it comes to the body, it is a bit more tricky because my body is the portal through which I experience the world. How can my body be separate from me, myself?

The Vedanta philosophy uses analogies to illustrate this point. If I am indeed my body and mind, what happens to me when say I have to amputate an arm? Will I be incomplete and 'lacking'? That is not possible, even if I lose an arm or a leg, I am still 'me'.

How about when I am in deep sleep? My body and mind both disappear and yet I am still here, because when I am next awake, I know that I had a blissful sleep - I had to be there in order to know that. In that sense, when my body and mind have disappeared, I am still here, I am still me.

This substratum of 'me', or my understanding of "I" is the unchanging essence beneath all the changing states, it is the completeness of my true nature that cannot be subtracted or added to. My true nature is not the nature of my body which grows and ages over the years, nor is it my mind whose states fluctuate from moment to moment. The attributes of the body belong to the body, the states of the mind belong to the mind.

What makes our body and mind different from other posessions like a car or a table? The obvious link is the sensations we feel from our body and mind (emotions). If a car could be connected to our nerves, we'd think that the car is us, since we can feel what the car feels. But on close examination, if the sensations are not there, or if one arm has gone numb, it would not be obvious that the arm belongs to me. In fact, I would wonder, whose arm is it!

This is not an easy philosophy to understand. It took some time to sink in, and when it did, I had the deepest paradigm shift.

I first came across this theory during my yoga teacher's training which took place 4 years after I had recovered from breast cancer. During that time, even though I had recovered and felt physically strong, there was still a very small part of me that believed I was broken, damaged and incomplete.

Learning about the mis-identification of myself with my body and mind was the biggest breakthrough I ever had. What happened to my body happened to my body. My true nature is not affected by the changing states of the body, just like how the blue sky is not affected by the coming and going of the clouds.

Once I understood and applied this analogy, I could care for my body and mind in a way that is more balanced and even-minded, without a dramatic narrative that bring more suffering and pain.

My true nature is not the nature of the body or the mind.

It is the knower that exists underneath all the changing states of the body and mind, and it is bliss, unlimited by the limits of my body and mind.