Does Experience Affect Consciousness?

In the Thousand Teachings of Shankara we find a dialogue between a student who has found a difficulty in the non-dual philosophy, and a teacher to whom the student turns for guidance.*

The problem is this: it is taught that the true Self is pure consciousness, which is not affected by any limitations and change; thus to know one’s true Self is to transcend suffering and physical death. It is also taught that Self as consciousness is the ultimate knower of all knowledge and happenings. But knowing is an action, which involves change, so how can the Self be both beyond the realm of action and change and also be the knower of all knowledge? Is there not a contradiction here? [The Thousand Teachings, prose part, section two, verse 74]

The teacher responds to the student in this way: You are saying that Self is the knower of everything that passes through your mind and therefore that the Self changes. But in truth, the fact that the Self knows all the changes proves that the Self does not change. If the Self changed it could not know all the changes in the mind. [2:75]

This is a subtle point, but reflection on it leads to deepening insight. The teacher is saying that the unchanging Self always knows everything that is happening in the mind at any one time. In contrast, the senses do change; for example, we can look in one direction and then in another, and therefore what we see is only a part of all there is to see. If the Self were changeful, then its knowledge also would be partial, but in fact the Self witnesses the whole of the mind-world simultaneously, and must therefore itself be unchanging.

What has been said so far points logically to the conclusion that the Self is unchanging. It has not yet directly addressed the student’s problem, which the student now repeats rather bluntly: ‘To know’ is a verb, which means activity. So it is a contradiction to say the knower is absolute and changeless. [2:76]

To this the teacher says: No. When an impression is produced in the mind this is action and change. But it is not yet knowledge. Similarly, the process of building a house is not the same as a house, although the house is sometimes included metaphorically in the idea of house-building. [2:77]

The student replies: The process of forming a cognition may not in itself be knowledge, but it ends in a result which is a change in what is known by the Self. So the example does not show that the Self is unchanging.

To this the teacher responds: That would be right if there were a difference between knowledge and the knower. The non-dual understanding is that ultimately there is no such difference. [2:79]

The student is distinguishing between knowledge and the knower. He is thinking that the impressions and ideas formed in the mind are knowledge, and the one who is conscious of them is the knower. He is forgetting that the processes in the mind which are commonly called knowledge, are not really knowledge, they do not know themselves. Real knowledge only occurs in consciousness. It is clear that there is no difference between consciousness and the one who is conscious; we do not ‘have’ consciousness, we are consciousness. Equally, there is no difference between knowledge and the knower, when we remember that impressions and ideas in the mind are not in themselves knowledge. When true knowledge is carefully distinguished from mental processes, it is found that true knowledge is identical with the nature of consciousness. When this is grasped, there is progress in Self-knowledge.

The teacher leads up to this insight in manageable steps. The student still thinks that when there is consciousness of changes in the mind, then consciousness is changed. The teacher says: No, this does not follow. What changes is only the reflection of consciousness, like the changing reflection of the unchanging sun in moving water. As was said before, the very fact that consciousness is conscious of everything simultaneously that enters and changes in the mind, shows that consciousness itself is absolute and unchanging. [2:80-83]

Then comes an interchange mixing deep insight with human-heartedness. The student says: Well then, how am I at fault if the impressions and ideas of external objects seem to cause changes in consciousness, which is my true nature? The teacher replies: You, in your true nature, never were and never could be at fault! The only fault is in the ignorance (which is never really real) that mistakenly sees changes in the mind as changes in the conscious Self. [2:84-85]

After this, the student seems to be satisfied that knowledge, rightly understood, does not involve change in pure consciousness, the Self. He now moves on to what he sees as another problem. He thinks that consciousness is affected by the differences between waking, dreaming and dreamless sleep.

The student asks: If consciousness is unchanging like dreamless sleep, how do waking and dreaming occur? In reply, the teacher points out that the states of waking and dreaming come and go; they are replaced by each other and by intervals of dreamless sleep. Logically, this means that the states of being awake and dreaming are ‘contingent qualities’, like clothes and possessions; they are not the conscious Self and do not change the Self. [2:86-89]

Now the student finds himself in the discomfort that comes after one point of view has been shaken and before a new clarity emerges. He says: Well then, consciousness must be something contingent that comes and goes, because I do not experience it in deep sleep as I do in waking and dreaming. Or maybe consciousness is not my true nature?

One might imagine a kindly smile on the face of the teacher as he replies to this. He says: That cannot be right! If you can seriously think of your conscious Self as not your conscious Self, please carry on. I could not work that out in a hundred years—even if I were non-conscious! Consciousness is self-existent and self-evident as it never ceases.

The pupil says: But did I not just give an example of where consciousness does cease? I do not have any experience in dreamless sleep. [2:92] The teacher replies: What you said is not an example, it is a contradiction! You said that in dreamless sleep you are conscious of no objects. How could you know the absence of objects if you were not conscious? What I said was: knowing is consciousness. It is eternal, self-evident and requires nothing else to prove and reveal it. [2:93]

Now the student turns to another problem, which concerns empirical knowledge: the knowledge of the world obtained by various means. So far, in order to show how consciousness is eternal and unchanging, the teacher has been distinguishing between the true knowledge which is identical with conscious awareness, and mental processes which are not knowledge in themselves. Now the student points to the generally accepted principle that empirical knowledge arises from the right use of ‘instruments of knowledge’, which include observation and reason. Applying these instruments involves action. And so, the student thinks, here is an example of what the non-dual philosophy accepts is knowledge, and which does involve action and change, thus contradicting what the teacher has said about true knowledge being actionless and eternal. [2:94]

The teacher’s first response to this is a rather subtle logical argument. Some of us may find it so subtle that it feels like mere logic-chopping, and choose to pass over it. But the teacher’s intention is practical: the aim is to jolt this student into a fresh outlook. The teacher says something to this effect: You cannot divide knowledge into eternal knowledge and empirical knowledge. If you knew there was such a distinction, that would itself be knowledge, which would necessarily transcend any distinction between eternal and empirical knowledge. [2:95]

This argument seems to make little impression on the student, who re-states his problem in simple terms: Empirical knowledge is different from eternal self-knowledge. Empirical knowledge depends on the use of instruments of knowledge. [2:96]

The teacher responds to that saying: Then the knower is known—is proven to exist—without any other knower or instruments of knowledge. [2:97]

A lot is left unsaid here by the teacher who is driving directly to the central truth. He accepts that with empirical knowledge the mind is active using observation and other methods. But it has already been shown that this in itself is not knowledge. These mental activities are processes, like the workings of a camera. There is knowledge only when the results of these processes are known in consciousness. This true knowledge, consciousness, is self-revealed, and does not depend on anything else.

The student still has doubts, so the teacher spells out further reasoning on the essential point that although knowledge of objects depends on instruments of knowledge, nothing is needed to know and prove the existence of the knower.

He says: The existence of the conscious Self requires no further proof. If someone wanted proof of the existence of the Self through a means of knowledge, who would be the one seeking that knowledge? It could only be the conscious Self.

Efforts to attain knowledge are directed towards the objects of knowledge, and these efforts involve instruments and action like observation and memory. These efforts are not directed towards the ultimate knower. If they were, there would be one seeking to know the knower, and another seeking to know that knower, and so on in infinite regress.

The knower cannot be known as an object through any means of knowledge, simply because the knower cannot be in any way separate from itself. Memory applies to the object remembered, not to memory itself. In the same way, all means of knowledge are directed to the objects known, not to the knowing Self.

The Self is self-luminous and self-proven. If it were not, the Self would be composed of parts and dependent on another. The Self cannot be non-self. Thus it is proved that Self is the eternal light of consciousness, the ultimate knower, dependent on nothing else. [2:99-101]

After all this the student finds another objection: If the knower is not where the instruments of knowledge operate, how can it be the knower? [2:102] The teacher replies that it makes no difference to true knowledge whether it is preceded by mental operations or not. In either case, knowledge itself is the same. True knowledge, as opposed to mental activity, is conscious awareness and nothing else. [2:103]

Now the student asks: How can the absolute unchanging Self be connected to the instruments of knowledge? Obviously it cannot be in the same way as a craftsman uses his tools, because the craftsman is active, while Self is not. [2:104]

Without going into much detail or trying to explain the inexplicable, the teacher says simply that it has to be accepted that the instruments of knowledge, and the mind that uses them, do operate in the light of the conscious Self yet without any action by the conscious Self. The Self does not act, and the Self could not be caused to act by something other than the Self, because that other would be another Self, which is absurd. [2:105]

Now it seems that the student is convinced and wants to concur with the teaching, but still finds some points hard to fit together. He says: Surely the body is known directly without using any instruments of knowledge. So could the body be the Self? The teacher replies: The body is not known in sleep. So knowledge of the body is not continuous and therefore the body cannot be the Self. The same is true of the senses and all they reveal. [2:107]

Finally, expressing the last remnants of doubt, the student repeats: Is it not a contradiction to say that knowledge is the result of using instruments, and that knowledge is self-luminous and  eternal? No, says the teacher. We said before that mental operations are not knowledge. They lead to the results which are revealed by consciousness. That consciousness, which knows everything in the mind simultaneously, is knowledge. [2:108]

The student now expresses the realisation that he has been brought to. He says: Then knowledge is the self-luminous Self which requires nothing else to be known. All phenomena depend on others and exist only as made known by consciousness. Thus in the last analysis, they do not exist at all. The snake seen in the rope never really exists, and ultimately the objects seen in the waking state have no existence other than their being known. In this way, ultimately, there is nothing real other than eternal consciousness. [2:109] Yes, says the teacher. Knowledge ends illusion. You have attained the state beyond fear. You will never again suffer the pains of transient experience.

Having thought through all that is indicated in this dialogue, we may choose to put aside words and simply reflect that the light of conscious awareness itself is alone true Knowledge, the Real, our Self.

P.H.

*The Thousand Teachings is the one text that is not a commentary on something else and which most scholars agree was definitely written by the great philosopher-sage of non-duality Shri Shankara himself. It is partly in prose, partly in verse. The prose part is divided into three sections, and this imagined dialogue forms the second section. This article is about the second half of the dialogue. The first half of the dialogue was considered in an article that appeared in the Autumn 2024 issue of this journal.