CRUCIAL UNDERSTANDING

There is a background consciousness in each of us that is aware of us and the physical world, although it does not act in either us or the physical world.  Layered over this consciousness are a thinking mind and an egoic self which, as products of the brain, are of the physical world and do act in it.

The background consciousness is unchanging, permanent, and reliable while the thinking mind and egoic self, being of the physical world, are transient, impermanent, and unreliable.

Yet, we identify with our thinking mind and egoic self, believing that they are who we really are, our true selves, when, in truth, who, or rather what we really are is the background consciousness, that which is changeless, permanent, and abiding. Our misidentification with the thinking mind and egoic self causes us great suffering in our lives.

The extent to which we can separate ourselves from our thinking mind and egoic self, called moksha, liberation in Vedanta, is the degree to which we can eliminate our endless suffering.

But how do we separate ourselves from our thinking mind and egoic self?  It is not by using them to do so. Rather, it is by realizing, by “waking up,”--it dawns on us all of a sudden--that who, what we actually are is the background consciousness, the pure consciousness that Vedanta calls Brahman.