Finding the Self and losing the ego in the state of pure consciousness 1

Anand C. Paranjpe

Abstract

This paper focuses on the different but complementary approaches to dealing with ego boundaries in psychoanalysis and Indian Psychology. Paul Federn is often credited for introducing the concept of ego boundaries in psychoanalysis. His focus was on ego's frontiers with the unconscious, where deficiencies in guarding the boundaries against the unruly id impulses can lead to various forms of pathology including depersonalization. By contrast, in the history of Indian Psychology, the focus on the ego's boundaries has been on the frontiers of higher states of consciousness. The Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad, for instance, shows how misconstrued notions of the self keep the ego bounded within narrow confines, and suggests that the discovery of the unchanging foundations of selfhood in pure consciousness helps in overcoming ego boundaries so as to rid oneself of selfishness and experience limitless joy and compassion. While the aim of psychoanalysis involves strengthening the ego to avoid pathological consequences of an unruly id, the focus in Indian Psychology is on overcoming the ego boundaries and thereby attaining superior states of being.

Paul Federn (1926/1952) is often credited with introducing the concept of ego boundaries in psychoanalysis. He viewed persons as continually involved in defining and redefining ego boundaries. He made a distinction between ego boundaries 2 in the external world, such as those between the self and the other, and internal boundaries between the conscious ego and the unconscious id. Following Freud's lead, Federn's focus was more on the internal than on external boundaries, where he saw the dangers arising from the weakening or loss of the ego's internal boundaries with the unconscious id often leading to hallucinations, delusions, estrangement, and worse, depersonalization. In the context of the clinical setting where he worked, the main aim was to strengthen ego's boundaries with the id to avoid various forms of pathology arising from the ego's inability to control the blind impulses of the id. One of Federn's students, Erik Erikson (1968), focused on ego boundaries in the external world. In this context he developed his ideas in light of William James's views of the self. James (1890/1983) made a distinction between the self-as-subject vs. self-as-object, and divided the latter into material, social and "spiritual" selves. The issue of the self-as-subject is rather complex, and on the whole it has received more attention in Indian Psychology that Western. There will be more on this in the later part than in the earlier part of this essay.3

The meaning of boundaries of the ego in the context of material and social spheres should be clear: Persons must draw clear boundaries in the material world between what belongs to them and what belongs to others, and continually redefine such boundaries in the normal process of give and take of things and money in daily transactions. In the social world one is required to decide whether a stranger is acceptable as a friend, or else place him in the alien or neutral zone. James's idea of the "spiritual" self is a bit ambiguous, but a close look at his writings indicates that by spiritual he meant everything intangible and non-material. In other words in the category of the spiritual self he included the entire domain of one's ideas, beliefs, opinions, attitudes, values as opposed to tangible objects such as body and possessions. In this context, it should be clear that we are daily required to draw boundaries between the self and non-self by either accepting or rejecting newly presented ideas, beliefs, opinions and values. Erikson, being particularly interested in the development of individuals from cradle to the grave, saw persons as continually involved in defining and redefining ego boundaries throughout the life cycle. He introduced the concept of ego-identity to designate the things, social roles, and ideas with which a person feels identified. Driven by changes from the inside by the processes of maturation, and forced by never ending changes in the environment from the outside, a person's ego-identity is always on the make.

Against this background, Erikson views psycho-social identity as "an evolving configuration of roles" that is forever revisable (1968, p. 211). However correct this account may be, it presents a dilemma insofar as identity implies continuing sameness, not incessant change. It is true that for most of us, for the most part in our lives, we experience a sense of being one and the same person despite having multiple and continually changing images of the self. Indeed, the loss of the sense of unity and sameness is a form of pathology that happens in the relatively rare cases of split personality and of selective forgetting called the amnesic fugue. Erikson admits that we can only get a sense of sameness – rather than actually discovering a principle of self-sameness on which our identities can be firmly grounded. He adds, however, that "there is in fact in each individual an "I," an observing center of awareness and of volition, which can transcend and must survive the psychosocial identity" (Erikson, 1968, p. 135). However, he did not – or could not – explain what a "center of awareness" is like, and whether it is open to direct experience. Like the "numerical identity of the self"spoken of by Immanuel Kant (1781/1966, p.259), the idea of "center of awareness" remains a mere postulate which, as William James had noted, can neither be verified, nor do any useful consequences follow from its postulation(1899/1983, pp. 343-344). We shall return to this issue later in this paper.

The question "what, if anything, remains unchanged within the individual throughout life?" is an important question that has been addressed by many great thinkers over centuries. It is important, first, because the idea of continued sameness of a person is foundational in law and ethics. Clearly, it is only the same person who is witnessed in conducting a crime can be punished for his infraction. Second, the lack of a clear definition of what accounts for the sameness in us, we are at a loss to know who ceases to exist upon death – and this implies that a deeply existential dilemma remains unsolved. It is precisely this dilemma that psychology in India has tried to address. As an instance of such an inquiry we may cite the example of Ramana Maharshi (1879-1950), who embarked on a rigorous path of self-realization upon realizing the prospect of his own death while witnessing in his youth the death of an old man. By and large, psychology in the West has valued change, and presumably assumed the possibility of perpetual progress. This is reflected in the emphasis on self-actualization in the Western tradition from Aristotle in ancient Greece to Abraham Maslow in modern America. For, by "actualization" is meant the manifestation of a hidden potential by way of some worldly accomplishment in one walk of life or another, and there is no end to potentials that may remain hidden within a person! Standing within this tradition, Erikson, like Carl Rogers (1961) speaks of "Becoming" – a process where one always continues to transform into something different from what one has been till the present, without ever finding out what one must have been, and will forever be, in the future. In contrast, the emphasis in Indian Psychology has been on "Being", i.e., on finding the unshakable basis of sameness, or on figuring out who one has been and would remain forever.

In the balance of this essay, I wish to show that the discovery of the basis of selfsameness in persons involves overcoming the continually changing ego boundaries. To that end, I shall show how the idea of ego boundaries has appeared in either explicit or implicit manner in various sources of Indian Psychology from ancient to recent times, indicating the various methods designed to transcend the boundaries so as to attain the true Self with bliss, unselfishness, and limitless compassion.

The conceptualization of ego boundaries in the history of Indian Psychology

In a well-known hymn of the Ṛg Veda called the Nāsadīya Sūkta, a sage speculates that at the origin of the universe there was something single and undivided that mysteriously became aware of its being alone, and there arose a desire to become many. This single primeval entity is often designated as Brahman which, although essentially indescribable, has been thought of as having three fundamental characteristics: Existence (sat), Consciousness (cit), and Bliss (ānanda). When the undivided One split itself into Many, consciousness which pervaded the entire Existence got reflected in countless centers of awareness in separate living beings. This story of genesis implies that, in the process of multiplication, individual centers of awareness got "trapped", as it were, in the limited bodies of individual organisms. The Kaṭha Upaniṣad (2.1.1) follows this view of genesis to suggest that individualized consciousness "pierced the openings (of the senses) outward" in the boundaries of the organisms, thereby opening avenues for interaction with the world outside. Needless to say, the idea of ego boundaries is implicit in the scenario thus conceived.

The Kaṭha Upaniṣad makes interesting observations that follow from this world view: It suggests that, given such origination, consciousness in individuals is normally directed outward, rather than inward. It adds (in 2.1.1): "Some wise man, however, seeking life eternal, with his eyes turned inward, saw the Self"4. Note the reference in this quote to "seeking life eternal." It implies that, to discover the principle of selfsameness, it is necessary to turn one's attention inward; the common tendency to look outward only helps comprehend the continually changing world of objects (including various aspects of self-as-object). This initiative for inward looking in this ancient Upaniṣad has been followed up in the history of Indian thought, resulting in a wide array of meditative techniques in search of self-knowledge.

Overcoming of ego boundaries in Patañjali's Yoga

One of the most widely known techniques of meditation is the one described by Patañjali in his Yoga aphorisms (see Taimni, 2007). Although Patañjali's account of the eight steps to Yoga does not explicitly use the metaphor of ego boundaries, those steps are interpretable in the language and idiom of ego boundaries. Thus, the two initial steps, which involve ethical guidelines for one's conduct, can be seen as involving managing behavior across the boundaries between the self and others. The proscription of stealing (asteya), for instance, implies that in embarking on the path of Yoga, one should not overstep one's own boundaries and violate the boundaries of anyone else by taking anything from his or her territory. While the various postures involve managing the contours of one's body in three dimensional space, the breathing exercises require controlling the transactions across the body's boundaries in the biochemical sphere. Then comes the more important step called the pratyāhāra, which requires an adept to turn attention inward, and remain within the boundaries of one's mental sphere. The next step (called dhāraṇā) requires the adept to avoid jumping from one object of thought to another, thus restraining the mind to a narrower part of the mental sphere. Once the adept learns to remain steadily focused on a single object of thought for a length of time, he or she is said to enter the inner domain of consciousness called the Samādhi. This domain involves a graded series of higher states of consciousness. According to Patañjali (1.43), there are three basic levels of Samādhi: 1, lower level based on the object of cognition; 2, middle level based on the means of knowing such as the imagery involved in thoughts about the object; and 3, higher level focused on the knower. The adept can then focus on the self-as-subject (draṣṭā) at the center of awareness. Thus, a yogi can be said to penetrate through various layers of the inner domain so as to ultimately rest on the center of awareness. This description evokes the imagery of a series of concentric circles with successively narrowing boundaries that need to be penetrated so as to ultimately reach the innermost point – or the center of awareness.

The traditional form of Yoga described by Patañjali has been practiced, variously improvised and interpreted, and continues to be taught from generation to generation. In the early twentieth century, for instance, Sri Ramana Maharshi (1879-1950), a modern sage and saint, prescribed a technique of meditation somewhat different from that of Patañjali's Yoga, but effectively leading to the same outcome. He repeatedly suggested that one should focus on where the "I-thought" comes from, and abide there. This implies focusing on the "I", which lies at the center of awareness, and staying focused at that point for a sustained period of time. Numerous sages and saints in history have accomplished such a feat, and have described their experience. Tukaram, a seventeenth century saint-poet from Maharashtra has described his experience as follows:

Tinier than an atom, Tuka is as large as the skies
I have swallowed my own corpse, the basis of world-illusion
The trilogy of knower, knowledge, and the object of knowledge is transcended
A light is lit in the clay-pot called the body
What remains of me now on is for others, says Tuka

(poem #993; paraphrased by A.C.Paranjpe)

All this expression is surely enigmatic, but in my view it makes sense if interpreted in the language of ego boundaries. Here, Tukaram is essentially describing what happens when one stays at the center of awareness. As noted in the above account of the journey of a Yogi, one must turn to the inner world lying within the boundaries of the ego, so to speak, and penetrate the various layers of ordinary consciousness so as to ultimately focus attention on the center of awareness. Unlike the body, which has physical extension, and the ego which extends to areas of the social and ideational spheres, the "center" is a point which, like its definition in geometry has no extension. In the process of reaching the innermost regions of the mind, the ego's boundaries have successively contracted, as it were, so that the "me" is ultimately "tinier than an atom" as Tukaram puts it. But at the same time the ego boundaries have continued to contract so as to ultimately disappear. To put it differently, the ego is dissolved into the ubiquitous One (the Brahman) resulting in the experience of being "as large as the skies"!

The paradoxical nature of feeling tiny and huge at the same time has led the accounts of such experience in being dubbed as "mystical". In another poem Tukaram (# 2669) describes his experience in equally enigmatic terms. "I witnessed my own death" he says, which is consistent with the expression of "gulping his own corpse" mentioned above. Further, he adds in the same poem that his experience was a moment of incomparable joy, an occasion to celebrate! This kind of "dying" is no occasion to mourn! Surely nobody can witness the death of one's own body; the expression must be understood metaphorically and not literally. In the same poem Tukaram explains that the boundless joy resulted from discarding the narrowly conceived ego (ahaṁkāra) which he had been clinging onto in the past. It is said that such experiences do not last for long periods of time. However, they have lasting consequences on the subsequent life of the experiencer. Thus, Tukaram no longer felt attached to the narrow sphere of his body, his possessions, his social roles, and some limited sphere of the "we". The dawning of this insight had relieved Tukaram from everything within the domain of his "ego identity" to use an Eriksonian expression. This in turn implies that there is no ego with egotistic strivings; there is no limited sphere of the "me" and "mine" that he would want to protect, embellish, and enhance. All selfishness is gone, and therefore life after arrival of this insight is not to be lived for the sake of a narrowly defined self or ego. Limitless compassion and genuine altruism is then a natural consequence. The biography of Tukaram, like the biographies of similar saints, provides evidence for his infinitely compassionate behavior towards others around him.

Insights from the Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad

The boundary metaphor is found in a different form in the Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad. It speaks of ego boundaries in its own distinctive way thus: "The knot of the heart is cut, all doubts are dispelled and his deeds terminate, when He is seen- the higher and the lower" (Muṇḍaka, 2.2.9). This again is a metaphoric expression that needs some explaining. It is my understanding that here the reference to the heart does not imply a physical organ, but something that is "at heart" for most of us, namely the ego or everything that lies at the core of the "me." Our convictions such as "I am this body", "this is MY property, MY family, MY country" and so on imply specific regions of the physical and social worlds with which we identify, thereby defining the boundaries of the ego. It is important to note in this context that elsewhere in the text the Muṇḍaka (2.1.10) refers to the knot of the heart as the "knot of ignorance" (avidyā granthiḥ). Here "avidyā" implies misconceptions of the nature of the Self. In other words, it implies one's self-definitions, or feelings of being identified with varied notions of what William James called the self-as-object: one's body and possessions, social roles and reputation, one's chosen ideas and beliefs, and so on.

This idea is interpretable in light of certain developments in modern psychology, especially Anthony Greenwald's (1980) view of the ego as a knowledge organization, which he has characterized as "totalitarian." Giving the analogy of political ideology on the one hand, and science on the other hand, Greenwald points out that the ego, as a knowledge organization, evinces conservatism – or resistance to change. The ego, in other words, clings to once-formed beliefs even as scientists and political ideologues try to resist change. Metaphorically speaking, once a rope is tied around a set of beliefs and assumptions considered "mine", it is hard to untie the knot. And that is the challenge that the Muṇḍaka speaks about.

According to the Upaniṣads, the way to "cut the knot of the heart" – or to transcend the boundaries of the ego – is to discard the misconceptions of the self (called Avidyā), and attain the correct knowledge of the Self (called Vidyā). Although Avidyā is commonly translated as "ignorance" and Vidyā as "knowledge", in the Upaniṣadic tradition they are technical terms with specific meanings. According to the Īśāvāsya (#14) and the Ṥvetāśvatara (5.1) Upaniṣads, Avidyā refers to knowledge of perishable things (kṣara), while Vidyā is the Knowledge of the imperishable (akṣara). The former implies knowledge of objects in the world, which are perishable, and their knowledge is contingent on who sees what under what conditions and is forever revisable – as in the case of scientific knowledge. The latter, or Vidyā, on the other hand is about that which never decays or changes. In the context of the self and ego, this means that Avidyā involves not "ignorance", but knowledge of continually changing aspects of selfhood, which pertain to the ego and given its continually changing boundaries on multiple fronts, remains forever revisable as Erikson clarifies. In contrast, Vidyā implies the experience of the self-as-subject at the center of awareness, which never changes; like the "I" it remains self-same through the entire life cycle. As the Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣad shows, such "Knowledge" is attained in the Fourth State of consciousness (turiyā), or the highest state of Samādhi that Patañjali's Yoga speaks of.

From the point of view of the Upaniṣads, the major challenge in life is to figure out the unshakable foundation of selfsameness that lies behind the screen of the continually changing images of the self. In the language of the Muṇḍaka, this challenge involves "cutting the knot" of false (read changeable) self-definitions which tie down the ego to a specific region (social, ideational, etc.) with fortified boundaries. In the process of growing up in society, we are provided a name, a periodically changing set of social roles to play, and a code of conduct to abide by. Thereby we get attached to and become identified with a niche in the society with relatively defined boundaries. We are rewarded in various ways for behaving within legitimized boundaries, and are punished for breaking out of those boundaries; we are "conditioned." The Muṇḍaka suggests a process of deconditioning to help overcome the limits imposed by such boundaries. It uses the language of "karma" traditionally used in Indian thought to express the basic "law of learning" stated in the context of the Doctrine of Karma (karma siddhānta). According to this doctrine, it is a natural law that in the long run (read across life cycles) each individual being is justly rewarded for his or her good deeds and punished for bad deeds. (for a brief account of the doctrine of karma see Potter, 1964). Muṇḍaka uses the expression "deeds terminate" (kṣīyate cāsya karmāṇi) to indicate the deconditioning of the self-definitions that one has been conditioned to believe in as a result of social learning since childhood. What follows from this is that the person is liberated from the boundaries imposed by identifications with varied self-definitions. The Muṇḍaka (2.2.12) further explains that, thus liberated from the "knot of the heart", one experiences vastness of the Self in the following way: "In front is Brahman, behind is Brahman, to the right and to the left. It spreads forth below and above".

When Tukaram said that he is vaster than the skies, he was affirming the discovery of the limitlessness of the Self indicated by the words of the Muṇḍaka just quoted. As long as one is stuck with common self-definitions that serve as ego boundaries, one experiences being a part of the surrounding world. Upon cutting this knot, the perception reverses from being part of the world to the world being part of the Self. Sri Aurobindo (1972-1950), a modern sage, describes such an experience in the following words: ". . . the whole world is felt in oneself and oneself suffused through the world . . . The separate ego either does not exist or is only a convenience for the Universal Spirit . . ." (Sri Aurobindo, 1970, p. 1605).Such experiences are rare, but clearly possible as evidenced by several Self-realized individuals throughout history. There is no reason to discount the veracity of their accounts, especially given the ample evidence of selflessness of such persons; they had not ax to grind in saying such things. For many of us who do not have similar experiences, claims to having experience of the world being part of the Self –rather than the other way around – may sound not only odd, but may even appear to be indicative of some form of pathology. It would therefore be useful to take a close look at the behaviour of persons who are said to have attained the experience of Self-realization. This we can do after considering some other examples of the loss of ego boundaries that appear in Indian Psychology.

Emptying of conscious contents in higher states of consciousness

The Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣad explains the nature of a higher state of consciousness called the Fourth State thus: "[It is] unseen, incapable of being spoken of, ungraspable, without any distinctive marks, unthinkable, unnameable, the essence of the knowledge of the one self . . . peaceful, the benign, the non-dual . . ." (Stanza #7). The nature of the experience of the Fourth State is unspeakable because it dawns when all thinking is brought to a stop, the mind is silenced, and the contents of consciousness are depleted. Patañjali and his commentators describe the step-by-step process whereby, upon the successful practice of Yoga, the contents of consciousness that constitute the normal cognitive states are dropped one after another. (For a detailed discussion of this issue, see Paranjpe, 1984; n.d.).

To help understand the process of depletion of the contents, let us consider the nature of the ordinary wakeful consciousness which exists at the time of the beginning of concentrative meditation as described by Patañjali. In the state of ordinary wakeful consciousness, one may be thinking of a simple object such as the cow, for instance. In common experience, even if we try to focus on a particular object, one tends to keep jumping from one thought to another thought of the same object in a process commonly described as free association. One could, for instance, begin with the thought that "I bought this cow a year ago" and quickly switch to another thought "Would it not be nice if she gives as much milk as the seller promised?" – and then switch on to another thought, and yet another till perhaps one falls asleep. Now suppose that one is effective in avoiding switching, and focus instead on a particular thought about this object, say: "The cow is a sacred animal". An idea such as that of sacredness would involve a connotative meaning culturally imposed on the object and shared by the thinker (It is conceivable that a person raised on the Canadian prairies – rather than in India – would think of it not as sacred but simply as an animal fattened for its meat). According to Patañjali and his commentators such as Vyāsa and Vācaspati Miśra, such connotative meanings are first to be dropped from mind when one moves on to the next higher stage of meditation. As one advances to the next higher stage of meditation, it is the denotative meaning of the object focussed on that gets dropped out from the mind's contents. This means that the notion "this cow" imposed on the figure of a creature is dropped, and what remains is a visualized figure distinguished from the background of a pasture. Subsequently, it is claimed, the yogi's mind is rid of the sensory contents that constitute the perception; the mind is emptied of all of its contents. What remains then is "pure consciousness" devoid of content. Attention is then ready to be drawn to the center of awareness. According to Patañjali (1.3), it is under these conditions that the Self is revealed in its pristine state (tadā draṣṭuḥ svarūpe avasthānam).

All this is not easy to understand primarily because such experience is uncommon. A second reason for the difficulty in understanding this is that the process of depletion of the contents of consciousness implies the virtual reversal of the process whereby we, all human beings, develop cognitive processes and acquire varied mental content staring from early childhood. Note that at birth an infant is equipped merely with sense organs with capacity to see, hear and so on, with the addition of a capacity for perceiving objects against their backgrounds. We may grant, for instance, that a newborn baby is able to perceive a nipple against its background of the nursing mother's breast. However, perception of varied objects delineated against their respective backgrounds must develop only gradually over a period of time. As is common knowledge, infants often perceive all four legged animals as a common category without being able to distinguish a cat from a dog and so on. The development of denotative and connotative meanings must follow the perception of objects during the course of development. It is only after the delineation of furry four legged creatures into cats and dogs that cognition of distinctive classes develops, with their respective linguistic labels. It is after such a step that connotative meanings such as the notion of loyal commonly attached to dogs rather than cats and so on. It should now be clear how Yogic meditation involves the virtual reversal of the process of cognitive development.

Let us now see how the experience of pure consciousness helps in self-knowledge, mainly in terms of the selfsameness issue. The key is to understand that the "I", lodged in pure consciousness, retains and ensures continued experience of selfsameness while the ego keeps continually changing with twists and turns in life. Here a metaphor borrowed from modern psychology might help. In one of his minor writings Freud (1925/1953) presents the metaphor of a "Mystic Writing-Pad", a children's toy in which a translucent sheet of plastic is placed on top of a black waxed surface. Anything written with a stylus on the translucent sheet shows up and can be read as long as it sticks onto the waxed surface below. However, when the top sheet is lifted up, the writing disappears displaying the clean translucent sheet devoid of any content. Mind, it may be said, is similar to such a toy in that the "I" is lodged in the translucent sheet which is unaffected by the matter written and endlessly re-written, including the content representing the changing images of the world and of the ego within it. The changing images pertain to the ego that identifies itself with the changes in the self-as-object. One feels normally identified with one's body image in the mirror, and with one's "images" reflected in the looking glass of the significant others' eyes – as C.H. Cooley (1902/1964) would have it. The boundaries of the ego are defined by the contours of the images of the self that keep changing: from the face without beard to that after it grows, from the image of the unmarried self to the one after the wedding, or from the one that had lost its face in shame while failing to do something to the one who has recovered her pride upon attaining success. While the contents of ordinary states of consciousness keep changing, pure consciousness that is devoid of content remains unaffected by such changes, thereby ensuring lifelong experience of selfsameness.

In Indian thought, special attention is given to develop various methodologies for Self-realization through different techniques of meditation. The grammarian philosopher Bhartṛhari, for instance, describes what is called "Ṥabdapūrva Yoga" in which meditation begins with normal speech with words going through one's mind, then moves through middle (madhyamā) and higher (paśyantī) stages of increasingly abstract levels of thinking, till one reaches the transcendental level (parā), at which point the transcendental Self is revealed in pure consciousness. (For an account of this type of yoga, see Sastri, 1980)

Notions of ego boundaries in the Advaita Vedānta system

In Vivekacūḍāmaṇi (stanza #139) Ṥaṅkara uses the metaphor of a moth in its cocoon to convey the notion of an ego encased within its (self-defined) boundaries. Even as a moth creates a cocoon made of a yarn produced from its own body, a man fabricates notions of himself and of the world he belongs to, and lives in this self-created world, feeling protected and well nourished. Needless to say, the notion of ego boundaries is implicit in Ṥaṅkara's metaphor of man as a moth in its cocoon. We may see echoes of this view in the social and cognitive constructionist perspectives in contemporary sociology and psychology (Mead,1934; Marcus, 1977). Elsewhere (Paranjpe, 1998) I have discussed the parallels between Ṥaṅkara's perspective and varieties of modern constructivism, so I shall not repeat the discussion here. There is however, a major difference between constructivist views of the self in Ṥaṅkara when compared with modern perspectives: Unlike most modern thinkers, Ṥaṅkara suggests a workable solution to the problem of what can we do with ego boundaries that we tend to erect around ourselves.

Ṥaṅkara, following the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad, suggests a program of meditation involving (1) the study of the fundamental tenets of the Advaita Vedānta system (śravaṇa), (2) the critical examination of those tenets (manana), and (3) and getting fully absorbed into contemplation (nididhyāsana) till one ultimately slides into a higher state of consciousness (called the Nirvikalpa Samādhi). As Ṥaṅkara's followers (e.g. Dharmarāja, 17^th Cent./1972) explain, the meditation specifically involves a relentless critical examination of each and every self-definition with a specific mandate to see whether it is open to change, or it must remain changeless (nitya-anitya viveka). As explained in Dṛg-dṛśya Viveka (n.d./1931), a text of uncertain authorship well known as a treatise on the principles of the Advaita Vedānta, what always remains unchanged through the passage of life is the self-as-subject (drk, draṣṭā), and not the self-as-object – to put it in the language of William James. Self-as-subject is the experiencer whose nascent form is revealed in experience when one withdraws attention from all objects of thought and stays in a sustained manner at the center of awareness.

William James (1890/1993), the father of the modern phase of Western psychology, discussed in detail the issue of personal identity, i.e. the question of what, if anything, remains unchanged in a person across the entire life cycle. He came close to accept as solution to this problem Immanuel Kant's notion of the Transcendental Ego. However he pointed out (rightly in my opinion) that in Kant's Critique of Pure Reason the notion of the Transcendental ego is a mere postulate designed to demonstrate that we must assume the continued existence of an unchanging self-as-knower, or else we would have to deny the very possibility of knowledge in any form. Knowing, in Kant's view, inevitably implies making judgments, and to be able to say whether A is, or is not, B, the knower must remain unchanged. For, if the knower K1, who comprehends A, is replaced by a different knower K2 by the time B is comprehended, who is there to judge whether they are similar or different? Although convinced about such reasoning, James was not willing to accept a mere postulate without any empirical support – and surely the Transcendental Ego is not observable as is the body or are the events confirming one's social existence. Besides, James, the quintessential pragmatist, found no utility in real life following from the Kantian postulate. So, on the grounds of verifiability and utility, James (1890/1983) rejected the Kantian notion of the Transcendental Ego to be "as ineffectual and windy an abortion as Philosophy can show" (p. 345).

Here we may again turn to Indian thought and note that similar objections do not apply to the claims of unchanging nature of the Self experienced in pure consciousness. First, the various techniques of meditation, whether that of Patañjali's Dhyāna Yoga, Bhartṛhari's Ṥabdapūrva Yoga, or Ṥaṅkara's Jñāna Yoga, each offers a practical and effective method for the direct experience of the Self-as-subject, which offers its experiential (if not empirical) verification. Besides, various Indian sources, from the ancient Upaniṣads to modern sages like Sri Aurobindo and Ramana Maharshi, explain and demonstrate the practical utility of Self-realization in life. To this issue we may now turn.

Life after Self-realization

It should now be clear that, as indicated by the Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad, and as poetically conveyed by saints such as Tukaram, one has to effectively erase, or at least overcome in one way or another, one's ego boundaries to be able to directly experience the Self, and thereby attain Self-realization. But didn't Federn warn us about the pathological consequences of even the weakening – let alone the erasure – of ego boundaries? Yes indeed he did, and it makes sense to see the logic behind the argument. For, if the ego is unable to fence off the intrusions from the "blind" id impulses, then the totally unconstrained instincts would mean depersonalization, i.e., turning a civilized human being, who would normally follow civic constraints on his behavior, into an "animal" that knows no such constraints. But here it is important to remember that, as suggested before, Federn's concern was about the ego's boundaries on the frontiers of the unconscious, whereas the concern in Indian Psychology has been about its frontiers with the higher states of consciousness.

We need to remember here that the job of a psychoanalyst is primarily to help patients to develop a strong ego that can effectively channelize the impulses which, for want of adequate control, may lead to obsessive-compulsive behaviors, anxiety, depression, or other forms of pathology. In contrast, spiritual guides teaching one or other form of yogic meditation are not expected to deal with patients needing such help. Their "clients" are spiritual seekers who are presumably able to function normally in society, and are seeking some higher states of functioning, possibly Self-realization which is the putatively highest state of human functioning. Indeed, textbooks of Yoga such as Patañjali's Yoga aphorisms, or manuals of Advaita such as Darmarāja's Vedānta paribhāṣā, stipulate the qualities of persons wishing to start their prescribed form of meditation. A person wishing to embark on the path of Patanjali's Yoga, for instance, must begin her enterprise with practices indicating high levels of self-control as in avoiding injury to others (ahiṁsā), not stealing others' property (asteya), and sexual abstinence (brahmacarya). Surely this would mean having a strong ego that effectively controls acquisitive, sexual and aggressive impulses. In the highest form of bhakti, or religious devotion (called ātmanivedanam), the devotee is supposed to voluntarily surrender one's ego. It is only an ego in control of itself that could possibly cede control and completely surrender itself to a deity; surely one cannot give away what is not in one's possession. But assuming that, as a devotee (bhakta), one has surrendered one's ego, or through meditation has transcended one's ego boundaries, then what kind of a life would that person live?

Let us now return to Sri Aurobindo, who is said to have successfully practiced the major forms of Yoga, and concluded that(as quoted before): "The separate ego either does not exist, or is only a convenience for the Universal Spirit" (1970, p. 1605). Herbert Fingarette, while describing the life of mystics, said: "He [a mystic] suffers, enjoys, knows pain and pleasure, but he is not driven and dominated by these" (1958, p. 26). The highest state of Samādhi, in which the true nature of the Self is discovered, may not last for a long time; she or he returns to the state of normal wakefulness. However, in the case of the most highly spiritually advanced persons, the behavior after the experience of Samādhi is radically different. The Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad explains the situation metaphorically, suggesting that it is like two birds on a self-same tree: While one of the two birds eyes the fruit and enjoys its sweet or bitter taste, the other bird simply witnesses what is happening in the surrounding world. What this metaphor implies is that a Self-realized person remains firmly grounded in the unchanging Self as an uninvolved witness while functioning normally in daily life. With a cultivated sense of detachment, she or he remains unaffected by the ups and downs in the travails of daily life, while at the same time she or he is able to adequately play various roles in society without loss of the capacity to feel pleasure and pain as appropriate to the occasion.

The behavior of a Self-realized person is like that of a person with stable intellect (sthita-prajña) described in the Bhagavad-Gītā(2.55-72): a person who retains emotional equanimity through the rough and tumble of life. A person who has attained such a state has one foot in the transcendental domain and the other in the mundane domain, so to speak. She or he is in the world, but not of it; like a lotus leaf, remaining in the water without getting wet. Needless to say, overcoming the boundaries of the ego leads to a highly desirable state of Being, not pathology!

Endnotes

References