#infinite self

Sat-Darshana Bhashya, verse 6 (pg.58)  

Infinite Self — The One limitless Eye

If the seer is an embodied being, the world and the Lord that are the seen, have also an embodied existence; and embodiment is not necessarily physical, nor is it used to denote only what is visible to the eye. It is any or all of the five sheaths (*). Thus having stated that God, world and soul have form presented to the seeing soul that is embodied, the verse proceeds to state that they are formless in the formless Infinite Self.

The question is asked, ' Who is there to see in the formless Self ? ' If the seeing self is formless who is there to see ? The infinite Self is itself the Eye, one limitless and full. Here one is reminded of the Upanishad that refers to Brahman as that in which the Self has become all beings (existences).

The Self is the all ; it is that which has become all this ; and there is nothing for the self to see outside of itself or apart from it, as it includes (lit., devours), all forms and transcends them (lit. shines forth). Here, there is no knowledge of distinction between seer and seen ; hence the Upanishad describes the character of the One, the Infinite, Adwaitha, Akhanda by putting the question ' whom to see and by what ? ' Here also the same question is put, 'Who is there to see ? ' The answer is obvious, there is none. ' Why ? ' ' Itself is the Eye '. The Supreme Brahman is denoted by the third person ' Itself '. It is mentioned as the Eye to denote that it is Consciousness. It is ' One ' \ without a second, Infinite. It is ' limitless ' or endless, ' the full ', the all-pervasive. If it is mentioned as ' seer ', then the question may arise that there is ' the seen ' apart from the seer. To avoid it, the word ' Eye ' drishti is used in the sense of sight or awareness (consciousness) and not in the sense that there is a seer apart from the sight.

When like incessant waves of the shoreless ocean, myriads of worlds are born of the Supreme Brahman and endure and are dissolved, the eternal Infinite Self, called here ' the Eye,' remains full and perfect and is not lost in the incessant change taking place in it, in its self-becomings, in the creative movement of its consciousness that brings into existence and supports the distinctions of God and world, individual and universal, seer and seen, supporter and supported. In the first half of the verse it was stated that the -form of God and the world depends upon the seeing soul Jeeva that has form ; in the latter half we find it stated in unmistakable terms that if the seeing self is realised to be formless then the truth can be understood that there is nothing that is really other than the Self which is Infinite, Eternal, the limitless Eye, the Full and Perfect. Thus though the formlessness of the Self is clearly stated to be the Supreme truth, yet the seeing self that has form sees the Creator and His creation, in form. 

Time Travel and the Nondualistic Journey WithinIn the silence that stretches between thoughts, in the space that houses the cosmos, there exists a philosophy that stretches the bounds of conventional understanding—nondualism. It’s an ancient perspective that posits a simple, yet profound truth: all of existence, the myriad forms and vacuous voids, the dance of particles and the march of time, are…

Translation of Ashtavakra Gita by Anonymous

Yesterday I lived bewildered, In Illusion.

Bu now I am awake, Flawless and serene, Beyond the world.

From my light The body and the world arise.

So all things are mine, Or nothing is.

Now I have given up The body and the world.

I have a special gift. I see the infinite self.

As a wave, Seething and foaming, Is only water.

So all creation. Streaming out…