Whatever our independent study and realisation may be, the students of the Vedic times always depended on the scriptures to compare their notes with. In the Vivekachoodamani, the ecstatic disciple of Sri Adi Sankaracharya jumps with joy as he narrates his experience.Says the student, “How can I, who has no sense organs of perception and action, perform deeds of merit and demerit? Not just that, I do not have a mind, I don’t change and I have no form either. For the one who is experiencing unbroken expanse of bliss, there is no thought that has gone by or nothing that will come in the future to provoke him to commit any action—sinful or otherwise, say the scriptures.”
To explain this point of how nothing taints the Self, the Acharya gives a beautiful example. If the shadow of a man comes in contact with something hot or cold, good or bad, the man who is separate from the shadow does not feel it at all. In the same way the worldly experiences of good and bad do not make any contact with the man of realisation.
In yet another example, the Master says the one who witnesses is not affected by the properties of the objects witnessed as he is separate from what he sees. Just as a house does not affect a lamp which illuminates it, the individual being remains unchanged and untouched by the surroundings.
I am the anvil of super-consciousness on which the body, mind and intellect are forged. The connection between this consciousness and my personality is as much as the connection of sunlight to the actions performed in its presence—like fire to the objects it burns and to the rope on which any similar image of a snake, a stick, a garland or a crack in the ground can be superimposed.
I am neither the doer of any action, nor do I make anyone do. I am neither the one who experiences an event nor do I cause another to experience. I am neither the seer, nor do I show anything to anyone. I am that self-effulgent light that cannot be shown as a simile to anything in this universe.
When it seems like I move, it is actually the body, mind and intellect that is moving. Yet people misunderstand that I am moving. This is out of sheer ignorance of the presence of consciousness. One’s own form is like the sun which is motionless. Yet people claim, “Oh alas! I did this, I enjoy or suffer this
or I am killed.”
Now the student talks about the final fear each one has, ie. of death. “Whether I fall down dead in water or in land, it is only the body that is inert which falls. I am untouched by the inertia of the body just as the space is not touched by the mud of the pot.” One who realises the Self is hence fearless.