Ardor (22 page)

Relations between the Self,
ā
tman
, and the I,
aham
, are tortuous, fragile, ambiguous. And it couldn’t be otherwise. Everything goes back to the beginning, when there was only the Self, in the form of a “person,”
puru
ṣ
a
: “Looking around, he saw nothing other than his Self. And the first thing he said was: ‘I am.’ And so was born the name ‘I.’” It is the primal scene of consciousness, which reveals the precedence of a reflexive pronoun—
ā
tman
, one’s Self. Thinking about one’s self precedes thought. And thinking about one’s Self takes the form of a person,
puru
ṣ
a
: it has a physiognomy, an outline. This is immediately indicated with another pronoun: I,
aham.
In that moment a new entity appears, which has the name I and is superimposed point by point on the Self, from which it is born. From then on—until knowledge,
veda
, flashes forth—the I will be indistinguishable from the Self. They look like identical twins. They have the same outline, the same sense of omnipotence and centrality. After all, at the moment when the I appeared, there was still nothing else in the world. And so the first to fall into the delusion of the I was the Self. After the creatures were created, the Self, as a result of its many erotic metamorphoses, looked at the world and realized that it had created it. And it said: “Indeed I (
aham
) am creation,” already forgetting that this I was only the first of his creatures.

*   *   *

The doctrine of I and Self,
aham
and
ā
tman
, like all Vedic doctrines, can neither be proved nor disproved. It can only be experienced: by each person, on himself. This doctrine may sound odd to those who think of their minds as clear-cut, solid objects, which at most are turned on and off, almost like switches, when sleep takes over or when they wake up. If, however, the mind operating in each person is not one single block, but is at least crossed by a fissure, varying in depth from moment to moment, between the one who is looking and another being, who gazes back at the one who is looking, then we begin to glimpse what lies behind the division between
aham
and
ā
tman.
But it is only a beginning. The words that form in the mind—and tend to create a self-contained fortress—must also realize they are facing another (nonlinguistic, perpetually active) part with which at any moment they may clash or amalgamate or become entwined (but these ways of relating are far more numerous and subtle).

The consequences of this realization are incalculable. And they do not necessarily lead along the Vedic path, with all its impressive apparatus of correspondences and connections. But they certainly lead to a realization that the unknown is much greater than had first been acknowledged. An unknown that is not just outside the mind, but inside it and perhaps vaster even than the unknown that lies outside. This realization could therefore be the basis on which thought begins to develop.

*   *   *

How do we explain why the figure that appears in the pupil of the eye has assumed such an importance? Because it is the only point on the surface of the human body that has a
reflection
, therefore the capacity not only to see, but to reflect what the eye sees in another form. And that form will be impalpable and minuscule, but will
correspond
, point for point, to the figure that the eye perceives in the outside world, so that even the being who dwells in the pupil will have a head, a body, legs and arms, just like the person who appears in the world in front of the eye. And that person will also have another eye, into which the eye of the onlooker will be reflected. This ensures a potentially perpetual and interminable
communication of reflections.
If that tiny figure were not there in the pupil, the human body would be a compact surface and would offer no glimpse of the other life that carries on in the sealed chamber of the mind.

*   *   *

Self-referentiality, this movement of thought that was enough for Gödel to break up the whole edifice of formal systems, beginning with arithmetic, appeared on the linguistic scene for the first time when the reflexive pronoun
ā
tman
, valid for all people, singular and plural, appeared as an entity, a noun, usually translated as “Self.” This happened in the Veda: first at the end of certain hymns—not the most ancient—from the
Atharvaveda
, then more frequently in the Br
ā
hma
ṇ
as, to the point where
ā
tman
became the ubiquitous hallmark of the Upani
ṣ
ads. Indian thought from then on revolved around this word, treating it in a whole variety of ways, from Buddha to
Ś
a
ṅ
kara. Never allowing it, though, to lose its centrality. India begins and ends with something that was to become central in the West only at the beginning of the twentieth century, with the discovery of the paradoxes in set theory.

The Vedic ritualists certainly didn’t react like those Western thinkers who were appalled when they discovered those paradoxes, because they saw every claim to a coherent and consequential speculative structure fall to pieces. The Vedic ritualists, instead, seemed perversely attracted by paradoxes in general. In them they saw the very substance of enigmas. And enigmas formed the bedrock of what they expressed, in their hymns and in their commentaries on ritual. They were different ways of describing, formulating, illustrating, applying the same unknown quantity, which they called
brahman.

*   *   *

There was a teacher, Sanatkum
ā
ra, and his pupil, N
ā
rada. The teacher was a
k
ṣ
atriya
, a warrior, and his pupil a brahmin. N
ā
rada was one day to become an ever-present
ṛṣ
i,
the one who most enjoyed involving himself in the affairs of others. A tireless talker. But before that he had been one of the many pupils who used to appear before his teacher with a burning ember. The teacher anticipated him, saying: “You come to me with that which you know.” Sanatkum
ā
ra evidently knew that N
ā
rada was no ordinary pupil, but was already overburdened with learning. And this had to be corrected. “Tell me what you know,” asked the teacher, “I will tell you what goes beyond this.” Impudent irony, since “know” in Sanskrit is
veda.
And the pupil proudly and diligently displayed his knowledge: “The
Ṛ
gveda
, the
Yajurveda
, the
S
ā
maveda
, fourthly the
Atharvaveda
, fifthly the ancient stories.” Everything so far followed the prescribed order. But the pupil wanted to excel, so he continued to list other knowledge he had acquired: “The Veda of the Vedas, the ritual for the ancestors, the computation of numbers, divination, the art of finding treasures [according to Olivelle, but Senart translates it as “knowledge of time”], dialogues, monologues, the science of the gods, the science of ritual, the science of the spirits, the science of government, the science of the celestial bodies, the science of snakes.” Worn out by his list, N
ā
rada concluded: “Here, sir, is what I know.”

Then, straight after, N
ā
rada showed himself in a new aspect: no longer the faultless pupil, proud of his knowledge, but an anxious and bewildered young man, a prototype of the hapless student. He said: “I know nothing, sir, apart from liturgical formulas (
mantras
), I do not know the Self (
ā
tman
). But I have heard of it, sir, from others like you: ‘He who knows the Self goes beyond suffering.’ I, sir, am suffering. Sir, ferry me to the other bank of suffering.”

The immense Vedic expanse, brimful of gods and powers, was suddenly reduced to one narrow gap. The same that would attract the Buddha—and, one far-off day, Schopenhauer. The teacher came straight to the point and answered: “All you have listed are nothing more than nouns.” And this marked the beginning of a breathtaking passage. Using a recursive procedure, Sanatkum
ā
ra began a succession of interlinked thoughts that spanned worlds before returning right back to the beginning. For each power, he explained which power was even greater. “Speech indeed is more than nouns.” Puzzlement, at first. For that which speech knows (the Vedas and all the learning listed by N
ā
rada) seems to be exactly the same as that which nouns make it possible to know. But here he was referring to the god Speech, V
ā
c, celebrated in the
Ṛ
gveda
as she who penetrates everything and to whom nothing can be denied: “The sky, earth, air, atmosphere, waters, incandescent energy, gods, men, animals, birds, plants and trees, all the beasts down to worms, insects and ants, the just and the unjust, true and false, good and bad, pleasant and unpleasant.” Speech is more powerful than nouns to exactly this extent.

Here a comparison is made with “mind,”
manas
, which is the next power. Now it will be Speech that gives way.
Manas
, in its turn, is not the last word, but if anything the first. For
manas
is a generic, all-embracing word. More powerful than
manas
will be some of its modalities. How to dismantle and reassemble the mind has never been taught with such precision as in the Upani
ṣ
ads.
Manas
therefore yields to a further power, which is
sa
ṃ
kalpa
, “intention,” “plan.” It is the word used by the sacrificer when he declares that he has decided (has planned) to celebrate a sacrifice.
Sa
ṃ
kalpa
is more than mind since it is what sets mind in action.
Sa
ṃ
kalpa
is the first impulse that leads to the deployment of that which is. And here Sanatkum
ā
ra, with supreme subtlety, drew this category out of its narrow psychological context, making it fill the cosmos. Once the mind is set in motion, not only are words spoken, not only are words fixed in writing, but “sky and earth are founded on intention”—and, following them, the rest of the world, right down to food and life. A sudden, acrobatic, overwhelming passage. An exemplary Vedic gesture.

The
sa
ṃ
kalpa
, however, is just a first sign of the sharpening of the mind. Something else still has to be revealed. “Awareness (
citta
) is more than intention.” Another important threshold, which certain translations fail to notice. Senart translates
citta
as “
raison
” (reason), Olivelle as “thought.” And yet
citta
is neither reason, which is misleading, nor thought, which is too broad.
Citta
is the word used for the act of
becoming aware.
And bringing to consciousness. In the end, it is the pure fact of being conscious. The primacy of awareness over everything is the cornerstone of Vedic thought. If
citta
meant reason or general thought, Sanatkum
ā
ra’s line of argument would lose its meaning at the point where he says: “So, however much someone may know, if he is without awareness they will say of him: ‘He is not there.’ If he knew, if he were a sage, he would not be so lacking in awareness.” The
ṛṣ
is
, the first sages, are the masters of consciousness. Their function, more than any other, before any other, is to be watchful. And so they watch over the world and its
dharma
so that it comes to no harm. But they may only do so if, like the gods, they have perpetual wakefulness.

With each threshold it might be thought the last has been reached. If
citta
, awareness, is indeed fundamental, what power could be greater? The speculative machine now proceeds with ever more subtle distinctions. “Meditation (
dhy
ā
na
) indeed is more than awareness.” The words already point to certain Buddhist harmonics: in Pali teachings, the word
citta
will become synonymous with “mind”; and
dhy
ā
na
is a word of key significance for the Buddha. But here the grandiose Vedic perspective—cosmic rather than psychological—opens up once more: “The earth, in a certain way (
iva
), meditates; the atmosphere, in a certain way, meditates; the waters, in a certain way, meditate; gods and men, in a certain way, meditate; therefore those among men who reach greatness are, in a certain way, partaking of meditation.” The word
iva
, which marks entry into the indefinite and the casting off of the literal, is used for the earth as for gods and for men. All and everything meditates,
in a certain way.
And beyond meditation? “Discernment (
vijñ
ā
na
) is more than meditation.”
Vijñ
ā
na
: once again a term that will have an important role in Buddhism. To understand its particularity, we have to think of the discernment of spirits that would be practiced by Evagrius and the Desert Fathers—and, one day, by Ignatius of Loyola.