Shankaracarya's Upadesa Sahasri and the Problem of Pain

 In the first chapter of Upadesa Sahasri by Shankaracarya, the one dedicated mainly to the establishment by Sruti/Scripture of the unity of the Self with the absolute Brahman, in the midst of a plethora of citations we get the irruption of what is inevitable - pain! The glory of the realised state of unity seems contradicted by that very salient fact. 

#33:

If he says, “ The pain due to burns or cuts in the body and the misery caused by hunger and the like, Sir, are distinctly perceived to be in me. The supreme Self is known in all the Srutis and the Smritis to be “free * from sin, old age, death, grief, hunger, thirst, etc., and devoid of smell and taste’. How can [ who am different from Him and possess so many phenomenal attributes possibly accept the supreme Self as myself and myself, a transmigratory being, as the supreme Self > I may them very well admit that fire is cool | Why should I, a man of the world entitled to accomplish all prosperity in this world and in the next and realize the supreme end of life, i.e., liberation, give up the actions producing those results and yajnopavita etc., their accessories?”

In all philosophy the interaction of the physical and the psychical is a perennial puzzle. There is evident interaction but the causal connection between extended matter and unextended consciousness is opaque. We stub our toe, we feel pain which we may identify materially as the firing of c-fibres. It is a fact that I feel that pain myself. The Self apparently is in pain. How is this compatible with the state of release from all the ills of this transmigratory existence which is supposed to be the natural state of the Self?

34. The teacher should say to him, “It was not right for you to say, ‘I directly perceive the pain in me when my body gets cuts or burns ’. Why? Because the pain due to cuts or burns, perceived in the body,’ the object of the perception of the perceiver like a tree burnt or cut, must have the same location as the burns etc. People point out pain caused by burns and the like to be in that place where they occur but not in the perceiver. How? For, on being asked where one’s pain lies, one says, ‘I have pain in the head, in the chest or in the stomach’. Thus one points out pain in that place where burns or cuts occur, but never in the perceiver. If pain or its causes viz., burns or cuts were in the perceiver one would have pointed out the perceiver to be the seat of the pain, like the parts of the body, the seats of the burns or cuts.

What the teacher is pointing out in his rebuttal is the objective nature of the perception of pain. It is felt by the Self. The pain is not in the Self but is perceived in the same way as we perceive a tree or any objective phenomenon. The Teacher goes on to elaborate this subject-object understanding.

#35

Moreover, (if it were in the Self) the pain could not be perceived by the Self like the colour of the eye by the same eye. Therefore, as it is perceived to have the same seat as burns, cuts and the like, pain must be an object of perception like them. Since? it is an effect, it must have a receptacle like that in which rice is cooked. The impressions ° of pain must have the same seat as pain® itself. As they are perceived during the time when memory is possible (i.e., in waking and dream, and not in deep sleep), these impressions must have the same location‘ as pain. The aversion to cuts, burns and the like, the causes of pain, must also have the same seat’ as the impressions (of pain). It is therefore said, ` Desire ^ aversion and fear have a seat common with that of the impressions of colours. As they have for their seat the intellect, the knower, the Self, is always pure and devoid of fear.”

Lurking behind this position is the deeper ontological thesis of the inert nature of the body-mind. It is unconscious by nature or jada. Advaitins speak of the chit jada granthi or the knot between the inert and the conscious. Related to this is the elaboration of the concept of the Saksin or Witness which gives a theoretical underpinning to the firm if false feeling that the Self is identified with the body-mind and its modifications. 

Bina Gupta in her book on the Saksin ‘The Disinterested Witness’ : A Fragment of Advaita Vedanta Phenomenology” enumerates six approaches to the understanding of this concept.

1.The saksin is indubitable, unerring, eternal. It is always directly manifested and its manifestation is not due to any extrinsic reason.

2. The saksin is the neutral (pure) consciousness as qualified by a modification of the inner sense.° 3. The saksin is that which is never concealed.® 4. The saksin manifests ignorance.’ 5. That which directly manifests is the saksin.® 6. The saksin is that which illuminates everything.

Clearly the concept is a complex one and deserves a note on its own. Probably the Saksin as a modification of the inner sense would be the most significant characterisation. More an

on.

Thou art That #159, 160/1/2/3

 #159: It is to the intellect and not to the Self which is immutable, that the knowledge, ‘I am Brahman’ belongs.  Moreover the Self is changeless because it has no other witness.  (Upadesa Sahasri Chap.XVIII)

Here the difference between the intellectual knowledge; our rational conviction, that we are one with the Absolute or the unity of being etc. is being contrasted with actual realisation which is a Self realisation.  A change in knowledge is an action, a new comprehension whereas the Self has no action being immutable.  It is its light which is reflected by the mirror of the mind.

#160: If the agent, the ego, were to feel ‘I am liberated’ freedom from pain and pleasure would not be reasonable with respect to it.

#161/2: The wrong knowledge that one is happy or unhappy due to one’s identification with the body etc., like the pleasure or sorrow due to the possession or loss of an ear-ring, is surely negated by the right knowledge that is Pure Consciousness.

An evidence becoming non-evidence, everything will end in non-existence in the reverse case.

#163:  One feels pain when one’s body gets burnt, cut or destroyed, (because one identifies with it).  Otherwise the Self (which is different from the body) is never pained.  Owing to there being burns etc. in one man another is not pained.

There are many advaitins who take this as stated despite the ample evidence for pain felt by recognised self-realised sages.  Some offer the distinction between suffering and pain.  The jnani feels pain but does not suffer.  Prarabdha karma or that element of karma that must be got through before the body is ‘dropped’ might be a cause of the pain that must be suffered even by the jnani.  In any case there is no identification with the body by an enlightened person.

The other point about enlightenment that has occurred to me is whether one can speak of a time when one became enlightened.  In the histories of saints that attained this state after a period of spiritual practice a time is indicated.  In reality their true nature had never changed.

If asked they might say ‘I am now what I always was, I abide’.