Śrī Devī-Kālottara 13-14: ‘I’ and ‘Am’
Channel: Consciousness Research Centre
Date: 2019-03-08

This series is classified Vivartha-vāda | Rāja-yoga | Suśupti | Ājñā-cakra

Download the complete text:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OGKZTHmgf7_5CfJsTNjpsJ9FEzOeUZPM/view?usp=sharing

Also see Bhikkhu Katukurunde Ñānananda’s brilliant lecture series, “Nibbāna, the Mind Stilled” complete edition:
http://seeingthroughthenet.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/NMS_LE.pdf

13. The consciousness (caitanya) associated with the aspect ‘am’ is called Śakti. The universe shines by its light. The entire creation is Śakti's saṅkalpa (thought). The state (of mind) which is completely devoid of all attachment is the pure (wisdom) to be attained.

14. The void, which is the infinite and all-encompassing one whole without a second, which is just the effulgence of pure wisdom, which is completely devoid of visible phenomena and which consists of the aspect ‘I’, is the seed which fructifies as liberation, bestowing salvation by enabling one to unite with the Supreme.

There is the following verse in the Sutta Nipāta: 
Tahā dutiyo puriso, 
dīghamaddhāna sasāra, 
itthabhāvaññathābhāva, 
sasāra nātivattati.

It means: "The man with craving as his companion, faring on for a long time in samsāra, does not transcend the round, which is of the nature of a this-ness and an otherwiseness." 

This is further proof that the two terms imply a circuit. It is a circuit between a ‘here’ and a ‘there’, or a ‘this-ness’ and an ‘otherwise-ness’. It is a turning round, an alternation or a circuitous journey. It is like a rotation on the spot. It is an ambivalence between a here and a there. 

It is the relationship between this this-ness and otherwise-ness 
that we tried to illustrate with quotations from the suttas. We mentioned in particular that consciousness, when it leaves this body and gets well established on a preconceived object, which in fact is its name-and-form object, that name-and-form attains growth and maturity there itself.

Obviously, therefore, name-and-form is a necessary condition for the sustenance and growth of consciousness in a mother’s womb. 
It should be clearly understood that the passage of consciousness 
from here to a mother’s womb is not a movement from one place to 
another, as in the case of the body. In reality, it is only a difference of 
point of view, and not a transmigration of a soul. In other words, 
when consciousness leaves this body and comes to stay in a mother’s womb, when it is fully established there, ‘that’ place becomes a ‘this’ place. From the point of view of that consciousness, the ‘there’ becomes a ‘here’. Consequently, from the new point of view, what was earlier a ‘here’, becomes a ‘there’. What was formerly ‘that place’ has now become ‘this place’ and vice versa. That way, what actually is involved here, is a change of point of view. So it does not mean completely leaving one place and going to another, as is usually meant by the journey of an individual. 

The process, then, is a sort of going round and round. This is all the more clear by the Buddha’s statement that even consciousness is dependently arisen. There are instances in which the view that this selfsame consciousness fares on in samsāra by itself, tadevida viññāna sandhāvati sasarati, anañña, is refuted as a wrong view.

==========
Dharmasār Video Series Index:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EZFqp9G893-LMYSm-ucUt3CylMTbfLV2/view?usp=drivesdk

Four States of Consciousness Diagram: 
https://drive.google.com/file/d/13OWr_2V857yq7AjS59yhF4ub2q9k8Kl9/view?usp=sharing

Dharmasār Complete Archive Library:
https://archive.org/details/dharmasar-essence-of-dharma