This is the sixteenth chapter of the book „Viveka – the Voice of Inner Guru.“
The whole book will be tokenized as NFTs on Mirror and, as such, published in 20 articles (20 chapters of the book: The Illusion; India, oh India!; The Accurate description of the Reality; The Crown Jewel; Dead Guru; Living student; Who you?; Leaving the room; The Weakness of the Mind; The Archimedean Point; Three Powers of Maya; Viveka - the Sword of Truth; The Cave of the Mind; Language Can Save Us; Searching for Lakshana; Nine Golden Rules of Viveka; Purification Exercises; What to do with all this?; Dealing with Fear; Ekam Evadvityam: Living without a Center).
Chapter Sixteen: Nine Golden Rules of Viveka
etāvupādhī parajīvayostayoḥ
samyaṅnirāse na paro na jīvaḥ |
rājyaṃ narendrasya bhaṭasya kheṭak
tayorapohe na bhaṭo na rājā ||When the limiting attributes of the Creator and the individual are entirely rejected,
there is no Creator, and there is no individual.
A kingdom is the symbol of a king, and a shield is the symbol of a soldier.
When symbols are removed, there is neither king nor soldier.Vicekachudamani 244
The mind is making a mistake in the interpretation of reality. Enchanted by Maya, it hides and sometimes replicates what is truly real. But mostly, the mind projects its own false reality, making the discerning between the truth and an illusion difficult for itself. The mechanic of those transgressions is the mechanic of language or thinking. The mind is forced to construct complex ideas and automatically jumps from one to another. That enables it to think quickly and builds further constructions based on previous ones. Without that mechanism, we would be unable to understand the universe of ideas, create new experiences, make conclusions, learn, and investigate new possibilities of conscious living. Also, without that, it would not be possible for us to turn our attention to ourselves and start the new conscious wave of creation as fully awakened beings.
The bad news is that in the meantime, under the spell of illusion, we live an impaired life. At the present state of our evolution, that is the human condition, with all its drama and suffering. Anyway, the mind makes a mistake, and the mind should correct that mistake. The Sanskrit expression for it is pragya aparadha. Literary, it could be translated as „the mistake in cognition“, which is a little wider than the „mistake of the mind“, but can also be used.
Viveka offers a solution in the form of backward movement. Theoretically, you can take any idea, starting from the simple ones, and deconstruct it or disassemble it into „parts. “ The starting point can be a definition of an idea and the question „What is X?“ „X“, of course, can be anything, and the answer should be the lakshana of X (as described in the previous chapter „Searching for Lakshana“). As we approach the end of this book, in the final chapters, I'll give you some suggestions regarding practice. However, don't expect too much of it. There is a reason why Shankara didn't go into details of viveka in Vivekachudamani (or any other text). I will explain those reasons later, but one of the most important is the fact that viveka is not to be learned, but discovered. If you just learn the rules of viveka, like you would learn some axioms of logic or any other academic discipline, that would not be enough. You'll become easy prey of Maya because the discerning quality would not be grown from inside you – it would be planted into you, which is to be avoided.
Nonetheless, this is a book about viveka, and even though it is not a manual, you, as a reader, rightfully expect at least some taste of it. That's why I included this chapter with the nine golden rules of viveka. Of course, they may be more rules, or some of the „golden“ ones can be modified, but that discovery must be left to you.
The following „rules“result from the experience of working with students of viveka. They are not mine but theirs. After spending years working with dozen of groups interested in discovering what viveka has to offer (I'll describe the process of deconstruction of the illusion in later chapters), the conclusion was that for the majority of students, some kind of systematization could be quite helpful. At first, I was not so enthusiastic about that. I thought that the fixed rules could interfere with the spontaneity of the process and even obstruct the findings. The need for being taught and the habit of not thinking with their mind is sometimes so strong that it disqualifies the person for the study of viveka, which is based on individual discoveries. However, provided that the student receives repeated warnings about the danger of taking the rules too strictly, they may improve the efficiency of a process.
It is my preference to work with every student or group of students from scratch. Still, I admit that the existence of flexible enough rules can provide valuable support during the beginning days. Few warnings, though. You'll probably find those rules quite abstract. True, some of them will become entirely understandable only when you stumble across them during practice. This book is not supposed to be a manual. I don't think it is possible to write a manual of viveka in the way our western mind would prefer. Shankara didn't do it, and it is evident to me why. To you, it may be a little disappointing, but the disappointment results from a habit of taking in information from somebody or something outside you. Viveka can make your consciousness the field of exploration – by you, using what you are, to find out everything about the universe of ideas, about that mess of things you call your reality. To commence such an enterprise, you'll have to become a scientist. Real one, remember. Not the one who believes in something without proof. In a way, viveka can start a whole different science with different technology. There is a massive amount of work ahead, and the beginning - like all beginnings - is not easy.
Proceed with caution. Don't take those rules as god-given unchangeable axioms. During your journey into the cave of the mind, you may find them supportive, but you might also find some flaws and modify them accordingly.
Nine Golden Rules of Viveka
The rules are written in the form of a „rejection“. If the answer is based on the elements enumerated or described in a specific rule, it will be rejected or eliminated as a candidate for a correct viveka statement. If the answer can not be eliminated on account of any rule, it is probably correct.
1. Rejection due to construction
The viveka answer or statement must be free from most or all conceptual and category constructions. This rule is a must if we are to define a lakshana of an idea. In other cases, when describing or answering complex questions, the less construction we use, the better. For example, the statement „An SUV is a vehicle“, is not viveka acceptable (although correct), because „a vehicle“ is a superset of many other types of vehicles (including bicycles or trains). Even the statement „An SUV is a car“must be eliminated per this rule. It doesn't say anything about the discerning quality of SUVs compared to other cars. Both statements are correct, but they are descriptive, not lakshana defining.
2. Rejection due to exclusion
The idea (word, meaning, thing) can not be defined by excluding other subsets of the same category without a clear definition of lakshana. For example, you can not identify an apple by saying it is not a pear. Yes, an apple is not a pear, but that statement does not say anything about what an apple is. You can try to say that an apple is a fruit (should be rejected by the first rule), but it is not a pear (rejected by the second rule). Again, the statement is correct (an apple is a fruit, and it is not a pear), but the lakshana is still unknown.
This rule may remind you of the famous „neither this nor that“ or neti neti principle. However, in the case of neti neti, the goal is to identify all „worldly“ things that are not atman. What remains should be the Self or atman. In particular circumstances, following the logic of neti neti can help the person to understand that the pure subject, consciousness, or atman, is not an object senses can perceive or the mind can think of. In this case, however, the exclusion or negation of lakshana is not the viveka acceptable thinking.
However, note that the nine golden rules of viveka actually follow the neti neti principle: if any of them does not eliminate the statement, it is accepted as correct!
3. Rejection due to learned knowledge
Viveka answer can not be based on previous knowledge, thinking, expectation, or hope. The words should be ordinary, and the content understandable to an average person from your environment. It is best if the answer is composed of words any healthy person with primary education understands. So, academic expressions, complicated phraseology, and fancy exotic terms render the response or statement unacceptable.
That means there is no requirement for learning new ideas before studying viveka. Of course, not everyone will show the necessary level of interest. Thus, the impulse to study viveka may not appear without reading some books and understanding ideas that may be out of the ordinary. Nonetheless, viveka itself should be expressed with everyday words.
For example, epistemology is at the root of viveka, but the word itself is a mouthful, and it is not in the vocabulary of an ordinary person. Thus, it should not be found in a clear viveka statement. The same is valid for Sanskrit terms present in this book. It is cool to understand what atman or brahman meant to Indian sages, but your average neighbor will not understand you. Such words are not acceptable in viveka statements.
4. Rejection due to allegoric expressions
Viveka is not poetry, nor should it be used for writing exciting books. If the words you used have implied, shared, or have double meanings, such a statement is rejected.
For example, if you want to find a lakshana for „life“ and say „Life is Love“, that may sound excellent and inspiring. However, for viveka, such a statement is unintelligible nonsense. First, the word „love“ is arguably a category construction. It is probably a conceptual construction, too. If so, this statement should be rejected according to other rules. However, in this case, the real problem is in capital L in Love. If you just say that „life is love“, everyone would ask you what love you are talking about? Friendly, brotherly, partners, or maybe just sexual love? Of course, by uttering or writing the word „love“ you stepped into the muddy field of constructions. You know that, so you try to avoid it by replacing a more ordinary kind of love with Love written with capital L. Now, expressed like this, it is something different. It is big love, not just small, who knows what kind of love. But, here is a problem: nobody knows what kind of love that capital Love is! We may suppose you think about cosmic, unconditional, divine, all-encompassing love, but we don't know because you didn't say it. And if you didn't say it, you didn't think it. Or your mind made a mistake by jumping over the ideas working on auto-pilot. In other words, it is an unclear statement, and thus viveka unacceptable. So, avoid metaphors, allegories, hidden and implied meanings while attempting to use viveka.
5. Rejection due to false premise
If a premise is included in the statement („If that is so, then...“), that premise should be evident and viveka acceptable. If it isn't, that means the foundation of the statement is false, and the statement is not acceptable, even if by itself it could pass other viveka rules.
The violation of that rule usually occurs when a student takes something for granted. For example, the statement „If God is one, he must be the creator of everything.“ This sentence looks simple, but it includes at least two premises that are not self-evident. The first premise supposes the existence of God. The second assumes that there is only one of its kind. Those two assumptions are taken for granted as a firm ground for a conclusion, which by itself could be at least partially correct (the one source of creation, although it is not certain wherefrom the gender – he – came).
There are a lot of such assumptions among spiritual people. They crept into their minds, welcomed as „common knowledge“. Many are almost proud of such mental parasites, waving them in front of other people's eyes as proof of their knowledgeable history and spiritual achievements.
„We are spiritual beings, aren't we? And as such, we are made from...“
„There are seven chakras in our body, isn't it so? And because of that...“
„All people have guardian angels, so the voice I heard...“
„The enlightenment is the highest state of consciousness, so it must be that...“
„Love is the essence of our existence, so we have to...“
And so on.
Even if what follows after such sentences could be correct, if the premise (the first part of the sentence) is taken for granted without examination, the whole structure should be rejected as false.
6. Rejection due to complexity
If you have to explain what you thought by saying or writing the statement, it is clear that you used the wrong words, which means your thoughts were unclear.
If you say „Freedom is a matter of choice“, it is a rather simple statement. It may even be correct. But, according to strict viveka criteria, there is a lot of ambiguity here. Did you mean that freedom gives you a possibility of a choice, or that you can choose if you are free or not? If it is the latter, isn't it that you have to be free to have a choice and thus choose freedom?
Sounds complicated? It sounds because it is. To explain what you meant with your sentence, you'll need another couple of paragraphs to elaborate. Excellent for a book (I am using that abundantly), but not acceptable for viveka. Viveka statements should be as simple as they can be, and no elaboration should be needed for a fair and honest reader or listener with average intelligence. If you have to explain, justify, or elaborate, the statement is viveka unacceptable and should be corrected. (Of course, even the correct viveka statement could be explained and elaborated on but not in its structure. The elaboration could show only why and how that statement is viveka correct, without changing the meanings and the structure of the said statement.)
7. Rejection due to redundancy
The seventh rule is an extension of the sixth. Still, it gained its own status because the practice showed that students, especially in the beginning, tend to repeat the message with synonyms or different sentences with the same meaning. Such repetitions or redundancies are, of course, unnecessary loss of time, space, and energy. They puddle the clear waters of thinking.
Avoid decorations, unnecessary adjectives, and over-descriptive words. When the student does that, it usually means that his buddhi went to sleep, and the emotions took over the manomayakosha. Such a situation is an open invitation for the mental parasites to take ribbons of mind in their confusing hands.
8. Acceptance due to opposition
The last two rules are about acceptance. Of course, any acceptable statement should pass the first seven rules and not be rejected. When we have no evident candidates for appropriate lakshana, we can resort to the rule of the opposition. We are searching for a lakshana of a particular idea. That idea has its opposite idea. If we know some of the characteristics (or even a lakshana) of the opposite idea, we may accept the opposite characteristic as the valid characteristic of the idea under examination. Ah, it's a mouthful, isn't it?
As I wrote earlier, you can fully grasp the application of those rules only during practice. And this one is somewhat rare. I'll try to explain it as simply as possible.
Suppose that we are looking for a characteristic (possible lakshana) of the idea „without legs“ (it may be a creature without legs, but it doesn't have to be; the expression itself is enough for viveka examination). We know that the opposite idea – „legs“ or „with legs“ – has the characteristic of „moving“ or „movable“. Under the eighth rule, viveka acceptable statement about the idea „without legs“ is – immovable.
Don't underestimate the power of the eighth rule. It may seem self-evident, but viveka can take under scrutiny ideas such as tolerance-nontolerance, freedom-bondage, truth-illusion, and even self-nonself. Legs and no-legs can seem rude, but you'll never gain your firm stand in the high grounds of mind if you have not done your apprenticeship on such examples.
9. Acceptance of the most precise meaning
It is not always possible to be entirely accurate. The confusion lies not only in the structure of the language but many times in the meaning of the words. The words themselves are constructions, and it is not always possible to express a lakshana with absolute precision. The Sanskrit language, with its supposedly natural structure that reflects the structure of the first wave of creation, might be equipped for such a task. However, we don't use Sanskrit. We speak and write different languages, mostly derived from old Indo-European roots, but changed over time. Sometimes, that change enables us to be more prices, sometimes less precise.
The words we have and the language we use – that's our tool. We don't have anything else. So we use it as precisely as possible, based on common sense.
In practice, that means that after each previous rule is checked, and we don't have anything to offer besides the approximation, we'll have to accept that approximation.
The ninth rule is applicable in even fewer cases than the eighth.
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So, here they are – the nine golden rules of viveka! You must be delighted. Or are you just confused?
Never mind. I warned you that the rules are not to be learned as axioms. They may come in handy when you start to wriggle your path through tough questions of deconstruction of the illusion. They might seem abstract at the moment, but with time they will grow not into you but from within you. With time, you'll understand that right now, by reading this chapter, you were confronted with the most potent tools for ending the spell of illusion.
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Next Chapter: Purification Exercises