THE POWER OF INFINITE JOY: Self-knowledge through Spirituality and Science

By S. Krishnamoorti M.D M.S.

The purpose of this book is to emphasize that human beings are not of dust alone, but they are a mixture of matter and spirit. The matter is enlivened by the Spirit. The enlivened matter principle known as the mind or the ego is mistaken for the spirit. This misunderstanding leads to confusion as to who we really are. By this mistake, the proble

• Language: English
• Publisher: TOPLINK PUBLISHING, LLC
• Release date: Jan 29, 2018
• ISBN: 9781948556460

S. Krishnamoorti M.D M.S.

The author's interest in understanding mind dates back to his childhood molding him to be what he is today. In his teens he was blessed to be in the presence of Sri Ramana Maharishi at Arunachala and spent three days with Sri. Sivananda at Rishikesh before leaving India for post graduate work in psychiatry at UK under Professor Hamilton who is famous for depression scale and did two years course for diploma in psychiatry at the University of Leeds. To further his training in psychiatry he did residency at Boston City Hospital with teaching fellowship at Harvard, Mass., USA. In Iowa he did his MS in psychiatry under Paul Huston and Charles Shagass. In Washington in addition to hospital practice in psychiatry he held faculty positions and also private practice as part time. In California he worked for the VA health care system at Palo Alto. On Spirituality he listened to series of lectures on important topics by Swami Chinmayananda, Swami Dayananda Sarasvati and his disciples. This enabled him to introduce new concepts to the healing of the afflicted mind. The benefits of Spiritual knowledge in addition to the knowledge of phenomenal world can free the suffering mind from various maladies including fear of death etc.

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The Power of Infinite Joy

Self-knowledge through Spirituality and Science

S. Krishnamoorti M.D., M.S..

Copyright © 2018 by S. Krishnamoorti M.D., M.S.

Paperback: 978-1-948556-45-3

eBook: 978-1-948556-46-0

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Contents

Preface

Introduction

1. General Discussions of the Book

2. The Phenomenal World

3. The Dynamics of Fear

4. The Silent Mind: The Automatic System

5. The Creation of Objects in Our World and the Universe

6. Understanding the Consciousness Principle and its role

7. Duality, the Value System, and the Spirit Principle

8. The Combination of Spirit and Matter

9. The Summary

Preface

I practiced psychiatry for over half a century. I had the opportunity to treat many different emotional problems in adults both in this country and in England. My original training in psychiatry was in England at the University of Leeds, then in the United States at Boston City Hospital and at Taunton hospital in Taunton, Massachusetts. At Boston I was exposed to psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapy research in sensory deprivation and electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) at Taunton. Then for more training and research I participated in a degree program. I moved to Iowa City, Iowa. At Iowa University I received a master’s degree in psychiatry, and then I moved to the state of Washington, where I had hospital practice as well as private practice for about twenty-five years. While I was practicing I experienced disappointment, in that my experience was not adequate to bring acceptable remission in the most prevalent neurotic conditions. Psychotropic medications gave temporary relief and psychotherapy was a very supportive addition to the treatment. In my opinion, the root cause of all human suffering is insecurity uncertainty of sustaining favorable experiences in the form of fear is the neurosis. Neurosis is the most prevalent condition I have seen in patients. This fear has its base in the understanding of insecurity we sense all through life.

Security is self-knowledge. I call this self-knowledge as infinite joy. Self-knowledge is the knowledge of one’s intrinsic nature. Everyone knows that he or she is a conscious being that no one can deny it or claim ignorance of this fact. But to understand what it is, is difficult. It is experienced but it is not known as an object of study to gain the knowledge of something like an object. Self being one’s own consciousness and to study that is like the eyes that sees all objects attempts to see itself. The knower of everything cannot know itself says the scriptures. Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharishi in Saddarsana says that the one who says he knows the self or does not know the self is a joker. Vedanta says what we study is something other than the self that is the matter principle. Through the knowledge of the known superimposed matter that consists of both the subtle and the gross objects that includes body mind, which are the incidental factors we arrive at the unknown intrinsic factor the self. {Atma Anatma vichara]. Atma is the spirit and Anatma is the matter. Since Atma cannot be studied the Anatma is available for study I have taken the liberty to explain the Anatma matter repetitiously so there will be less ambiguity. The superimposed matter factor acts as the doer give relative security experienced as joy whereas the self provides the permanent lasting joy or security. The doer ship can never be free from joy and sorrow. The non-doer intrinsic self is the unchanging witness consciousness which is behind all the empirical experiences naturally it is never affected by the problems of doer ship because it is not a doer. Again I have struggled to convey this message in many different ways. I introduced the available knowledge of science to validate certain concepts of the scriptures. There may be repetitions to make the point that our notions about the security we derive from our transactions with the empirical world are transient and not permanent even though we are aware of the fact that it does not last long still we continue to chase this ephemeral sense of well-being. This transient security we experience is derived from a mixture of the matter and the spirit. In this mixture we sense our intrinsic self the witness consciousness, but we are ignorant of its nature and this leads to confusion. These short lived experiences are caused by the momentary absence of the ego. If you analyze any experience like music or any other object of joy what we will find is the temporary absence of the ego that judges the experience. This freedom from judgment of the ego brings one face to face to our real self the witness consciousness that is the joy and the security. Briefly the ego takes its birth borrowing sentience from the spirit and certain features from the matter and the most important of them all is the space time to conduct all the empirical activities. The witness consciousness is the changeless observer, one that watches changes in the body from youth to old age. Layered onto this is another experience, that of the mind. The mind as the ego perceives the changing world through the senses. These two experiences occur simultaneously, which is the cause for confusion and duality. Of these two experiences, we operate as the subject from the one that comes out of the mind as the ego by identification with the body mind senses taking everything else as the objects. We regard the changing experiences the roles the ego plays as the real and try to modify it or control—but fail. This attempt to modify the transitory ego experience in the roles to permanence, is due to the ignorance of the real self. If the suffering were to be real it will not go away and first of all it will not be experienced. Because the suffering is unreal one gains relief from it. The ignorance of the self is what causes human suffering. So the knowledge of the real self alone can provide us the power of infinite joy by abidance in that knowledge which frees us from suffering because the suffering does not touch the real self. The book briefly discusses the steps how to arrive at the real self.

Every day every conscious being remaining changeless as witness consciousness experiences three changing experiences as waking, dream, and deep sleep. The ego’s experience is very powerful overshadowing the real experiencer the self like the sun emitting powerful light during the day that illuminates all the objects of the world but hides the twinkling stars in the sky from our vision. Like the stars in the sky at daytime, the experience of the self is hidden from our experience. The latent desire to remain in that self, for permanency leads to a search for it in the transient objects of the material world. Not realizing this, we indulge in many activities, good and bad, looking for lasting experiences in them ending up with disappointing results. My own pursuit for answers to these human problems led me to spirituality.

My exposure to spirituality in my younger days in India prompted me to search for answers in our scriptures. I began to look for suitable books and lectures from visiting teachers from India. In Seattle at the time, it was scarce. Bay Area in California appeared to be the center for opportunities for gaining this knowledge. So I moved to the Bay Area and took a position in the veteran’s affairs (VA) Palo Alto health care system and attended lectures on Upanishads, spiritual texts from India.

I was very impressed with the Upanishads’ depth of knowledge about the human mind, their power to heal emotional afflictions, and the path they provided for freedom from these afflictions. I became so connected to the study of these scriptures that I decided to devote most of my time to the understanding of their essence.

I introduced some of these concepts in my therapy and found them extremely useful. The changes in my patients’ behaviors and the transformation in their interactions were so impressive that I continued my pursuit full time after my retirement about three years ago. My goal in further studying these effects is to gain more clarity so that I may be able to write a book of this knowledge for my colleagues. Psychiatry has known the benefits of spirituality for a long time but still has difficulty comprehending its application in mental health treatment. Religion is the gateway for this knowledge, but I see a lot of colleagues seeking spiritual knowledge. Perhaps this may be of service to them, as well, and they, too, may benefit from this knowledge in their own lives.

Because of the demand on psychiatrists to help so many afflicted people, they have resorted to psychopharmacology more and more as the first line of treatment. As a result, the importance of therapy has taken a backseat, which is unfortunate. Medications are necessary to treat some of the painful effects of emotional problems, but the cause of these problems should not be neglected. To treat the cause, we must have a clear understanding of what the mind is and then clarity of the afflictions of the mind can be organized for proper treatment. The mind as the ego plays many different roles. The roles belong to the ego the pseudo-I. The roles suffer the problems and not the role player the real-I. For proper treatment of the problems the difference between the ego the pseudo-I and the real-I the witness consciousness is important. Purpose of this writing is to bring clarity in this area as well.

Introduction

Our present living situation is one of duality; referring to our empirical reality. In this empirical world we see ourselves as different from everyone else, the subject-object reality of our world. As a subject, one has some awareness of one’s abilities and, based on that, builds one’s expectations of oneself. That individual has to relate to people or objects, either people or objects, and then at that time has certain expectations of those people or objects. The relationship between a subject and an object creates obligations and responsibilities. Meeting these obligations or commitments may bring either happiness or unhappiness. Sustaining that happiness can pose a problem, so does living in sustained unhappiness. These problems can be multiplied by many factors, including one’s community, society, religion, ethnicity, politics, and other individual values. There are no easy methods or actions to escape from the problems of role playing especially when one is ignorant of the real self. Freedom from suffering is not action oriented. It is knowledge based. The knowledge of one’s real nature is, it does not play any roles. Living in this perpetual conflict between the real and the unreal brings multiple emotional distresses, which may lead to physical and emotional discomfort and may interfere with functionality also.

In society, temporary provisions exist to alleviate the resultant effects of emotional and physical discomforts. These provisions include psychopharmacology, psychotherapy, religious activities, and physical activities (like yoga and recreational hobbies). They can help, but they do not address the cause of maladies. Since the cause is not addressed, the problems will reoccur, needing attention again and again. These relapses can lead to desperation and despondency. To prevent this from happening, one has to address the cause in addition to the symptoms.

Understanding the cause of maladies of the role playing ego requires dedication and commitment. The cause is lack of self-knowledge. We all know that there is only one I as the subject and the rest are all objects and to understand what that subject the real I really stands for is difficult, even for a brilliant student in the hands of a teacher well-grounded in this topic.

The knowledge of our world is the knowledge of the objects. The objects consists of both seen and unseen matter. The seen objects are gross and the unseen are subtle. The knowledge belongs to the spirit. Only these two the spirit as knowledge and its manifestation as the matter are there in this world. The objects are insentient and they are not capable of any activities. The spirit being infinite cannot perform any action. Then the question is how do we account for all activities? There is a third mythical entity that is formed out of the mixture of spirit and the matter called the ego. This ego is the role player exposed to all problems. The spirit lends sentience and existence to the matter and the matter gains space time in the form of birth and death changes and other features. The spirit is in the form of all knowledge organized in the form of an order remains unaffected by the problems of the roles. This order exists in the form of laws of nature. This order is what makes it possible for us to systematically study as the various branches of science. All objects are made of both subtle and gross matter principles and they are insentient and cannot reveal themselves because they are not luminous.

The spiritual aspect of the being is not available for grasp. The spirit as explained being infinite is not an object to perceive. The matter both subtle and gross are available for direct perception or through inference. The spirit even though it is very intimately mixed with the matter principle it is not easily available for our perception or understanding. It is self-effulgent and makes insentient matter sentient. Since self-knowledge is nonmaterial and does not have the attributes of matter, and its knowledge does not earn a living in the empirical world, generally it is not taught in educational institutions. Many people live and die without this knowledge. So why does one have to acquire it?

The answer is, this knowledge is meant for those who are seriously seeking freedom from suffering and want to experience the infinite joy of that freedom while they are still living. There are some who suffer from many physical and psychological problems and have gained no relief from their empirical knowledge. Guided by their faith in their higher power, some are willing to go outside of the options generally available for relief. Those people will benefit from self-knowledge. How? The real self, one’s intrinsic nature, remains unaffected by the problems of changing matter while playing varied roles. Thus, coming to understand this real self, or self-knowledge, creates a cognitive distance that provides the freedom from suffering.

Since spiritual knowledge is rare, there are few experts on this topic available to teach it. Those people are special, and one has to search for them, a search that requires a background in religion. Those who have religious backgrounds have the necessary discipline and are better suited for this knowledge. Self-knowledge first requires an understanding of the empirical world as a phenomenon. To prevent misunderstanding in that explanation of the phenomena which may come as a shock for some I have introduced at the cost of repetition different concepts from science. After gaining some clarity of this knowledge, one seeks the nonmaterial or spiritual knowledge to create a distance between the real and the unreal, the self and the phenomenon, just as an experienced actor plays many different roles without ever being afflicted by the problems of the roles. Elaborate discussions on these topics follow.

This writing is undertaken to give a clear picture of the knower, the basic person who remains as the changeless spiritual being the witness consciousness. Also this book explains the ego as wearing the body, mind, and senses as costumes to play different roles. The goal, as described already, is to explain the existence of a cognitive space in the conscious being. That space that exists between the conscious being and the ego is not a real space. It has to be understood as cognitive space. The problems are not amenable for removal. It can be put aside like the actor in the drama who plays different roles without hangover from the previous role unaffected by the other roles. This is being done in the drama. In real life it can be done. All of our life we play different roles and accumulate the hangovers of roles and they cause all human sufferings. But we are not aware it. To create that space clear knowledge of the conscious being and the ego are crucial. Attempt has been made to explain repetitiously the conscious being the spirit and the body mind sense complex mixture.

Clarity requires a detailed description of the human being, who is made of the spirit, as well as vivid explanations of the three components of matter principles: the body, mind, and senses. The contents of this book is organized so that certain base concepts are explained repeatedly in preparation and as support for the ensuing main topic so that the reader may have easy access without disruption of the subject matter. As one grows into this knowledge and abides in it, one can experience a change in attitude toward the phenomenal world and freedom from the pangs of emotional torment.

The front cover of this book