The practice of Atma Vichara is to look at you. The outcome is to dissolve the lie that you are “you.” The you in quotes is the you that you have been convinced that you are, the components and conditions of the life. Your job, your name, your social standing, or any of a collection of a dozen other labels for the things in your life that generations of habitual conditioning would have us believe we are.
The thing about the you that is very different about the “you” is that no one can ever tell you what you are. They can tell you what “you” are, and that is how the lie gets developed, but the you that you are, only you can see that. Only you can know that. The best that anyone else can do is point toward that.
Some pointers take the form of metaphors. A good metaphor, especially for framing the practice of Atma Vichara in a useful way is the Coin metaphor. It runs like this:
There are two main areas of concern in this life that can be addressed with different types of practices. On one side is you. The true you. That you that has nothing to do with your current situation, your past, or any idea about your future. The simple truth of being you that you feel right now and which you always feel without variation. That feeling of you which never alters one bit. That is you, and the practice for realizing that is to look directly at that feeling bald-faced, from time to time, consciously.
On the other side of the coin are the conditions of your life, your circumstance, your habitual ways of being. The living of this life. Everything that happens. On this side of the coin is every other practice whatsoever. Religion, meditation, spirituality, psychology, fitness, health-care, sociology, physics, economy, architecture. Everything. All the ways we look to make these lives better, to prolong them, and to manage them. All other procedural concerns and teachings ever is on this side of the coin. They are all excellent at helping you to live your life, helping us to live these lives. None of them will show you what you are, since they address the form the life takes, which you are not.
This metaphor is not meant to judge the value of, or marginalize any practice. They are incredibly useful for what they are useful for. The purpose of the metaphor is to help keep the practices focused on what they are actually good for. Just as unpacking the psychological patterns we run in our life will not show us what we really are, so too will looking at the raw you will not make you any better at managing your money (take it from me!)
Using the right practice for the right purpose is as smart a plan as using the right tool for the job.
As always, please let me know what you think in the comments.
Cheers!
Tags: Atma Vichara, Distinctions
