To Whom is The Teaching ‘Thou Art That’?

Divine Life Society Publication: Vedanta For Beginners by Gurudev Sri Swami Sivananda

Who is the aspirant to whom the words ‘Thou Art That’ are addressed? Who suffers pain and misery in ignorance and stands in need of the teaching ‘Thou Art That?’ The aspirant cannot be the eternal Witness Itself since It is untouched by ignorance and its effects. The aspirant cannot be either an agent. In that case, he cannot accept the idea, ‘I am Brahman, the Witness.’ As a result, the teaching ‘Thou Art That’ becomes a falsity and that position is not acceptable. The teaching can nevertheless be accepted, provided we grant indiscrimination due to ignorance between ego and the Self to the Sruti when it declares ‘Tat Tvam Asi.’

Should the Sruti discriminate between the ego and the Self, the foregoing defect arises, namely, that an agent to an action cannot be admitted to be the Witness. If it be said, like the Samkhyas, that the word ‘Thou’ finally refers to the Witness, the relation between the ego and the Self, in the absence of a reflection of the Self, should be established so that the word ‘Thou’ can have the implied meaning referring to the Witness.

The relation cannot be one of the Seer and the Seen, for it cannot be admitted in the case of the Witness which is devoid of activity. Neither can it be said that there exists an identity between the ego and the Witness though the latter is devoid of activity; there being no opportunity for the knowledge pertaining to that identity to exist in the absence of the knowledge of the relation that my Self, the Witness exists. The relationship cannot also be known through the scriptures on the following three grounds, viz., (a) The ego cannot know the relation as it is unconscious, (b) similarly in the case of the Witness-Self because It is changeless and actionless, and (c) the non-conscious ego cannot be taught by the Sruti. Granting that there still exists a relation between the ego and the Self, the knowledge of such relation can only be one of ‘mine’ and in no case one of identity.

To accept that the non-conscious intellect appears to be conscious, is to accept that the modifications of the intellect also appear to be so like sparks of red-hot iron. It should be noted that the act of pervading the intellect on the part of the Self-Witness, like fire pervading a mass of iron, is not a change on the part of the Self; the same has been refuted in the example of the mirror and the face. Further, it should be understood that an illustration and its subject can nowhere bear absolute similarity in all respects.

Excerpts from: To Whom Is The Teaching ‘Thou Art That’? - Vedanta For Beginners by Gurudev Sri Swami Sivananda