Question:

Namaste Ektaji,

In the video, https://youtu.be/9R3zSoYl6ns, you explain a Baul song where the seeker is longing for Lord Krishna. Is it the body-mind crying for the formless Consciousness or a form of God or Guru?

Answer:

The Body-Mind person is simply a projection on the infinite screen called Brahman. Temporary and illusory, this projection is but a series of waking thoughts running successively, one after the other. Due to the quick succession and repetition, the Waking person and the Waking world appear to be real and permanent.

In reality, the Body-Mind person is Consciousness, just like the images on a cinema screen are nothing but light. When there is identification with the closest image of a body-mind, the sense of personhood is born. Images of body-minds further away birth the idea of a world.

The sense of individuality and personhood is strengthened by the division between ‘I’ and ‘You’. Personhood needs constant feed to survive because it is a false, illusory, temporary projection. If it is not fed constantly, it will be sucked away into the nothingness of Consciousness. The mother feeding this personhood-belief is called the Ego.

How does the Ego work?
The ego seeks different kinds of Waking-state entertainment options for the survival of the Waking-body-mind-personhood-belief.

Why Waking-state-entertainment?
Because the Waking-body-mind-personhood Is limited to the Waking, it is never experienced in the Dream and Deep Sleep states.

How is the Waking-body-mind-personhood-belief enforced?
The disappearance of personhood in Deep sleep is associated with death, thus the Waking-body-mind-personhood-belief is enforced by an urgency to return to the Waking. This is confirmed by one’s direct experience of being beaten out of restful sleep and forced into the waking state.

The Ego’s job description entails providing ‘waking state entertainment’.

Thus Advaita Vedanta points out that the Waking-state-thought is not different from the Dream-state-thought. Ashtavakra tells King Janaka, both are illusory my dear one! Therefore, if the Waking state itself is illusory, its contents are illusory. All naama-rupa [names & forms] are illusory. This person, that person, this form, that form, all are illusory. It doesn’t matter what names you give to a form, whether saint or sinner, all are illusory, whether god or devil, all are illusory. It is an automatically running projection on the screen, without a doer and experiencer. There is no ‘doing’ possible for light. There is no ‘experiencing’ possible for light. Thus nothing is happening. Nothing ever happened. There is nobody there at all. There is nobody who longs, there is nobody to long for, there is nobody who cries, there is nobody to cry for. All are simply stories of Naama-Rupa. Consciousness is projecting the name-form of Krishna and the Sadhak. Consciousness is God. Consciousness is the Devotee.

May this higher level of understanding of Ajaata Vaada help clarify how all is but an illusion.