An Exercise to Become Conscious of One’s Consciousness

The Taittiriya Upanishad presents a methodology or practice to gain direct knowledge of the Eternal. The seeker is asked to practice tapasya, variously translated as concentration in thought, or concentration of force by Sri Aurobindo. Tapasya cannot be easily or completely understood through these concepts in English. It is a form of internal concentration that goes beyond what we know of as ‘thought’ and is more akin to the type of concentration that transcends the thinking mind and brings one to an awareness of pure consciousness. The seeker practices tapasya and first recognises physical substance, or matter, as the Eternal, as it is the source, the maintenance and the ending of all things. On further reflection, however, he is brought to understand that the life-force is the Eternal, superceding his earlier recognition. Once again he is sent back to practice tapasya, and he then determines that mind is the Eternal, but once again he is asked by the teacher to undertake further tapasya. Next he comes to understand that Knowledge, vijnana, which goes beyond the power of the mind of thought, is the Eternal. Finally, he comes to the realisation that Ananda, the bliss of the Eternal is the true source of existence. He is asked at each stage to practice tapasya, not to engage in a thought-exercise. The practice passes through a stage of thought and eventually winds up at an experience of pure consciousness which is truly the Eternal.

The Mother observes: ”But first of all one must know what one’s consciousness is, that is, become conscious of one’s consciousness, localise it. And for this there are many exercises. But one of them is very well known, it is to observe oneself and watch oneself living, and then see whether it is really the body which is the consciousness of the being, what one calls ‘myself’; and then when one has realised that it is not at all the body, that the body expresses something else, then one searches in his impulses, emotions, to see whether it’s that, and again one finds out that it is not that; and then one seeks in his thoughts, whether the thought is truly himself, what he calls ‘myself’, and at the end of a very short time one becomes aware: ‘No, I am thinking, therefore ‘myself’ is different from my thoughts.’ And so, by progressive eliminations one succeeds in entering into contact with something, something which gives you the impression of being — ‘Yes, that’s ‘myself’. And this something I can move around, I can move it from my body to my vital, to my mind, I can even, if I am very… how to put it?… very practiced in moving it, I can move it into other people, and it’s in this way that I can identify myself with things and people. I can with the help of my aspiration make it come out of my human form, rise above towards regions which are no longer this little body at all and what it contains.’ And so one begins to understand what one’s consciousness is; and it’s after that that one can say, ‘Good, I shall unite my consciousness with my psychic being and shall leave it there, so that it may be in harmony with the Divine and be able to surrender entirely to the Divine.’ Or else, ‘If by this exercise of rising above my faculties of thinking and my intellect I can enter a region of pure light, pure knowledge…’ then one can put his consciousness there and live like that, in a luminous splendour which is above the physical form.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Our Many Selves: Practical Yogic Psychology, Chapter 6, Some Answers and Explanations, pp. 163-165