Sat-darshana Bhashya (translation)

IV THE ’I-SENSE’

The Upanishads use the third person in stating the nature of Brahman as the Supreme Sole Reality, as for instance in texts⁹³

When like sparks from the flaming fire the innumerable soul forms or jivas get differentiated from the Brahman, it is the sole Self, the basis of the notion of ’l’ that is signified in the various individuals. For Brahman is the Self that has become the self in and of all created beings. And this self is really the Supreme Self parama atman, the Lord of all, one without a second. It is the self, the basis of ’I-notion,’ that is really signified in the various individuals, in X and in Y. Free and Supreme in itself, it becomes the basis and support of the distinct experience of the separate egos formed in the different individuals. As it is the one unmanifest Infinite that becomes the support of all manifested beings, the self in them is not different from but is the same as the One Infinite Self. And this is the essential sense of the philosophic teaching that there are not many selves but only one Self.

Now then, the paramartha, the supreme sense of ’I’ is the Supreme Self, unmanifest and infinite, the Purusha. At the same time, as the inner self and support of all individual manifestations, He is the real significance of ’T’ its laksyartha, the ’l’ really signified in the individuals. The immediate and apparent sense of ’I’ is the ego, as even this is a derivation from and figure of the Inner Self, by whose covert support it poses as the self on the surface, identifying itself with, and appropriating to itself, the subtle stuff of ’mind and life’ that links the spirit with matter, the self with the body.

As the ego, which is the direct and immediate sense of ’l’ is centred and figured in each of the distinct and separate individuals in a subtle movement of life-force and mind-stuff, it is termed jiva here. This sense of l’ is separate in each individual being and preserving the distinctness of the individual behaves in a manner that would strengthen the individual’s distinct character. But such a movement of the ego or the apparent self has its root and support in something that is the real basis of individuality and that does not move with or lose itself in the movement of the apparent self, a something that is a continuous conscious principle related to the past, present and future; that is the Real Self signified, the laksyartha, in the individual, of which the ego is the apparent self. This latter is different in different individuals and is loosely called the jiva atman. But atman the self is really one; the self of all individuals as of all existence is one. But jivas or living beings are many, as many as the individuals that are formed. These are soul-formations that are dissoluble in time, unlike their supporting self which is eternal, being identical with the Infinite Eternal which maintains its many-centred existence in an endless movement of formation and dissolution.

Thus we see that there are three distinct senses in which ’I’ is used. The supreme meaning of ’I’, its paramartha, is the Purusha who becomes the laksyartha the signified sense in the individual, as it is the same self that presides over individual existence and the immediate or apparent sense of ’I’, vacya artha, is the ego or the apparent self formed temporarily for purposes of individuation. Threefold then is the sense of the Self, the ’I’ and in this threefold sense is it to be understood.