According

Consciousness
Swami Satswarupananda
It is the Sphinx’s riddle: What is consciousness?
It is something we take for granted and
make use of every moment of our lives, with-
out which we are not what we think ourselves to
be, and yet when we want to know it a little deeply,
it eludes us. When we know it, our life’s aim is fulfilled,
we are free from all anxieties, all troubles.
We make use of words like knowledge, consciousness,
awareness, intuition, almost as synonyms. Etymology,
so far as abstract things are concerned, does
not help us much. Usage takes us a long way, but
leaves us short of the destination. Philosophical
books, with their various arguments and conclusions,
confuse us. All this because they try to explain that
which is at the root of all explanations, and nothing
can explain itself by itself. Any argument or explanation,
talk or discussion, from start to finish, is all
consciousness. Neither in dreams nor in the waking
state are we free of it even for a split moment. Being
always in and surrounded by it, how can we say what
it is? For a thing to be known, it must be put in front
of us. Being everywhere under all conditions, in and
around us as well as in and around other things and
beings, it cannot be known, except in bits, leaving
out an almost infinite part of it, thus giving us the
uncomfortable feeling that what little we know does
not authorize us to assert we have known it. Still, no
one, once they start thinking about it, can ever remain
satisfied with a piecemeal knowledge of it.
We shall try to approach the problem from the
PB August 2009
Upanishadic point of view, and see how far the
ancient rishis succeeded in their attempts at unravelling
the mystery of consciousness. But as we
have to put their thoughts and words into English,
we have to add notes on the Sanskrit words and
phrases the rishis have used, and to their English
equivalents as well.
Chit: Feeling-consciousness
Chit is the word the seers have used to indicate
that which we mean by ‘consciousness’. The nearest
translation of this Sanskrit word, especially as it
is used in the Upanishads, is contained in what Sir
John Woodroffe says: ‘It is a feeling- consciousness.’
Explaining this compound word will lead us deep
into its content. Sir John has evidently not used
‘feeling’ to distinguish it from ‘thinking’ and ‘willing’,
which, on the face of it, would be absurd—both
‘thinking’ and ‘willing’ are modes of consciousness
and, therefore, consciousness per se. But ‘thinking’
and ‘willing’ include an element of ‘activeness’
which is absent in the connotation of chit. Again,
the English words ‘knowledge’ and ‘awareness’ have
the same distinction in their implications. When
we say ‘we know’ we mean we exerted ourselves, as
a result of which we know. But when we say ‘we
are conscious of it’ we do not mean we have put
forth any energy for being conscious of it. But that
does not debar the entry of exertion altogether; we
might have exerted previously, the result of which,
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