Hacking the ‘self’ – the UG way!

UG on ‘self’ or ‘I’:

‘Self’ is the ‘movement of knowledge’ - UG

This video clip is ‘Quintessential UG’. Here, in the very beginning, UG knocks off the ‘self’, ‘I’, ‘soul’ etc., dismissing them as pure fabrications of the psychological kind, with no reality or basis whatsoever.

UG offers a whole new rationale for the appearance of the ‘self’. He maintains that the virtual ‘self’ or ‘agent’ comes into play when there is a need or demand for knowledge.

Knowledge is put into motion when there is a need, say, while planning a trip or seeking a job or finding a solution to a problem.

‘UG’ appears whenever there is a need or demand.’ – UG

Knowledge in motion is ‘thinking’ and thinking gives rise to the illusion of the ‘thinker’ or the ‘self’ or the ‘doer’. It is all a unitary process.

Even the very thought that there is a ‘thinker’ does not occur while there is thinking going on.

Thinker is a logical conclusion, a ‘post hoc’ illusion, an after-effect of thinking.

The entire structure of Western Philosophy is premised upon a single sentence, “Cogito ergo sum” – “I think, therefore I am”. This logical, verbal assertion single-handedly legitimizes the ‘thinker’ or ‘self’ making it into a reality for the philosophers.

The suggestion here is that as long as there is thinking, there is bound to be an agent or thinker associated with it. Corollaries of this statement include - one, no thinking is possible without a thinker and two, there is no thinker without thinking.

Contrast this with the Eastern traditions including observation of UG,

“There is only thought but no thinker.”

To borrow words of UG, the truth about the thinker is only a logically ascertained premise.

Thinker is a stubborn illusion like that of a shadow. As long as there is light, there is the shadow, as long as there is ‘thinking’ there is the ‘thinker’.

While there exists a physiological entity, biologically programmed to survive and operate independently in nature, the psychological agent or the ‘self’ is purely incidental and is born during every social transaction as the ‘agent’ of such transaction.

While banking, one is a 'customer', while paying tax, one is a citizen etc.

‘Self’ is therefore necessitated by the social demand or need.

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UG on 'intellect':

Let us now de-construct the ‘intellect’ in light of UG’s many utterings.

Intellect is the psychological power-center and the de-facto ‘decision maker’ birthed and shaped by culture, honed by education, experience and knowledge over the years.

Intellect is actually a formidable instrument, the tool of discretion and discrimination, of refined thought, of reasoning and logic. The accumulated, curated ‘knowledge and experience’ forms the basis for ‘intellect’.

Intellect empowers the individual to live sanely and intelligently in society and guarantees livelihood and sustenance. The key to good living is the way the intellect gets deployed. It could make for either great fortune or grave calamity.

Intellect plays a huge role in our day-to-day living.

It is a fact that every physical sensation gets filtered by the intellect.
Intellect turns physical ‘sensations’ into psychological ‘perceptions.’

The raw sensations of stimuli (‘qualia’ of philosophers) like heat, cold, soft, hard etc. are handled by biology, while ‘perceptions’ are acts of interpretations by the intellect.

Every sensation is translated, recorded and gets stored as ‘experience’ by the intellect for its future use, for its perpetuation and continuity.

The mere biological ‘sensation’ of ‘heat’ gets smeared with a psychological ‘layering’ by the intellect and gets perceived as either ‘pleasant’ or ‘moderate’ or ‘unbearable’.

This is true of everything that we see, hear or experience.

Every experience or perception is therefore a smearing act by the intellect.

UG makes this distinction clear as daylight, “There is no experience without knowledge.”

Here is an interesting observation by Sage Vasishta about perception:

“ चेत्येना रहिता यैशा चित्तंब्रह्म सनातनं ...”

‘Awareness without perception’ is the eternal principle of primordial Life…
(Upashama Prakaranam, Yoga Vaasishta)

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UG on ‘understanding’:

“Understanding is nothing but hashing and rehashing of thoughts” - UG

UG maintains that ‘understanding’ is an act of the intellect, an act of clarification, an act of hashing or rehashing, ordering or reordering of thoughts, to look out for any confirming patterns. This act then throws up different and new forms of the same old knowledge and experience like the old wine in a new bottle.

Superior intellect facilitates superior understanding to form educated, informed inferences or postulates or surmises. All concepts, theories, doctrines take birth in such ‘understandings ’.

Oftentimes, simple but extraordinary outcomes born of such understanding are mistaken for flashes of ‘creativity.’

UG totally debunks human creativity,

“The fact is nature is truly creative. Every leaf, every flower, every plant, every animal and individual, is utterly unique and unparalleled. It never repeats or reproduces one like the other.”

All human imagination, invention, innovation and creativity is nothing but the ingenious ability of the intellect to recast old forms of 'knowledge and experience' into their new forms. Everything here is just a modified continuity of the old stock.

“Nothing or no one is original.” - UG

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Finally, UG on ‘insight’:

‘Intuition’ or ‘insight’ is yet another highly convoluted and misunderstood term in the psychological jargon.

It is conceived as a rare form of ‘direct perception’ beyond thought or intellect. This misconception is widespread. Insight is held to be independent, subtler and far superior to intellect, and capable of providing direct, magical results.

For UG, insight is just another piece of fabrication,

“Intellect has created what we call the 'insight'.”

The idea of insight is deeply entrenched in our minds.

One becomes an expert in any field of knowledge after putting in dozens of years of single-minded, relentless, dedicated hard work.

When the expert employs his or her ‘understanding’ (‘the lens of knowledge and experience’) to discover or uncover some hitherto unknown facet or fact in his or her particular area of work, we tend to think of it as an act of great ‘intuition’ or ‘insight.’

UG dismissed insight as nothing special but merely the outcome of constant churning of thoughts. He explained that any expert in his or her own field of expertise who spends all waking hours on solving some problem or the other is bound to discover some pattern or solution or answer.

But UG maintains that all ‘insights’ are restricted only to a particular domain of expertise, and not beyond. He concludes,

“Intellect is the only instrument we have, and there is no other instrument” - UG.

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Video Transcription

UG:  There is no self,

there is no ‘I’, there is no spirit, there is no soul, there is no mind, there is no psyche, so that knocks off the whole list…

There is no way of finding out what you are left with.

The instrument which we are using, has, in a very ingenuous way invented all kinds of things like intuition, like insight and like this, that and the other and through this very insight that we think we have come to understand something, without the help of this intellect, without the help of our thinking, is the stumbling block.

All insights, however extraordinary they may be, are worthless because it is that (intellect) that has created what we call the insight, and through that it is maintaining its continuity, it is maintaining its status quo.

Q: I think, I might understand that but what I am still trying to pursue is the physical side of this, if I could, which is this – that clearly it is observable– the human organs and their interrelated functions all work harmoniously into an integrated healthy body.

UG: They messed up even that…it is not possible to experience and understand except through the knowledge that is given to us by the physiologists.

Q: Not by our own observation? There is no experience?

UG: There is no such thing as your own observation. Your own observation is born out of the knowledge you have.

This knowledge comes from the physiologists, this knowledge comes from those who have been involved in this medical technology, trying to find out how this is functioning, how the heart is functioning, before lot of things that we have become familiar with, through the help of what they have discovered, is something which cannot be experienced by us.

Q: Then you are really saying that there is no such thing as direct, immediate experience.

UG: No experience at all without knowledge, that’s all that I am saying. There is no way you can experience reality of anything except with the help of this knowledge.

So, what I am saying is what you do not know, you cannot experience.

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