𝗙𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗘𝗚𝗢 𝘁𝗼 𝗘𝗦𝗦𝗘𝗡𝗖𝗘: 𝗔𝗻 𝗔𝗱𝘃𝗮𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗰 𝗜𝗻𝗾𝘂𝗶𝗿𝘆

 

From Ego to Essence: An Advaitic Inquiry

Swami Vivekananda, the great torchbearer of Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, carried his Master’s spiritual fire to the world and boldly affirmed the reality of divine manifestation. In a well-known encounter, when Narendra—the future Swami Vivekananda—first met Sri Ramakrishna, he asked the famous question: “Have you seen God?” The Master replied with disarming certainty: “Not only have I seen Him, but I see Him even now—more clearly than I see you here.” What did he mean by this?

When we say, “I see” or “I know,” several faculties are involved—sense organs, mind, intellect, and ego—all illumined by an underlying consciousness. This consciousness alone enables perception. Yet in ordinary life, we habitually identify the “I” with the body and the external world. This localisation of the vast, absolute Consciousness into a functional ego is necessary for worldly living. However, in the process, the real “I-Consciousness” recedes into the background, and our life becomes governed by a limited, transactional self. Thus, we lose awareness of our fundamental Reality.

Here arises doubt about God’s existence. God—understood as the real “I”—is veiled by layers of identification with the physical, mental, and intellectual planes. Enmeshed in these misidentifications, one may deny God altogether or dismiss religious practice as foolish. What is forgotten is that the very consciousness with which one denies God is sustained by that supreme Consciousness which Vedānta calls God. Seen thus, prayer and worship are not superstition but accessible means of reconnecting with Reality. Many religious conflicts would dissolve if this simple truth were honestly reflected upon. Swami Vivekananda expresses this insight clearly:

If the Absolute becomes limited by the mind, It is no more Absolute… To know the Absolute is a contradiction in terms… A God known is no more God… He is always the Unknowable One.

Consider a simple dialogue. When asked whether he had realised Brahman, a sannyasin replied, “All of us are knowers of Brahman.” Seeing the confusion this caused, he explained: there is only one conscious Reality. When we know an object, we know it through that Reality—or, conversely, the object reveals the Reality. All perceive the same Brahman, but through different lenses: transparent, opaque, or tinted, depending on the purity and conditioning of the body-mind.

Swamiji clarifies this Advaitic vision:

God is more than knowable… He is the eternal Witness of all knowledge… To know anything, you must know it in and through Him… He is your Self.

This reveals the meaning of Sri Ramakrishna’s statement that he saw God more clearly than Narendra. God is not an object among objects, but the very light by which all objects are known.

Swamiji further teaches:

There is but One Existence, seen through different constitutions as gods, men, or worlds… He who sees that One Life in this changing universe attains eternal peace.

Just as we live under the blazing light of the sun without reflecting on its vastness, we live absorbed in ego-consciousness, unaware of the Reality beyond it. Hence Sri Ramakrishna’s insistence on transforming the “raw” ego into a “ripe” ego—one that stands at the threshold between the Absolute and the Manifest, engaging with life calmly and wisely. Swamiji summed this up by saying that the One and the many are not opposed, but the same Reality perceived in different states of mind.

A simple analogy illustrates this. A tiger caught in a net terrifies onlookers, though harmless. Once dead, the same tiger provokes no fear. What changed was not the body but the absence of “tiger-consciousness.” Likewise, when identification with limited consciousness drops away, fear dissolves. This is echoed in the Kena Upanishad:

That which is the ear of the ear, the mind of the mind… having known That, the wise transcend death and attain immortality.

Spiritual progress, Swamiji reminds us, is not a movement from error to truth, but from truth to higher truth—like successive photographs taken while journeying toward the sun. Each is true, yet increasingly refined.

This journey is captured in the Upanishadic prayer:

ॐ असतो मा सद्गमय, तमसो मा ज्योतिर्गमय, मृत्योर्मा अमृतं गमय—

and in Swamiji’s words: “Darkness is less light; evil is less good; impurity is less purity.”

Thus, beginning with Sri Ramakrishna’s luminous testimony and guided by the Upanishads and Swami Vivekananda, we are led to rediscover the true locus of Reality—not as something distant to be known, but as the very Self, God, or Brahman, through which all knowing is possible.

(Source: Life experience of Swamy Vivekananda)