Question:
Once you drop the individual ‘I’, does it enable you to inhabit any perspective in the Universe?
OR
Do things continue as usual within the confines of the same body-mind construct?
Sri Prabhuj:
There are two view points to this question – View point of the SELF realized and view point of the people who see functioning of the SELF- realized
View point of SELF realized:
One who has dropped the illusory sense of self ( limited I) realizes infinite SELF. SELF being infinite from his/her perspective nothing is there to see since seer and seen are both SELF only. Subject and object being SELF only, we can say enlightened one sees nothing, hears nothing, feels nothing other than the SELF. Another way of understanding this is what happens if we look at an object say flower from infinite view points simultaneously. Flower does not look like flower anymore. There is no more flower to see when viewed from infinite view points simultaneously.
View point of people seeing functioning of enlightened one:
We have seen the enlightened one interacts with society, lives in the society and teaches. The body of the enlightened one continues due to residual karmic impressions (prarabdha karma). Functional ego instead of illusory “I” is used for operation of the body. The psychological content of illusory self “I, me, mine” (ahankara and mamakara) are dropped. Ego purified of psychological content is the functional ego.
As a famous ZEN saying goes – “before enlightenment go to forest, fetch wood, fetch water, cook food, after enlightenment go to forest, fetch wood, fetch water cook food”. Functioning of body continues with a “functional ego” instead of illusory ego.
Can jnani inhabit any perspective in the Universe?
Jnani sees SELF in all and all in SELF. There are no independent illusory perspectives for jnani to inhabit in this scenario.