Q 7) Does that knower itself change?

When I reflect on the above question and the experiences my nervous system is going through right now, I observe that different emotions and thoughts are constantly changing inside me. When I get involved in difficult family dynamics which require interpersonal skills to deal with different family members of different understanding and maturity levels, I find myself at one moment stressed, at one moment guilty, and at another moment confused. Mental states, from time to time, keep shifting very fast. These fast shifts are difficult to deal with, but still I know that there is something in me which is aware of all these states in a fragmented manner. It knows the fear, stress, and emotions in me.

Now, for the knower to be aware of those states, it has to be changeless. How can a picture be displayed on a cinema screen unless the screen is stable and changeless? The content of experiences keeps on changing inside me, but the fact of knowing has to remain the same. Whenever I fall into becoming part of any conflict, the mind gets stressful, scared, tensed, defensive, etc. These states are changeable, but the awareness of these states is constant.

What was pleasant a few minutes ago, a sudden tense moment makes the whole environment, and specifically the mind, disturbed from inside. This indicates that mental states are unstable and constantly changing. Arjuna said in the Bhagavad Gita that it is easier to control the wind than the mind, and we shouldn’t forget here, Arjuna was a highly focused person.

A few minutes ago when my mind was calm, and after some time I got tensed, though both states appear different, there has to be continuity and stability in the knower to be aware of both states of mind.

A very important thing to understand is that we can know the thought, but there is no entity which can know the knower itself. So we can never say that the knower is an object, but rather the source of everything. The content of consciousness keeps on changing, but the knower itself doesn’t change. When the state of mind changes, we feel that we are changing, and we forget that it is the mind changing, not the knower or us. We misinterpret the change of mind as the change of the knower, and this misconception is so strong. Thinkers have said that this is because of Maya or ignorance, and the hold of Maya is so strong in every living being that coming out of the clutches of Maya needs the grace of divine efforts besides self-efforts.

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