Q: I know that Brahman is not an object I can find; I think of it more like the realization that I am the tenth man (you know this story I assume). But when I have this sort of realization (I have a lot of them), I can’t tell whether I am realizing Brahman or something else.
One set of realizations involves a sort of inner presence that reveals itself like existence-consciousness-limitless, and I feel it as present in my heart region. It’s very deep and real and it does not come and go like an experience. It gets covered up by my thoughts and emotions, but it’s always there.
Another set of realizations involve a sense that the world of objects is not actually there because the objects are made of consciousness rather than matter.
So my question is: Is Self-realization something you discover in your heart like a presence of happiness or of a consciousness that doesn’t ever come and go but only seems to be obscured by thoughts? Or is self-realization the knowledge that all the objects in the world and mind are made of only consciousness, in the way that dream objects are made of dream-consciousness?
I believe that Advaita Vedanta is saying that somehow nothing exists other than consciousness and thus the objects that appear (including the mind and subtle realm) are not made of matter but rather are ‘made of’ consciousness. Is this correct?
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