#transitive awareness

[shinymoonbird]

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Intransitive awareness: Pure self-awareness (ātma-jñāna)   — awareness that is aware of nothing other than itself;

Transitive awareness:  Ignorance (ajñāna) — awareness of anything other than ourself.  

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Being aware of anything other than ourself is transitive awareness, which is what Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi called சுட்டறிவு (suṭṭaṟivu) in Tamil, whereas being simply aware is intransitive awareness. In order to be aware of anything we need to be aware, but in order to be aware we do not need to be aware of anything, so the fundamental form of awareness is only intransitive awareness. ~ Since we are always aware, whether we are also aware of other things (as we are in waking and dream) or not aware of anything else (as we are in sleep), our real nature is only intransitive awareness, and 

~ Since transitive awareness is just a transitory mode of awareness that appears in waking and dream and disappears in sleep, it is not real but just an illusion that seems to exist only so long as we seem to be this ego, whose nature is to be aware of things other than itself.

In verse 13 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu - Reality In Forty Verses, Bhagavan says:  

‘Oneself, who is awareness, alone is real. Awareness that is many is ignorance’. 

When he says that we are awareness (jñāna) and that that alone is real, he means that we are intransitive awareness, because that is the only permanent and hence real form of awareness, and when he refers to ‘awareness that is many’ or ‘awareness that is manifold’ and which therefore implies awareness of multiple phenomena, he means transitive awareness, which he says is not real awareness (jñāna) but only ignorance (ajñāna).

Therefore being aware of anything is ignorance, whereas just being aware (without being aware of anything other than ourself) is real awareness, which is what is called ātma-jñāna (self-awareness), because whether or not we are aware of anything else, we are always aware of ourself, since being aware entails being aware that we are aware, and being awareness that we are aware entails being aware of ourself — aware that I am. Therefore only pure self-awareness is real, and awareness of anything else is unreal.

Source:  Happiness of Being - The Teachings of Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi, by Michael James

[shinymoonbird]

Among the many groups which are triads [triputis or the three factors of objective knowledge], no factor [puti] can exist leaving Self. However, not even one among those factors is Self. Only that which remains as the base of all those [factors] is the real state of Self.

Guru Vachaka Kovai (The Garland of Guru’s Sayings) by Sri Muruganar, Ch. The Nature of Self - Verse 1041 

Sadhu Om: The group of three factors, the seer, the act of seeing and the object seen, is a triad [triputi]. ‘I am the seer’, ‘I am seeing’ and ‘these objects are seen by me’ – none of these three knowledges can exist without an ‘I’. But this ‘I’, the seer, is not Self; it is only the ego. Therefore, it is said in this verse that none of the three factors which constitute a triad is Self. Actions or pravrittis such as seeing are not the nature of Self. ‘I am seeing’ is the nature of the ego’s knowledge. The knowledge of one’s own existence, ‘I am’, alone is the nature of Self. If there did not exist the basic knowledge, ‘I am’, the qualified knowledge ‘I am seeing’ could not arise for the ego. Therefore it is said in this verse that none of the factors of a triad can exist leaving Self, and also that, since objective knowledge does not exist for Self, none of those factors are Self.

[shinymoonbird]

A question was asked by a monk (sannyasi) about how to prevent the mind from being distracted. Maharshi: You see the objects on forgetting your own Self. If you keep hold of your Self, you will not see the objective world.

Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi - Talk 6