Drik Drishya Viveka — Discrimination of Seer and Seen
The Drik Drishya Viveka (discrimination between seer and seen) is the most direct inquiry into the nature of consciousness — systematically demonstrating that the true self is always the seer, never the seen.
The Drik Drishya Viveka (text attributed to Shankara) presents the most elegant and direct inquiry into the nature of consciousness: 'The form is seen (Drishya — object); the eye is the seer (Drik — subject). But the eye is seen by the mind; so the eye is also Drishya and the mind is Drik. The mind with its modifications is seen by the Sakshi (witness); so the mind is Drishya and the Sakshi is Drik. But the Sakshi is never an object — it is always only the seer.' This simple analysis dismantles all confusion between the subject (Atman as pure witness) and its objects (body, senses, mind, intellect, ego). The Sakshi/Drik (pure witnessing awareness) is always and only the seer — it cannot become an object, cannot be seen, cannot be known as an external thing. This is the Atman: the one who is always seeing and never seen, always knowing and never known, always present as the background of all experience.
The form is seen by the eye; the eye is seen by the mind; the mind is seen by the Sakshi; but the Sakshi sees and is never seen.
Philosopher John Searle's argument that consciousness cannot be understood in purely third-person terms because it is inherently first-personal resonates with the Drik Drishya Viveka's insight: the Sakshi (pure consciousness/Drik) can never become an object of third-person investigation because it is always the subject doing the investigating.
Drik Drishya Viveka
Written about in
- What Advaita Vedanta says about the self
A short chain: the eye sees the form, the mind sees the eye, awareness sees the mind, and awareness is never itself seen. Follow it and the self is whatever cannot be turned into an object.
- What Advaita Vedanta says about illness and the body failing
Form is seen by the eye, the eye by the mind, the mind by the witness — and the witness is never seen. Applied to a failing body this is a test rather than a comfort: whatever you can observe about your illness is, by that fact alone, not the one observing.