Nitya Anitya Viveka — Discrimination Between the Eternal and Transient
Nitya Anitya Viveka (discrimination between the eternal and the transient) is the first and most fundamental form of Viveka — the recognition that all phenomenal experience is impermanent while the Atman alone is eternal.
Nitya Anitya Viveka (Nitya = eternal, Anitya = transient, non-eternal, Viveka = discrimination) is the foundational discrimination that begins the Advaita path. It involves the recognition, through observation and reflection, that: the body is born and dies (transient); thoughts, emotions, and mental states arise and pass (transient); relationships, possessions, and circumstances change (transient); even mental tendencies and personality traits can change (transient). In contrast: the awareness within which all these transient phenomena appear never itself changes — it is present in waking, dreaming, and deep sleep; it is not affected by what appears within it. This unchanging awareness (Nitya — eternal) is the Atman. Developing Nitya Anitya Viveka does not require elaborate philosophical knowledge — it requires honest observation of what actually remains constant in the face of all that changes. Even five minutes of authentic observation reveals that thought-contents change while the awareness of them does not.
Of the things you have experienced since childhood — thoughts, feelings, perceptions — what has remained constant? That constant is the Self.
Research on working memory and change detection (George Sperling) confirms that something must remain constant through all change to detect change at all — the Advaita argument that the awareness detecting transience must itself be non-transient is thus supported by the basic logic of how change-detection works.
Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi
Written about in
- What Advaita Vedanta says about purpose
The first exercise is a survey of your own life: of everything you have experienced, what has stayed. The tradition expects the honest answer to be very little.