The Hierarchy of Consciousness — A Scriptural Analysis of "Vishaya Karana Sura Jeeva Sameta" — Guru's Adda

In deep, dreamless sleep, no shape is seen, no sound is heard. The eyes, the ears, the mind, the intellect — all of it comes to a stop. Objects don't reach you there. The senses don't reach there. Not even the presiding deities behind the senses reach there. And yet, on waking, a person says: "I slept peacefully."

Who is this "I" that remained, even where everything else had dissolved? Goswami Tulsidas answers exactly this question in a single couplet of the Ramcharitmanas — one that scholars say was composed after deep engagement with Adi Shankaracharya's commentary on a particular section of the Brahma Sutras.

In short: this couplet lays out a hierarchy of consciousness. Sense-objects are entirely inert and only ever perceived, never perceiving. The instruments of perception — the senses and the inner faculties — are superior to objects, since they do the perceiving. The presiding deities that animate those instruments are superior to the instruments themselves. And the individual soul is superior even to the deities — because while objects, instruments, and deities are all multiple and distinct from each other, the soul remains one, undivided. Behind all of this — object, instrument, deity, and soul — stands the one whose presence makes consciousness itself possible: Rama, the beginningless lord of Ayodhya, the supreme light behind all lights.

Vishaya karana sura jeeva sameta. Sakala eka te eka sacheta.
Saba kara parama prakasaka joi. Rama anadi Awadhpati soi.

— Ramcharitmanas, Balakanda (the couplet preceding Doha 117, from the dialogue between Shiva and Parvati)

Breaking Down the Words

Vishaya (object) — what the senses perceive: sound, touch, form, taste, and smell. These are entirely inert.
Karana (instrument) — the organs of action, the organs of perception, and the inner faculty (mind, intellect, and so on), collectively called "karana." These are the perceivers.
Sura (deity) — the presiding deity that animates and illuminates each instrument.
Jeeva (soul) — the conscious self that makes use of body, senses, life-force, and inner faculty.
Sakala eka te eka sacheta — each of these is, in sequence, more conscious than the one before; consciousness rises in ascending order through this hierarchy.
Saba kara parama prakasaka — the supreme consciousness that illuminates all of them.
Rama anadi Awadhpati — Rama, the beginningless lord of Ayodhya — the ultimate divine reality.

Unpacking the Hierarchy of Consciousness

1. Objects — Entirely Perceived, Entirely Inert

Sound, touch, form, taste, and smell — none of these five objects are conscious. Their very nature is to be perceived; they perceive nothing themselves. That's why, on this ladder of consciousness, objects occupy the lowest rung.

2. Instruments — The Perceivers, Therefore Superior to Objects

The word "karana" encompasses the five organs of action, the five organs of perception, and the inner faculty altogether. Objects are grasped through these instruments — objects are what's perceived, instruments are what perceives. Since instruments carry a spark of consciousness, they're proven superior to mere objects.

There's a subtle point worth noting here. The Gita's verse "Indriyani paranyahuh" (3.42) divides the instrument into three parts — senses, mind, and intellect — without mentioning any presiding deity. Tulsidas, by contrast, folds senses, mind, and intellect all into the single term "karana," and explicitly places the presiding deity into the sequence. That kind of compression, in a single verse, is exactly what makes the Manas remarkable.

3. Deities — The Animating Force Behind the Instruments

Each sense organ has its own presiding deity — the sun animates the eye, fire animates speech. It's through their grace that the senses actually engage with their objects.

The evidence is direct: the world could be flooded with blue, yellow, and white forms, but if the light of the sun — whether direct or through some other medium like electricity — weren't available, every being, however sighted, would effectively be blind. Without the animating deity's grace, the instrument sits inert. That's why deities rank above instruments.

4. The Soul — Superior Even to the Deities

Here the analysis reaches its subtlest point. Notice this carefully —

Differences among objects produce differences among instruments — the eye for form, the ear for sound. Differences among instruments produce differences among deities — the sun for the eye, fire for speech. But the soul admits of no such division. The very same soul perceives one object through one sense with the grace of one deity, and another object through another sense with the grace of another deity. Objects are many, instruments are many, deities are many — but the knower is one. This unity amid multiplicity is exactly the proof of the soul's superiority.

The second proof is deep sleep. In dreamless sleep, objects, instruments, and deities all lose their reach — yet the soul remains. More than that: in deep sleep, the soul itself takes the deity's place, becoming the very thing that animates consciousness. Where the deities themselves cannot reach, the soul performs their function — and that is the soul's superiority over the deities.

5. The Significance of Identifying as "Soul" — How a Human Can Surpass a Deity

In the tradition of ritual sacrifice, the offered substance is inert, the deity is conscious, and the person performing the sacrifice is conscious too — yet the human performer, identified merely with human nature, is considered lesser than the deity, who is identified with divine nature. But here's a curious fact: deities themselves are, at bottom, nothing but souls — a soul attains a divine form through specific actions and specific practices.

Now, if a deity holds only the pride of being divine — without the conviction "in truth, I am simply a soul" — and a human being arrives at the conviction "I am the soul that makes use of body, senses, life-force, and inner faculty," then that human is no longer merely identified with human nature; they've become identified with the soul itself. Outwardly, by worldly convention, they would still bow respectfully to the deity — but at the level of ultimate truth, they would actually be superior to that unaware deity, because their sense of identity rests in the soul — the very reality that governs the deities themselves.

6. The Supreme Light Behind It All — Rama

But the sequence doesn't end with the soul. "Saba kara" — meaning object, instrument, deity, and soul, all of them — receive their consciousness from, and are illuminated by the presence of, the one ultimate reality: Rama. The soul is superior to the deities, and superior even to the soul is the supreme being — the beginningless lord of Ayodhya, Sri Rama.

The View From the Mandukya Upanishad — Nineteen Openings and the "Mouth of Consciousness"

According to the Mandukya Upanishad, the soul has nineteen "mouths." A mouth here means a gateway of access — the channels through which objects are apprehended. Ravana had ten heads on the outside, but nineteen "mouths" on the inside — and so do we, inwardly.

The Upanishad names the number nineteen but doesn't enumerate what they are. Shankaracharya completed that enumeration in his commentary — the five organs of action, the five organs of perception, the five vital airs, and the mind, intellect, memory, and ego (the fourfold inner faculty) — nineteen in total. Anandagiri, glossing the commentary, clarified that the vital airs aren't technically instruments themselves but "quasi-instruments" — because without them, no instrument is capable of engaging with or disengaging from its object.

Consider how these instruments behave across the three states:

Waking — all instruments are actively engaged with their respective objects.
Dreaming — the organs of action and perception go dormant; the inner faculty, half-asleep, expresses itself as if it were the senses. The instruments of the dream state are of an illusory order — if actual sensory activity were occurring there, the line between waking fantasy and dream would simply disappear.
Deep sleep — none of the nineteen instruments are active; only the "mouth of consciousness" remains — the seed-state of awareness in which all instruments lie dormant, folded back into potential.

This very analysis of deep sleep opens up the depth behind the word "jeeva" in the couplet — where object, instrument, and deity have no reach, the soul is still there.

The Same Idea Echoed Elsewhere in Scripture

Indriyani paranyahur indriyebhyah param manah.
Manasastu para buddhir yo buddheh paratastu sah.

— Bhagavad Gita 3.42

This verse of the Gita describes the same ascending hierarchy — the senses are superior, superior to the senses is the mind, superior to the mind is the intellect, and superior even to the intellect is that (the soul). The difference is that the Gita divides the instrument into three parts and doesn't mention a presiding deity; Tulsidas compressed the instrument into a single term and explicitly wove the deity into the sequence.

The Katha Upanishad (1.3.10) follows the same order — beyond the senses are the objects, beyond objects the mind, beyond mind the intellect, beyond intellect the great soul. And the Kena Upanishad calls Brahman "the ear behind the ear, the mind behind the mind, the speech behind speech, the eye behind the eye" — the Manas's phrase "supreme illuminator" is this very Upanishadic truth, given form in the name of Rama.

What It Means to "Turn Toward" the Divine

Sanamukh hoi jeeva mohi jabahi. Janma koti agha nasahi tabahi.

— Ramcharitmanas

Once "mukh" (mouth) is understood as a gateway of access — that is, an instrument — the meaning of "turning toward" becomes clear: it's the organs of action, perception, and the inner faculty all turning to face the Divine; all instruments becoming oriented toward, absorbed in, and devoted to God. The very gateways that had been open only toward sense-objects now open toward the Divine instead — that is what "turning toward" means, and that is what dissolves the accumulated weight of countless lifetimes' wrongdoing.

Author's Note

The first time I read this couplet, it struck me as simply a beautiful line. But sitting down to compare it with the Gita's 3.42, I realized how much Tulsidas had compressed into it — the complete sequence of object, instrument, deity, and soul, in a single verse, carried all the way down into the depths of dreamless sleep. What moved me most is that at the summit of this entire framework, there's no featureless void — Rama, the beginningless lord of Ayodhya, is seated right there. Climbing the ladder of knowledge, step by step, only to arrive in devotion's courtyard at the very top — that, to me, is the Manas's deepest lesson.

Summary Table

Element	Nature	Reason for Superiority
Object	Sound, touch, form, taste, smell — entirely inert	Merely perceived; has no capacity to perceive
Instrument	Organs of action + organs of perception + inner faculty	Perceives; carries a spark of consciousness
Deity	The presiding force animating each instrument — sun for the eye, fire for speech	Without its grace, the instrument sits inert
Soul	The user of body, senses, life-force, and inner faculty	Undivided amid the divisions of object, instrument, and deity; remains even in deep sleep
Rama	The supreme, beginningless lord of Ayodhya	The ultimate reality whose presence illuminates everything else

Frequently Asked Questions

Q. Where does this couplet appear in the Ramcharitmanas, and what is it based on?

It appears in the Balakanda, just before Doha 117, within the dialogue between Shiva and Parvati. Scholars hold that Tulsidas composed it after deep engagement with Adi Shankaracharya's commentary on a specific section of the Brahma Sutras.

Q. What does "karana" mean in the couplet, and how does it differ from Gita 3.42?

Karana refers collectively to the organs of action, the organs of perception, and the inner faculty. Gita 3.42 divides this into three separate categories — senses, mind, intellect — without mentioning a presiding deity. Tulsidas folded all of this into the single term "karana" and explicitly placed the deity within the sequence as well.

Q. How is the soul shown to be superior to the deities?

Through two proofs. First, differences in objects produce differences in instruments, and differences in instruments produce differences in deities — but the soul admits no such division; the same one soul perceives all objects through all instruments with the grace of all deities. Second, in deep sleep, objects, instruments, and deities all lose their reach, but the soul remains — becoming, in that state, the very animating force of consciousness itself.

Q. According to the Mandukya Upanishad, what are the soul's nineteen "mouths"?

The five organs of action, the five organs of perception, the five vital airs, and the mind, intellect, memory, and ego — nineteen in total. According to Shankaracharya's commentary, the vital airs are "quasi-instruments," since no instrument can engage with or disengage from its object without them. "Mouth" here means a gateway of access.

Q. What practical use does this couplet have for a seeker?

When a seeker comes to identify as the soul that makes use of body, senses, life-force, and inner faculty — rather than merely as a human being — they rise above mere human identity into identification with the soul itself. And when all the instruments turn to face the Divine, then, as the text says, "the moment the soul turns toward me" — the weight of countless lifetimes' wrongdoing dissolves.

The Hierarchy of Consciousness — A Scriptural Analysis of "Vishaya Karana Sura Jeeva Sameta"