June 2015
The wise is superior to all, the ascetic, the scholar and man of action – B’Gita Ch: 6
For what is real… there is little that can be conveyed in words. As with the taste of sugar, the sweetness is in the mouth, not in the sugar or any explanation. Even the taste is no more than an experience. All experience resides in the mind: the real is beyond experience. You know the real by being real.
Realization is not a new experience but the discovery of the timeless factor in every experience. As with the experience of colour, light must be present, colourless and unseen; so in every experience awareness is ever present, yet it is not an experience. It is awareness that makes experience possible. Realisation may lead to new dimensions of experience; yet the new experiences, however interesting, are no more real than the old.
Wisdom is knowledge of matter and self – B’Gita Ch: 13
Before realisation, you see your world like seeing the surface of the ocean whilst completely ignoring the immensity beneath. The world is but the surface of the mind and the mind is infinite.
What we call thoughts are just ripples in the mind. All names and forms are but transitory waves in the ocean of consciousness, only awareness can be said to be, not consciousness and its transformations. In consciousness all light appears as a tiny point that moves rapidly and traces shapes, thoughts and feelings, concepts and ideas, like the pen writing on paper; the ink that leaves a trace is memory. You are that tiny point and by the movement of consciousness the world is ever re-created. Stop moving and there will be no world. Look within and you will find that the point of light is the reflection of the timeless awareness in the body, as the sense ‘I am’. There is only light of awareness, all else appears, including consciousness.
To the mind, that light appears as darkness. It can be known only through its reflections. All is seen in daylight – except daylight. When the mind is quiet it reflects reality. When it is motionless through and through, it dissolves and only reality remains. The changeless is and isn’t conscious. The paper is not the writing, yet it carries the writing. The ink is not the message, nor is the reader’s mind the message – but they all make the message possible. A river is neither the banks nor the groove it runs in, yet together it is.
Like a mighty river, the real is immovable and yet in constant movement – it flows and yet is eternally there. What flows is not the river with its bed and banks, but its water, so is the real in flow for the sake of universal harmony, playing games amidst a world of opposites. As the sea inhabits the waves is unchanged, the gold inhabits the ring and is unchanged.
The self remains unaffected, untouched yet illumines the universe – B’Gita Ch: 13
The witness of existence is beyond ‘I am’; the ‘I am’ is always witnessed. The state of detached awareness is the witness consciousness, the ‘mirror-mind’. It partakes of both the real and the unreal and is therefore a bridge between the two.
The witness has no use in itself, just as a bridge has no use in itself. We talk of it because it is there. The bridge serves one purpose only – to cross over. You don’t build houses on a bridge. The ‘I am’ looks at things, the witness sees through them. It sees them as they are – unreal and transient. To say ‘not me, not mine’ is the task of the witness.
That which makes the ‘I am, and the witness appear yet is neither is your real being; ‘being’ which is not being ‘this’ or ‘that’, but pure, boundless awareness. It is like the flower and its colour. Without flower – no colour; without colour – the flower remains unseen. Your true nature is pure light which on contact with the flower creates colour. When awareness is turned on itself, the feeling is of not knowing. When it is turned outward, it inhabits consciousness, as the sea inhabits the waves, and the knowable come into being. To say: ‘I know myself’ is a contradiction in terms for what is ‘known’ cannot be ‘myself’.
The Void and ‘I’ are one, the un-manifested where the manifested has no place. We talk of it only because that is my birthplace. ‘I’ am beyond being and non-being, timeless, eternal. ‘I’ am not to be pitied, the void is fullness – like a man saying “my work is done; there is nothing left to do”.
At the time of realisation the mind ceases producing events. The ancient and ceaseless search stops. I want for nothing, I expect nothing, accept nothing as my own. There is no ‘me’ left to strive for. Even the bare ‘I am’ has faded away.
All habitual certainties are gone. The movement is from being sure of many things to being sure of nothing but there is nothing lost by not knowing because all knowledge is false. Not knowing is, in itself, knowledge of the fact that all knowledge is ignorance, that ‘I do not know’ is the only true statement the mind can make. Take the idea ‘I was born’. You may take it to be true – it is not. You were never born, nor shall you ever die. It is the idea that was born and shall die, not you. By identifying yourself with it you became mortal. Just like in a cinema… all is light, so does consciousness become your world, vast as it appears to you.
He who looks equally on all, material or not, and experiences the unity of life, experiences his own self in all beings – B’Gita Ch. 6
When all is realised as one, fear goes. When you realise that the distinction between inner and outer is in the mind only, you are no longer afraid. So long as you believe that realisation is not steady and comes and goes, you must go on with your meditations to disperse the false idea of not being complete. The dawn and light of truth removes super-impositions.
When you realize yourself as less than a point in space and time, something too small to be cut and too short-lived to be killed, then and then only, all fear goes. When you are smaller than the point of the needle, then the needle cannot pierce you – you pierce the needle!
The wise looks equally on and at one with all, sees no division and is forever free and at peace – B’Gita Ch. 5
‘I’ the void is empty of all mental formations ‘I’ am neither conscious nor unconscious, but fully aware. ‘I am’ the witness, but in reality there is no witness, it is merely a point in awareness, everywhere, nameless and formless. Like the reflection of the sun in a drop of dew, the drop of dew has name and form but the little point of light is but a reflection of the sun. The clearness and smoothness of the drop is a necessary condition but not sufficient by itself. Beyond the mind I am, and seek the source of consciousness. It is action not thought or the telling that brings the light.
‘I’, the body, exist in your imagination only. Just as the sun is not affected by sunrises and sunsets, by events ‘I’ am not affected. Because ‘I’ am not affected, I am certain to be there when needed. You are bent on knowledge, I am not. As ‘I’ do not have that sense of insecurity that makes you crave to know, ‘I’ have no anxiety to seek refuge in knowledge. ‘I’ am just curious like a child is curious. Therefore, ‘I’ am not concerned whether I shall be re-born or how long will the world last. These are questions born of fear.
If someone were to cut off the head of the realised man, it would make no difference to him. The body would lose its head, certain lines of communication would be cut and that is all. Two people talk to each other on the phone and the wire is cut. Nothing happens to the people, only they must look for some other means of communication. The Bhagavad-Gita Says: “the sward does not cut it”. It is literally so.
It is in the nature of awareness to survive its vehicles. It is like fire, it burns up the fuel but not itself. Just like a fire can outlast a mountain of fuel, so awareness survives innumerable bodies.
Freedom is a product of realisation and not the other way around. Before asserting that it is impossible to let go of the idea that you are the body while still alive, why not investigate the very idea of the body? Does the mind appear in the body or the body in the mind? Surely there must be a mind to conceive the ‘I-am-the-body idea. A body without a mind cannot be ‘my body. ‘My body’ is invariably absent when the mind is in abeyance. It is also absent when the mind is deeply engaged in thoughts and feelings.
Once you realize that the body depends on the mind and the mind on consciousness, and consciousness on awareness and not the other way round, your question about waiting for self-realization till you die is answered. It is not that you must be free from ‘I-am-the-body idea first, and then realize the self. It is definitely the other way round – you cling to the false, because you do not know the true. Earnestness, not perfection, is a precondition to self-realization. Virtues and powers come with realization, not before.
Do not confuse extraordinary abilities as a feature of realisation. Psychic tricks such as the ability to enter the minds of others require special training.
The Realised is like a dealer in wheat and carries little knowledge about breads and cakes. Even the taste of a wheat-gruel he may not know. But about wheat grain he knows all and well. He knows the source of all experience, but the innumerable particular forms experience can take, he does not need to know. From moment to moment, the little he needs to know to live his life he somehow happens to know. Virtues and powers may come with realization, not before. We are so busy cataloguing each wave that we are blind, and realise little of the sea from which they arise.
You have all you need for self-realisation, but you do not trust it. Have courage, trust yourself, go, talk, act; give it a chance to prove itself. With some, realization comes imperceptibly, but somehow they need convincing. They have changed but they do not notice it. True awareness is immutable and the immutable does not die. It is the changing that dies.
The immutable neither lives nor dies; it is the timeless witness of life and death. You cannot call it dead, for it is aware. Nor can you call it alive, for it does not change. It is just like your sound recorder. It records; it reproduces – all by itself. You only listen, just as the Enlightened watches all that happens, including his talking to you. It is not he who talks; a question arises, words appear in his mind and then in answer… he hears them said.
To lose all interest in the quest for knowledge results in omniscience. The gift of knowing what needs to be known for error free action arises from a state of choiceless awareness. Knowledge is needed for action; if you act spontaneously from unconditional awareness and without conscious thinking all just happens naturally and rightly just as it should.
Realisation is achieved by Meditation, Reason, Right action, True to teaching and worship – B’Gita Ch. 13
It is not the means to realisation, but the desire, the urge, the earnest seeking that counts. Clarity and silence of the mind is what is necessary for the reflection of reality to appear in the mind.
Because reality is timelessly present, the stress is on the necessary conditions. You may think that by moving to a quieter place, it will help you on your spiritual quest. The least you can expect is an endless succession of visitors who will make your abode into a free and open guesthouse. Better accept your life and duties as they shape, look after your family, whatever that may be, with love and care. Nobody else needs you. Your dreams for greater glory will land you in trouble.
The light of wisdom will settle any doubt – B’Gita Ch. 4
In the path to realisation there can be progress only in the preparation, Realisation is sudden. The fruit ripens slowly, but falls suddenly and without return. Be like the chick that pecks at the shell. Speculating about life outside the shell would have been of little use to it, but pecking at the shell breaks the shell from within and liberates the chick. Similarly, break the mind from within by investigation and exposure of its contradictions and absurdities. The longing to break the shell comes from the unmanifested.
NaturesDestiny 