Feb’ 2016
The conscious mind is interested in space, time and boundaries, and what happens. Consciousness is like a cloud in the sky and the water droplets are the content. Whereas awareness is boundless, beyond the mind… as the infinite sky is boundless, beyond cloud and content, awareness is beyond mind and consciousness, dependent on nothing but itself. ‘Not alive, for it does not change – not dead for it is aware’. ‘Mind Consciousness’ and ‘Spiritual Awareness’ – a bridge the mind cannot cross. As clouds depend on the sky for existence, consciousness is dependent on Awareness, and not the other way around.
As clouds need the sun to become visible, so consciousness needs being focussed in the light of awareness. When content is viewed from beyond the boundaries of consciousness, all duality along with likes and dislikes, good and bad, falls away – this is awareness.
“Awareness is primordial; it is the original state, beginningless, endless, uncaused, and unsupported, without parts, without change. Consciousness is on contact, a reflection against a surface, a state of duality. There can be no consciousness without awareness, but there can be awareness without consciousness, as in deep sleep. Awareness is absolute, consciousness is relative to its content; consciousness is always of something. Consciousness is partial and changeful, awareness is total, changeless, calm and silent. And it is the common matrix of every experience.” ~ Shri Nisargadatta Maharaj
But still there is a difference between awareness as reflected in consciousness and pure awareness beyond consciousness. Reflected awareness, the sense ‘I am aware’ is the witness, while pure awareness is the essence of reality. Reflection of the sun in a drop of water is a reflection of the sun no doubt, but not the sun itself. Between awareness reflected in consciousness as the witness, and pure awareness, there is a void beyond the reach of mind and consciousness.
Clearly, a quiet mind is not a dead mind. Awareness in the waking state differs from deep sleep only by the presence of the witness. A ray of awareness illumines a part of our mind and that part becomes our dream or waking consciousness. Awareness appears as the witness beyond name and form. The witness is merely a point in awareness. It is like the reflection of the sun in a drop of dew. The dew-drop has name and form, but the infinitesimal point of light is caused by the sun. The clearness and smoothness of the drop is a necessary condition but not sufficient by itself. Similarly, clarity and silence of the mind are necessary for the reflection of reality to appear in the mind, but by themselves they are not sufficient. There must be reality beyond it. Because reality is timelessly present, the stress is on the necessary conditions.
Meditation consists in the witness turning back first on consciousness, then upon self in awareness. Self-awareness is Yoga. The Enlightened mind commands a mode of spontaneous, non-sensory perception, which makes things known directly, without the intermediary of the senses.
The Enlightened is beyond the perceptual and the conceptual, beyond the categories of time and space, name and shape. Neither the perceived nor the perceiver, but the simple and the universal factor that makes perceiving possible. Reality is within consciousness but it is not consciousness or any of its contents.
Bringing duality to questions where there is none only brings confusion to understanding. There is the body and there is the Self. Between them is the mind, in which the self is reflected as ‘I am’. Because of the imperfections of the mind, its crudity and restlessness, lack of discernment and insight, it takes itself to be the body, not the self. All that is needed is to purify the mind so that it can realize its identity with the Self.
When the mind merges in the self, the body presents no problems. It remains what it is, an instrument of cognition and action, the tool and the expression of the creative fire within.
Memory, Wisdom and discrimination owe their origin in the universal – B’Gita Ch: 15
The ultimate value of the body is that it serves to discover the cosmic body, which is the universe in its entirety. As you realize yourself in manifestation, you keep on discovering that you are ever more than what you have imagined..
NaturesDestiny 