There is no 'I am' in awareness.
*
M: Awareness is primordial; it is the
original state, beginningless, endless, uncaused, 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.
*
M: Awareness is not of time. Time
exists in consciousness only. Beyond consciousness where are time and space?
*
For him the right procedure is to
adhere to the thought that he is the ground of all knowledge, the
immutable and perennial awareness of all that happens to the senses
and the mind. If he keeps it in mind all the time, aware and alert,
he is bound to break the bounds of non-awareness and emerge into pure
life, light and love. The idea -- 'I am the witness only' will purify
the body and the mind and open the eye of wisdom. Then man goes
beyond illusion and his heart is free of all desires. Just like ice
turns to water and water to vapour, and vapour dissolves in air and
disappears in space, so does the body dissolve into pure awareness
(chidakash), then into pure being (paramakash), which is beyond all
existence and non-existence.
*
Q: What is the purpose in reminding
oneself all the time that one is the watcher?
M: The mind must learn that beyond the
moving mind there is the background of awareness, which does not
change. The mind must come to know the true self and respect it and
cease covering it up, like the moon which obscures the sun
during solar eclipse. Just realise that nothing observable, or
experienceable is you, or binds you. Take no notice of what is not
yourself.
Q: To do what you tell me I must be
ceaselessly aware.
M: To be aware is to be awake. Unaware
means asleep. You are aware anyhow, you need not try to be. What you
need is to be aware of being aware. Be aware deliberately and
consciously, broaden and deepen the field of awareness. You are
always conscious of the mind, but you are not aware of yourself as
being conscious.
*
Q: Everybody is conscious, but not
everybody is aware.
M: Don't say: 'everybody is conscious'.
Say: 'there is consciousness', in which everything appears and
disappears. Our minds are just waves on the ocean of consciousness.
As waves they come and go. As ocean they are infinite and eternal.
Know yourself as the ocean of being, the womb of all existence. These
are all metaphors of course; the reality is beyond description. You
can know it only by being it.
Q: Is the search for it worth the
trouble?
M: Without it all is trouble. If you
want to live sanely, creatively and happily and have infinite riches to share, search for what you are.
While the mind is centred in the body and consciousness is centred in
the mind, awareness is free. The body has its urges and mind its
pains and pleasures. Awareness is unattached and unshaken. It is
lucid, silent, peaceful, alert and unafraid, without desire and fear.
Meditate on it as your true being and try to be it in your daily
life, and you shall realise it in its fullness. Mind is interested in what happens,
while awareness is interested in the mind itself. The child is after
the toy, but the mother watches the child, not the toy.
*
M: Awareness becomes consciousness when
it has an object. The object changes all the time. In consciousness
there is movement; awareness by itself is motionless and timeless,
here and now.
*
Q: To be here and now, I need my body
and its senses. To understand, I need a mind.
M: The body and the mind are only
symptoms of ignorance, of misapprehension. Behave as if you were pure
awareness, bodiless and mindless, spaceless and timeless, beyond
'where' and 'when' and 'how'. Dwell on it, think of it, learn to
accept its reality. Don't oppose it and deny it all the time. Keep an
open mind at least. Yoga is bending the outer to the inner. Make your
mind and body express the real which is all and beyond all. By doing
you succeed, not by arguing.
*
Hence awareness itself is all
important, not the content of it. Deepen and broaden your awareness
of yourself and all the blessings will flow. You need not seek
anything, all will come to you most naturally and effortlessly. The
five senses and the four functions of the mind -- memory, thought,
understanding and selfhood; the five elements -- earth, water, fire,
air and ether; the two aspects of creation -- matter and spirit, all
are contained in awareness.
*
Awareness takes the place of
consciousness; in consciousness there is the 'I', who is conscious
while awareness is undivided; awareness is aware of itself. The 'I
am' is a thought, while awareness is not a thought, there is no 'I am
aware' in awareness. Consciousness is an attribute while awareness is
not; one can be aware of being conscious, but not conscious of
awareness. God is the totality of consciousness, but awareness is
beyond all -- being as well as not-being.
*
As I talk to you, I am in the state of
detached but affectionate awareness (turiya). When this awareness
turns upon itself, you may call it the Supreme State, (turiyatita).
But the fundamental reality is beyond awareness, beyond the three states of
becoming, being and not-being.
*
Q: While we are conscious of
appearances, how is it that we are not conscious that these are mere
appearances?
M: The mind covers up reality, without
knowing it. To know the nature of the mind, you need intelligence,
the capacity to look at the mind in silent and dispassionate
awareness.
*
Q: What are the fruits of
self-awareness?
M: You grow more intelligent. In
awareness you learn. In self-awareness you learn about yourself. Of
course, you can only learn what you are not. To know what you are,
you must go beyond the mind.
Q: Is not awareness beyond the mind?
M: Awareness is the point at which the
mind reaches out beyond itself into reality. In awareness you seek
not what pleases, but what is true.
Q: I find that awareness brings about a
state of inner silence, a state of psychic void.
M: It is all right as it goes, but it
is not enough. Have you felt the all-embracing emptiness in which the
universe swims like a cloud in the blue sky?
Q: Sir, let me first come to know well
my own inner space.
M: Destroy the wall that separates, the
'I-am-the-body' idea and the inner and the outer will become one.
Q: Am I to die?
M: Physical destruction is meaningless.
It is the clinging to sensate life that binds you. If you could
experience the inner void fully, the explosion into the totality
would be near.
*
Q: My difficulty is this. As I can see,
every experience is its own reality. It is there – experienced. The
moment I question it and ask to whom it happens, who is the observer
and so on, the experience is over and all I can investigate is only
the memory of it. I just cannot investigate the living moment -- the
now. My awareness is of the past, not of the present. When I am
aware, I do not really live in the now, but only in the past. Can
there really be an awareness of the present?
M: What you are describing is not
awareness at all, but only thinking about the experience. True
awareness (samvid) is a state of pure witnessing, without the least
attempt to do anything about the event witnessed. Your thoughts and
feelings, words and actions may also be a part of the event; you
watch all unconcerned in the full light of clarity and understanding.
You understand precisely what is going on, because it does not affect
you. It may seem to be an attitude of cold aloofness, but it is not
really so. Once you are in it, you will find that you love what you
see, whatever may be its nature. This choiceless love is the
touchstone of awareness. If it is not there, you are merely
interested -- for some personal reasons.
*
When awareness is turned on itself, the
feeling is of not knowing. When it is turned outward, the knowables
come into being. To say: 'I know myself' is a contradiction in terms
for what is 'known' cannot be 'myself'.
*
Q: On what side is the witness? Is it
real or unreal?
M: Nobody can say: ‘I am the
witness'. The ‘I am' is always witnessed. The state of detached
awareness is the witness-consciousness, the 'mirror-mind'. It rises
and sets with its object and thus it is not quite the real. Whatever
its object, it remains the same, hence it is also real. It partakes
of both the real and the unreal and is therefore a bridge between the
two.
*
M: All experience is illusory, limited
and temporal. Expect nothing from experience. realisation by itself
is not an experience, though it may lead to a new dimension of
experiences. Yet the new experiences, however interesting, are not
more real than the old. Definitely realisation is not a new
experience. It is the discovery of the timeless factor in every
experience. It is awareness, which makes experience possible. Just
like in all the colours light is the colourless factor, so in every
experience awareness is present, yet it is not an experience.
Q: If awareness is not an experience,
how can it be realised?
M: Awareness is ever there. It need not
be realised. Open the shutter of the mind, and it will be flooded
with light.
*
Q: Experience may be faulty and
misleading.
M: Quite, but not the fact of an
experience. Whatever may be the experience, true or false, the fact
of an experience taking place cannot be denied. It is its own proof.
Watch yourself closely and you will see that whatever be the content
of consciousness, the witnessing of it does not depend on the
content. Awareness is itself and does not change with the event. The
event may be pleasant or unpleasant, minor or important, awareness is
the same. Take note of the peculiar nature of pure awareness, its
natural self-identity, without the least trace of self-consciousness,
and go to the root of it and you will soon realise that awareness is
your true nature and nothing you may be aware of, you can call your
own.
*
Put your awareness to work, not your
mind. The mind is not the right instrument for this task. The
timeless can be reached only by the timeless. Your body and your mind
are both subject to time; Only awareness is timeless, even in the
now. In awareness you are facing facts and reality is fond of facts.
*
M: Will, affection, bliss, striving and
enjoying are so deeply tainted with the personal, that they cannot be
trusted. The clarification and purification needed at the very start
of the journey, only awareness can give. Love and will shall have
their turn, but the ground must be prepared. The sun of awareness
must rise first -- all else will follow.
*
Q: What is the course of training in
self-awareness?
M: There is no need of training.
Awareness is always with you. The same attention that you give to the
outer, you turn to the inner. No new, or special kind of awareness is
needed.
*
M: But at the root of the universe
there is pure awareness, beyond space and time, here and now. Know it
to be your real being and act accordingly.
*
Q: I find being alive a painful state.
M: You cannot be alive for you are life
itself. It is the person you imagine yourself to be that suffers, not
you. Dissolve it in awareness. It is merely a bundle of memories and
habits. From the awareness of the unreal to the awareness of your
real nature there is a chasm which you will easily cross, once you
have mastered the art of pure awareness.
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