Contemplation and Enlightenment

Mind is not consciousness and the inability to distinguish between consciousness and mind is the major difficulty in our pursuit for the ‘Real’. Mind is involved in twofold process viz. firstly, mind’s identification of being with becoming and secondly, mistaking consciousness for thinking. When we are ‘aware’, we are aware only through mind, and there seems no other way of being aware, so that our consciousness has become veritably a kind of process. The nature of being is not the nature of thinking - mind is not consciousness. ‘To think is to be’ has become our attitude in life but this is not the fact. ‘To think’ need not ‘to be’, and being is not thinking. The primary entanglement is the one between consciousness and thought, and the secondary entanglement is the engagement of thought in certain contingencies of experience. We are in the double bondage of being identified with the process of thought, and the process of thought having been identified with the limitations of space and time. This is the condition into which our true state has apparently degenerated itself. The purpose of concentration and meditation is to free the essence of experience from the extraneous factors of the world of space, time and causality in which the mind moves, acts and seems to be involved. 

When you think about the past, it is only in the present. Likewise, we think of the future only in the present. We can never live either in the past or in the future because they do not exist when we talk of them. Now come to the present, it is so slippery like a ball of mercury on the ground that by the time we speak ‘present’, it will slip away from you. What is the meaning of time then? When there is no time, where is the question of birth, death, existence, all that we speak of. To think of existence or non-existence or even to think of God, there must be time. And that time has disappeared by your own analysis. Then where are we now? Let the mind dwell on this point. Quantum physics, which is very difficult to understand, is proving the same thing. Here we are using simple logic. Time dissolves. Can you prove the existence of past, present or future? Once you accept this, where is birth or death? Going deeper into the matter, the Upanishadic seers have, through intuition, ‘seen’ the ultimate cause or essence, the Consciousness which appears as the world. Therefore, they call this world of senses an illusion because it is not really as it appears. It is rather, pure Awareness, which is the Self of all. A man is, therefore, not a man but Consciousness masquerading as a man. A tree is not a tree but the Consciousness appearing as a tree. A mountain is not a mountain but the Consciousness in the disguise of a mountain. This is the case with all objects without any exception. So, our vision has to be reversed. To many this will sound strange if not nonsensical. The meditation prescribed is called the ‘neti, neti’ (not this, not this) method of reflection Every object, whether gross or subtle, a physical object or a mental concept, a name or a thought is really a limitation superimposed on Consciousness. Why does one negate everything? Because nothing can satisfy the conditions of Immortality and Infinity. Some say ‘sarvam khalvidam brahma’ (All this is Absolute) is the best definition of the Absolute, according to which even this body, a stone on the roadside, the sun in the heaven, etc, etc. has to be considered as the Absolute. Others argue that the best definition is the great declaration –neti, neti. according to which the Absolute is that which is after the complete negation of all that is objective and subjective. But whichever definition you use, don’t think that you have understood it. Neither can be understood by the intellect because the intellect itself is a part of the non-existent world. The Truth is there is no world except or other than God. Don’t try to think too much, that is dangerous. Along with this, cultivate devotion to Lord, some kind of prayer and worship to be combined with this reflection and meditation. Do not over exert because you are trying to think about that which is unthinkable. .........................Om Shanti!

                                                   TIME IS ILLUSORY

When you think about the past, it is only in the present. Likewise, we think of the future only in the present. We can never live either in the past or in the future because they do not exist when we talk of them. Now come to the present, it is so slippery like a ball of mercury on the ground that by the time we speak ‘present’, it will slip away from you. What is the meaning of time then? When there is no time, where is the question of birth, death, existence, all that we speak of. To think of existence or non-existence or even to think of God, there must be time. And that time has disappeared by your own analysis. Then where are we now? Let the mind dwell on this point. Quantum physics, which is very difficult to understand, is proving the same thing. Here we are using simple logic. Time dissolves. Can you prove the existence of past, present or future? Once you accept this, where is birth or death? Going deeper into the matter, the Upanishadic seers have, through intuition, ‘seen’ the ultimate cause or essence, the Consciousness which appears as the world. Therefore, they call this world of senses an illusion because it is not really as it appears. It is rather, pure Awareness, which is the Self of all. A man is, therefore, not a man but Consciousness masquerading as a man. A tree is not a tree but the Consciousness appearing as a tree. A mountain is not a mountain but the Consciousness in the disguise of a mountain. This is the case with all objects without any exception. So, our vision has to be reversed. To many this will sound strange if not nonsensical. The meditation prescribed is called the ‘neti, neti’ (not this, not this) method of reflection Every object, whether gross or subtle, a physical object or a mental concept, a name or a thought is really a limitation superimposed on Consciousness. Why does one negate everything? Because nothing can satisfy the conditions of Immortality and Infinity. Some say ‘sarvam khalvidam brahma’ (All this is Absolute) is the best definition of the Absolute, according to which even this body, a stone on the roadside, the sun in the heaven, etc, etc. has to be considered as the Absolute. Others argue that the best definition is the great declaration –neti, neti. according to which the Absolute is that which is after the complete negation of all that is objective and subjective. But whichever definition you use, don’t think that you have understood it. Neither can be understood by the intellect because the intellect itself is a part of the non-existent world. The Truth is there is no world except or other than God. Don’t try to think too much, that is dangerous. Along with this, cultivate devotion to Lord, some kind of prayer and worship to be combined with this reflection and meditation. Do not over exert because you are trying to think about that which is unthinkable.

In a series of rapidly moving films, we see a man standing like a motionless statue. Our eyes and mind are incapable of coping with the rapidity of the movement of the films. Similar is the case with our perception of the world, including our own body. The eyes and other organs together with the mind, through which we perceive the external world of objects, are not able to catch up with velocity of the electromagnetic vibrations constituting the world. Hence, they appear as objects to the eyes, as sound to the ears, as smell to the nose, etc. So, the world is not really as it appears to our senses.

All created individuals in bodies are, like rivers, tending towards the ocean of the Absolute. Their reaching the pure Being, which is the Absolute, is just like the rivers entering the ocean. If you take a tumbler of water from the ocean you do not know which river-water you are taking. The rivers become the ocean and they do not know where they are, yet they are there. We cannot say that the rivers are absent in the ocean. So, it is not a negation of individuality, but a transcendence of individuality. It is not that the rivers are destroyed there, but they are absorbed into a larger Being, into a greater reality of themselves, which is their Self. So is the case with all of us. All Beings in creation tend towards the ocean of the Ultimate Being. When they go there, they cannot distinguish themselves, for they become ONE with BEING.

Like water, consciousness has no shape. As water assumes the shape of container, so the consciousness takes the shape of your thought and concepts. It reveals through your conditioned mind. Mind is not consciousness and the inability to distinguish between consciousness and mind is the major difficulty in our pursuit for the ‘Real’. Mind is involved in twofold process viz. firstly, mind’s identification of being with becoming and secondly, mistaking consciousness for thinking. When we are ‘aware’, we are aware only through mind, and there seems no other way of being aware, so that our consciousness has become veritably a kind of process. The nature of being is not the nature of thinking - mind is not consciousness. ‘To think is to be’ has become our attitude in life but this is not the fact. ‘To think’ need not ‘to be’, and being is not thinking. The primary entanglement is the one between consciousness and thought, and the secondary entanglement is the engagement of thought in certain contingencies of experience. We are in the double bondage of being identified with the process of thought, and the process of thought having been identified with the limitations of space and time. This is the condition into which our true state has apparently degenerated itself. The purpose of concentration and meditation is to free the essence of experience from the extraneous factors of the world of space, time and causality in which the mind moves, acts and seems to be involved. ....................Om Shanti!

How Desires Arise

The soul for the purpose of ensuing subject is not the Universal Soul; it is rather the bound soul and no one can be bound unless there is a concentralisation of desire at a spatio-temporal point. Why a child does choose only one particular set of parents, out of endless number? It is desire that is born, not a child. The human being is a shape taken by a mass of desires. Universal Consciousness arranges itself into a point of concentration and finitises itself. As from a huge conflagration several sparks shot out which are the individuals. But unfortunately, each spark asserted individuality of its own. Desire is the nature of the soul that incarnates, but desire is nothing but to fulfil a need; an unfulfilled desire is a malady. This point of desire has lost everything by disconnecting itself from the Universal Being; as if a person who has lost everything, wants everything, in a negative way. You have lost the Infinite and therefore now you want an infinite desire to fulfil itself through contact with numberless finite objects. But numberless finites put together do not make Infinite. Uncontrollable is desire because we have made a mistake in imagining that nature is outside us. 
All different desires are but modifications of one desire alone. The different desires are only the different means adopted for the fulfilment of one single desired end which is Absolute Bliss. We do not want to be partially happy and partially unhappy because such happiness has no meaning. We want absolute happiness and peace, so it is termed as ‘Absolute Bliss'. Bliss is the culmination of all our struggle with the life; with the world or with the universe, whatever we call it. Our innermost being is also seeking God as a matter of spirituality and substantially, these two apparently opposite quests are not different in nature. The ‘outside-ness’ and the ‘within-ness’ have been created because of the body consciousness. Therefore, the Bliss that we are longing for and the notion of God are the same thing and identical. ...Hari Om!

Why Did Swami Vivekananda Die So Young?

Pure Existence

"Give up all your prejudices and preconceived notions, and consider what are you in deep sleep. It is your own experience, so it cannot be difficult to know. It is our own experience; everyday we are having it. Yet, we throw it away and dismiss it as ‘only deep sleep’. No one will say that he did not exist in deep sleep. Body is not there. World is not there. Thoughts are not there. There is no ‘I and you’, ‘God and world’, ‘pleasure and pain’, ‘good and bad’, ‘existence or non-existence’. All the pairs of opposites have gone. It appears to be an unconscious state because there are no objects there of which to be conscious. You existed in deep sleep. You must have been there. Remembrance always follows experience and there is no experience unless there is consciousness. So, in deep sleep, you exist not as the triad (experience, experiencing, experienced ), but as the one homogeneous Consciousness. In the deep sleep state, nobody sees any objects. The whole creation, including one’s own body and mind, are not seen because they have dissolved. There is no proof to show that when you are asleep, there is a world outside. Your friend, the world he saw while you were sleeping, including your sleeping body lying on the bed, all are thoughts in your mind that occur only during the waking state. During deep sleep, there is no world. So, every moment there is dissolution, and the next moment creation, and the next moment dissolution again. And in between is the existence of the world. This goes on incessantly; this is manifestation, manifestation of the unmanifest. In fact, these are not two. These are all words and ideas formed by us to explain the Truth that is beyond all words. The manifest state ( dream and waking states) and the unmanifest state ( which is called deep sleep or the moment between two thoughts ) are not two. There are no two states here, but they appear as two. The Absolute is neither manifest nor unmanifest. But one thing is certain: throughout all these apparent changes, ‘you’ are there; the ‘real- I’ in you is there. Who is this ‘I’ – that you must know. So, we begin our analysis with the deep sleep state, as we were ‘before creation’, as it were. In the beginning, scriptures say, ‘I alone was’. Body is not there. World is not there. Thoughts are not there. But ‘you’ are there, which no one will deny. Remember, you go into the state of deep sleep everyday willingly, consciously, voluntarily, making all necessary preparation like a comfortable bed, soft pillow and saying ‘good night, please don’t disturb me now’, even to your dearest one. You like that state. You enjoy it, leaving everything behind, possessed by you. Everyday you exist very happily without body and world. We now come to the dream. You saw it. But now you know it was not. Your dreamed body-mind is as real or unreal as are the other objects in the dream. It is the ‘I’ of deep sleep that projected the dream world. Upon awakening (into the dream world or waking state ), the undifferentiated Consciousness of deep sleep divides itself, as though, into the observer who sees and the observed that is seen. First comes the ‘me’ and then immediately comes the ‘you’, meaning the whole world. The whole world appears as an object to me, the subject. But every object thinks itself as the subject. Are we subject or object? We are neither. Both come under phenomena, both are appearances only. Do we regard ourselves as wholly present in sleep or partially present in sleep? We cannot say that only a part of ourselves was in sleep. We are sure that the whole of ourselves was present in sleep. The whole of us was present in deep sleep – not a part of us. Then what is it that we call ‘I’ in waking and dreaming states? Do we add to the whole? Nobody can add to the whole. When we say, “I was wholly present in deep sleep,” we do not add anything to ourselves when we come into the waking condition. So many things attract us and confront us, and we are obliged to pay attention to them. Is the body a part of ourselves? Are the senses a part of ourselves? We may say ‘yes’. Then we must say that in the state of deep sleep, we were not wholly present, because a part of us was outside! The body, the senses, our friends and relationships – they were all outside. If we are wholly present in sleep, unrelated to anything else, then the unrelated condition is wholeness – not the related condition. So, relationships are essentially false! This is what is implied in an analysis of deep sleep. Relationships are not true because they do not belong to the whole. What does not belong to the whole cannot even exist. What can be outside the whole? This is why some people say that the world does not really exist. Why were we not conscious in sleep, and yet seemed to be conscious in sleep? This enigma is what is called ‘ignorance’. Ignorance is not an absence of consciousness. Ignorance is rather a difficulty in knowing a situation – that is what is called ‘ignorance’. Our true nature seems to be undivided, and at the same time a state of consciousness without which memory is impossible. What then am I truly? I am unrelated consciousness, not related consciousness, because one cannot have relations with whole. Our true nature is, by implication we learn, unrelated wholeness of consciousness. It is not part consciousness, but whole consciousness, unconnected with anything else. The whole earth may be ours, but if we are not able to sleep, which would we choose – sleep or emperorship of the earth, because we cannot exchange sleep with emperorship; and no one can! The emperor is not made happy merely through relationship." …………………..Om Shanti!

THE GOLDEN MEAN
If we take any creation as one unit, its manifestation is produced by conjunct of two half units. 1=+1/2 & -1/2. One complete unit comprises of two aspects of the same reality. We inhale and exhale and that is one unit of breath. The rotation of a wheel is caused by forward and backward motion of the engine’s piston. A bird flutters its wings up and down and flies. We are not aware of waking world in our deep sleep and modest estimations hold that during half of our life, we are not really awake. Half of the earth shines brighter under the sun and other half experiences darkness. A pendulum completes one cycle by swinging in two different directions. Good and bad, life and death, day and night, cause and effect, masculine and feminine, positive and negative are apparently two features between which we calibrate our thought, attitude, judgment and action. We are always between two facets of One Truth and we unleash our mind to follow one flank, denouncing another. We are not here to judge what is correct and what is not. Accept all versions, enjoy and swallow them. We have to transcend all the conditions and ‘perceive’ the Truth. We represent the Absolute and Absolute finds its expression in the golden mean. ....................Om Shanti!

Un-fetter Love!

While God is love, God is also law. He will not break a law merely for the sake of love notwithstanding the fact that He is infinite love. If you are driven by emotion in your yearning rather than by intelligence or proper understanding, He is not going to jump from the skies on your call.
There is a rationality behind the laws of the universe. Nothing is outside the purview of the Sovereignty of Eternal Law. It is this rationality that determines not only natural functions such as the seasons, sunrise, meticulous configuration of inter-planetary motions and more , our destiny of birth and death. From childhood we have grown up to our present state and all processes, including the bodily reactions of hunger, thirst, sleep and so on – everything conceivable – all rules and regulations, needs and necessities are explicable only in terms of this cosmic order, which is an expression of the indivisibility of things. Now, the yearning or love, when it is directed to an object outside, becomes a psychological condition, and if love of God is also to become a psychological condition, then it may change according to the conditions of the mind. The conditional relationship of our individuality with circumstances outside prevents us from having any kind of genuineness in our approach to things or in our affections. God is not affected by anything that usually affects the individual, and therefore, the defects of the individual are not present in God. The question of egoism, or the principle of individual affirmation, does not arise in the case of God and He is beyond likes and dislikes. We suffer because we do not conform to the existent laws of nature as a whole. Law of God and law of nature is identical. We have no understanding of the laws of nature; we are not omniscient. But in case of God and those who have knowledge of God or experience of God, this question does not arise, because when there is God-consciousness, there is also an infinitude of awareness in respect of everything. Our action will then not be interference, but rather participation in the existing laws. Participation in law does not produce any reaction from that law, but interference with law may produce a reaction. Our concept of God is here a very important factor, which rules the destiny of our love for God. The love of God may become conditional if He is to be treated as an extra-cosmic something which has to be reached by a temporal affection in the form of a mental emotion. It is important that whether we succeed to 'convince' God that we love Him as per His prescription!
One must appreciate the distinction between the action of soul, that involves the ‘being’ and the action of emotion. Emotions are the vulnerable points of the personality and are induced by the mind. When one is under the sway of intense emotion, all his wisdom and rationality goes to dogs. This brings him much below the level of ‘reason’. Only intellect, with protracted practice, can redress it out. When ‘intellect/reason’ is fully matured and purified, it merges into the ‘intuition’ where the ‘being’ gets involved. There is no question of annihilating the mind or the intellect. Intuitive faculty transcends the lower aspects of mind. Further growth carries it to the higher levels of consciousness. Thus, emotional love and whole-souled love are to be comprehended from two different perspectives. Om!