I AM THAT: CHAPTER 7: THE MIND

[Guest guest]

7 THE MIND PG15

 

Q: There are very interesting books written by apparently very

competent people, in which the illusoriness of the world is denied

(though not its transitoriness). According to them, there exists a

hierarchy of beings, from the lowers to the highest; on each level

the complexity of the organism enables and reflects the depth,

breadth and intensity of consciousness, without any visible or

knowable culmination. One law supreme rules throughout: evolution of

forms for the growth and enrichment of consciousness and

manifestation of its infinite potentialities.

 

M: This may or may not be so. Even if it is, it is only so from the

mind's point of view, but in fact the entire universe exists only in

consciousness, while I have my stand in the Absolute. In pure being

consciousness arises; in consciousness the world appears and

disappears. All there is me, all there is, is mine. Before all

beginnings, after all endings – I am. All has its being in me, in

the `I am', that shines in every living being. Even not-being is

unthinkable without me. Whatever happens, I must be there to witness

it.

 

Q: Why do you deny being to the world?

M: I do not negate the world. I see it as appearing in consciousness,

which is the totality of the known in the immensity of the unknown.

What begins and ends is mere appearance. The world can be said to

appear, but not to be. The appearance may last very long on some

scale of time, and be very short on another, but ultimately it comes

to the same. Whatever is time bound is momentary and has no reality.

 

Q: Surely, you see the actual world as it surrounds you. You seem to

behave quite normally.

M: That is how it appears to you. What in your case occupies the

entire field of consciousness, is a mere speck in mine. The world

lasts, but for a moment. It is your memory that makes you think that

the world continues. Myself, I don't live by memory. I see the world

as it is, a momentary appearance in consciousness.

 

Q: In your consciousness?

M: All idea of `me' and `mine', even of `I am' is in consciousness.

 

Q: Is then your `absolute being' unconscious?

M: The idea of un-consciousness exists in consciousness only.

 

Q: Then, how do you know you are in the supreme state?

M: Because I am in it. It is the only natural state.

 

Q: Can you describe it?

M: Only by negation, as uncaused, independent, unrelated, undivided,

un-composed, unshakable, unquestionable, unreachable by effort. Every

positive definition is from memory and, therefore, inapplicable. And

yet my state is supremely actual, and, therefore, possible,

realizable, attainable.

 

 

 

Q: Are you not immersed timelessly in an abstraction?

M: Abstraction is mental and verbal and disappears in sleep, or

swoon, it re-appears in time; I am in my own state timelessly in the

now. Past and future are in the mind only – I am now.

Q: The world too is now.

M: Which world?

 

Q: The world around us.

M: It is your world you have in mind, not mine. What do you know of

me, when even my talk with you is in your world only? You have no

reason to believe that my world is identical with yours. My world is

real, true, as it is perceived, while yours appears and disappears,

according to the state of your mind. Your world is something alien,

and you are afraid of it. My world is myself. I am at home.

 

Q: If you are the world, how can you be conscious of it? Is not the

subject of consciousness different from its object?

M: Consciousness and the world appear and disappear together, hence

they are two aspects of the same state.

 

Q: In sleep I am not, and the world continues.

M: How do you know?

Q: On waking up I come to know. My memory tells me.

M: Memory is in the mind. The mind continues in sleep.

Q: It is partly in abeyance.

M: But its world picture is not affected. As long as the mind is

there, your body and your world are there. Your world is mind-made,

subjective, enclosed within the mind, fragmentary, temporary,

personal, hanging on the thread of memory.

 

Q: So is yours?

M: Oh, no. I live in a world of realities, while yours is of

imagination. Your world is personal, private, unsharable, intimately

your own. Nobody can enter it, see as you see, hear as you hear, feel

your emotions and thing your thoughts. In your world you are truly

alone, enclosed in your ever-changing dream, which you take for life.

My world is an open world, common to all, accessible to all. In my

world is there is community, insight, love, real quality; the

individual is the total, the totality – in the individual. All are

one and the one is all.

 

Q: Is your world full of things and people as is mine?

M: No, it is full of myself.

 

Q: But do you see and hear as we do?

M: Yes, I appear to hear and see and talk and act, but to me it just

happens, as to you digestion or perspiration happens. The body-mind

machine looks after it, but leaves me out of it. Just as you do not

need to worry about growing hair, so I need not worry about words and

actions. They just happen and leave me unconcerned, for in my world

nothing ever goes wrong.