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Questioner:
You told me that I can be considered under three aspects: the personal (vyakti),
the super-personal (vyakta) and the impersonal (avyakta). The Avyakta
is the universal and real pure 'I'; the Vyakta is its reflection in
consciousness as ‘I am'; the Vyakti is the totality of physical and
vital processes. Within the narrow confines of the present moment, the
super-personal is aware of the person, both in space and time; not only one person,
but the long series of persons strung together on the thread of karma.
It is essentially the witness as well as the residue of the accumulated
experiences, the seat of memory, the connecting link (sutratma). It is
man's character which life builds and shapes from birth to birth. The universal
is beyond all name and shape, beyond consciousness and character, pure
unselfconscious being. Did I put down your views rightly?
Maharaj:
On the level of the mind -- yes. Beyond the mental level not a word applies.
Q: I can understand that the person is a mental
construct, a collective noun for a set of memories and habits. But, he to whom
the person happens, the witnessing centre, is it mental too?
M: The personal needs a base, a body to identify
oneself with, just as a colour needs a surface to appear on. The seeing of the
colour is independent of the colour -- it is the same whatever the colour. One
needs an eye to see a colour. The colours are many, the eye is single. The
personal is like the light in the colour and also in the eye, yet simple,
single, indivisible and unperceivable, except in its manifestations. Not
unknowable, but unperceivable, un-objectival, inseparable. Neither material nor
mental, neither objective nor subjective, it is the root of matter and the
source of consciousness. Beyond mere living and dying, it is the all-inclusive,
all-exclusive Life, in which birth is death and death is birth.
Q: The Absolute or Life you talk about, is it
real, or a mere theory to cover up our ignorance?
M: Both. To the mind, a theory; in itself -- a
reality. It is reality in its spontaneous and total rejection of the false.
Just as light destroys darkness by its very presence, so does the absolute
destroy imagination. To see that all knowledge is a form of ignorance is itself
a movement of reality. The witness is not a person. The person comes into being
when there is a basis for it, an organism, a body. In it the absolute is
reflected as awareness. Pure awareness becomes self-awareness. When there is a
self, self-awareness is the witness. When there is no self to witness, there is
no witnessing either. It is all very simple; it is the presence of the person
that complicates. See that there is no such thing as a permanently separate
person and all becomes clear. Awareness -- mind -- matter -- they are one reality
in its two aspects as immovable and movable, and the three attributes of
inertia, energy and harmony.
Q: What comes first: consciousness or
awareness?
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: There is suffering and bloodshed in East
Pakistan at the present moment. How do you look at it? How does it appear to
you, how do you react to it?
M: In pure consciousness nothing ever happens.
Q: Please come down from these metaphysical
heights! Of what use is it to a suffering man to be told that nobody is aware
of his suffering but himself? To relegate everything to illusion is insult
added to injury. The Bengali of East Pakistan is a fact and his suffering is a
fact. Please, do not analyse them out of existence! You are reading newspapers,
you hear people talking about it. You cannot plead ignorance. Now, what is your
attitude to what is happening?
M: No attitude. Nothing is happening.
Q: Any day there may be a riot right in front
of you, perhaps people killing each other. Surely you cannot say: nothing is
happening and remain aloof.
M: I never talked of remaining aloof. You could
as well see me jumping into the fray to save somebody and getting killed. Yet
to me nothing happened.
Imagine a big building collapsing. Some rooms are in ruins, some
are intact. But can you speak of the space as ruined or intact? It is only the
structure that suffered and the people who happened to live in it. Nothing
happened to space itself. Similarly, nothing happens to life when forms break
down and names are wiped out. The goldsmith melts down old ornaments to make
new. Sometimes a good piece goes with the bad. He takes it in his stride, for
he knows that no gold is lost.
Q: It is not death that I rebel against. It is
the manner of dying.
M: Death is natural, the manner of dying is
man-made. Separateness causes fear and aggression, which again cause violence.
Do away with man-made separations and all this horror of people killing each
other will surely end. But in reality there is no killing and no dying. The
real does not die, the unreal never lived. Set your mind right and all will be
right. When you know that the world is one, that humanity is one, you will act
accordingly. But first of all you must attend to the way you feel, think and
live. Unless there is order in yourself, there can be no order in the world.
In reality nothing happens. Onto the
screen of the mind destiny forever projects its pictures, memories of former
projections and thus illusion constantly renews itself. The pictures come and
go -- light intercepted by ignorance. See the light and disregard the picture.
Q: What a callous way of looking at things!
People are killing and getting killed and here you talk of pictures.
M: By all means go and get killed yourself -- if
that is what you think you should do. Or even go and kill, if you take it to be
your duty. But that is not the way to end the evil. Evil is the stench of a
mind that is diseased. Heal your mind and it will cease to project distorted,
ugly pictures.
Q: What you say I understand, but emotionally I
cannot accept it. This merely idealistic view of life repels me deeply. I just
cannot think myself to be permanently in a state of dream.
M: How can anybody be permanently in a state
caused by an impermanent body? The misunderstanding is based on your idea that
you are the body. Examine the idea, see its inherent contradictions, realise
that your present existence is like a shower of sparks, each spark lasting a
second and the shower itself -- a minute or two. Surely a thing of which the
beginning is the end, can have no middle. Respect your terms. Reality cannot be
momentary. It is timeless, but timelessness is not duration.
Q: I admit that the world in which I live is
not the real world. But there is a real world, of which I see a distorted
picture. The distortion may be due to some blemish in my body or mind. But when
you say there is no real world, only a dream world in my mind, I just cannot
take it. I wish I could believe that all horrors of existence are due to my
having a body. Suicide would be the way out.
M: As long as you pay attention to ideas, your
own or of others, you will be in trouble. But if you disregard all teachings,
all books, anything out into words and dive deeply within yourself and find
yourself, this alone will solve all your problems and leave you in full mastery
of every situation, because you will not be dominated by your ideas about the
situation. Take an example. You are in the company of an attractive woman. You
get ideas about her and this creates a sexual situation. A problem is created
and you start looking for books on continence, or enjoyment. Were you a baby,
both of you could be naked and together without any problem arising. Just stop
thinking you are the bodies and the problems of love and sex will lose their
meaning. With all sense of limitation gone, fear, pain and the search for
pleasure -- all cease. Only awareness remains.
