From OrganicDesign Wiki
Questioner:
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 lowest 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.
Maharaj:
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 (mahadakash)
exists only in consciousness (chidakash),
while I have my stand in the Absolute (paramakash).
In pure being consciousness arises; in consciousness the world appears and
disappears. All there is 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’ (paramakash) un-consciousness?
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, uncomposed, unshakable, unquestionable, unreachable by
effort. Every positive definition is from memory and, therefore, inapplicable.
And yet my state is supremely actual and, therefore, possible, realisable,
attainable.
Q: Are you not immersed timelessly in an
abstraction?
M: Abstraction is mental and verbal and
disappears in sleep, or swoon; it reappears in time; I am in my own state (swarupa) timelessly in the now. Past and future are in 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, unshareable,
intimately your own. Nobody can enter it, see as you see, hear as you hear,
feel your emotions and think 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 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, l 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.
