Questioner: You use the words 'aware' and 'conscious'. Are
they not the same?
Maharaj: 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.
Q: How does one go beyond consciousness into awareness?
M: Since it is awareness that makes consciousness possible,
there is awareness in every state of consciousness. Therefore the very
consciousness of being conscious is already a movement in awareness. Interest
in your stream of consciousness takes you to awareness. It is not a new state.
It is at once recognised as the original, basic existence, which is life
itself, and also love and joy.
Q: Since reality is all the time with us, what does
self-realisation consist of?
M: Realisation is but the opposite of ignorance. To take the
world as real and one’s self as unreal is ignorance. The cause of sorrow. To
know the self as the only reality and all else as temporal and transient is
freedom, peace and joy. It is all very simple. Instead of seeing things as
imagined, learn to see them as they are. It is like cleansing a mirror. The
same mirror that shows you the world as it is, will also show you your own
face. The thought 'I am' is the polishing cloth. Use it.
No comments:
Post a Comment