Dear Ramji!
Thank you for
Ram: She certainly is.
Maureen: I
have some questions concerning the relationship between mind and the Self
i.e. ‘awareness’ (the subtle body) and awareness, the Self.’ By the way, why do you put awareness, the
subtle body into quotation marks? Is it
because this awareness, the mind, is only reflected awareness?
Ram: Yes.
Maureen: OK, how do I manage to unfold this confusion
to you? It usually starts in the
morning. I wake up and I say to myself:
"I am awareness, the Self.
Awareness is aware of this body, lying in bed." That’s fine so far, but then I think, “This
is just a thought, arising in the mind.
So it’s actually the mind saying "I am the Self,
awareness."
Ram: You are confusing the mind and the
Self. It may be that the mind is formulating
the words ‘I am awareness’ but who is making the mind think this thought? In other words, before thought can happen the
Self, Awareness, has to illumine the mind.
Your mind has a vasana for thinking about the Self (because that is the
way you have been using it for a couple of years) so It
shines on this thought. Now you can say
that technically the mind is thinking the thought but in actuality the mind
can’t think the thought without Awareness shining on it. So it is actually the Self that is responsible
for the thought. When the ‘I am the
Awareness’ thought is over, the Self illumines the next thought, ‘I need to get
up and brush my teeth.’
Maureen: So here is
the first confusion. How can the mind
say "I am awareness, the Self"?
Ram: How can the mind say anything, “I am Maureen?,” for example? You,
the Self, are using it to think about the Self. So it just says it. It could just as well have thought, “The moon
is blue.” If it is interested in the
moon it will have moon thoughts. The Self
understands that there is some sort of problem with a part of itself and is
trying to give information that will correct the problem. The idea ‘I am awareness’ is very useful for
someone who is confused about their real identity.
Maybe the problem is
that the thought, ‘I am Maureen’ is not wholly satisfying. When you think it, you ‘become’ it. By that I mean that you identify with the
complex of vasanas that it stands for and this causes an uncomfortable sense of
limitation. So maybe the Self is trying
to offer the antidote to this limited identity.
For example, if a person has homosexual vasanas but has been conditioned
to think of his or herself as a heterosexual, the thought ‘I am heterosexual’
will be uncomfortable. If the thought is
changed to ‘I am homosexual’ the suffering goes away. It is a common everyday phenomenon these
days. This small change of identity will
obviously not solve all existential problems because gender identities are
limited and this puts them in conflict with the unlimited Self (not to mention
society) but at least a certain conflict has been resolved in this way.
Spiritual life is
about getting an explanation for yourself that doesn’t conflict with who you
truly are. So when a person has the
wrong Self idea the Self is always at work to correct the person’s
thinking. It plants doubts about the way
you see yourself…this is what the whole spiritual search is about. It is called ‘inquiry’ and is going on
automatically in everyone all the time, although in most people it only
occasionally rises to the plane of consciousness. In your case you have become obsessed with
the ‘who am I’ question. It is good to
be obsessed (up to a point) because the obsession will cause you to stick to
your quest until you have cracked the code.
Seeing yourself as limited, as a person in time, not only causes
subjective problems it causes communication problems because it forces others
to relate to you in a limited way (according to their limited view of
themselves) making communication very difficult. When you see yourself as everything and
everybody both your subjective and objective problems disappear.
Maureen: (continued) Then a
whole bunch of question follows and they all culminate in the question: Is
there a Self beyond, outside and independent of the mind or is it (the Self)
just an idea in the mind? Is the
knowledge of the Self not just an inference? But Who
would be aware of the Self if not the mind?
Yes, I know, the mind is nothing but the Self, but it is the Self in
action, with name and form, even if it just apparently existing. So, does the Self need the mind to be aware
of itself?
Ram: No. Definitely not. The Self is self aware. It does not need an instrument like the mind
to know itself. The mind can know it,
but as you say, its knowledge is inferential.
Now, it may be that you believe that inference is not a valid means of
knowledge but it is. So the knowledge
that there is a Self based, for example, on tracing an effect, the mind, to its
cause, is valid knowledge. This is the
basis of religion. It is obvious that
there is a creator. Otherwise how could
the creation appear? The Self knows what
it is, the mind doesn’t. So its
ignorance should be removed by whatever means works. The ignorance is not removed by the
mind. The ignorance in the mind is
removed by the Self.
The mind won’t be
aware of the Self because the mind is inert, jada. It seems to be conscious because it is such a
subtle form of the Self, but it isn’t.
It is true the mind is subtler than physical matter but it is not subtle
enough to directly perceive the Self.
Maureen: I still don’t understand how there can be
awareness without a content.
Ram: Awareness is the content. The mind is the container. One need only separate the two in one’s
understanding. See what part of you
changes and what part doesn’t. The part
that changes is the mind, the container, the shell or sheath that seems to
contain the Self. The part that doesn’t
change, the essence ‘within’ is the Self.
Maureen: Is
it possible at all that nothing arises?
Ram: In the Self
nothing arises. When Maya is operating
the Self seems to arise as mind.
Maureen: What is the difference between the reflected
awareness, the subtle body, and the Self?
Ram: The Self is conscious. The subtle body is not conscious. It is chitta, a subtle material that reflects
the light of the Self. It is through the
chitta that the Self is first known by a mind in darkness. In a sattvic moment, the Self thinking of
itself as an ego perceives light ‘within’ and begins to seek itself. It is very subtle and therefore
confusing. The mind is trying to
understand something, Maya, that is responsible for its existence. This is equivalent to any human being trying
to know the first human being. That
there was a first human being is obvious.
Inference tells us this. And
inference should be enough to stop us seeking to know who the first human being
was. If the mind doesn’t accept a
perfectly valid means of knowledge and stop its search, it is simply going to
end up frustrated. If you don’t know
what can be known by the mind and what can’t with the means of knowledge
available to it you will just confuse yourself.
The beauty of Vedanta is that it is a means of Self knowledge that
begins where other means leave off…so it can deliver knowledge of something
that other means can’t.
Anyway, the Subtle
Body seems to be conscious because of its proximity to the Self. In Atma Bodh Shankar
uses the image of an iron ball in a blacksmith’s fire to illustrate the
relationship between the Self and the mind.
The ball is inert iron but it glows like a fire because every atom is
pervaded by the fire. Every tiny
particle of chit shakti is pervaded by the Self so it
glows like the Self.
Maureen: What is knowledge?
Ram: Knowledge is what removes ignorance. You
don’t know where your keys are. I show
you that they are in your purse. The
knowledge removes the ignorance.
Maureen: Knowledge appears, just as ignorance appears,
so it is not the actionless Self. It is
an appearance in the mind, so what does it have to do with the Self?
Ram: A part of the Self has apparently forgotten
what it is so the Self uses knowledge to remove its ignorance of itself and
give the mind peace.
Maureen: Every realization happens in the mind, so is
there something like an "objective truth" at all?
Ram: There is no objective truth. All truth depends on the one who knows
it. Or put it this way: the only
‘objective truth’ is the Self. By this
is meant that the ultimate knower is Awareness, the Self. And this knower will always be the same. All truths in Maya are conditional and
relative.
Maureen: Please don’t throw me out of your heart for
all this heresy!
Ram: How can I do this? You are my heart.
Maureen: If I am the Self, limitless, all pervasive awareness, independent of anything, why am I only aware of my
body and mind? (I know, this is a confusion between the two I’s,
but I just don’t get that clear.)
Ram: You are aware of
every body and every mind. How? As the Self. It is the same awareness in every living
being. Ute has unlimited awareness but
limited knowledge. God has unlimited
awareness and limitless knowledge. Only
the object, knowledge, is different.
God is the Self with reference to the totality of the creation and Ute
is the Self with reference to a specific individual. God’s knowledge is not superior to an
individual’s knowledge. It is just the
sum total of all individual knowledges including all
the individual animals and plants. If
you add together the knowledge of a bird and the knowledge of a tree and the
knowledge of Einstein, is the total of this knowledge superior to any one of
these individual knowledges? Whether the knowledge is vast and deep or
shallow and limited it is all the same to the Self.
Anyway, you don’t get
more happiness by getting more knowledge.
So there is no point for an individual to know what God knows. God does not have a potential for greater
happiness than any individual. All the
fame, knowledge and power that belongs to God does not
make God any more satisfied than the knowledge ‘I am limitless non-dual
actionless awareness” makes an individual.
Self knowledge for God is the same as Self knowledge for the
individual. Knowledge does not complete
you because you are already complete.
Knowledge just makes you appreciate what you are.
Maureen: Whenever I tell myself, that I am everything
the question arises: Then, why am I not aware of everything? When I am miserable, I sometimes tell myself,
that all glory is my glory, all the happiness in this
world is my happiness, so why fret? But
then the mind asks: If that is so, why am I not aware of all this
happiness? Why am I just aware of this
particular misery here?
Ram: If you look through your reading glasses will
you see ultraviolet and infrared? If you
look through Ute you will only see what it in Ute. You will not see what is in anything
else. But if you understand that what
you are aware of is you, whether it is the total or
some small fraction of the total, you will be happy. Misery is just as good as happiness to the
Self. Why? Because both are the Self. But the Self is free of both. The Self does not draw its happiness from
objects. It is self satisfied, meaning
it is satisfied with itself.
Here is another
argument. You say ‘why am I not aware of
all this happiness?’ But I say, how can you say you are not aware of all this happiness when you
say that all this happiness exists. If
you are not aware of it, then you will be quite satisfied with your
misery. Why? Because you will not know that there is
anything else.
Maureen: And in the last satsang you
say: "It is true that if you know that this is a benign non-dual reality
fear does not happen. However, if one’s
knowledge of this fact is a bit shaky, then it is possible, when the desire for
love arises in a mind that is not pure (the desire for love does not arise in a
pure mind because it experiences love every minute) for one to allow the mind
to fall in love."
Who is that
"one" that allows the mind to fall in love? Who else is there except the mind?
Ram: The Self under
the spell of apparent ignorance allows the mind to have its way. When this apparent ignorance is removed by
apparent knowledge, the Self may not allow the mind to have its way because it
knows there is nothing to gain.
Alternatively it may allow the mind to have its way because it knows
that whatever karma the mind creates cannot affect it. An impure mind is one that does not know that
the Self is the source of all true love.
It believes that love is only to be had by contact with objects.
Maureen: Dear Ramji, maybe this is all mindfuck. But you
say, understanding is the only way, and understanding happens in the mind, so
we have to "unfuck" it, right?
Ram: Sure.
It’s a pleasure to unfuck your mind. Please make sure you don’t fall in love with
your ignorance. If you do I am out of a
job.
Maureen: Underneath or above or behind all these
questions there is a certainty, a conviction that it is all true, that I
am this One No-thing, that nothing can ever happen either to ME or me, but my
mind is just too confused, tamasic, impure or whatever to see it clearly and
understand it. Lily says: "Loving
is the one most precious thing one gets from loving." How lucky I am to
love you!
Ram: Ah, this is music to my ears. How lucky you are to love. Stick with the certainty. That’s you, the
Self. Work on the mind’s questions
patiently but don’t take it too seriously.
You can let it be a bit ignorant.
It doesn’t matter what it knows.
Ignorant or not, you are still you.
Love,
Ramji
Dear Ramji!
I just got your
answer, thank you! Don’t worry, I'm
not falling in love with my ignorance; it’s more like a breakout of rash, it
itches and I have to scratch but I don’t love it. What feels good is the conviction, not the
doubt. Now I see that the kernel of my
confusion was that I forgot that the mind is inert. I had endowed the mind with
consciousness. Now I see at least this
point clearer. And thank you for the
last bit: It doesn't matter what the mind knows. Ignorant or not, I am still I.
Good night and loads
of love,
Maureenji
Dear Maureen,
Very
good. Your
mind has zeroed in on the essence. One needs to always distinguish the
mind from the Self. The mind is the Self but the Self is free of the
mind. Sentient and insentient are good words to indicate the
difference. You cannot ascribe sentiency to the mind, only to the
Self. And the last statement was a statement of pure knowledge:
“Whether the mind is ignorant of not 'I am still
There are not two
selves, one limited the other limitless. There is only the 'I'
with apparent knowledge or apparent ignorance.
Ram