56. Consciousness Arising, World Arises


When an ordinary man dies, what happens to him is according to his belief. As life before death is but imagination, so is life after. The dream continues. Now I know nothing, for all knowledge is in dream only and not valid. I know myself and I find no life nor death in me, only pure being - not being this or that, but just being.

But the moment the mind, drawing on its stock of memories, begins to imagine, it fills the space with objects and time with events. It is the mind that, itself in movement, sees everything moving, and having created time, worries about the past and future.

As all waves are in the ocean, so are all things physical and mental in awareness. Hence awareness itself is all important, not the content of it. Deepen and broaden your awareness of yourself and all the blessings will flow. You need not seek anything, all will come to you most naturally and effortlessly.

Reincarnation implies a reincarnating self. There is no such thing.

The bundle of memories and hopes, called the 'I', imagines itself existing everlastingly and creates time to accommodate its false eternity: To be, I need no past or future. All experience is born of imagination; I do not imagine, so no birth or death happens to me. Only those who think themselves born can think themselves re-born.

All exists in awareness and awareness neither dies nor is reborn. It is the changeless reality itself. All the universe of experience is born with the body and dies with the body; it has its beginning and end in awareness, but awareness knows no beginning, nor end. If you think it out carefully and brood over it for a long time, you will come to see the light of awareness in all its clarity and the world will fade out of your vision.

By its very nature the mind is outward turned; it always tends to seek for the source of things among the things themselves; to be told to look for the source within, is, in a way, the beginning of a new life.

Senses are mere modes of perception. As the grosser modes disappear, finer states of consciousness emerge.

Of course we live in one world. Only I see it as it is, while you don't. You see yourself in the world, while I see the world in myself. To you, you get born and die, while to me, the world appears and disappears. Our world is real, but your view of it is not. There is no wall between us, except the one built by you.

There is nothing wrong with the senses, it is your imagination that misleads you. It covers up the world as it is, with what you imagine it to be - something existing independently of you and yet closely following your inherited, or acquired patterns. There is a deep contradiction in your attitude, which you do not see and which is the cause of sorrow.

You cling to the idea that you were born into a world of pain and sorrow; I know that the world is a child of love, having its beginning, growth and fulfilment in love. But I am beyond love even.

Consciousness arising, the world arises. There is only seeing; both the seer and the seen are contained in it.