Distinguishing “I” From “Not I”
When a child watches someone “hide” a seed under the soil and cover it with heavy earth and some water, he thinks it is gone. He cannot imagine that such a small seed could push its way out from its apparent hiding place and reappear. But when you see someone plant a seed, you know that it is no going to disappear and die.
What is it that makes you know that the seed will grow? And what is the child lacking which causes him to think that it has vanished? Experience. Experience gives you the power to know that within the seed there is something which has so much energy that it can break the soil and come out. Lacking that experiential knowledge a child does not yet have the vision of the one who knows.
There is a smilar difference between a person with vision and one without. At the sight of what some people call an ending or “death,” the wise person feels no insecurity because he perceives the cycle of enternity in each process of change. Those without vision, like the inexperienced child, see everthing right now, “they say, “for when I am gone, it is for good, and all will be buried in a graveyard.” Those who harbor such fears of finality ae not at peace.
As long as we have concept of “All is lost!” so long shall we have sadness and tears. Rather than create sadness when a person departs, let us see in this light when person has gone, he or the may have gone from your eyes, form your circle, but not form the universe. The person has gone from the form, but not from the essence. When we understand this truth, we enlarge our vision and say: “What is lost? Only the form. A gold ornament may be broken or melten down, but the gold is safe. A new ornament can be made out of it; only its form will be different!”.
Let us realize that we are all on a sojourn to complete, fulfill, or undo something. We are all on mission,. It is an experience, not an intellectual lesson. Feel deet within you that a loved one who is no longer with you has gone to continue his mission, to complete the work he was carrying on in this life. The relation you had with him will evolve. Go on sending loving vibrations to him. Your vibrations will become wings but not your tears.
Nowlet us envision the continuity of eternity in each seed, in each form. Let us see the same thing in us. The form becomes broken or decomposed ,but there is something in the centre of all the forms-some thing which is change less.that something is sentient energy.
When we can see the expression of this energy in a seed, in even so tiny a seed as the sesame seed, we can observe its power. Its sprout is so vibrant with strength that it can break the heavy earth. It is so intent on growing that it can push through the dead insenient harsh matter covering it and through it off. Why? because it has living sentient life. If we become aware of this powerful senient energy in us,of this growing life process which we all are, we will be able to cast off the load of matter which weighs us down.
If you get that insight, your life will be changed buoyant and flowing. Why? Because you will realize that in this last stage of your evolution, in your human existence. You are in touch with your reality. You are seeing your eternal nature. You are contacting your self.
When you know this in your experience, not only in a mental or conceptual way, then you will shed all fears and anxieties. Like the person who moves from house to house according to the season, you will know that wherever you are, in a different country, climate, planet, abode, situation, or birth, you have not “gone” anywhere; you only make a change of house, a change of form.
Now what you call “I” is merely a name. As a “he” or a “she”, “I” is a form. As an angry or a happy “I”, it is an emotional “I”. When you say: “ I am going to do as I did yesterday,” that “I” belongs to a time period. None of these “I’s” is you. They are hundreds of names reflecting in hundreds of broken mirrors, the mirrors of moods and labels—rich, poor, angry, depressed happy, sad, high, low. “I” mirrors are not your real qualities; they are conditions. Pleasures and pains, ups and downs are transient; they come and go.
When we enter into an experiential level, we know that sentient energy passes through stages of life. What we call girl, old lady, sick person, dying person are all stages seen in the mirror. Why have we not yet seen ourselves in our eternal nature? Because of karmas; we have not distinguished our true nature from conditions and stages and mirrors. We continue to identify ourselves with the transient roles we play.
Real experience comes when you are able to disengage yourself from all conditions, from all forms of insentient energy, and see yourself as sentient atman. Real meditation stars from the moment you say: “This sentient energy and this is I. This energy cannot be abolished or destroyed.”
This is the “I” which has no ego. The mirror “I’s” were conditions of insentient moments and you were identfying with those temporary conditions. Now you see that just because the “house” is “old” it does not mean that the “indweller” is “old.” Now you can visualize yourself as sentient dwelling in the “house” of insentient, or as sentient wearing the “clothes” of insentient.
Now why is it that certain kinds of insentient energy are around us and not other kinds? Because we created the forms in that way; our own desires invited the kind of insentient vibrations which surround us.
“I made myself” is a new concept for those of you who were brought up to think that “I am made.” The perception “We are makers” may frighten the mind.
The mind tends to shrink from that responsibility because it is not used to taking that high position. It reacts in the old, conditioned way. It is not easy to uproot conditionings. For example, in India, even though the caste system has been abolished by law, many minds still remain in slavery to “unsociability,” and the inferiority complex of the so-called “untoouchables” has not faded easily.
We must come to know in our own experience that their whole galaxy is ours and that we are moving from place to place, from planet to planet without any obstacle. Everywhere we have access. Why? Because the whole universe is meant for sentient energy. The universe is nothing but a testing ground for atman’s unfolding. According to our desire, our unfolding, our longing, our perception, our living, we select a form, a birthlplace, a family, and all the accessories.
Untill we get the experience of “I am immortal,” we will not grasp the meaning of the unconditioned state of soul. The nature of soul is to live in freedom forever. In partnership with insentient, soul or sentient energy can experience this freedom in different degrees depending on its stage of growth and the depth of the meditative experience.
In meditation, we experience ourselves as a mirror of the divine, or the divine as a larger self of our self. We come to realize that creation is not a person but a process, a process over which we have control.
What is this process? According to the state of consciousness of our soul, our sentient energy will be either in a state of attraction or repulsion, or it will have transcended both poles. In its own natural siddha state, sentient energy has risen above these two and no longer sends out negative or positive vibrations. Its vibrations are what may be described as pure, unpolluted, formless and indestructible. Whe they are expressed by a pure soul, they are experienced as pure love and bliss. A human being who has not yet reached that state of realization will be at a certain level of attraction and repulsion. According to that level, he vibrates. According to those vibrations, thoughts are produced. These thoughts then take on structure made up of the karmic particles they have attracted. According to those then take on a structure made up of the karmic particles they have attracted. According to the density and quality of the particles surrounding the soul, a person will act.
When people realize that thought has form, that will be a new era for mankind, just as our presence in from be an electrically oerated door generates a form or force which causes the door to open, so thought takes form. As we recognize the power in an electrical current though it is invisible, we must also acknowledge the power of thought forms.
How can thought forms be seen? By becoming aware of the way in which everything we think as results. By seeing that our lacks, sicknesses, pains, sorrows are the results of our thoughts. By realizing that thought are more dynamic than physical actions.
Many people think that it does not matter what you think, but when the power of thought and its subtle yet direct effect on action is known, then people will make a change in their thought patterns. Do you think that you have beeen treated unfairly or that someone has abused you or that something has come to you from “out there”? Nothing comes to you from “Out there” without first being invited by you from within you. This is a universe in which every thought is registered, and what is in the storehouse will come. So if your have lost your job or have contracted an illness, often it is because you job or have contracted an illness, often it is because you have gone down in your thinking process.
We tend to see the results rather than the cause. We need merely to see that there is a connection between “me” and what happens. We must experience our inborn potentiality to make and create. What we are now calling ourselves—man or woman, short or tall, black or white, educated or ignorant, is nothing but our “make-up.” Wehave made ourselves in that way. Way cannot blame God that some are rich and rich and others poor. We can only say this: There is a process of life. In this process, every soul, in one way or another, in a vibration of attraction or repulsion, during his night of ignorance or under the light of knowledge, makes his life form in that way.
With the recognition and acceptance of the fact that no outside element or person can be blamed for our present conditions, we realize that we cannot shirk responsibility for what we are. Our actions, life style, physical appearance, circumstances—these are concretizations of our own thoughts. Then we begin to become a gatekeeper to our mind, not allowing a single negative feeling or unpleasant thought to invade our mind. We know that whatever we put inside our mind will start working like a computer. With this new sense of inner strength and responsibility we start creating oour future right now in this very thought moment.
For our thoughts to be dynamic, everthing must synchronize—thought, word and action, and all three must be in true with the highest level of sentient energy. Thought, word, and action must vibrate on the same frequency as all living life. Otherwise, a good thought may arise. But the resut will not come. For example, a person may think: “I want to live long.” But it he harasses or harms living beings in speech or in action, how can the universe vibrate in harmony with his desire for longvity? The universe cannot vibrate in harmonious response until thought, word, and deed synchronize. So h e who wants to live long and happily must learn that first he has to let others live long and happily.
Some say: “All day I sit and pray and noting happens!” Because action is zero! When action does not synchronize with thought, dichotomy is created.
Wanting to do something and allowing conditions hold you back makes you withdraw frok carrying out a positive thought. Such a withdrawal is a withdrawal from your own commitment to growth as well. If you tell someone that you will help him and then restract your offer the moment he comes to you for aide, you are creating duality in yourself. You are making slces of your whole life. When you know this, you should say to yourself: “I don’t want to turn my life into lilttle bits and pieces. Let me live a life where I feel my words, feelings and actions in unison.”
It is the nature of the unenlightened mind to take form according to the object before it. If the object tempts the senses, the mind starts desiring it. If it gets what it wants, it becomes temporarily happy. That is called pleasure. If it does not get what it desires, it goes on pining for it. This leads to frustration which in turn leads to depression. That is called pain. Both pleasure and pain ae transitory, the by-products of a mind enslaved to need or greed. Such a mind is nothing but an old dusty attic, filled with the old objects, thouoghts, and desires which it has collected, accumulated, and reflected.
As long as the mind is not receiving the light of awareness, it remains in this state of fluctuation, transmitting the vibrations of attraction (raga) or repulsion (duesha).
At this level, the consciousness of the unaware human being is hardly different from the instinctive consciousness of animals whose desires are merely to eat, sleep, procrate, and collect. When the mind enters a state of depression, it is charaterized by a heaviness and immobility comparable to the mineral state.
But we are all on the path of evolution. It is the nature of soul to sprout upward. It is the nature of consciousness to become more and more open. It starts from the mineral state and goes on evolving until at last it raches the enlightened state of evolution: universal consciousness. Even though the mineral consciousness may not be noticed due to its seeming immobility, it has a slight level of consciousness. We have seen that even the smalest seed has life force, sentient energy. Before it is planted , it is in a state of outer slumber. When it is planted in the ground, its cosciousness is evident because of its urge to grow.
The animal consciousness goes through suffering and the natural processes of life: continually coming into contact with different vibrations, continually shedding old form and putting on new ones. At last it reaaches the level of human consciousness or “Who am I” consciousness. No other from of life can ask itself that question.
When a human being undertakes to ask himself that question, he has embarked on a journey to uncover his own reality. He has committed himself to step forward toward evolution. He has begun to enlighten his mind and start using it in the way it was meant to be used th help sentient energy to become aware of itself.
When sentient energy becomes aware of the Self, it stops permitting the mind to give form to negative elements. When the mind stops creating images of accident, illness and death, these negativities will no longer bombard the mind and negative events will not take place.
When the mind acts as a help rather than a hindrance, it becomes a link between sentient and insentient, between soul and body, between consciousness and expression of consciousness. It will act as light bulb reflecting the source of the power to which it is connected, conscious enlightening energy. When the mind is functioning as receiver and transmitters of sentient energy, it manifests consciousness through what we call knowledge, recognition, cognition, perception, and memory.
When the mind has become quiet through the use of mantra, and through its enlightened understanding of the philosophy of vibrations and karmas, we can go beyond body, speech, and mind and experience what we are in essence. At the time of a deep meditation, the above-mentioned mani