The mind isn’t sufficiently adept in understanding how it works, although it can through our experience understand the self, as also consciousness. It can, likewise, experience a state of ‘no-self’ and also ‘no-consciousness.’ This is because the mind can hold on to any condition it creates, or makes possible. When the mind thinks of its own existence, the self is suddenly flush with the pulsating prospect of its own survival — the habitual response is calmness, involvement and agreement. On the other hand, when the mind thinks of its own destruction, it is challenged not with extinction, disappearance, or non-existence, but nothingness. It is rightly said that, in such a situation, our consciousness cannot see anything beyond — without itself being the ‘clairvoyant attribute,’ or ‘ombudsman.’
There is nothing the mind cannot see, or feel, absorb, or ‘touch,’ with its own periscope of thoughts and feelings. When you take away the self, or consciousness, there is no self — there is also no channel for experiencing anything else that exists. While some schools of thought believe in the possibility of the mind’s own extinction, for others the conscious mind always thrives with ‘something’ beyond nothing. You may call it super consciousness, which is packed with the experience of the divine, or of the self itself as the divine entity. This is reason why the falling away of consciousness, as some thinkers suggest, opens up new possibilities, such as the unsuspected element of existence, which can never be as effortlessly experienced by consciousness. This is because its breadth is beyond the boundaries of our awareness, or psyche — mind, body and spirit. What does this indicate? That the fading away of the self, or consciousness, is the only real ‘death experience’ all living beings would experience, or feel. Anything less, or not perceived, is not death.
All of us go through a host of experiences in life. We experience pain and despair — the two cornerstones of our learning and growing process. They are just as strong as happiness and joy. While most people want to know their purpose in life and be cheerful, it is, indeed, strange that a majority of us continue to live in the past, not the present. We sometimes tend to ‘throw in the towel’ at the thought of adversity, because we have gotten used to being on auto-pilot, or living unconsciously. The more we look for happiness outside of ourselves, the more troubled we are. Picture this — if we simply transform our outlook and feel priceless and secure within ourselves, we will once again begin to live consciously, replete with the full awareness of our thoughts, emotions and intentions. We would, in the process, be able to choose every moment — with the ‘option’ of how we want to be and/or how we want it to emerge with self-assured gusto.
There’s a clear distinction between the ultimate authority of ancient texts teaching non-dualism and others that cannot be interpreted in a somewhat ‘non-difference’ sense. This may surface as provocative, but it is, in no way so, because a certain Eastern thought has, in its pristine wisdom, delineated texts that prescribe actions and others that simply define ‘how and why’ to do things. This essential teaching is what we experience as the differentiated world of interrelated conscious and non-conscious individual entities. This is, indeed, a complex interpretation. What it connotes is — liberation is merely the cessation of ignorance, or misconception. This is responsible for our experiencing ‘reality’ as a disjointed entity — a misunderstanding of ourselves as individual entities of experience, or agents. When one focuses on the right path, through purification of the mind and by diverting oneself from instant self-centred quests, it brings enlightenment, or deliverance, in a subtle manner.
One great mode of envisaging our passage through life and time with a purpose is to think of ourselves as originally emerging from the unknown into the light of consciousness. When we, in so doing, tug along our consciousness and develop it, we will discover our increasing ability to seeing in the dark, or ‘nothingness,’ within ourselves. This will propel us, in due course, to understand that such mystifying nothingness is the divine — from which we all emerged and with which we are one. Put simply, the discovery of the original darkness is the true, distinct, divine light. It will exist even when the light of consciousness ‘fades out,’ following one’s voyage through time. In other words, it will continue to glow as our extended faculty to experiencing god — for eternity.
— First published in India First
