Consciousness and the Absolute

[Guest guest]

June 14, 1981

 

 

 

Questioner: Continuous daily activity is making the mind dull. I want to know

how to make the mind alert.

 

Maharaj: I do not speak about the body-mind and what goes on in the world. I

talk about your true nature and your true nature is the sense of presence you

have, this consciousness. If you are not conscious, then there is no world for

you. There is nothing there. The world exists for you only when you are

conscious, so it is about this consciousness, this sense of presence, that I

talk.

 

Once this sense of presence comes, how you act and what you do in the world

I don't deal with. This sense of presence, this consciousness, is it not prior

to anything else? Even thinking about anything for which you have to use your

mind, if you are not conscious, can any thought come? Therefore, this sense of

presence, this consciousness, is it not the primary thing without which nothing

else can happen? Nothing-no thought, no concepts-can arise by themselves. No

activity can arise if the sense of presence is not there. The sense of presence

does not need any activity of the mind to know that you are present. You do not

have to ask yourself, "Am I present, am I conscious? There is that intuitive

sense of presence, you know you are present. This sense of presence, it is not

the sense that I am present, you are present, or any individual is present. The

sense of presence is the sense of presence, as such. Because one identifies

oneself with his body, he thinks he is born and is going to die. What is born

is the general sense of presence, as such. The sense of presence, which has

come spontaneously, will leave spontaneously. There is no individual except

through identification with the body. The sense of time, or duration, or the

event happening in time, all that can come about only if there is consciousness.

If there is no consciousness, do you have the sense of time?

 

There is the wick and there is the fuel; only then can the light be there.

So light depends on the duration of the fuel. That is how the time factor comes

in. The sense of presence, this consciousness, is everything. So find out how

that arises and how long it is going to last. Just as the light will remain

only as long as there is fuel for it, so this consciousness will last only so

long as this fuel is there, fuel being the body, which is mode of the five

elements which are an accumulation of food. If the food is not supplied

constantly to the body, the body will not last, and if the body will not last,

then the consciousness will not last. Therefore this consciousness will depend

on how long the body is there. Even this consciousness is not everything and it

is not going to last for all time. Find out how this consciousness has arisen,

the source of the consciousness.

 

What is this body? The body is only the accumulation of food and water.

This food and water are certainly not you, and this consciousness is merely the

nature of this food and water. Therefore, you are something separate from

either the body or the consciousness. So long as the body is there, anyone who

considers himself an individual has as his only capital the sense of presence,

this consciousness. Treat that as the highest God and worship nothing else

other that the sense of presence, and when you are one with the sense of

presence, then what ever is necessary by was of spiritual knowledge will sprout

by itself.

 

If you have any problems or questions with which you are concerned, you

will find these problems and questions are based on your identity with the body

and mind as an individual. If that identification is not there, then no

questions can arise. You will come to this conclusion.