Digest Number 627

[Guest guest]

To <mcyberia>!

 

Well, you seem to be taking a story too literally. All living beings need

not be self-aware for their existence or survival for that matter! Many

animals live and we can't say that they are self-aware. If you say self to

mean the body, yes, they are no doubt aware of their bodies, the bodies of

their friends and foes. But if we think of self-awareness to mean something

higher involving mind, intellect and beyond, many including many of the

'human' beings can't be said to be self-aware.

 

Four traits are said to be common to all animals and humans, viz., food,

sleep, sex and fear. Only homo sapiens (human beings) are supposed to be

endowed with the fifth faculty, viz., intellect.

 

So, first we must agree about what level of self-awareness are we talking

of, before we can discuss further.

 

I understood that story narrated by Hur Guler to symbolically convey the

confusion of the individual ego and the Universal consciousness. So the

same story can convey different things to different minds, depending upon

that mind's conditioning.

 

On further logical analysis, I find that the story can't exist in its

present form. The student in that story, like me, was not very astute. The

very fact that the professor was sharing his secret about the clone to her

should have alerted her that she was speaking to the real and not the

clone, since the clone doesn't know that he is the clone and that his

original exists apart from him! He would get the shock of his life whe he

comes to know and he may die on the spot! Or get self-awareness and will no

doubt describe himself as the clone! The professor clearly mentioned that

the clone lacked self-awareness, i.e. it did not know that it was a clone

and so did not know that it had a master of which it was but a clone! It

will know that it is a clone only when it sees its replica (actually its

original) face to face or is accused of being somewhere or doing something

which it knows is imposssible since it was not at that place or doing that

thing accused of and then concludes that it had a clone!

 

The story reminds us of our common inheritance with God. Initially we lack

that awareness and think we are separate. Then we either see God or see the

effects of God's intervention and thus slowly realise that we are not what

we thought ourselves to be. The false identification with a limited ego

disappears and we realise our true nature.

 

Thanks to both of you for provoking this train of thought. May God bless

all of us!!!

 

Swamy SV

 

 

 

At 11:01 19/09/02 -0000, mcyberia wrote:

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