Michael James about self enquiry based on teachings of Ramana Maharshi - Part1

[Guest guest]

While we are in a dream state, we identify a dream body as ‘I’ in exactly the

same manner that we identify our present body as ‘I’ in this waking state, and

we take the dream world that we see to be real in exactly the same manner that

we take the world that we see in this waking state to be real. But as soon as we

wake up from a dream, we understand without the least doubt that all that we

experienced in that dream was only a product of our own imagination, and was

therefore unreal. Thus the dream state clearly demonstrates to us that by the

power of its imagination our mind has the ability not only to create a body and

world, but also simultaneously to delude itself that that imaginary body is ‘I’

and that that imaginary world

is real.

 

Knowing that our mind possesses this wonderful power of creation and

self-deception, can we reasonably avoid doubting whether the body we take to be

‘I’ and the world we take to be real in our present waking state are in fact any

more real than the body and world we experience in a dream? Do we not have good

reason to suspect that our body and this world that we experience in our present

waking state are merely imaginary creations of our own mind, just as the body

and world that we experienced in dream were? What evidence do we have that our

body in this waking state and the world we perceive through the senses of this

body are anything other than a creation of our mind?

 

In this waking state we understand that the bodies and worlds we experience in

our dreams are merely products of our imagination, and exist only within our own

mind, yet we generally assume without question that the body and world we now

experience are not mere products of our imagination, but exist independently,

outside our mind. We believe that this body and world exist even when we are

unaware of them, as in dream and deep sleep, but how can we

prove to ourself that this is so?

 

‘Other people who were awake when we were asleep can testify that our body and

this world continued to exist even when we were unaware of them’ is the answer

that immediately comes to our mind. However, those other people and their

testimony are themselves part of the world whose existence in sleep we want to

prove. Relying on their testimony to prove that the world exists when we do not

perceive it is like relying on the testimony of a confidence trickster to prove

that he did not swindle our money.

 

The people we meet in a dream may testify to us that the world we perceive then

existed even before we perceived it, but when we wake up we realise that their

testimony proves nothing, because they were just a part of the world that our

mind had temporarily created and deluded itself into believing to be real. There

is no way we can prove to ourself that the world exists independent of our

perception

of it, because any proof we may wish to rely upon can come only from the world

whose reality we are doubting.

 

In this waking state our mind tells us that the world we are now

experiencing is real and that the world we experienced in dream is unreal, but

in dream our same mind told us that the world we were then experiencing was

real. The differences that we now imagine to exist between that state and our

present state did not appear to exist then. In fact, while dreaming, we

generally think we are in the waking state. If we were to discuss the reality of

waking and dream with someone in a dream, we would probably agree with each

other that this ‘waking state’ – as we would then take our dream to be – is more

real than a dream.

 

Since we can be sure that our body exists only when we know it, and since we

know our present body in only one of our three states of consciousness, our

notion that this body is ourself is open to serious doubt. Since we know that we

exist in dream, when we do not know the existence of this present body, is it

not reasonable for us to infer that we are the consciousness that knows this

body, rather than this body itself?

 

If we are consciousness, that is, if consciousness is our real and essential

nature, we must be consciousness in all the states in which we exist. Since our

consciousness cannot know anything else without first knowing itself – without

knowing ‘I am’, ‘I know’ – the essential nature of our consciousness is

self-consciousness, the consciousness of its own being or existence. Whatever

else it knows, our consciousness always knows ‘I am’, ‘I exist’, ‘I know’.

 

Do we exist in deep sleep? Yes, obviously we do, because when we wake up we know

clearly and without any doubt ‘I slept’. If we did not exist in sleep, we could

not now know that we slept. Since sleep is a state that we actually experience,

it is not only a state in which we exist, but is also a state in which we are

conscious of our existence. If we were not conscious in sleep, we could not know

our experience in sleep – we could not know with such certainty that we slept

and did not know anything at that time. What we are unconscious of in sleep is

anything other than our own being or existence, ‘I am’, but we are not

unconscious of our own being. Let us imagine a

conversation that might occur between two people, whom we shall call A and B,

just after B has woken up from a deep dreamless sleep.

 

A: Did someone come into your room ten minutes ago?

B: I do not know, I was asleep.

A: Are you sure you were asleep?

B: Yes, of course, I know very well that I was asleep.

A: How do you know that you were asleep?

B: Because I did not know anything.

 

However, it is important to remember that though in our present waking state we

say, ‘I knew nothing in sleep’, the knowledge that we actually experience while

asleep is not ‘I know nothing’, but is only ‘I am’. In sleep what we actually

know is ‘I am’, and nothing but ‘I am’. Since this knowledge or consciousness ‘I

am’ exists in all our three states of consciousness, and since nothing else

exists in all three of them, is it not clear that we are in reality only this

essential consciousness ‘I am’ – or to be more precise, this essential

selfconsciousness ‘I am’?

 

......... To be continued

 

--

Om namo Bhagavate Sri Ramanaya

Prasanth Jalasutram