Michael James about True and False knowledge based on teachings of Ramana Maharshi - Part1

[Guest guest]

Whether the body that it now imagines to be itself happens to be this body

of the waking state or some other body in dream, our mind always feels that

its current body is real. Since that current body is one among the many

objects of the world that it is currently experiencing, our mind cannot but

feel that all the other objects that it is currently experiencing are as

real as the body that it now mistakes to be itself. In other words, since we

mistake certain current products of our imagination to be ourself and

therefore real, we cannot avoid mistaking all the other current products of

our imagination to be equally real.

 

Just as the cinema projector could not project any picture if its

indispensable light were not shining brightly within it, so our mind could

not project the imaginary picture of this or any other world if its

indispensable light were not shining brightly within it. This indispensable

light that shines brightly within our mind enabling it to project this

imaginary picture of thoughts and objects is our essential consciousness ‘I

am’.

 

The states of waking and dream can be compared to the state in which a film

reel is rolling in the projector, producing an ever changing picture on the

screen, whereas sleep can be compared to the state in which one film reel is

finished and another is about to be threaded into the projector. All the

while, however, the bright light in the projector is shining, so in the gap

between the removal of one reel and the fitting of the next all that is seen

on the screen is a light.

 

However, though at that time we can see no pictures on the screen, but only

a frame of light, the background darkness of the cinema still remains.

Similarly in deep sleep, though we do not experience any of the effects of

vikshepa sakti, but only the essential light of consciousness, ‘I am’, the

veiling power of ‘selfforgetfulness’ or avarana sakti still remains,

preventing us from knowing our consciousness ‘I am’ as it really is, free

from any adjuncts such as a seeming lack of clarity.

 

Since no body or world existed in sleep, to say that we were unconscious of

them is misleading. Saying that in sleep we were unconscious of our body and

this world is like saying that in our present waking state we are

unconscious of the body and world that appeared to exist in a dream. Since

any body or world that we experience, whether in waking or in dream, is only

an imagination – a collection of thoughts or mental images that appears only

in our own mind – saying that we were unconscious of them in sleep is in

effect saying that we were unconscious of our thoughts in sleep.

 

True knowledge is not merely a state in which we have given up knowing any

external objects, but is the state in which we clearly know our own true

self. In sleep we give up knowing external objects, but we do not thereby

attain true knowledge. In order to attain true knowledge, it is not

sufficient for us merely to remove all our other forms of false knowledge –

that is, our knowledge of multiplicity, duality or otherness – because mere

removal of such false knowledge will not destroy its root and foundation,

which is our forgetfulness of our own real self.

 

Removing our other forms of false knowledge without putting an end to our

self-forgetfulness, which is our primal form of false knowledge, will result

only in a temporary subsidence or abeyance of our mind. From such a state of

abeyance, our mind will rise again,and when it rises, all our false

knowledge of duality will rise again with it.

 

..... To Be Continued

 

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Om namo Bhagavate Sri Ramanaya

Prasanth Jalasutram