by Ekta Bathija
Listen to Ektaji talk about Ramana Maharshi's teachings on non-duality. These teachings are aimed at the experiential understanding of the true nature of the self and that consciousness is the only existing reality.
Meet your Teacher
St. George, USA
Transcript
Salaam! Salaam! Salaam! Salaam! Salaam! For one who has realized his self, It is said that he will not have the three states of wakefulness, Dream and deep sleep. Is that a fact? What makes you say that they do not have three states? In saying, I had a dream. I was in deep sleep. I am awake. You must admit that you were there in all the three states. We did this in our exploration. The knowing presence knows the waking state. The knowing presence knows the dream state. The knowing presence knows the absence of the waking object's dream objects. It's left soundly in the deep sleep state. So the knowing presence is what we address as I. That makes it clear that you were there all the time. If you remain as you are now, You are in the wakeful state. Again, If you remain as you are now, You are in the wakeful state. This becomes hidden in the dream state. When I go into the dream state, What gets hidden? This physical body I don't see. I don't really experience the sensations that are happening in the body. But I have images of some sensation in the body. Images. Image means an idea that I have created. And that image or idea is created from my own cravings or aversions. For example, The pizza dream. You didn't have pizza all day. The craving in the mind creates an image in the mind of the pizza. You don't always have a visual image. You have the image of the taste. You have image of the smell. You also have images of how it would feel to touch. These are called images. These images are what I experience in the dream state. So, Only the image is carried with me. The real pizza or the whole day I was in this physical state, This is not there at that time. This becomes hidden in the dream state. And the dream state disappears when you are in deep sleep state. There is absolute nothingness. Nothingness. In that only a waking state arises and it goes away. Then there is a nothingness. In that a dream state arises and it goes away. Again there is a nothingness. And in that the deep sleep state arises and goes away. These states keep arising and falling. When one is there, The other is hidden. When the other is there, The other is hidden. This is not happening only like you have one deep sleep state in the night or one dream state in the night and waking state is from 6 am to 11 pm. No, No. It is happening throughout the day. Notice it. There are times when while sitting you just blank out. You are gone. Your eyes are open but you blank out completely. While sitting many times you start imagining. You are lost in imagination. What is that? It's a dream state. So these waking state, Dreaming state, Deep sleep state, They keep coming and going into one background. You were there then. You are there now and you are there at all times. So who's there? This knowing presence, This background of nothingness is who you are. The three states come and go but you are always there. It is like a cinema. The screen is always there but several types of pictures appear on the screen and then disappear. Nothing sticks to the screen. It remains a screen. This is a very important highlight. When you go to the cinema, Before the cinema has started, All you see is a white screen. Nothing there. On that screen, Images start appearing. Hero, Heroine. You get consumed. This image, That image. Some image you like, Some you hate. There is fire, There is water. Do any of the images harm the screen behind? So the screen remains as the screen. That sentence is clear. Nothing sticks to the screen. It remains a screen. Similarly, You remain your own self in all the three states. You remain that background of knowing presence in all the three states. If you know that, The three states will not trouble you just as the pictures which appeared on the screen do not stick to it. It's that simple. That is one line solution to all the problems of your life. All your problems are, 99% of your problems are because of the waking state. Correct? If you just see it as an image that appears on the screen and goes away. Again, It appears, It goes away. Why am I giving any importance to the image that appears and goes away? The background remains untouched. I am that background. I am not the body. I am not the mind that appears to be in that waking state. Body and mind is just an image. It goes away. I am this knowing presence background. I just know everything. I am untouched. So that is your one line solution to all problems of your life. If you know that the three states will not trouble you just as the pictures which appear on the screen do not stick to it. On the screen you sometimes see a huge ocean with endless waves. That disappears. Another time you see fire spreading all around. That too disappears. The screen is there on both occasions. Did the screen get wet with water or did it get burned by the fire? Nothing affected the screen. In the same way, The things that happen during the wakeful, Dream and deep sleep states do not affect you at all. You remain your own self. That is the only solution. There is no other solution to the problem called life. That is your problem. Life itself. The only solution out of this depression, Out of this suffering is to wake up and recognise, Oh I am not affected by the states. I am not touched by anything in the waking state whether it is pleasant or it is unpleasant. I remain untouched. You have to start recognising it. You can only recognise it by staying as the knowing presence. Again and again be the field of nothingness. That is why Morna was very important on Ramana Maharshi's path because he only taught the highest. He didn't teach anything less. And if you think you chime with this then you must take it up as a practice. Every day I am going to be in Morna sometime. 20 minutes, 30 minutes is me time. You tell your family, Tell everybody. This 20-30 minutes I will not answer the phone, I will not talk to anybody. I will just be. Lock yourself in the room and just be or go for your walk alone. Go for a walk and just be. Be the knowing presence. Increase your Morna in life. Morna is silence. Because that is the only way that you can be the knowing presence and strengthen that understanding. Does that mean that although people have all three states, Wakefulness, Dream and deep sleep, These do not affect them? Yes, That is it. All these states come and go. The self is not bothered. It has only one state. You already did this again and again. Just be the knowing presence. Does that mean that such a person will be in this world merely as a witness? That is so. For this very thing, Vidya Rania in the 10th chapter of the Pancha Dashi gives as example the light that is kept on the stage of a theatre. When a drama is being played, The light is there which illuminates without any distinction all the actors, Whether they be kings or servants or dancers. And also all the audience. That light will be there before the drama begins, During the performance and also after the performance is over. Similarly, The light within, That is the self, Gives light to the ego, The intellect, The memory and the mind without itself being subject to processes of growth and decay. Although during deep sleep and other states, There is no feeling of the ego, That self remains attributeless and continues to shine of itself. Actually, The idea of the self being the witness is only in the mind, Very important. And that is why the sense of I am has to be dropped. That is why today we did in the self exploration, The dropping of the I am and the I know and we move towards knowing presence. And if you didn't get that, Please do the self exploration again and repeat the self exploration as much as you can to understand this point. I'll read this again. The idea of the self being the witness is only in the mind. It is not the absolute truth of the self. Witnessing is relative to objects witnessed. Both the witness and his object are mental creations. You understood the example about the light shining on everything in the stage, On the drama and on the audience. So the self shines. What is the meaning of it shining? Again, There is no light you are going to experience. When we see that the consciousness is asleep, It forgets itself. It is projecting its light on the mind. And that is why there are cravings, Aversion. There is that sense of I am the mind because the sense of I am, Which is the consciousness, Has slept to itself. And that projected light or the sense of being alive has been borrowed by the mind. This is called chitta chaya. It is the sense of I am the mind and then the mind has cravings and aversions and that mind projects the body. And then there is the sense of I am the body. So this is the way the light is being projected on the ego, The intellect, The memory. Please do not expect to see a white light, A blue light, A yellow light in meditation. That's not happening. It's just poetic. It's Sanskrit. Please realise that Sanskrit shlokas were maintained orally and the tradition that has kept them safe down these ages is our oral tradition of poetry. Because poetry cannot be manipulated. It has to rhyme. So they had to learn it by heart. They had to memorise the poems. So it was very natural to put poetry there. Calling the self as light is simply poetry. There is no light that you are going to see inside. Another Dvaita path concept. Please discard these. When the light shines, It means it is projecting its sense of being alive. The sense of I am to the mind. The mind takes on that quality of being conscious, Of being alive. And then you start feeling, Oh I am the mind. And then you, That projects onto the body and then you feel I am this physical body. That is Chitta Chaya. So when he says that, He is only telling you how you feel that I am the body, Why you feel I am the body, Why you feel I am the mind. So it gives it light. It gives its sense of being alive. It's like a loan given. But obviously it does not, It is not subject to the process of growth and decay. So even though I, The consciousness, Have forgotten myself and have given this, I have loaned this sense of consciousness to the false ego that says I am the body or I am the mind. The body and mind are perishable. This dream is perishable. The dream will end. Every night the dream ends. Does anything happen to you? Nothing happens to you. You remain untouched. Exactly the same thing will happen when this waking dream comes to an end. Then basically this physical body will decay and die. It will simply be the end of your waking dream. But nothing will happen to you because you are not the body. You are not the mind. So I, The consciousness, Am not subject to processes of growth and decay. You should be very clear about that. Although during deep sleep and other states, There is no feeling of the ego that self remains attributeless and continues to shine of itself. In deep sleep, You don't have the sense of I am sleeping. There is no ego. Do you say I am asleep? You never say I am asleep. You wake up. When you are awake, You say I slept soundly. So what does this mean? In deep sleep, I was not there. It means I is not permanent. It doesn't matter even if it is I, The witness. Is I, The witness there to tell you I am sleeping? All that is recognised here is that even this I, The witness, Is a mental construct. This is again a difficult thing for Advaitans. They say how? Isn't witness also the consciousness? It is just the superficial structure of the consciousness which has taken on this task of starting this dream world. But that I, The witness, Is also just a mental creation. It exists only till the time there are mental and physical arisings. In deep sleep, There is no I, The witness experiencing the deep sleep. Only when I wake up, I say oh all these physical objects and the mental objects were absent. But still there is a sense of peace from there. Oh I, The witness does not exist. So every night, Every night you go to your pure, Absolute, Real Self. Your real nature, The pure consciousness. Now if this is clear, Now we will read that paragraph again. The idea of the Self being the witness is only in the mind. It is not the absolute truth of the Self. Witnessing is relative to objects witnessed. Thoughts feeling sensations, Perceptions are objects witnessed. Both the witness and his object are mental creations. This will make it very clear that the sense of I am is also nothing but the ego. Pure ego, Ego says okay now I'm not getting consumed anymore. I'm just going to be a witness. This is still a mental creation. When this collapses, The witness and the witnessed both collapse. There is just a presence I can say. That's it. Right now, All you have to recognise is that this witness is also a mental creation. It is just the absolute reality. So finally, The knowing presence, The knowing part collapses and there is just the presence or just the reality. That is Turiya Dita. We will stop there for today. It's only because you do not have any experience of deep sleep state and who is you? Because you've taken a stand as the mind. Can the mind go to the state of end of mind? Can thought go to the end of thought and know what is there after the end of thought? What is this end of the mind? Right? So you cannot know it. You cannot understand it. The problem is you're trying to understand state of no mind from the level of the mind. Do you get what I'm saying? So you cannot understand the state of no mind from the level of the mind. You cannot understand the state where thought comes to an end. What happens after the thought comes to an end? In that gap, How do I understand what happens in the gap after a thought has ended and before the next one has arisen? Who is trying to understand? You've taken the stand as the mind and body and you're trying to understand that. Not possible. That is why you cannot understand the gap. You cannot comprehend the gap. You cannot put words. That is why it is just said it is turiyatita, Transcendental. Transcendental means that it is beyond the body and the mind. I cannot describe it. I cannot put it in words. It is beyond me to describe it. That is the meaning of transcendental. Don't expect that I am going to experience something which is called transcendental. Are you seeing what I am seeing? Now the mind is trying to experience the no mind. That is why the whole journey, Spiritual journey is to make you realize or make you come to a point where you recognize I know nothing. That is the true realization. I know nothing. I know very little. Till the time you say I know, I know, You still have some more journey left. Keep walking. The journey is not over yet. I know is the biggest problem on the path. The mind wants to know everything. So just recognize it. Beyond the point the mind cannot go. The mind cannot go beyond the mind. Beingness is equal to the sense of I am. It is the sense of existing. The sense of existing of course has come to the body and mind as alone. It does not belong to this body and mind. For example, You have electricity running through the wires and you have a bulb. The bulb is lit up. The electricity does not belong to the bulb. Electricity runs in the wires. The bulb is lit up on account of borrowing the energy. The energy is converted to light. Do you get it? So now reframe your question. To experience this light, Do I have to be the bulb? Yes, You will have to be the bulb if you want to see the light. If you want to just be electricity then there is nothing to experience. When you are just electricity there is no light to experience. There is no shape of the bulb. There is no form of the bulb. When you are electricity there is no knowing there because there is no object to be known anymore. Then there is just the presence. Do you get it? You are saying I the bulb want to experience the electricity without being the bulb. Manonasana means I recognize that all the cause of my misery, My suffering is not this external dream world. It is me forgetting that I am sleeping here. I am resting. I am this. It is me assuming wrongly to be this and that is why I am experiencing this dream world. That is the root cause of my misery. When I recognize, Oh this is the root cause of my misery. But I do not have any control to stop this dream world. This dream is going to continue. There is no way to stop the dream world. I don't even have to have aversion to the dream world. What's the point? Then I am still stuck in the dream. I just have to recognize again and again. I, This dream character has to awaken in my dream. This is the meaning of being lucid awake. That is why it is called awakening enlightenment. You awaken to the truth. Oh this is a dream world. I have mistakenly taken it as something very serious and I am really suffering. So when you recognize this, What happens? Automatically the cravings and aversions that you had before start thinning down. Not immediately but slowly. They start thinning down, Thinning down, Thinning down. Because you don't regard the spouse, The drama of the mother-in-law, The father-in-law, The problems with the kids or the money as very serious anymore. Now you see it as a dream. So you're naturally the cravings and aversions start thinning down, Thinning down, Thinning down and then finally it's just minimum that is required for this body-mind to operate in this world. The basic food, Water, Basic things remain. You don't have any major I want this money and I want to loot that person and I want that property. All these things just get destroyed. That is called manonaschā. You cannot. That's what I'm trying to explain again and again. Thought arises, It plays for a while, It falls away. That is called the mind. There is a gap and again after some time you notice another thought arises, Plays for a while, Falls away. So you are saying I, The mind which is this thought, I want to understand the gap. I want to understand what happens after thought. The wave is saying I want to understand what happens after the wave is over. After the wave is over, Who is remaining to understand? The wave is over, Is destroyed. Yes? So this can be experientially understood that moment to moment thoughts arise and fall. Mind arises and falls. Mind has a limitation and mind cannot go to the gap in between two thoughts. Thought cannot understand what happens after the end of thought.
