Circolo Vegetariano VV.TT. Calcata

Our observation of this world, both the inner one (of emotion) and the exterior one (of objects), is hardly ever “clean”, from what one would call interpretation or conceptualization.

We are used to judging what we observe after filtering it with our memory and sensations connected to past experiences. Even in new events and ideas that have not yet been conceived we can’t help trying to “understand” and measure on the basis of what is already known to us. Here, this “pre knowledge” is our “slavery”, but if we could let ourselves go to the point of being able to observe ourselves while the mechanism of  “prejudice” breaks out and understand how it works we could already consider this “attention” as a first form of meditation and detachment from the appropriative process which is in course.

Lets make a practical example to simplify this attempt by moving our attention from the “I” that judges to the witnessing ability of pure consciousness, by analyzing the functionality of dreams. When we dream everything happens as if it were already built and defined while at the same time the happenings of the dream maintain a sense of imponderability. The specific character of our dream, in which we identify ourselves, is in itself an inseparable component of the complexity of the dream, in which the various actors, characters, objects and events are an all in one.  Apparently, the “parody” of the dream seems to have a purpose and a meaning in the eyes of the character of the dream in which we identify ourselves. He actually complies with determined actions and plausible efforts to obtain his purpose in the dream, relating himself to the other characters of the dream as if they were “different” beings from himself.

Can this correspond to reality?

All aspects of the dream are produced by the same mind and are not controllable in any way or manageable by any character or situation of the dream. All these elements are simple “passive” components of the dream which have been imagined by the mind of the dreamer.  From the “empirical” point of view we could say that in experience during a waking state the “creative” process is practically the same. All objects and subjects that are reciprocally perceived (being each one of them both subject and object in the perception of others) are born from the same “Mind”, or Consciousness, and are portrayed on the conceptual screen for the space-temporal events. Actually, in total function, there cannot be a personal volition or finality, because (just like in dreams) everything happens irrespectively and free from the intentions of any other characters of the dream. Apparently they may take on themselves the sense of affirmation or negation of their “will”, but this happens only as a consequence of the effective consideration of the events that have already been lived. In other words, after having “judged” what has happened and having lived them as one’s own experience (through the sense of identification) they are defined positively or negatively. (according to the purpose of the character).

Furthermore we get to the waking state and discover that – just like in dreams – its not the single beings that manifest life and it’s components but rather Consciousness itself, in it’s commitment of operating the vivification of it’s emanations and manifestations that can only be by means of itself.

For this reason it is said that when the “me” disappears, the “I” manifests itself (Ramakrishna Paramahansa), in other words when the individual identification ceases the impersonal Consciousness emerges. It is also said that it “emerges” because this pure Consciousness is already inborn in the same individual (just like the mind is present in the character that we dream ) and that the “substance” does not belong to the changeable appearance but it is it’s essence which gives it life. Obviously in the case of  the “awakening” of the “I”, the sense of individual identity “dies” but this does not imply the automatic disappearance of it’s outward “appearance”, which will continue to exist in the “other” observers’ perception, it will be emptied from any objective identification, being the awakened purely and simply “subjective ness”. (Awareness without attributes).

Spontaneity is the “behavioural” characteristic of the “awakened” person, where spontaneity means the simple capacity of giving an adequate and appropriate response to situations in which one finds himself. In such a being, there cannot be any shade of intentionality or judgement, of desire or repulsion. His “will” corresponds exactly to the events one lives through without having to look for them. This kind of state can be defined as: Freedom.

To add meaning to the true nature of “being” and the “return” to it’s awareness, if we admit that such nature is the same for each one of us, I would like to quote Nisargadatta Maharaj, who said that: “If you have really perceived that which I am talking about then it doesn’t really matter what you do or don’t do,” This means that in both cases intrinsic reality does not change and that which is destined to happen will happen anyway on it’s own…

Ramana Maharshi used to say: “We must know our mind so we will not be cheated by it..”