Читать книгу Making Your Wisdom Come Alive - Michael PhD Gluckman - Страница 22

Is the thought, ‘I,’ the very subject of our experience? ‘I’ think, ‘I’ have good thoughts, ‘I’ get angry, ‘I’ am a secretary, a doctor, etc. You often mistake this little word, ‘I,’ attached to your thoughts to be you, the subject. In Indian philosophy this is sometimes called the ego. You can consider this ‘I’ thought to be the hook that makes thoughts seem like they define you. Yet when you look carefully you can easily see that you are also aware of this thought, and by your awareness you are even greater than the thought of ‘I.’

So in your meditation notice that you are aware of the thought that seems to be the subject, ‘I,’ as well as the object that seems to consume your attention. This ‘I’ thought is just another object in your awareness; it is not you.

This ‘I’ also appears to provide continuity between all of your various experiences in the waking state, when you are dreaming, and when you are in the deep sleep state. Here the ‘I’ thought is more subtle than just a thought. It is an assumption that somehow the environment of thoughts that populates your mind provides the feeling of continuity for your life. Yet it is interesting that when you look, you find the thoughts in the waking state are often completely different from the thoughts in the dream state.

In the waking state you may be a rich person living in a mansion, while in the dream you become a pauper living in complete poverty. While you are dreaming, the dream character seems to be what is real and what is happening. All your problems, as you try desperately to find a place to live, seem real and they are indeed very important problems. However, when you get a glimmer that this is just a dream, you begin to wake up. At that point all of your dream problems go away.

Then in the deep sleep state there are no thoughts at all, just the most subtle sense of ‘I’. In the deep sleep state it feels as if you are experiencing nothing because everything objective, including the mind, is gone. Yet on awaking you know if you had a good sleep or not, and if you did, you feel good. How much do people spend on beds, mattresses and pillows just to insure that they will get a good night’s rest? Everyone craves that sense of bliss that they experience when the world, the body, and mind are gone.

The deep sleep state is sometimes called primal ignorance or our experience of the very seed of life. Although this state is not Self-Knowledge, the formless bliss that you feel is a pointer to eternity. There are two problems with the deep sleep state. One, that it is not conscious (That is why people don’t want to sleep their whole life away); two, that it comes to an end.

Abiding as unborn Awareness takes care of these problems. You are so conscious in fact that it is consciousness without filters on it. You stand on this side of your filters. Maybe that is where this biblical verse points:

For now we see in a mirror, dimly,

but then face to face. Now I know in part,

but then I shall know just as I also am known.

I Corinthians Chapter 13, Verse 12

With your thoughts completely changing, and finally disappearing in the deep sleep state, how can thoughts provide the sense of continuity that you feel between the waking, dream and deep sleep states? They can’t even provide the sense of continuity that you feel within each state.

This very sense of continuity must come from the subject itself which I think you will see is greater than the world, body, pranas, mind and the subtle sense of ‘I.’ It is also greater than all of the changes that they go through. Although Awareness is so vast and great, it feels like just who you are. As this Awareness, the true subject, you feel right at home.

From here you will see why identifying with limitation felt so cramped and uncomfortable. It was like wearing a shoe that didn’t fit. What relief and joy when you strip off your assumptions of limitation, and stand naked in the truth.

So now you may have a sense that you are not what you see. The limitations that were supposed to be you, aren’t you at all. They are just objects that you see. So what are you anyway? Next we will talk about what’s left in the chapter, “What’s left.”