Notes - 3

To be free from attraction and repulsion, from the wish to take or to

avoid, to enter into the mood of complete impartiality -- is the art.

 

   The `past' is a memory,

   The `future' is a supposition,

   The `present' is passed before we can apprehend it.

   The only present therefore is presence and must necessarily be what we

are.

   Such presence then is inevitably outside time and must be intemporality.

 

   We can conceive infinity, vaguely perhaps, as unlimited space and

intemporality as unlimited time, both continuing forever. But try as we

may, we are unable to conceive the absence of space and the absence of

time, and we have no words for these conceptual absences. `Outside space

and time' is also a vague expression of poetical character, and

`spaceless' and `timeless' have no significance that is capable of

visualization.

   It is the absence of concept for a condition in which neither space nor

time exists that is significant, for existence itself, as such, is

dependent on the concept of space and time. This has a profound

significance since what is objectifiable is conceivable.

   What then is non-objectifiable? Anything and everything imaginable is

conceived in imagination. What then could be inconceivable? Only that

which is conceiving is itself inconceivable -- for only what is conceiving

cannot, when conceiving, conceive itself, any more than an eye can see its

own looking! This would mean that what we are is conceiving, and so what

we are or I am is inconceivable! The phenomenal absence of space-time,

being inconceivable, must therefore be our own phenomenal absence!

   Objective existence is phenomenal appearance only, non-objective

existence is unaware of existing; objective existence is figuration in

mind, non-objective existence only `exists' as such mind, cognizing

everything except what is cognizing; objective mind is self-elaboration in

space-time, non-objective mind is phenomenally void.

   By whom is this being said? By mind attempting to see itself -- and not

succeeding. `It' cannot cognize what is cognizing.

 

   What you are trying to see is what is looking! What else could there be

for you to see?

   Who is trying to worship what!?

----

   Prajna is Light, seeking out darkness, and never finding it; for

wherever Light is darkness vanishes, since darkness is absence of the

presence of Light.

   Prajna is knowing, seeking ignorance, and never finding it; for

wherever knowing is ignorance vanishes, since ignorance is absence of the

presence of knowing.

   Prajna is functioning, seeking repose, and never finding it; for

wherever functioning is repose vanishes, since repose is absence of the

presence of functioning.

   Prajna is subject, seeking object and never finding it; for wherever

subject is object vanishes, since object sought is absence of the presence

of subject seeking.

 

   The electric current is what is implied by `prajna'; where sentient

beings are concerned, it is the act of action, the living of life. Nobody

knows what electricity is, nobody knows what prajna is. Both terms are

just names given to concepts that seek to describe in dualistic language a

basic `energy' that enables appearance to appear and being to be. When

contact is made, we know it as light and as life; when contact is broken

we know it as darkness and as death. But the source of energy remains

intact and intangible.

   Are we the hot resistance and the light, or the cold resistance and the

darkness -- or are we the vital current itself?

----

   Communion with your godhead (Chittie) will give you the understanding

or inseeing which you seek according to your capacity to receive it.

   The most infinite Divinity to which we can pray is but a speck of the

Absolute of All.

 

If we clearly apperceive the difference

Between direct perception in Whole-mind

And relative comprehension by reasoning

In mind divided into subject and object,

All the apparent mysteries will disappear;

For that will found to be the key

Which unlocks the doors of incomprehension.

 

   If I am awake, who could there be to know it if you are the dreamer and

are asleep?

 

   Here, in Me living as one, O Arjuna! behold the whole universe, movable

and immovable, and anything else that thou wouldst see.

----

   `Death' is nonsense: what is there to die? Life! How could life die?

Can light become darkness? Light can only cease to be apparent.

 

   Who could there be to be born, to be lived, to be killed?

   What could there be to be brought into existence or to be taken out

of existence?

   Where could there be a space in which objective existence could be

extended?

   When could there be a time in which objective existence could have

duration?

----

   The better is one thing, the other more pleasant. Both these are

attached to the soul.

   The better is one thing, the other more pleasant. Both approach man.

Having examined them from all sides, the wise man discriminates between

them and chooses the better rather than the more pleasant.

   Wisdom -- that is the balance of the opposites.

   Which at first seems like poison but afterwards acts like nectar --

that pleasure is pure, for it is born of wisdom.

 

   As a fire is shrouded in smoke, a mirror by dust, and a child by the

womb, so is the Universe enveloped in desire.

 

   Desire or aversion is a movement of the psyche towards or away from

some object thought of as outside itself. It is thus a movement

essentially of ignorance.

   Both attraction and repulsion are desire, and they are the two great

motor energies in life into which all desires are ultimately resolvable.

   Desire works through the senses, the mind and reason, and with their

help destroys wisdom and confounds the Soul (self).

   The love and hate which are aroused by the objects of sense arise from

nature. Do not yield to them. They only obstruct the path.

   Oft times, denying yourself pleasure you do/ the desire in the recess

of your being.

   Insight into the futility of all personal desires is one thing; their

utter eradication and uprooting from the heart is another.

 

   Longing to experience again pleasure and avoid pain is the germination

of the desire (pattern) aspect. In the lower stages of evolution, the

impulses are registered but not recognized, since no method, mental

observation, or analysis and judgment are possible.

 

   The force of desire is propulsive, not directive. Thought it is that

adds the element of direction.

   What physical craving is to the body, unlicensed imagination is to the

mind.

   Thoughts create feelings, repeated feelings create function, and

functions become automatic habit.

   A star does not cease to be when it sinks below the western horizon and

becomes invisible. Our thoughts do not cease to have effect on us simply

because we cease to think about them.

   There are deep unseen currents that sway the thoughts and deeds of men.

 

   The waste matter of thought remains unexcreted and unexpressed and

turns in his mind, giving rise to morbid imaginings, fixed ideas, and

recurring thoughts and dreams which he cannot escape. These are mental

poisons.

   There are physical, intellectual and emotional poisons; there are

poisonous drugs, insects and men. One may suffer from a poisoned finger,

a poisoned mind or a poisoned society.

 

   Call yourself conscious, reasoning beings, talk about God, about

eternity and other high matters, but in what chaos is this being we call

man?

   Man has thought of conquest as relating only to his external world,

unmindful of the sea of forces raging within his innermost life.

 

   My Lord, what is it that drives a man to sin, even against his will, as

if by compulsion?

   I want to know why apparently intelligent individuals so often behave

in certain ways against their own inclinations and wishes.

   The mind of him who is trying to conquer it is forcibly carried away in

spite of his efforts by his tumultuous senses.

   Neither is it possible in any way to hold the senses firm by mere

strength.

 

   And what may be called `will' in man is nothing but the resultant of

his wishes.

   It is idle to speak of will in a man who is the slave to objects around

him. So long as attraction and repulsion determine the path, all talk of

freedom is empty and foolish.

 

   Not to be driven by life requires a special inner development.

   Why live so automatically that it is enough to have a key for winding

up the spring of your mechanism?

   If you are so unguarded within, if all your inner life depends on outer

events -- then indeed you have no individuality.

 

   Intellectual function wants to read, motor function wants to ride,

digestion wants to eat, metabolism wants heat or cold, passion wants its

own satisfactions... Such are the many `I's of man, demanding,

contradictory and confusing.

   With restless movements (not only physical, but emotional and mental

too) you cannot be anything.

   You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts.

   Sit for one hour alone, relax physically, emotionally and mentally.

Look on your associations as if they belonged to someone else.

 

   All our actions follow the line of least resistance to the pressure of

outside circumstances.

   All our knowledge, which is merely information, may be valuable or

worthless. It is equally easy to lose it because it is poured into us like

some liquid.

 

   Positive identity is to exist according to one's own essential pattern,

to be what one is. Negative identity is essential non-existence; it is to

be what one is not. Being what one is not, and confronted with being what

one is, is to have constant internal conflicts. This state of will is

called fear.

   Fear is negative identity. It is neither a state of consciousness nor a

mode of being. Fear is an evil force in all the worlds to which it can

penetrate. It is closely allied to other negative forms such as anxiety,

suspicion, jealousy, anger, arrogance, and grasping. Fear is contagious.

 

   We must learn to put aside the inhibiting forces of wrong thinking, to

become hermetically sealed towards negative emotions; they lead one back

to the state of prehistoric man.

   If you were to take away all the negative emotions from most people,

they would not have any source of happiness left.

   Doubt is a mild form of expressing something stronger and more

dangerous -- failure.

 

   I stay my haste, I make delays;

   For what avails this eager pace?

   I stand amid the eternal ways,

   And what is mine shall know my face.

 

   Because I had forsaken unity with Thee,

   Because I, fool, had made my body Me,

   Because I did not know Thee who didst dwell in me,

   Therefore I wandered through raging hells,

   Because I threw away my very Self,

   I, therefore, was in chains.

 

   You have not known what you are, you have slumbered upon yourself all

your life, your eyelids have been the same as closed most of the time,

what you have done returns already in mockeries. The mockeries are not

you; underneath them and within them I see you lurk.