| Listen to Prabhaata-rashmih Audio |
Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru.
See, I was speaking yesterday about one factor. Just imagine how the seekers are getting absolutely inattentive and they get away from the responsibility. What is the responsibility? The whole creation consists of pañcabhūtas. All the bhūtas are things which have become – bhavati iti bhūtaḥ. It has become. Like what? Water has become ice. It has become vapour. Now, in the case of water, ice, and vapour, the root substance is water. It is visible, feelable, the ice and vapour also are. In the same manner, something has become the pañcabhūtas. Now we are to reach there - what is that which has become the five? And what are the five? Solid, fluid, gaseous, different forms of energy, which penetrate or manifest in these three, and finally, space, which is a ground for all the four. Now, these are all matter and energy perceptible to the senses. Our body consists of these pañcabhūtas.
Now, when I ask you, you cannot escape this question. Is our personality only the pañcabhūtas? Yes, when life forces - the person has gone, then it is pañcabhūtas. As long as the body is living, that livingness in the body is not a product or an outcome of the pañcabhūtas. Body is matter and energy. But the matter-energy aggregate called the body is animated and activated by a sixth factor. Now, will you agree or not that there is a sixth factor? If you agree that there is a sixth factor, it is this factor that makes the body animate on the one hand and active on the other. What all are the different forms of activities? Physical and sensory activities, oral activities. When I speak, I am only generating the sound. The matter particles in the body are taken and they are converted into sound. So the sound part is energy, no doubt. But with every sound, some idea, knowledge, and emotion are conveyed. They are not matter.
So something is there within the body which expresses itself in the form of sound, but conveying knowledge and emotions, experiences. So that is a conscious entity. That entity makes speech. It also brings about physical and mechanical movements. Now go further down. It makes thoughts, it makes feelings, it makes memories, it makes doubt, it makes enquiry, it makes knowledge. Can you say that there is nothing in the body which is doing all these things? So there is a presence. There is a presence which is invisible and imperceptible to the senses, I agree. But its effects are constantly had in us. When the effects are had, you cannot say the cause is not there. That causal factor or the source, why is it that you are not able to sense it? How do you sense a thought when it comes? How do you sense a feeling when it comes? How do you sense a memory when it comes? When you are not able to get the memory, you also know that “I am not able to get the memory.” All these are conscious functions. So there is a consciousness which does all these conscious functions. How can you miss it?
The trouble is that you look for it in the form of perceptible phenomena. What are they - either in the form of light or sound or touch or smell or taste, but they are not this. That is not this. It is something different. Where can you trace it? You can trace it while thinking, while memorizing, while doing the knowledge functions. So sit in a place, think … think … think … think … but not to chase the object or outcome of thought, but to trace the very thinking substance in source. Take a very thin fibre. Fill a glass full of oil. And with a small fibre, you insert it into the glass and start stirring the oil gently, slowly. You will find some kind of a movement takes place in the oil. This example is not perfect. No example is perfect. Because examples are from the matter sphere, but the thing to be illustrated is supra-matter. So these cannot explain the other, but these alone are available before us.
When the oil started whirling around in a simple manner, apart from this whirling, is there not oil there? While the thinking is going on, can you say thinking as a function alone is there, or some substance does the thinking function? Normally when you think, you are running after the ideas of the thoughts, the outcome of the thoughts. I want you to sit and think deliberately with a view to find out what is that source, which does the thinking. We are not interested in the products and outcome of thoughts. We are not interested in the ideas and associations of the thoughts. We want to know what thinks!
If you want to know that, there is only one way. Sit. Go on looking at the thoughts and let the thoughts become slower, slower, and slower, until at last you will find the slow thought arising from a point. You know, the thought should arise in such a manner that you are able to understand what becomes the thought, wherefrom does the thought arise. Every thought arises and subsides. So the source is clearly before the thought, after the thought. If you are conscious of your thought, you can equally be conscious of the source of the thought. So while thinking, your attempt should be to reach at the source and the terminus. But when I say this, it is words in a barren land. Nobody will heed me.
You are sensing the thought. How can you say that I am not able to sense the substance thinking? I am walking. While walking, does the leg disappear or leg’s own action is walking? Leg in a state of movement is called walking. So there is a source and a substance which does the function called thinking. While you are conscious of the thought, how can you miss the source and substance of the thinking function? My dear souls, it is so simple, so easy, so direct, but I don’t know what prevents people from searching and finding it out.
yadvācā'nabhyuditaṁ yena vāgabhyudyate | (Kena Upanishad 1.5)
yanmanasā na manute yenāhurmano matam | (Kena Upanishad 1.6)
What is that function called mentation? There is a source substance there. That source substance is not a matter. It is not an energy. I ask people. When you sit in a place, I am sitting here, if you come and touch any part of my body gently, I will know it. How do I know? If I were a dead body, I would not have known. So there is some livingness in me which makes me know that the body is touched. So there is a presence which makes me aware. So I am in the whole body, my full range is the body. How do I know the whole range of the body unless I am in the body throughout? So, what makes me feel that you have touched me, that substance how can you miss? We are missing, you know why? Because we have never searched for it. We have always been wanting to activate the body, activate the thought process, activate the knowledge process, and run after its outcome, outcome, outcome, but never have we used the thought process to take us to the very source of thinking.
So, what is this Self-Realization? Self-Realization is realizing the thinking substance. I cannot call it a substance but that is the only word available. That which thinks! It is something like understanding the legs that walk, the tongue that speaks, the eyes that see. How can you say that this is not possible? Ok, it is not possible. Then what are you doing? You are doing something entirely different. Instead of doing this, if you do something in the way of alternate, will it work? So, you have to penetrate into the thought process, get into the thinking substance, until at last you are able to sense it. Think, think, think, think - only to know the thinking substance, only to know the thinking substance. If you can delve thus into the very thought process, you cannot miss the Self.
Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru.
* * *
