Pure Consciousness wholly unrelated to the physical body and transcending the mind is a matter of direct experience. Sages know their bodiless, eternal existence, just as an unrealised man knows his bodily existence. But the experience of Consciousness can be with bodily awareness as well as without it. In the bodiless experience of Pure Consciousness the Sage is beyond time and space, and no question about the position of the Heart can arise at all. Since, however, the physical body can not subsist (with life) apart from Consciousness, bodily awareness has to be sustained by pure Consciousness. The former, by nature, is limited and can never be co-extensive with the latter which is Infinite and Eternal. Body-consciousness is merely a miniature reflection of the pure Consciousness with which the Sage has realised his identity. For him, therefore, body-consciousness is only a reflected ray, as it were, of the self-effulgent, infinite Consciousness which is himself. It is in this sense alone that the Sage is aware of his bodily existence.
10/14/2016
Conscious Immortality
CONSCIOUS IMMORTALITY
174-In the Yoga Vasishta it says that what is real is hidden from us, but what is false is revealed as true. Actually, we are experiencing only the Reality, but we do not know it. Isn't it the wonder of wonders?
Q: Are our attempts sure to succeed?
M: Realization is our nature. It is nothing new to be gained. What is new cannot be eternal, therefore there is no need to doubt whether one will gain or lose the Self.
When I had the 'death' experience as a lad, I entered into the Self and since then I have not 'progressed' or moved one iota. It has remained the same ever since — there has been no development.
The Maharshi told us that when he was a youth, the actual process of obtaining spiritual Self realization took no longer than twenty minutes. The next few years were spent in establishing this Realization in gradual adjustment.
- p. 174
