Fasting of the Mind Needed to Reflect Reality

 Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Maharaj says that awareness comes from the Absolute (Avyakta) and pervades the inner self (Vyakta). The outer self (Vyakti) is that part of one's being of which one is not aware, inasmuch as, although one may be conscious (for every sentient being has consciousness), it is possible for one not to be aware. In other words, the outer self (Vyakti) is delineated by the physical body; the inner self (Vyakta) by consciousness, and it is only in Pure Awareness that the Supreme (Avyakta) can be contacted.

There can never be any experience as such of the Absolute for the simple reason that there cannot possibly be anything objective about the Absolute, which is essentially pure subjectivity. It is the inner self-consciousness which is the experiencing medium for all experience. The Absolute provides the potentiality for the experience; the self provides the actuality.

The individual person's contact with the awareness of the Awareness can come about only when the mind is fasting as it were, because then the process of conceptualizing cases. When the mind is quiet, it reflects Reality; when the mind is absolutely motionless it dissolves and only Reality remains. That is why, says Maharaj again and again, it is necessary to be one with consciousness. When the mind feasts, Reality disappears; when the mind fasts, Reality enters.

Awareness, Maharaj points out in yet another way, when it is in contact with an object, a physical form, becomes witnessing. When at the same time there is self-identification with the object, such a state becomes the 'person'. In Reality, there is only one state; when corrupted and tainted by self-identification, it may be called a person (Vyakti); when it is tinted by a sense of being, the resulting consciousness becomes the witnessing; when it remains in its pristine purity, untainted and untinted, it is the Supreme, the Absolute.

It is necessary to be clear about the difference, notional though it be, between awareness of the Absolute and consciousness in which the universe appears, Maharaj repeatedly warns us. One is only the reflection of the other. But reflection of the sun in the dew drop is not the sun. In the absence of objectivization, as in deep sleep, the apparent universe is not, but we are. This is so because what we are is what the apparent universe is and vice versa - dual in presence, non-dual in absence; irreconcilably separate in concept, inviolably united when unconceived.