“The Self can be understood as the illumination within the experience but you cannot say the Self is not also the elements of the experience,” said Ram
“So is the Self everything?” said I.
“Yes,” said Ram, “but it is best and most lucid to understand it as the experiencing of everything.”
“So that means the I thought that we were discussing yesterday is also the Self?” said I.
“Yes, that is said and from the ultimate position it is a true statement but it is not a helpful statement to the sadhak because the I thought is a position of ignorance and from a viewpoint of ignorance you cannot perceive the reality. The point is, the permanence of the Self is the power of illumination; which you know as the power of experiencing, the activity within the Self is the impermanent manifestation of experience, that is the major point. There is nothing wrong with the impermanence, it just cannot be said to be the enduring, formless I. Let me put it another way. There is a mind; it is that power in which all these fluctuations arise and move. What you are is that which is experiencing the mind. Not the movements within the mind and not the mind itself but that which is experiencing the mind.
The seer’s knowledge is to know this constantly, even during the changing experience. This is Self-realisation, to know the substance of the Self even whilst movement plays and ripples flow. Ignorance is to have no knowledge of this at all and to be possessed by the belief that I am the movements and fluctuations. The mistake the sadhak makes is believing that only peace is legitimate and that agitation is somehow wrong or bad. Now it may be unwelcome but that’s another matter, that’s to do with preference and character. It is perfectly understandable that the sadhak wants to align herself with the inspiring and distance herself from the mundane or challenging. That is sensible and wise, it sweetens experience but even in those times when circumstance is mundane or challenging, the Self still prevails because the Self is the being within the experience, or to use the traditional language, the witness. That’s what the Upanishads have been calling the Self for thousands of years, the witness, or as we are enhancing the Upanishads today, I will call the witnessing power. Do you recognise that that is here now?”
“Yes,” said I, “it must be.”
“That’s right,” said Ram, “it must be here now for there to be any existence at all. It is here for you, for I and for everyone else who is alive, and listen, I want to emphasise to you the amazing thing, the thing that once you see it, changes everything. This presenting power that we are calling the Self with all its awesome majesty and incredible properties of manifestation and creativity is here completely spontaneously and naturally. It is the effortless illumination of the moment; effortless I say in the sense that there is nothing whatsoever that you have to do to generate or sustain it, and that is truly stunning. This effortless, spontaneous power is the ground of existence upon which everything else stands; it is being itself. So magnificent is it, that we can understand it as the very substance of God living as all this, as you.”