Self Awareness Through Meditation

Author(s): Ranjitsingh Kumat
Publisher: Ranjitsingh Kumat

Page 17

SELF AWARENESS THROUGH MEDITATION
xvii
map of each such exploration and interpretation and gives us an appraisal of "That Which Is" and its essence.
Self-awareness is as much a part of an appraisal of Reality as are our physical perceptions. Indeed it is the essence of Reality and our awareness of it. I see because I am; I smell because I am; I touch because I am. Or vice versa! But I am neither sight, nor smell nor touch nor any of the other sense dimensions of Being. Nor is the Self the sum of all the physical perceptions. Clearly, a holistic and integrated view of the Self is crucial. Time and Space and their integral dynamic and their intrinsic essence are what make for Reality. It is axiomatic that it is bliss to know one's real-Self and a sorrowful disaster to forget it. Sri Aurobindo unravelled in his analysis different layers and levels of consciousness and showed that to reach the supramental is to experience the True Self. Through his experience of the Self, he the time-tested science of Yoga.
gave us back The following observations of Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj quoted by Shri Kumat illumine the quest of Self and its modality "Meet your own self. Be with your own self, listen to it, obey it, cherish it, and keep it in mind ceaselessly. You need no other guide. Live your life without hurting anybody. Harmlessness is a most powerful form of Yoga and it will take you speedily to your goal. This is what I call nisarga yoga, the Natural yoga. It is the art of living in peace and harmony, in friendliness and love. The fruit of it is happiness, uncaused and endless." The author, Shri Kumat, recognizes and concedes that the greatest difference in experiencing reality or having self-awareness is the identification with mind. In the words of Eckhart Tolle the author of the book "The Power of Now", "the incessant mental noise prevents you from finding that realm of inner stillness that is inseparable from being (self). It also creates a false mind-made Self that casts a shadow of fear and suffering.... Enlightenment is not only the end of suffering and of continuous conflict within and without, but also the end of the dreadful enslavement to incessant thinking. Identification with mind creates an opaque screen of concepts, labels, images, words, judgments and definitions that blocks all true relationship. It comes between you and yourself, between you and your fellow man and woman, between you and nature, between you and God. It is this screen of thought that creates the illusion of separateness, the illusion that there is you and a totally separate "other". You can no longer feel this oneness as self-evident reality. Only through your own experience, however, does it become liberating." Mind is thus the culprit barrier, for it is the mind that