Experiencing Real Self.
When your mind and heart are truly open abundance will flow to you effortlessly and easily.
Question:
Dear Deepak, You said in a recent response that “Meditation gives you experience of your true self, pure consciousness which is your real self beyond your ego, and memories, beyond your body, even beyond your observer self,” which I need your help with. How does meditation give you this experience? Meditation, primarily the form you teach is the practice of sitting still in a comfortable position with your eyes closed, and repeating a single word or phrase in an attempt to, if at least for a moment, to stop thinking, which as you say allows you to dip into the gap between thoughts, where are true self lies. Those are wonderful words and a way to say to have an experience of no thought. What is this experience like? I assume we have it all the time, and it doesn’t feel like anything to me. I’m not trying to raise issues by arguing definitions between beliefs but how can meditation give us an experience of our true self, if our true self is beyond all these things, even the observer, then it cannot be experienced, can it not? Please correct me if I’m wrong, I’m trying only to understand. To experience anything there must be 1) the observer, and 2) something to be observed. Number two, no matter what it is, whether it be something to look at or a feeling or an event is a thought. Everything we experience is a thought, and our true self is not a thought… or is it? If our true self is the observer and the observed, and the process of observing, then isn’t the experience of our true self just being alive? I mean if I look at my computer screen now I’m having an experience, so what is the difference between that experience and experiencing my true self? I mean Who we are is all of that, I’m the one observing the computer, and also the computer, and the act of observing it. I don’t know if I’m just desensitized by the wonderment of this fact, having realized it a while ago, but from a realistic standpoint, how can sitting quietly and repeating a mantra, drifting to thoughts, and back again allow us to experience anything than being relaxed? If you can’t know you’re in the gap because there is no point of reference and no experience then what is it you are speaking about?
Response:
The common use of the word “experience” implies a subject perceiving or knowing an object. That act of cognition is termed “experience.” During meditation, when awareness (subject) of the mantra (object) becomes more and more subtle or refined, the clear delineation of the experience becomes much vaguer. When the mantra fades completely and there is no thought or mental activity, consciousness is left to itself, knowing itself by itself. We call it experience even though it doesn’t fit the standard subject-object model, because it is awake, not asleep, and because in that awareness the is self-recognition, knowingness that this is core existence. This Self is the point of reference; it is the basis of all experience.
Love,
Deepak
