Question: You have mentioned that final Self-realisation is when the mind actually
‘dies’ irreversibly in the Self. You have also mentioned how Papaji used to sometimes
give an account of his life based on memory of his earlier narration. The idea of
memories and a dead mind seem contradictory. Could you please clarify this?
David Godman: Many people are puzzled by this apparent conundrum. A dead mind is one in
which there is no thinker of thoughts, no perceiver of perceptions, no rememberer of
memories. The thoughts, the perceptions and the memories can still be there, but there
is no one who believes, ‘I am remembering this incident,’ and so on. These thoughts
and memories can exist quite happily in the Self, but what is completely absent is the
idea that there is a person who experiences or owns them.
Papaji once gave a nice analogy: ‘You are sitting by the side of the road and cars
are speeding past you in both directions. These are like the thoughts, memories and
desires in your head. They are nothing to do with you, but you insist on attaching
yourself to them. You grab the bumper of a passing car and get dragged along by it until
you are forced to let go. This in itself is a stupid thing to do, but you don’t even learn
from your mistake. You then proceed to grab hold of the bumper of the next car that
comes your way. This is how you all live your lives: attaching yourself to things that are
none of your business and suffering unnecessarily as a result. Don’t attach yourself to a
single thought, perception or idea and you will be happy.’
In a dead mind the ‘traffic’ of mental activity may still be there, usually at a more
subdued level, but there is no one who can grab hold of the bumper of an idea or a
perception. This is the difference between a quiet mind and no mind at all. When the
mind is still and quiet, the person who might attach himself or herself to the bumper of a
new idea is still there, but when there is no mind at all, when the mind is dead, the idea
that there is a person who might identify with an object of thought has been
permanently eradicated. That is why it is called ‘dead mind’ or ‘destroyed mind’ in the
Ramana literature. It is a state in which the possibility of identification with thoughts or
ideas has definitively ended.
Sri Sundara Chaitanya Swami says there is no need to stop waves to understand about ocean. Similarly there is no need to supress/kill the mind but only required to understand the nature of mind. Non-identification with waves or mind is required. If we want to know nature of pot there is no need to break the pot. Mithya means which is neither true nor false and which is dependent on other thing. Problem is though we are satyam(truth) i.e ocean in the above example we think we are mithya(waves) and start thinking of all the problems of waves as we compare ourselves with waves and then we start trying to solve our problems related to waves. Here waves relate to mind and our nature is ocean on which everything (mind,indriyas..) is dependent.So solution is to know that we are not the mind which is mithya but the self which is permamnent.
‘dies’ irreversibly in the Self. You have also mentioned how Papaji used to sometimes
give an account of his life based on memory of his earlier narration. The idea of
memories and a dead mind seem contradictory. Could you please clarify this?
David Godman: Many people are puzzled by this apparent conundrum. A dead mind is one in
which there is no thinker of thoughts, no perceiver of perceptions, no rememberer of
memories. The thoughts, the perceptions and the memories can still be there, but there
is no one who believes, ‘I am remembering this incident,’ and so on. These thoughts
and memories can exist quite happily in the Self, but what is completely absent is the
idea that there is a person who experiences or owns them.
Papaji once gave a nice analogy: ‘You are sitting by the side of the road and cars
are speeding past you in both directions. These are like the thoughts, memories and
desires in your head. They are nothing to do with you, but you insist on attaching
yourself to them. You grab the bumper of a passing car and get dragged along by it until
you are forced to let go. This in itself is a stupid thing to do, but you don’t even learn
from your mistake. You then proceed to grab hold of the bumper of the next car that
comes your way. This is how you all live your lives: attaching yourself to things that are
none of your business and suffering unnecessarily as a result. Don’t attach yourself to a
single thought, perception or idea and you will be happy.’
In a dead mind the ‘traffic’ of mental activity may still be there, usually at a more
subdued level, but there is no one who can grab hold of the bumper of an idea or a
perception. This is the difference between a quiet mind and no mind at all. When the
mind is still and quiet, the person who might attach himself or herself to the bumper of a
new idea is still there, but when there is no mind at all, when the mind is dead, the idea
that there is a person who might identify with an object of thought has been
permanently eradicated. That is why it is called ‘dead mind’ or ‘destroyed mind’ in the
Ramana literature. It is a state in which the possibility of identification with thoughts or
ideas has definitively ended.
Sri Sundara Chaitanya Swami says there is no need to stop waves to understand about ocean. Similarly there is no need to supress/kill the mind but only required to understand the nature of mind. Non-identification with waves or mind is required. If we want to know nature of pot there is no need to break the pot. Mithya means which is neither true nor false and which is dependent on other thing. Problem is though we are satyam(truth) i.e ocean in the above example we think we are mithya(waves) and start thinking of all the problems of waves as we compare ourselves with waves and then we start trying to solve our problems related to waves. Here waves relate to mind and our nature is ocean on which everything (mind,indriyas..) is dependent.So solution is to know that we are not the mind which is mithya but the self which is permamnent.
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