MODIFICATIONS
OF THE MIND
by
N.Sri Ram
Talk
given at the Australian Convention at Broken Bay in April 1965
Each
man is a continuing body of consciousness with a coat of matter which in a
simple view is his physical body. I call it a body of consciousness because
it has its contents in a particular form which varies for each individual,
and this is a continuing body, being modified every instant partially, but
never wholly until it is dissolved by death.
This
entity of consciousness, obviously, is conscious at different levels, not
only the physical level, but also emotionally, mentally and perhaps in other
ways. Physically, the characteristic of consciousness is sentience - the registering
of sensations which takes place through the different sense organs. I am conscious
I am seated on a piece of wood, that I am amidst trees, that I am surrounded
by people. All these objects as they affect me I know through different sensations,
which are all forms of knowing or consciousness. You are conscious that the
ground is hard, that something else is soft, that the sky is blue, the trees
are green and yellow, and so on. Now, you will see, if you shut out every
intruding thought, that consciousness consists in being conscious - you just
know, that is all, what there is to be known. This sounds a terrible truism,
but if we focus attention on that truth, we may be able to learn much from
it.
As
I said, I am conscious of all the things around me, of the various faces,
their expressions, and this consciousness of what is before me requires no
effort. I need not exert my will to become conscious. It is like opening my
eyes, then I see. When I am just conscious there is no activity of thought,
no play of attraction or repulsion. The word to use with regard to that state
is "awareness". Certain things exist as facts, I am aware of them.
This condition is purely negative, that is, if there is no disturbance by
the activity of thought, no interjections of different sorts, such as "I
want this, I don't want that", and so forth.
MIRROR-LIKE
This
negativity is like a mirror in which the objects present are reflected. You
hold up the mirror - that is the mirror of one's own perception, of awareness
- and whatever the objects may be, they are reflected in it. The mirror does
not have to make up its mind to reflect, it has no choice. If you place a
big enough mirror, the whole scene will be reflected in it.
This
negativity of consciousness is pure sensitiveness. The word negative is often
used in a depreciative sense: the positive is the good,the helpful,the negative
is the bad, the obstructive. But I am using he word negativity in a scientific
sense. It is not inertness, it is not vacancy or vagueness, but it is sensitiveness,
and that is the essential nature of consciousness.
I
compared awareness to a mirror and said the mirror has no choice. But we have
choice, or the consciousness has choice. I can pay attention or not pay attention.
I can be at the front, I can withdraw. I can be conscious, I can sink into
unconsciousness. So there is the play of will obviously to that extent. I
can open my eyes, I can close them. What decided this choice is will or wish.
Ordinarily,
what we call will contains factors of desire. "It is my will", we
say; we are obstinate, insistent, we assert ourselves. Why do we do all that?
Because there is behind it something we want, something we desire, or do not
like. There are almost always elements of desire in what we choose to call
will. The factor of will is very different from the nature of sensitivity.
When you use your will, the will is positive, it acts, it decides, whereas
awareness is negative, it is purely receptive. That is an important difference.
In fact, will and sensitiveness are complementary to each other.
THE
FACTOR OF WILL
In
the make-up of the human being there is a nature of sensitiveness which is
passive, receptive, but records everything in a most extraordinary manner,
and there is the will which goes out, which determines, which acts each instant
in a particular manner, and produces a change in the condition of consciousness.
This will enters, as I shall presently show, into every activity of consciousness.
When I say activity, I am distinguishing it from the mere receptivity which
is passive, which is mirror-like. In fact, the sensitiveness and will are
complementary, as are the circle and the radius. I am introducing this simile
because you will see presently it is illuminative The circle is an expanse,
whatever may be its size. Consciousness is also an expanse, it covers a field,
large or small. At this moment, if I am sufficiently awake, my consciousness
can take in all that is before it, exactly as though it is a photographic
plate, which reflects everything, including the minutest objects, with absolute
objectivity. But when we speak of the radius,it is just a single line which
is directed to a certain point on the circumference. Of course, if the circle
can make itself smaller or larger according to requirements, this radius,
though directed to only one point within the plane of the changing circle
at a particular moment, can cover all points by changing its direction.
There
is a little spot of brown grass over there, my attention is directed to it.
The relationship of my consciousness to that particular spot makes a radius.
The attention is pointed to that bit and excludes everything else. It is going
in one direction. But the attention can shift from that direction to another.
I can point to one thing within the circle at a certain moment. The next moment
it can shift to another point, and from there to another. It is as though
the radius constitutes direction, and the direction is moved under the action
of will.
When
I am aware of something spread out in space, this scene for instance - the
sky, the trees, the water, the hills, the ground, all of us here - we can
regard the whole as a kind of map, as something spread out. I am aware that
there is the whole of it, and I am also aware that there are different parts,
so many blades of grass, so many fallen leaves, the chairs, people seated,
and so forth. So awareness includes the consciousness that there is the whole
and that there are the various parts.
When
I am aware in that manner, I can will to turn my attention to a particular
part, an object, and not include other objects in my awareness. Consciousness
is a very manageable thing. You can expand it, you can contract it. You can
exclude, you can include. I can concentrate on one point, say one particular
face in this audience, or just one color. In doing so it is the factor of
will which operates. I can move the attention from that spot to another,and
that is also by will. It is as though the radius I spoke of is a ray of light,
it falls on one spot first and then on another. The nature of the action of
will is to cause a movement, a change.
The
darting of the ray, which is an activity in the field of consciousness, can
be extremely quick and cover very many points. It is something like what takes
place in television. You think you are looking at a picture. The fact of the
matter is that the points in that picture are lighted up by a line of light,
but this line moves with such extraordinary quickness, that you are unable
to take in the intervals of time and therefore the whole thing appears as
picture. The same thing happens in the processes of thought.
PROCESS
OF THINKING
When
you examine the process of thinking, which is a positive activity, it is not
negative sensitivity, the will is acting all the time. The activity consists
of a series of steps. Each step has to be initiated by an impulse, however
quick and easy it may be and what is impulse in the physical field is will
or the force of inclination in the field of consciousness. In the process
of thinking, although you may not be aware of that fact, there is this will
acting all the time, shifting from one image to another. It acts amongst the
images in the consciousness, in the memory. If there were no memory, you cannot
think,because there is no field on which this radius, this line of light,
can play.
Consciousness
is such an extraordinary thing. In its essential nature it is like a photographic
negative, receptive of impressions. The modern astronomer perceives many things
by means of his negative, which is so sensitive that it records objects in
space too minute for our eyes. The consciousness retains the impressions which
it receives, in a certain aspect of it indefinitely. You receive various impressions
in the course of your life,they are all recorded in the consciousness. You
may say, "don't we forget?" It is very well known that the brain,
the subconscious mind, records many things which you do not notice, which
you do not perceive, but it is possible, by applying a certain stimulus, to
evoke the image just as when you play a gramophone record the old songs are
reproduced. The images, the impressions which have been formed, which have
remained below the level of the conscious mind, can be brought up from the
recesses of the brain by a purely mechanical process. But I am not talking
of the brain, I am talking of consciousness.
These
impressions, when they are formed on the brain, can continue only for a length
of time because brain is matter and whatever is formed on the basis of matter,
must come to an end. But consciousness is not of the nature of matter, as
we know it, and there is a certain aspect of it where what is recorded in
the greatest minuteness is retained indefinitely. That is what is called Ãkãsha.
The impressions of the past constitute the memory of the individual.
SHIFTING
IMAGES SEEMINGLY
When
we say memory, it is not merely memory of yesterday, the previous year, and
so forth. It is also the memory of what was impressed the previous second.
Even that is in the shadow of memory. The pencil of light moves in the field
of these images in the thinking process. It acts as though it shifts these
images into different positions relatively to one another. I say "as
though"; because I do not think it really shifts the images, but it shifts
itself and therefore it appears as though the images are shifted, but that
is going into a further subtlety.
This
is a vast subject, so intricate, so very, very subtle; all we can do is to
try to understand. Our understanding of these matters is very imperfect, and
there must be an enormous amount more to know.
When
the images in the field of memory are shifted about, there arise different
relationships between them, and the consciousness in its aspects of sensitivity
notes these relationships. For instance, the distance between the two objects
is so much; placed next to another line it appears shorter, and so on. This
is really the activity of thought, reasoning, logic and inference.
Different
elements are present in the consciousness, different sensations, different
colors, different experiences, different forms. All these are marshalled in
various ways, as if they are moved about, and then they are constituted into
images, figures, structures, edifices, and this is what we call imagination
or image-making. The whole activity is extraordinary. This pencil of light
moves and turns upon itself in such a manner that by its own activity it seems
to be moving the whole field, all the images in it, into new relationships,
into new edifices. This activity takes place with lightening speed in our
ordinary thinking. Of course the speed of lightning can be measured, but this
cannot be measured, it can be instantaneous. Though we are unaware of it,
this activity is taking place in us all the time.
Will
is ordinarily regarded as part of the mind but I am making a distinction,
which I think is very necessary, between sensitiveness, will and feelings
which are also regarded as part of the mind. Feeling, when it is feeling the
nature of something, as when you feel with your hand the texture of a cloth,
is a form of sensitiveness - it is the negative aspect of consciousness. But
we use the word "feeling" also to include personal reactions. Thus
it has different meanings. I feel the pleasantness of the air, feel the clarity
of the atmosphere,and also feel a certain repulsion or a reaction of fear.
When you feel the nature of a thing, you are aware of something which exists.
COMPLICATIONS
OF ATTACHMENT
Now
we come to certain complications that arise due to another factor, which is
attachment or desire. Consciousness literally implies experiencing whatever
is, whatever exists. It thus registers the facts of pleasure and pain. I touch
something hot, there is a feeling of pain. I taste something nice, there is
a feeling of pleasure. These are sensations, forms of knowing but instead
of merely registering them, the consciousness gets attached to certain sensations
and repels others. This is of course well know to us. Repulsion is also a
kind of fixation which is attachment, so we might call the whole phenomenon,including
every form of repulsion, as the phenomenon of attachment.
When
we say attached, what is attached to what? It is the attachment of consciousness
in its inherently colorless or crystalline nature to sensation which is an
experience of something particular. Sugar is sweet. The consciousness which
in itself is colorless is attached to that sensation which is sweet, but that
sensation is also a form of consciousness. So, that which is in itself formless
gets attached to something particular which has form. At any rate it looks
so. We do not see these things clearly enough, first because we do not pay
attention; secondly, our minds are not swift enough and free enough to enter
into these various nuances of changes in the consciousness and transactions
between our minds and the outside world.
The
attachment is automatic. You have a tin of nuts, you put one into your mouth
and bite it, you get a pleasant sensation. Without your knowing it - you may
be absorbed in a book - the consciousness gets attached to that sensation.
From the attachment there arises desire which motivates he will to put your
fingers in that tin and place another nut in your mouth. So it goes on, and
by the time you have finished half your book, you may have finished half the
nuts. The action is automatic when you do not pay attention to it, but when
once your attention is called to it, you begin to think: "Should I continue
eating? Perhaps I should stop". It breaks the continuity.
This
automatism continues so long as there is unawareness. So long as we are unaware
of ourselves, we will continue to act as though it is a machine which is acting
and not a free intelligence. What really happens is, one attachment is formed,
then another, it is joined on to the first by association, then there is a
third, and finally a whole system of attachments established in our nature.
This system is like a machine; it is as though various rods are connected
with one another, so that when you move one rod, there is a motion or the
part of every other rod in the system. The centre of this system is the "self".
There has to be a centre of movement, a pivot on which the whole thing turns,
a point at which each force impinges and new directions of movement are caused.
The
formula that sums up its varying activities is "I want". Want is
the action springing from attachment; "I" is the subject that is
the ego or the self (in the ordinary sense). It is only as long as there is
the wanting there is the "I". An attachment must have two ends.
The farther end is the object which is pursued, which provides the sensation;
this end is the "I", the seemingly permanent centre. The formula
works in varying forms; "I like food", "I like flattery",
"I like importance", and so many other things. Perhaps "like"
is not the right word; "want" is better, because you may like a
thing, register its agreeableness, yet not ask for it.
There
is attachment in our lives, in some degree to every experience that has imbedded
itself. Every attachment is like a thread in the field of consciousness, thrown
out to a particular point, a particular image, a particular sensation. When
this thread, filament let us call it, is galvanized, when a certain current
runs through it,then there is a pull, and that pull is desire. Attachment
is the passive form of desire, and there are ever so many threads in one's
nature which are pulled in different directions. I said that even repulsion
may be regarded as a form of attachment, for you are bound to the thing you
repel, to the person whom you hate, to the image which you fear. Whether it
is hate or fear, greed, ambition or desire, the thread, the tension, is there.
These
pulls are of varying intensity and often not noticed; they act in devious
ways. We are so identified with this condition that we unable to realize what
is taking place. When we are identified with a thing, we will be unconscious
of it. I sit in this chair. If this chair were perfectly comfortable and I
fitting beautifully into it, I would find that after a time I would be entirely
oblivious of its existence. Whatever you are completely identified with or
adjusted to is not an object of knowledge; you, the subject, do not pay attention
to it.
A
DISTORTED FIELD
When
these threads so tangled pull in diverse ways, the whole field of consciousness,
the continuum, gets distorted, crumpled, made altogether irregular. That is
what happens to everyone of us in some degree and that is what we are, although
we may not realize it. When it is thrown out of shape by the tensions, stresses
and strains, it is no longer a truthful mirror. I called it at first a mirror
in which things are reflected as they are, that is what it is meant to be,
but when it is no longer truthful, it shows distorted pictures. You may say,
"No, I see this tree all right, there is no distortion in my consciousness."
Yes, in regard to the tree; there is that much of truthfulness in us. If we
fail to see the tree as a tree and imagine it to be a wave in the ocean, then
of course we cannot live in this world. We see things as they are but only
to that extent. But the mirror shows distorted pictures of the characters
and motives of people, of situations, of everything that takes place in the
field of consciousness, though not of things of the physical world which are
inexorably objective and cannot be played with impunity. It is no longer a
clean, photographic negative. So many impressions have rained upon it. It
is of course meant to receive impressions, but they have not only rained upon
it but have got stuck there; due to the attaching process, it is now overlaid
by a thick shadow of what it is in its pure essential nature.
We
do not know the pure essential nature of consciousness, in which we may be
said to be rooted, because we have become so changed. You can have clear flowing
water, but if the water gets mixed up with a lot of mud, and such things,
and finally gets frozen, and if this frozen block gets fissured at various
points, we would see lumps of hard ice in various shapes mixed with foreign
matter; it is no longer the clear glassy water which is flowing beautifully,
smooth and level.
HOW
TO UNBECOME
If
we have become something different from what we were originally and what we
could have continued to be, can all this be undone? How can we regain that
nature in which there can be the feeling of utmost freedom with its inherent
sensitivity? It can be undone only through an understanding of the whole condition
and process - through self-knowledge, awareness, comprehension. Awareness
is registering what takes place in its objectivity. Comprehension includes
perceiving the meaning of all that takes place. Self-knowledge is the turning
of attention to the processes which constitute the self, and knowing the nature
of that constituted self. We cannot know what freedom means till then, nor
the extraordinary sensitivity that goes with it.
The
fact is (I talk of course hesitantly) that consciousness is sensitivity itself.
When we say the consciousness is sensitive, there is a certain redundance
in those words. The modified consciousness as we find it in ourselves can
have a certain degree of sensitivity. Of this consciousness it is permissible
to say it is less sensitive, more sensitive, sensitive to this, not to that.
But when we think of consciousness in its essential nature, the very substance
of it, then it is itself sensitiveness, there is no distinction to be made
between the two. In its own nature, which, as I said, is formless, and therefore
not limited by space, and capable of omnipresence, it is sensitiveness to
everything that exists and takes place in this extraordinary universe. When
I say everything that exists, I do not merely mean atoms, particles, concrete
objects, but also the whole realm of thought, feeling, significance and beauty.
There can be sensitivity to feelings, to expressions on the face of something
or somebody, to proportion,to harmony which can exist in innumerable forms,
to the whole universe in its subjective and objective aspects. Objective means
that which you see outside yourself; subjective means that which you can experience
only within yourself, in the nature of consciousness itself- the spiritual
and the psychic. There is the possibility of knowing all that, responding
to all that, experiencing all that. Although we do not know this for ourselves,
yet it is an illuminative idea, logical and satisfying no one's sense of fitness
and completeness.
I
used the words spiritual and psychic; we know what is spiritual only by experiencing
it. We can know it not as something apart from our consciousness, but as one
with it. Is what we call Spirit as distinguished from Matter, a nature, or
is it a power or is it a principle? Is it the beauty that is experienced in
those motions of consciousness, infinite as these may be, which can take place
without modifying its inherent nature? Perhaps it is all these, we do not
know. Because it is so subjective, it has to be a matter of discovery by each
one individually; for us it is the unknown. It has been spoken of in various
terms. We may regard consciousness and also life as arising from the relationship
between Spirit and Matter, in which case we must regard consciousness as approximating
to Spirit but as conditioned, defined and limited by Matter. Matter is the
means of expression. Spirit is something the nature or action of which is
being expressed through appropriate forms. The experience of that nature or
action is also truth. In the ultimate, consciousness and Spirit are one, because
consciousness is then identified with Spirit, not with matter. When we say
Consciousness and Spirit are one, the image that is evoked is of unity, but
it may be also an infinite, unknown to us. We are using terms with meanings,
into which we can only peer "as in a glass darkly".