silence shared in words
presents
Moving Towards Healthier States of Consciousness
One of the basic problems of
the psychologist is that they are using a model of mind with yourself as a subjectivity in the center.
And then
below that there is an unconscious mind, and a collective unconscious mind.
The model you are using seems to have two polarities.
One is the self, the conscious mind,
our identification with our personality. And then there is
a layer of mind,
a kind of consciousness which is the state
below that, where there is no-mind.
And it seems that in ordinary human people
these two points are together, there is an identification.
And in the enlightened one
there is a clear
observation of this separation between
self or personality, and consciousness. Is this so?
It was Sigmund Freud in the West
who for the first time used
the words "unconscious mind".
He had no idea that in the East
we have five thousand-year-old scriptures
using the idea of the unconscious mind.
So he thought he had discovered something.
Then Jung found that if you go deeper than the unconscious,
you find a collective unconscious mind.
That too
in the East we have been aware of for centuries.
One thing more we have been aware of which the West has still to find out
if you go below the collective unconscious mind,
you will find the cosmic
unconscious mind.
And that is very logical.
Conscious mind
is personal,
unconscious mind
is impersonal.
The collective unconscious mind
is all
that has preceded you:
the whole history of mind
is contained in it.
But this cannot be
the foundation.
Below it there is
a cosmic unconscious mind,
which is the mind of the whole existence.
These are the steps if you go below,
downwards.
So -- collective unconscious mind,
unconscious mind, cosmic unconscious mind
these three are
the steps below the conscious mind.
Exactly
three are above the conscious mind,
which nobody has
in the West yet even thought about.
Above the conscious mind
is the state I call
no-mind.
It is just like the impersonal, unconscious mind
which is below.
This is above.
It is also impersonal,
but you are fully conscious of it;
it is not unconscious mind.
It is above the conscious mind.
You can call it "conscious no-mind"
no-mind because there are no thoughts,
just absolute silence.
Many meditators stop here,
thinking that they have arrived.
So there are a few religions in the East which have stopped at the no-mind,
just as Sigmund Freud stopped at the unconscious mind
and never bothered to go deeper into it.
But there have been seekers who tried
to reach higher.
As you go higher than the
conscious no-mind,
you find
superconsciousness,
or the superconscious mind.
This superconsciousness
is exactly
the equivalent of the lower
collective
unconscious mind.
In this state
of superconscious mind
you experience
that you are
not separate;
you are part of a
consciousness sphere
which is above the biosphere that surrounds the earth,
you partake
with the whole sphere.
This makes you aware of the oneness of consciousness.
A few religions have stopped at the superconsciousness,
just as
Jung stopped at
the collective unconsciousness.
Above it
is the cosmic conscious mind
that makes you feel one,
not only with consciousness
but
with the whole existence as such.
This is the point where
one can
feel
what Patanjali calls samadhi
The word samadhi means
all problems are solved,
all questions are dissolved.
You have come to a space
which knows no questions, no
problems
which is eternally blissful.
This is the place
which can be called godliness,
because you are one with the whole existence.
Western psychotherapy
has gone only on the
lower steps of the
ladder.
And the reason why they have gone on the lower steps of the ladder
is because Western psychology started
studying
sick,
mentally deranged people.
They were on the lower steps,
so naturally they started
finding out more and more about
those lower steps.
Eastern psychology has simply mentioned
that these steps are there
to be avoided,
but they have not been studied.
No
thesis is available in the East
which goes into details about these steps, they have simply been mentioned.
But in the East the higher steps have been
very deeply studied,
because they were studying
the meditators, not the sick people.
Because the objective
study was different,
the whole
approach became different.
They were studying the meditators so they became
aware
of the no-mind,
of superconsciousness,
of cosmic consciousness.
They were moving towards healthier states of consciousness,
and they were finding ways how to move.
Western psychology
unfortunately
started with sick people.
It has arrived
at least up the collective unconscious;
someday somebody will find the cosmic unconscious too.
Their whole work is how to pull the sick person back
to the normal consciousness,
which they think is of great importance.
In the East that is the place which has to be left,
and in the West that is the place which has to be arrived at.
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