4 Sri Aurobindo on the Witness Consciousness The witness consciousness is a state in which one stands back as an observer of one's thoughts and feelings. Such a state of consciousness is in contrast to the ordinary state in which one is more or less completely identified with one's mental and other inner movements. Speaking to students, the Mother observed: Do not believe that it [observing one's mind] is such an easy thing, for to observe your thoughts, you must first of all separate yourself from them. In the ordinary state, the ordinary man does not distinguish himself from his thoughts. He does not even know what he thinks. He

Note on the Mother The Mother was born Mirra Alfassa on February 21, 1878, in Paris. A student at the Academie Julian, she became an accomplished artist. Gifted from an early age with a capacity for spiritual and occult experience, she went to Tlemcen, Algeria, in 1906 and 1907 to study occultism with the adept Max Theon and his wife. Between 1911 and 1913 she gave a number of talks to various groups of seekers in Paris and began to record her deepening communion with the Divine in the diary later published as Prayers and Meditations. In 1914 the Mother voyaged to Pondicherry, South India, to meet the Indian mystic Sri Aurobindo. After a stay of eleven mon

Levels of Spiritual Mind Above the Ordinary Mind Sri Aurobindo speaks of various levels of mental existence above the ordinary mind. In an ascending order these are: Higher Mind: A first plane of spiritual consciousness white one becomes constantly aware of the Self. Whereas the ordinary mind is a thought-mind, the Higher Mind is a "luminous thought-mind, a mind of Spirit-born conceptual knowledge."47 47 Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, SABCL, Vol. 19. p. 939. Page-95 Illumined Mind: A mind no longer of higher thought but of spiritual light. Intuition: A mind that gets the Truth in flashes, which it turns into i

-022_Enlightenment—Slow or Sudden.htm Enlightenment—Slow or Sudden? Paradoxically, the change from the ordinary consciousness, in which one is identified with one's illusory self, to the true consciousness of identification with one's real Self—a "reversal of consciousness," as the Mother describes it—is both a slow process and a sudden happening. This paradox has been well explained by the Mother using the metaphor of the incubation of an egg. She says: This change of consciousness and its preparation have often been compared with the formation of the chicken in the egg: till the very last second the egg remains the same, there is no change, and it is only when the chicken is completely form

3 Questions and Answers at Esalen (Eckhart's responses to written questions from the author during a talk at the Esalen retreat, June 1 and 2, 2001. The responses have been paraphrased and abbreviated by the author.) DALAL: Can the state of surrender in which one is able to say "yes" to whatever is, be attained so long as the sense of a separate "!"or ego persists? ECKHART: Ego and surrender cannot, indeed, coexist. The ability to say "yes" to what is does nor come from the ego. One who is strongly entrenched in the ego would not even understand the meaning of saying "yes" co what is. The fact chat you are able to understand the mean

Parts of the Ordinary Mind The different parts of the ordinary mind (the thinking mind, the vital mind, and the physical mind) have been previously alluded to (Chapter 1, p. 12, fn. 17; and Chapter 5, p. 85, fn 21). Eckhart regards any and all activity of the mind as mental noise. One gets the impression that, according to Eckhart, when one rises to the realm of no-mind and stillness, the mind ceases to exist. Sri Aurobindo, on the other hand, describes as "buzz" the activity, particularly of the mechanical mind, that is closely connected with the physical mind. Silence, he says, has to be established in all parts of the ordinary mind so that the higher conscio

The Simplicity of Enlightenment To return to the paradox that enlightenment is both an immediate experience as well as what comes at the end of a long path, it is necessary to understand the truth of both the opposite perspectives in order to resolve the paradox. 34 Sri Aurobindo, On Himself, 35 Sri Aurobindo, The Hour of God and Other Writings, SABCL,Vol.17,p.174. 36 Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga, SABCL. VOL.23.p.647. Page-25 The perspective that enlightenment is an immediate experience requiring no time—a view that I had found quite incomprehensible before I came in contact with Eckhart's teachings—is beautifully illustrated by

The Grace of the Guru Another version of the story was narrated from a different perspective to Sri Ramakrishna by his guru, and subsequently by Sri Ramakrishna to his devotees. A tigress once attacked a herd of goats. As she leapt to seize one of the goats, she gave birth to a cub and died. The cub tiger grew up among the goats. It ate grass and bleared like the goats and ran away like them when attacked by a fierce animal. One day a wild tiger attacked the herd. Amazed to see a tiger eating grass, the wild tiger seized it and dragged it to the water and said: "You are a tiger and you are eating grass! Look at your face in the water. It is exactly like mine."

Perceiving through the Veil of Mind This teaching about mental noise is to be found in various schools of discipline that deal with the quieting of the mind. What is new in Eckhart's teaching is his broader and deeper view of what constitutes "mental noise." It includes not only the constant stream of thought but also all mental activity in perceiving reality, including even the rudimentary activity of the mind involved in labeling whatever one perceives. For instance, perceiving a flower and recognizing it, say, as a rose, and mentally labeling it as a rose is, from Eckhart's viewpoint, mental noise. One does not see the being that is the rose but only t

-008_Needing Ever More—Desire.htm Needing Ever More—Desire Another chief characteristic of the egoic self that Eckhart speaks about is its incurable sense of lack, insufficiency, or incompleteness. From this arises insatiable desire for various things. The things one commonly desires in order to fill the hole and feel more complete 13 The Mother, Questions and Answers, CWM,Vol.3.p.57 are wealth and possessions, success, social status, and special relationships. As the ego never achieves a permanent sense of completeness, one always lives in a state of "craving, wanting, and needing." Though such a state of inner restlessness is present all the time except for brief periods when a partic