Behind the Mind
Page 8
No investigation is required for objective knowledge. Investigation is only to bring the subjective to the fore.
Let this be your contemplation for today.
Master Wu Hsin entered the Great Hall, seated himself and began:
Personality gives us this sense of continuity. However, it inhibits any identification with the totality of life.
Presence is that which distinguishes between being engaged in thought and being aware of one's engagement in thought.
Body consciousness is Consciousness conscious of the body that hosts it. The loss of body consciousness is in no way the loss of Consciousness.
Then the Master rose and departed.
Master Wu Hsin started:
Having transformed the information gathered through the five senses into the world, one sees that world as objects which are not oneself, and one becomes distracted with likes and dislikes for those objects.
Such is the nature of confusion.
Life, as we describe it, is nothing more than an outgrowth of the self-consciousness.
In the final analysis, who is there to do anything?
All actions are initiated by the life force; its speech is mind. That which knows action, knows speech, is the consciousness. That which knows consciousness is that which is antecedent Oneness, the Absolute.
Insofar as this is so, what needs to be accomplished?
Apperceive what is the presiding principle by which you know you are and by which you perceive everything else.
That is all.
Now, spend the balance of the day in silence.
Master Wu Hsin started:
A cube of ice placed into water has temporary existence.
Before it acquired the form, it was water. It then took form for a while and ultimately merges back into its source.
Yet at no time was the ice cube separate from water, despite the fact that it may seem so.
In this regard, one must come to discern What-Is from what seems to be.
Be silent for a time.
Wu Hsin continued:
That one exists in the absence of thought is clear and obvious.
As such, You, the essential you, are not a thought but prior to any.
Individuality is the prism through which the world becomes distorted.
This is the case because the world is represented as how it relates to "me".
Literally and figuratively, when the prism is removed, all becomes clear.
Now sit in the quietude.
Master Wu Hsin continued:
The two great delusions are that life is controllable and that there is an entity, me, who can exercise said control.
But if we cannot even control the thoughts that appear to us, how can we possibly believe that we can control what occurs to us?
That is enough for today.
Wu Hsin started:
All there is, is the total functioning of consciousness within the manifestation.
There are no individuals, only billions of forms through which the functioning occurs. The totality is constant, while the functioning parts come and go.
Whatever one is must be present always. All else are add-ons, the "what I am" added to the "I am".
When you are sleeping deeply, without any dreams, you are not associated with your body or your mind. Who or what is this "you" that is not associated?
This investigation is about no longer fixating.
It is about removing one's acquisitions so that all one is left with is what one arrived with.
Ponder this; more tomorrow.
Wu Hsin started:
Relinquish all preoccupation with what was, or shall be. All one must know, is What-Is.
Because What-Is is ineffable, the mind cannot think about it. Its fallback position, is to therefore think about this world of temporal, transient, appearances.
The world is only the ocean of the mind, revealed in consciousness.
We create our world, populate it with friends and enemies, and then experience an ever-changing stream of psycho-physiological events.
As it is impossible for me to know what it is like to be another, it is equally impossible for me to comprehend another's world.
You have made your world; now, you can re-make it.
Go out and do so.
With that, he rose and walked out.
Master Wu Hsin started:
Imagine a place where you have never been. I can tell you about it, but that is only a description. I can present you with images of it but that only enhances the description.
This place is something that can only be known when it is experienced.
In a way, it is the same with Consciousness except that it can only be experienced by being consciousness; not consciousness of this or that. Being Consciousness.
When you are alive and conscious, but no longer self-conscious, you have returned to that place prior to the birth of personhood.
Investigate the reality of what you claim as "I".
The moment the "I" is proven to be a mere mental construction, then its polarity, the world that rises and sets alongside it, must also be unreal.
Now, who is it who knows that the "I" is unreal?
This knowledge within you that knows the "I" is unreal, that knowledge which knows change, must itself be changeless, unmoving and permanent.
Ponder this; more tomorrow.
The Master sat himself and said:
What is the world? The world is objective phenomena.
What knows the world? The world is known by the formless subjective.
As such, there are only the two: the formless subjective and the objective phenomena. Another name for the formless subjective is consciousness.
Where is the world located?
Consciousness turned toward the world is mind. The world appears in, and is therefore located in, the mind.
The entanglement between the formless subjective and objective phenomena is made via the conceptual individual entity, functioning as the go-between.
All thoughts and actions are to be understood as the effects of the life force received and transmitted through the inert body.
In this sense, the Self is what remains when you remove the self.
Unmanifest, I am the potentiality wherefrom manifestation is actualized.
Ponder this; more tomorrow.
The Master began:
Wakefulness ends, I am.
Dreaming ends, yet I am.
Dreamless sleep ends, yet I am.
Each repeats and, all the while, I am.
Everything is momentary; each experience serves as a subtle reminder that I am.
I-am without form is the Supreme; with form, it is Wu Hsin and the world.
Can you quiet yourself long enough to see yourself?
The Master clapped his hands and left the Hall.
The Master began:
Before any beginning, there was only Dynamic Potentiality. When actualized, this manifests into Dynamic Intelligent Energy expressing itself as the body and the world.
The body is an instrument necessary for consciousness to perceive its objective manifestation.
The sole problem is the identification resulting in the imagined concept of an independent, autonomous entity which creates the seeming actor, thus making the actions one's own.
Phenomena are integrally latent in noumenon. When there is manifestation of the Absolute as separate phenomenal objects, there arises a subject which perceives and cognizes and an object which is perceived and cognized.
The key is that both the cognizer-subject and the cognized-object are interdependent and can only exist in the consciousness in which the manifestation process occurs.
We can only exist as one another's objects to the seeming subject-cognizer. From here, the mind reifies the seeming subject-cognizer, creating the entity cognizer which is considered to be the subjective function.
Expanding yet further, this entity assumes itself to be independent an
d autonomous with volition and choice.
Yet, all the while this play is going on, what we are, the Absolute manifested as the totality of phenomena, continues unchanged.
Ponder this; more tomorrow.
The Master began:
During the course of your life, how many identities have you claimed as your own? Where are they now?
You are now confronted with a pivotal choice: living tossed about in various states or abiding in the Stateless. Living in humanity vis-a-vis living in divinity.
Because no one has ever told you that you had this choice, you've never looked at it before.
There is the I-am-this, or waking, state. Then here is the I-am-another-this, or dream state. Finally, there is the contentless state of deep sleep. This cycles repeatedly.
Just as an open space becomes three parts when two partition walls are erected in its midst, so when the two kinds of body-identification, namely the waking-body and the dream-body, are imagined, the unitary Self appears to become three states, that of waking, dream and sleep.
The self-attention, which goes on continuously, must switch over to Self-attention. The living in divinity is the result.
Ponder this; more tomorrow.
Master Wu Hsin began:
We miss the actual by lack of attention and create distortions by excessive imagination.
Understand that without Being there is nothing.
All knowledge is about Being.
Wrong ideas about Being lead to dissatisfaction and unhappiness, whereas right ones lead to freedom and happiness
Likewise, understand that Consciousness illuminates.
Everything perceived is first illuminated by Consciousness.
Even when there is nothing to be perceived, Consciousness is present.
Now, let there be silence.
Master Wu Hsin continued:
The habitual reference to a false center must end.
You have dedicated decades to building a prison for yourself. Can you not find a few moments to begin to tear it down?
The experiences you have in one state do not follow you into another state. Therefore, they cannot be part of your essential self.
You take yourself to be that which events happen to. Cease to be the object and become the subject of all that happens.
Merely see yourself as the illuminant of everything.
Now, let there be silence.
Master Wu Hsin continued:
Wholeness is not a state; states come and go.
Wholeness is holiness, absolute presence and relative absence.
"I will be" is prior to differentiation.
It is the Dynamic Potentiality, preceding all states, including the "I am" state.
Nothing more need be said today.
Ponder this; more tomorrow.
Master Wu Hsin began:
The body is an inert thing. It is like a kite that flies when the wind blows yet cannot function when the power is not available.
That which animates the body is really all that I speak about. What is that? It is life energy plus consciousness.
The brain and the body cannot be treated as separate. They are a singular, integrated whole.
The personality is how the brain "acts" via the body. Don't become distracted by the notion of "mind". Mind equals brain process; it's another object of perception.
We say that the moon shines in the same way as we say that there is a person that acts. Yet, it is not that the moon is shining. Rather, it is merely reflecting the light of the sun.
Persons, too, are only the reflected light of That which shines on them and provides their support.
Ponder these words; more tomorrow.
Master Wu Hsin began:
Fifty feet below the ocean's surface, no waves can be discerned. Therefore, to transcend the waves of the world, diving deep is necessary.
Any movement of consciousness toward the phenomenal is equivalent to a movement away from what is real. The Real is attained by a movement of consciousness in the direction opposite from that by which the phenomenon is experienced.
Go behind all experience to that which is aware of the experience, and that which ties the multiplicities of experience into the unity of one whole. This center is that which I am.
Likewise, the strength of the sunlight has no relevance to those who live in caves.
The invitation of Wu Hsin is to step outside.
Let all sit in silence.
Master Wu Hsin continued:
Awakening in the morning begins the narrative of a "you in the world". Dreaming begins another narrative of a "different you in a different world". Both seem completely real in their moment.
But what distinguishes the real from mere appearance is continuity.
What comes and goes is the very definition of appearance.
We say it is real while it is there; but can we say it is real when it is not there?
The finite is nothing other than the expression of the Infinite. Whatever is perceived is continuously created and destroyed. Consciousness is the medium in which this occurs.
Consciousness witnesses the world whereas the Absolute witnesses consciousness.
Ponder these words; more tomorrow.
Master Wu Hsin began:
The body is the instrument of consciousness and consciousness is the instrument of the Unmanifest made manifest.
Each species has a role in the functioning of consciousness.
Every living thing, every instrument, acts in accordance with the inherent nature of its species.
It is inherent in humans that self-consciousness arise.
Be total in oneself; discern that the individual and its world are a singular whole.
Let all sit in silence.
Master Wu Hsin continued:
As long as you consider yourself to be a body, then the world seems to be external to it.
What is the world other than a superimposition of a creation of the mind? The world is merely a spontaneous appearance. The one who perceives the appearance is included in it as a character, nothing more.
The mind cannot discern the unreality of its projection while it remains immersed in it. It does not understand its cravings for content and variety. If it did, it's pursuit of the transient would end.
Since the entirety of the world is contained in the mind, changing the mind changes the world.
Let all sit in silence.
Master Wu Hsin continued:
In one sense, intellect creates the ego as a secondary survival system. Thus the self-conscious life is born. It is entirely reflexive, nothing more than stimulus-response.
In a different sense, this ego or micro I-am functions as the bridge between the inert, insentient body and the macro I-am, consciousness, the manifestation of the Absolute.
Either way, the individual is a habitual point of view. It is memory, the past only.
What you know about yourself is what you remember about yourself. Take a minute a check; see if what you call the “person” is anything more than the set of images in memory.
The identification with the body is no different than the dog's identification with the body. If it is not transcended, one is no better than a dog. In fact, one is worse off since the dog is not plagued by worry, guilt, regret, etc.
Ponder these words; more tomorrow.
Master Wu Hsin began:
There is much talk about realization or self realization.
To realize is to make something real, is it not? How do you go about making what is already real real? We seek to make it real because we presuppose its absence.