it's all dhamma.

Vimala Thakar on observation without the observer

This morning I would like to take up two points for serious consideration of earnest inquirers. An inquirer is a person in whom the questioning is sustained. The person questions the validity of everything that one sees around, hears about, reads in the scriptures, notices in traditions and customs. An inquirer has the humility not to accept anything on belief or tradition. He has the humility to deny the authority and begin questioning. Question not in order to be disrespectful or to discard the known or the past but the questioning is intended for finding out the Truth. An inquiry is an urge to learn and find out personally. To have a first hand, personal intimate contact with the Reality as it is.

What is the function of knowledge, experience and memory in our daily living and also in relation to our inquiry into the meaning of Life?

Brain as an organ contains mind which is conditioned energy, which is consciousness. Brain contains consciousness and consciousness contains experience, memory, knowledge — both personal knowledge and knowledge gathered by the family. And deep down is the consciousness of the racial knowledge, experience and memory; memory of the country, the community, the religion. 

The content of consciousness is thought, knowledge, memory. And it is here in your body, right in the brain cells, in the blood cells, in the minutest part of your physical structure, in the marrow of the bone you will find the knowledge, the experience, the patterns of reactions, the value structure, the evaluations, the priorities, the prejudices, the preferences, the conclusions. So that cannot be thrown away — the knowledge, the experience, the memory, the conditioning contained in your consciousness which is known as mind, which is an energy contained in your cerebral organ, that cannot be thrown away. It cannot be denied, it cannot be rejected, it is there. What do you do with that? What value has it and what relevance has it?

It seems to me that it has a functional value but not a psychological value. The moment knowledge acquires psychological value, importance and significance, you begin to create images about yourself and project those images in your relationships, so they become obstructions. Because, when you begin to evaluate everything, you begin to compare human beings on the basis of that knowledge. Knowledge is always about the past. With the present, there is understanding.

So in our inquiry, which is called sadhana in Indian languages, what do we do with this consciousness that is loaded heavily with words, ideas, theories?

With great humility I would like to repeat, it cannot be thrown away, it cannot be discarded or destroyed. You may throw away the body into the ocean or burn the body, but what are you going to do with your own being which carries the past? You are condensed human past. So what an inquirer does is, he begins to observe the behavior of his body and the brain.

After verbal study and investigation comes the very necessary step of observation.

You observe how the body moves. You have not so far observed what happens to the body when you eat certain kinds of food, or expose yourself to certain kinds of environment. The slightest imbalance and you get disturbed, worried and anxious or run to doctors. Knowledge does not enable you to handle the body and its fickleness or imbalances. Knowledge does not necessarily imply understanding. Understanding does not flower except in the soil of observation, except in the state of observation.

The essence of religion is the personal discovery and intimate contact with the Reality. So instead of looking upon knowledge as an impediment, something to be thrown away, use it as a stepping stone and begin to observe. You have read Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras and what it says about the mind. But unless you observe the behavior of your mind in daily relationships, there would be no understanding. Do you see the difference between knowledge and understanding?

Reality is not knowable, it is “feelable”, if you would allow me to use the word. Understanding makes you “feel” the quality of Reality, the perfume of Reality. One has to observe how one’s mind moves. Please begin at the very beginning, learning to observe. Set aside sometime in daily life, a half to one hour each morning or evening. Sit down quietly in a relaxed alertness. Relaxation of the body and alertness of the sensitivity. If you sit down, it doesn’t mean you go into passivity. That is not it. You are sitting in relaxation but you are quite awake and alert. The sensitivity is there.

That is the first thing to learn: to sit quietly. The body is not educated for sitting quietly, peacefully in certain postures, for over ten to fifteen minutes. It begins to shake and move. Whether you sit on the floor or in the chair is immaterial. Do what suits the body. But sit with the back straight, with every nerve relaxed. You are not sitting there to do something, to acquire something. You are sitting there to put yourself into a beautiful state of non-action, of total voluntary non-action. That is the first step to learn; to be steady physically.

The second stage is that, the body is steady but the mind is not steady. Don’t worry about that, we will see what happens to the mind. It is not steady, it wanders, it jumps from one topic to another. We know that because we see that. Watch, observe whatever the mind brings up. Please don’t be concerned about what it brings up, just look at whatever is before you. If you do it for a couple of days, you will notice that the state of observation is not sustained. As soon as the mind brings up something, the past jumps up and says: “That is good, this is bad. I don’t want this, I want that.” The mind begins to judge what is brought up in the state of observation. One has to learn by observing oneself, to be in a state of relaxation, one has to learn to be in that state of observation.

First of all, a reaction-free attentiveness has to be there. No reaction whatsoever. You have to learn to put yourself in the state of psychological innocency, where there is no activity of comparison, evaluation, judgment, acceptance or rejection. It is just a simple looking without any reactions, without any resistance. Reaction is a resistance. So without any resistance and reactions you just look. There is no method, no technique there. In looking how can there be a technique? Relaxation does not have any theories. Looking innocently does not require any theory or technique. It has to be done, to see the Reality, the validity of it. The words can only indicate the Truth and nothing more.

If that state of innocent looking is sustained, then the consciousness that “I am observing” disappears. It drops away. In the beginning there is a division: “that I am observing, that I am observing the movement of my mind.” But the consciousness merges with the intensity of the state of observation, and there remains only that state of attentiveness, without someone attending to something, without an observer observing something.

It is a state of observation without the observer, if you would like to use those terms. In the reaction-free sensitive alertness, not attached to the center as the ‘me’, is the direct contact with what is. When the memory about what is has gone into abeyance, then only, there is the space in which you find yourself intimately in relation with what is. The theories about what is, the knowledge about it, prevents this contact. Please do see this.

When it goes into non-action, when it is held in abeyance, then there is the beautiful space of silence in which you are, where your whole being is face to face with what is, with the Reality. No words, no verbalization. You don’t look at the Reality then through the experiences of other people, through the theories of the past. You, as an emanation of the present, are with the timeless present in front of you. You, as a part of the totality, are merged into the totality surrounding you.

It all sounds so abstract if one has never done it, if one has never bothered to sit down and observe and put oneself into the state of observation. It may sound abstract, but it is not. Do it and find out. That is the only effort necessary. Perhaps the first and last step.

―Vimala Thakar in Himalayan Pearls from dialogues given in her Himalayan retreat Dalhousie, in 1987 and 1988, (ed., Kaiser Irani. Vimal Prakashan Trust, 1999)