VBT – Meditation 6.3
Artificial Center
The ego is needed because the true self is not known. The ego is a substitute, it is a pseudo entity. Because you don’t know yourself you have to create an artificial center; otherwise functioning in life will be impossible. Because you don’t know your real face, you have to wear a mask. Not knowing the essential, you have to trust in the shadow.
So when you have awakened, when you have become enlightened, your memory is not going to disappear. The memory will be there. Really, it will be more crystal-clear. Then it will function more accurately because there will be no disturbance from the false ego. Your thought process will not disappear. Rather, for the first time you will be capable of thinking. Before that you were simply borrowing things. Then you will really be able to think. But then you, not the thought process, will be the master.
Before, the thought process was the master. You couldn’t do anything about it. It continued on its own; you were just a victim. You wanted to sleep and the mind continued thinking. You wanted to stop it, but it would not stop. Really, the more you tried to stop it, the more stubborn it became. It was your master. When you become enlightened it will be there, but then it will be instrumental. Whenever you need it, you will be able to use it. Whenever you don’t need it, it will not crowd your consciousness. Then it can be called and then it can also be stopped.
Mind cells will be there, the body will be there, memory will be there, thought-process will be there. Only one thing will not be there – the feeling of I will not be there. This is difficult to understand.
Buddha walks, Buddha eats, Buddha sleeps, Buddha remembers. He has memory, his brain cells function beautifully. But Buddha has said, “I walk, but no one walks in me. I talk, but no one talks; in me. I eat, but no one eats in me.” The inner consciousness is no more the ego. So when Buddha feels hungry, he cannot feel like you. You feel, “I am hungry.” When Buddha feels hungry, he feels, “The body is hungry. I am just the knower.” And that knower, is without any feeling of I.
The ego is the false entity, the only false entity – everything else is real. Two realities can meet, and in their meeting, a third epi-phenomenon can be created. When two realities meet, something false can happen. But the false can happen only if there is consciousness. If there is no consciousness, the false cannot happen. Oxygen and hydrogen meet: a false water cannot happen. The false can happen only when you are conscious, because only consciousness can err. Matter cannot err, matter cannot be false. Matter is always true. Matter cannot deceive and cannot be deceived – only consciousness can. With consciousness is the possibility to err.
But remember another thing: matter is always real, never false, but also never true. The matter cannot know what the truth is. If you cannot err, you cannot know what the truth is. Both the possibilities open simultaneously. Human consciousness can err and can know that it has erred and can move away from it. That is the beauty of it. The danger is there, but danger is bound to be there. With every growth new dangers come in. For a matter there is no danger.
Tags: Artificial Center
