VBT – Meditation 30.2
The Inner Cave
Those nine layers which are within and unconscious can now be entered into.
This is the inner cave of the mind. If you enter this cave of the mind, you will become separate from the mind also. Then you will see that the mind is also an object which you can look at, and that which is entering the mind is, again, separate and different. This entering into the mind is what is meant by: SEE YOUR INNER BEING IN DETAIL. Body and mind both should be entered and looked at from within. Then you are simply a witness, and this witness cannot be penetrated.
That is why it is your innermost core: that is you. That which can be penetrated, that which can be seen, is not you. When you have come to that which cannot be penetrated, that in which you cannot move, which cannot be observed, then only have you come to the real self. You cannot witness the witnessing source, remember – that is absurd.
If someone says that “I have witnessed my witness,” that is absurd. Why is it absurd? Because if you have witnessed your witnessing self, then the witnessing self is not the witnessing self. That who has witnessed it is the witness. That who you can see, you are not; that which you can observe, you are not; that which you can become aware of, you are not.
But a point comes beyond the mind where simply you are. Now you cannot divide your single existence into two: object and subject. Simple subjectivity is there, just witnessing. This is very, very difficult to comprehend through intellect because all the categories of the intellect are broken there.
Because of this logical difficulty, Charwak – the expounder of one of the most logical philosophical systems in the world – says that you cannot know the self; there is no self-knowledge. And because there is no self-knowledge, how can you say that there is a self? Whatsoever you know is not the self. The knower is the self, not the known, so you cannot say logically that “I have known myself.”
That is absurd, illogical. How can you know yourself? Then who will be the knower and who will be the known? Knowledge means a dichotomy, a division between object and subject, the knower and the known.
So Charwak says that all those who say they have known the self are talking nonsense. Self- knowledge is impossible because the self is irreducibly the knower. It cannot be converted into the known.
Then Charwak says that if you cannot know the self, how can you say that there is self? Those like Charwak, who do not believe in the presence of a self, are called ANATMAVADIN. They say no self is; they say there is no self – that which cannot be known is not. And they are right logically. If logic is all, they are right. But this is the mystery of life, that logic is only the beginning – not the end. A moment comes when logic ends, but you do not end. A moment comes when logic is finished, but you are still there. Life is illogical. That is why it is difficult to comprehend, to conceive of what is meant when it is said that only the witness remains.
Tags: The Inner Cave
