VBT – Meditation 112.2
Space Will Remain
After going through all the meditation techniques of Shiva we will have this question – IT IS ONE THING TO REALIZE COSMIC CONSCIOUSNESS ON EARTH, AND TRANSCEND BODY.
BUT HOW DO REALIZED ONES KNOW FOR SURE THAT THIS CONSCIOUSNESS IS ETERNAL AND WILL REMAIN AFTER THE DEATH OF THE BODY?
The first thing is they don’t bother about it. They are not worried about whether it will remain or not.
It is you who are worried. They don’t think of the next moment. The next life is just irrelevant; even the next day, the next moment, is not a point of concern. It is you who always ask about something in the future, something of the future. Why? Because your present is just empty, your present is just nothing, your present is just rotten, your present is such a suffering that you can tolerate it only if you go on thinking of the future and the paradise and the life ahead. Just here now there is no life so you pitch your mind into the future just to escape from the present, the ugly present. One who is realized is here and now, totally alive. All that can happen has happened. There is no future to it. Whether death is going to kill him or not is not a concern at all. It is the same. Whether he disappears or remains, it makes no difference. This moment is so rich, so absolutely rich, this moment is so intense, that his whole being is here and now.
Anand asked Buddha again and again, “What will happen to you when your body dies?” And Buddha insisted again and again, “Anand, why are you so concerned about the future? Why don’t you look at me, at what is happening now?” But again, after a few days, he will ask, “What happens to an enlightened one when his body dies?” He is afraid of himself. He is afraid. He knows that when the body dies there is no possibility of reviving it, there is no possibility of remaining, there is no possibility of being. And he has not attained anything. The light will just go out – it has been a futile thing. If that happens without his attaining anything, he will simply disappear. So the whole thing was meaningless, the whole suffering was meaningless, leading nowhere. He was concerned; he wanted to know if something survives after the body. But Buddha says, “I am here and now. What will happen in the future is not a concern at all.”
So the first thing is that a realized one is not bothered. That is one of the signs of a realized one – he is not bothered by the future.
And the second thing – you asked, how does he know for sure? Knowledge is always sure. Certainty is inherent, intrinsic, to knowledge. You have a headache. Can I ask you, “How can you say for sure that you have a headache?” You will say, “I know.” I can ask, “But how are you sure that your knowledge is right and not wrong?” But no one asks such nonsensical questions. When the headache is there, it is there – you know it. Knowledge is intrinsically certain. When one is enlightened, he knows he is enlightened; he knows that he is not this body; he knows that inside he is just a vast space. And space cannot die. Things can die, space cannot die.
Just think about this room. We can destroy this building, but we cannot destroy the roominess in this room. Can you destroy it? The walls can be destroyed, but we are sitting here in this roominess, space. The walls can be destroyed, but how can you destroy this room – not the walls, the space here? The whole “Building” may disappear – it will disappear one day – but this space will remain. Your body will disappear and because you don’t know the inner space, you are afraid. You want to know it for sure. But an enlightened man knows that he is the space – not the body, not the walls, but the inner space. The walls will drop, they have dropped many times, but the inner space will remain. It is something he has to find proof for, it is his immediate knowledge.
He knows it, that’s all. Knowledge is intrinsically certain.
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