Question:

Namaste Ektaji, If the Waking arisings are decided by the measure of impressions within Deep Sleep, who decides the measure?

 

Answer:

The question “Who decides the measure of impressions that will arise in Waking?” still assumes that there must be some separate entity standing outside Consciousness, measuring and distributing experiences. There is no such second entity.

Consciousness itself, functioning as the intelligence of the total manifestation, is called Īśvara or God or the Higher power.

The same Consciousness that appears as the Waking world, the Waker and all Waking arisings is present in the unmanifest condition of Deep Sleep as their causal potential. Deep Sleep is not an inert blankness but an undifferentiated reservoir of impressions, held within Consciousness itself. It is addressed as the Deep Sleep Consciousness.

From that causal reservoir, only a certain measure of impressions becomes active as a particular Waking manifestation. One impression sprouts as a Waking thought, another as an Waking emotion, another as a Waking perception of sight, another as Waking pleasure, and so on. Īśvara or God does not stand apart and distribute these impressions like an external administrator.

• • Consciousness itself contains the impressions,
  • Consciousness itself brings them into activity, and
  • Consciousness itself experiences their manifestation through the assumed Waker.

The controller, the controlled and the field in which the controlling appears are one Consciousness.

This is why the assumed person prays to God: “Let tomorrow be peaceful. Let this difficulty disappear. Let something pleasant arise.” But notice the strange beauty of it, that the apparent person arising within Consciousness is praying to the very Consciousness from which that person, the prayer, the desire and tomorrow’s circumstances will arise.

Why, then, does Īśvara or God or higher power not ration out only pleasant impressions?

Consciousness manifests in order to reveal, express and know the immense potentiality contained within itself. Therefore the Waking projection contains what the person calls both pleasant and unpleasant, gain and loss, union and separation, health and discomfort, praise and blame. These opposites reveal the possibilities latent within Consciousness. Consciousness cannot have a personal agenda for the Waker’s comfort.

Yet the suffering is not caused by unpleasant impressions. The suffering begins only after Consciousness assumes itself to be the person. The Waker forgets the original nature of the manifestation and says, “This pleasant experience should remain. This unpleasant experience should not have arisen.” Resistance begins. Preference begins. Fear begins. And then the very manifestation that was simply Consciousness revealing its own potentiality is interpreted personally as my problem, my misfortune, my suffering.

From the standpoint of Consciousness, there is no mistake in the arising. From the standpoint of the person, there is constant agitation due to the arising. Therefore the inquiry should be: Who is this “me” claiming that the impression should have been different?

• • The unpleasant arising is not outside Consciousness.
  • The resistance to it is not outside Consciousness.
  • The person suffering it is not outside Consciousness.

All three are sprouts appearing within the same field.

Remain as the Witness and allow the Waking projection to disclose what Deep Sleep Consciousness has brought into manifestation today. The measure is not yours to decide. The arising is not yours to manufacture. And once it has arisen, even your response to it appears within the same intelligence. Wisdom is the recognition that the person itself is one of Deep Sleep Consciousness’s arisings.