Crisis in Consciousness 

 The Equation of Unhappiness

Judging purely by surface appearances, that is taking things on the relative level, it seems as though there is some basic entity which governs the body; and it has never occurred to us that it might be the other way around: that the body, through the functioning of the sense organs, is continually giving rise to the illusion of a controlling entity (and thus to duality).  Just as man, after many centuries of taking the appearance for the real, found it very difficult to accept that the sun is not revolving around a stationary earth, so it will require a revolution in his outlook–and one of far greater magnitude and consequence–to correct his mistaken notion that the self and the dualistic philosophy of life which results from it.

*Awareness of “self” has arisen through bodily sensation, and identification of thought, consciousness, with body–leading to the feeling “I am the body”. The notions of the “me” and “mine” have subsequently been maintained and strengthened by our use of language, which impresses on the mind , continually verbal memory images based on the “I”.  For example, when we use the word “thinking”, the grammatical construction of language implies the existence of an entity, the “thinker”, and something which is “thought”, separate and independent from the thinker.  We are so conditioned by this that we fail to see there is only thinking, in which both the thinker and the thought have their existence; that in reality the trinity of thinking, thinker and thought is a unity which does not allow any separate entity as as the thinker or the “I”. 

Once, however, the “I” is established, a vicious circle, a self-activating cyclic process is born, the elements of which are self-protection (expressing itself in greed and all forms of grasping, clinging) and fear.  Then the “I” becomes the controlling entity, continually striving to act on its thought, to guide it in a particular direction, that of greater psychological security; this whole movement constitutes the life of the self.  Once this movement has set in, it also implies that the “controlling entity” is consciously or unconsciously concerned only with the search for “satisfaction” (and so it has come about that thought is almost always subjective, hardly ever impersonal).  This “search”, however, is futile, for is the mind never satisfied?  Maybe only temporarily in the stupor of satiety.  The normally active mind is never satisfied; in fact the mind is a state of dissatisfaction, and as such a blemish on what is, that which lies totally beyond the states of both satisfaction and dissatisfaction.  

Human relationship, which should be an aid towards exposing the self, has now become a ruthless exploration for “satisfaction”, mutual or otherwise; our very language, which occasionally expresses much wisdom, is a powerful give-away in this respect, as when we inquire about two persons’ dealings with each other in the following manner; “Well, did you get any satisfaction out of him?” . . . So whatever the mind does lies within a circle of its own dissatisfaction; and, obviously, in this process there can be no promise of liberation.

In this connection it is interesting to see a parallel mechanism at work in the striving of the scientist to find some new bit of information that will “satisfy” his equations, which result, he thinks, will bring him one step closer to the Truth, and the striving of human beings in general for some satisfaction of their psychological needs, which, they thin, will bring them closer to complete and lasting happiness.

Both, being based upon relativities, that is unrealities, are fore-doomed, for the relative can only give rise to the transient and incomplete, and never to the perfect and permanent (more correctly: the “timeless”)  which spring from the Real.  But whereas the scientist’s vain efforts simply mean the substitution of one hypothesis by another–thus keeping the wheels of science turning–human beings as a whole go on ceaselessly searching for some “satisfaction”--without ever considering whether there is such a thing at all–thus leading to an unending chain of struggles and frustrations.  Only by realizing that this tragic equation of unhappiness, although apparently soluble, is in actual fact false, can human beings hope to do better than the scientist.