Imagine a huge computer program running a play involving several holograms, each hologram playing specific role as decided by the computer program. The computer program is capable of simulating various emotions displayed by holograms. There is certain degree of artificial intelligence provided to each hologram, so that there is some free will as far as each hologram is concerned. As this play of holograms continues, various holograms in this play experience moments of joy and sorrow etc. Thanks to the artificial intelligence and certain conditions in the play, a particular hologram realises that the experience of joy comes and goes and it wants to make it permanent. It also wants to know what is making this whole thing happening. Using its artificial intelligence and accessing the central memory of the computer it is able to realise that essentially it is electromagnetic signal and not the role it is playing. This particular hologram becomes self realised from that point onwards but continues to play its role in a detached manner.
PS: The above write-up is only an approximation as the actual self-realisation would mean that the hologram knows that it is awareness and not just electromagnetic signal.
A cook touches a very hot utensil accidentally and automatically the body pulls the hand back.
An electrician touches a high voltage live wire accidentally and automatically the body pulls the hand back.
The above two examples are the illustrations of how things happen automatically without us doing them consciously. These actions happen via defence mechanism thanks to the nervous system.
It is easy to see via both of these examples that we are not the doers. However, when it comes to other acts like speaking for example it is not so easy to see that things are happening on their own. We often tend to own the doership. This is because, while tuning of attention does happen automatically, it happens so quickly when attention keeps on drifting from one place to the other that our conditioned intellect is unable to catch the autopilot behaviour. When this fact that everything happens by itself is recognised by watching the activities of body-mind, e.g. the appearance of thoughts, movement of hands, words coming out from mouth, happening of hearing via ears etc., the astonishing realisation that I am not doing anything and everything is happening by itself takes place (also refer to Bhagavad Gita 5.8, 5.9). After the recognition of this fact that if everything is just happening and I am not doing anything and this body-mind is like a robot, the question, “Who am I?” is natural to come. Seeking of the answer to this question may eventually take the seeker towards enlightenment when the seeker after finding itself sees itself everywhere.
The embedded video below showing enlightenment taking place is from an old Indian movie, “Guide”. Some of my remarks in English are also shown below to highlight certain aspects of the story. The movie, “Guide” was inspired by the novel, “The Guide” by R. K. Narayan. English trailer of the movie can be found here.
A king saw a dream in which he lost his kingdom, sent into exile and subsequently faced extreme hardships. After waking up he found himself to be the king but the experience of losing kingdom and being treated poorly had gone deep into his mind. He kept on saying, “Is this true or is that true?”. When a sage visited him, the king said the same thing to the sage as well.
King: Is this true or is that true?
Sage: You experienced both things. However, when one experience was present, other was absent. You are experiencing kingdom now but this experience was absent when you experienced the loss of kingdom and events after that. No experience is absolute truth as experience keeps on changing. So, neither is this experience true nor is that experience true. What never changes is absolute truth. The only truth is YOU.
Just like a robot is animated by electricity, a human is animated by breathing. In ordinary language we say that robot is not conscious whereas human is conscious. In the language of Vedanta it is just that the reflected consciousness is different when we compare robot with human and primitive robots may not appear to have much of reflected consciousness. Pure consciousness stands apart and both the robot and the human appear in it. Robot and human are just different types of instruments through which pure consciousness expresses. In times to come when the robot is programmed to show the expressions of pain, joy etc. it will become harder to notice the difference between the reflected consciousness of the robot and that of a human. In Quantum Physics when we talk of observer, it makes no difference whether the observer is conscious or not so to say, after all nobody, whether a machine or something made of flesh has consciousness of its own. It is always the borrowed consciousness from the pure consciousness field and this pure consciousness field is present everywhere.
Just asking the mind to come to the present may not be a workable long-term technique to actually bring it to the present as there can be hidden reasons for the background activities taking place in the mind. For example, many times mind works in the background when it is searching for some answers. This act by unconscious mind makes us unavailable to the present moment. When the answer to the search suddenly appears, mind relaxes and becomes quite. There can be a rush of joy as well (bliss) in this state and the mind comes to the present.
