This is all we can conceive when we cast our eyes on a government’s currency note. It
is, for the non-critical attention of the mind, a value and not a substance. This is the
distinction, because its substance is something different from the value that we see in
it. We always mix up two things when we see any object in this world. The substance
gets buried under the value that we see. The substance of a child is different from the
value that a mother sees in that child—and so on, with respect to any object.
The value of a currency note is different from the substance of the currency note. The
substance is nothing but a piece of paper; the value is something different. The value
is a concept, whereas the substance is physical. What we see in a currency note is a
physical something, plus a conceptual meaning. So the value of the physical
something is in the brain—the head or the mind of the person who conceives or
perceives that object called the currency note. If we divest that currency note of the
value that we have superimposed upon it, we will be entering into the substance of
that object. We remove the notion of meaning in it. Suppose there is an order of the
government that these currency notes will not be valid from tomorrow. We know
what will happen. The currency notes will have no meaning; they will lose all sense.
We will see the substance from tomorrow onwards. The value has gone. They are no
more currency notes—they are merely a quantity of physical substance. Their worth
is only in pounds or kilograms of waste paper. All the meaning that we saw yesterday
has gone overnight, merely because of an ordinance of the government that these
notes will not be valid from such and such a date.
Now we see that the concept that we have about the object called the currency note is
not to be identified with the substance of the note. This much is clear now. What is
the currency note made of? It is not made up of the purchasing power, as we are
thinking. It is made up of paper—that is all. The purchasing power is an investiture
upon it, a kind of superimposition, which is a meaning that we have foisted upon it
for various reasons. Now we have gone one step above in our analysis of the object.
From the stage of calling it a currency note, we have come to the higher stage of
calling it a piece of paper, which is the reality behind the currency note. It was paper
even previously, but we did not want to call it paper, for reasons of our own. When I
show you a thousand-rupee currency note, you will not say, “Here is a piece of
paper.” You will say, “Here is a note.” We have a new name for it, coined for our
practical convenience, notwithstanding the fact that it remains paper even today, as
it will be one day after its value is negated by the government’s orders.
Thus, the capacity of the mind to lay itself upon the substance of the note, divested of
the value that has been superimposed upon it, will be the next step—the next higher
stage of contemplation. Now we begin to see the paper rather than the note. The idea
of ‘note’ has gone. We call it paper. But is paper the real substance of what we see
there? What is paper? It is a name that we give to a peculiar form that wooden pulp
has taken. Paper is nothing but wooden pulp which has been made malleable and
flattened by a mechanical process in the factory; and we have a coloured piece of
wooden pulp before us, which we call paper. We remove the idea of paper from our
minds because that is only a name that we have coined to designate a particular form
taken by a wooden pulp. What is there? What is the substance of paper? It is pulp,
made of wood. From the currency note we have gone to paper, from paper we have
gone to wooden pulp. What is the wooden pulp made of?