timeless, infinite and eternal, it should follow that it should include within itself all
the contents of experience, also. The objects that we call the contents must be
inclusive. They should not be exclusive. They should not be lying outside the purview
of consciousness because, if there can be objects outside, it will be finite; they will
condition its being.
The difficulty in defining consciousness independent of all externality is removed by
a further extension of its definition in terms of an inclusion of all contents in the
consciousness itself, so that consciousness is ‘being’. It is not merely abstract
consciousness minus being, because that which is not—that which is divested of
being—is non-being. If we attribute being to objects, and consciousness is to be
regarded only as a process of knowing, it would be divested of the being of things,
and consciousness would be non-being; it would be non-existent. But that cannot be,
because being is what gives value to anything. Minus being, nothing can be.
Therefore, the being of a thing cannot be divested of consciousness; and vice versa,
consciousness cannot be divested of being. Existence is consciousness, and
consciousness is existence. They cannot be separated. They are not two things; they
are only two words—two defining features of one and the same indivisible being.
It is consciousness which is being; it is being that is aware of itself. They are not two
different things. It is not a process of consciousness which is trying to have a
relationship with its content outside; nor is it a consciousness which is divested of
content. It is solid content, and not content in the sense of something being
contained in something, as water is in a vessel. It is not content in that sense. It is not
a content in the sense of something being inside something, or supported by
something. It is an identity of ‘being’. Even the word ‘identity’ is something that can
fall short of the real definition, because it is not the unity of one with the other. It is
an appreciation and appraisal of the impossibility of division of characters in that
particular thing that we call being-consciousness.
Such is the meaning of this word ‘drisimatrah’. The word ‘seer’ is used here, which
does not mean seeing with the eyes, or looking with the organs of sense. It is not
looking at things, but it is Self-awareness. Now, this drisimatrah, or pure awareness
of the seer, is not the self-awareness of the asmita condition which was regarded as a
kind of obstacle or a development of avidya, an effect of avidya. The Self-awareness
that is referred to here as the nature of the seer is not asmita, because asmita was
defined as an awareness that arises on account of the identification of consciousness
with the mind. But here, we are defining it as something independent of mental
processes.
Thus, drisimatrah means not even the self-awareness of asmita; rather, it is the
awareness that is behind even asmita, because what we call asmita is a mixture of
two qualities: the awareness aspect, as well the conditioned body-mind complex
aspect. That aspect of limitation to body and mind is what distinguishes asmita from
pure consciousness. The latter is not conditioned by body-mind. It is not a sense of ‘I
am-ness’ as distinguished from others’ being, but it is the awareness of totality of
being, if we would like to call it that. All definitions fail because even the word
‘totality’ would imply a bringing together of particulars, which is not the nature of
Reality. It is something transcending these in quality.