Seen not different from Seer
A visitor from Sind, very probably Kundanlal A. Mahatani of Hyderabad, Sind, (now Pakistan) asked: “It is said the world and the objects that we see are all unreal, like the snake in the rope. It is also stated in other places that the seer and the seen are the same. If the seer and the seen are same, then how can we say that the seen is unreal?”
Bhagavan: All that is meant is that the seen regarded as an independent entity, independent of the Self, is unreal. The seen is not different from the seer. What exists is the one Self, not a seer and a seen. The seen regarded as the Self is real.
V.: It is said the world is like a dream. But there is this difference between dream and the waking state. In dream I see my friends or relations and go through some experiences with them. When I wake up and ask those friends or relations whom I met in the dream about the dream, they know nothing about it. But in the waking state what I see and hear is corroborated by so many others.
B.: You should not mix up the dream and the waking states. Just as you seek corroboration about the waking state experiences from those whom you see in the waking state, you must ask for corroboration about the dream experiences from those whom you saw in the dream state, i.e., when you were in the dream. Then in the dream, those friends or relations whom you saw in the dream would corroborate you.
The main point is, are you prepared when awake to affirm the reality of any of your dream experiences? Similarly, one who has awakened into jnana cannot affirm the reality of the waking experience. From his viewpoint, the waking state is dream.
V.: It is said only some are chosen for Self-realization and those alone could get it. It is rather discouraging.
B.: All that is meant is, we cannot by our own buddhi, unaided by God’s grace, achieve realisation of Self.
I added, “Bhagavan also says that even that grace does not come arbitrarily, but because one deserves it by one’s own efforts either in this or in previous lives.”
V.: Human effort is declared to be useless. What incentive can any man then have to better himself?
I asked, “Where is it said you should make no effort or that your effort is useless?”
The visitor thereupon showed the portion in Who am I? where it is said, “When there is one great Force looking after all the world, why should we bother what we shall do?” I pointed out that what is deprecated there is not human effort, but the feeling that “I am the doer”.
Bhagavan approved of my explanation, when I asked him if it was not so.
Day by Day with Bhagavan
March 19, 1945