Pursuit of Pleasure is Invocation of Pain : 4.

So the asmita, or the principle of individuality, which is the cause of all our further troubles in life, is brought about by a peculiar kind of internal, mutual superimposition of aspects. And once this superimposition has taken place, we cannot get out of it. Various kinds of examples are given to illustrate how this has happened and what it actually means. A heated iron rod or iron ball becomes red-hot, so that we are unable to distinguish between the iron and the fire. When we touch the iron ball, it burns us. What is it that we are touching – fire, or the iron ball? Well, either or neither, we may say. What burns us is the fire, but what we actually touch as a tangible, physical, concrete, solid substance is the iron ball. They have become one. There is a glow we see, that is all. It is only fire. The iron is not visible; it has lost its presence. It has identified its being with the being of the fire, for the time being. Likewise, we will find that this distracting medium called the mind completely makes itself appear absent, as it were – though it is the thing that works there. It is the wire-puller behind all activities in life; and yet, it has so dexterously got identified with some other power, with the help of which it works, that we are wrongly aware of the erroneous activity of that superior principle rather than of the cause of this error that has taken place.


Sometimes, due to association brought about by mysterious circumstances, innocent people can be in trouble as a result of the mischievous activity of wicked persons. And, those wicked persons go scot-free; they run away, and these innocent ones are caught. They are hauled up in the court, and anything is possible. They know nothing; they have been simply caught by circumstances.
Likewise, there is a very mischievous imp called the mind, which very shrewdly utilises the powers of consciousness for its own purposes. The force with which it works, as well as the intelligence that it harnesses in its action, belong entirely to something which is different from itself. But all the functions – which are purely phenomenal – belong to the mind itself. So what happens is that when we are active, we are unable to distinguish between the principle of activity and the principle of intelligence that is behind the activity, just as we cannot distinguish between the heat or the fire in the heated iron rod, and the rod itself. The distracting movement of the mind in the direction of an object, whatever it be in life, is different from the motive force that is behind it. And if the motive force is absent, the activity will cease immediately – just as when a force is absent, movement will not be possible. This peculiar feature of movement, activity or externalised projection gets mixed up with the force behind it, and then we have the feeling ‘we are’, or ‘I am’.
Therefore, this ‘I am-ness’, or the sense of being, is a confusion that has taken place. The existence aspect of our assertion, ‘I exist’, belongs to a realm which is different from the realm of purposes for which it is employed – namely, the mind, the desire and the actions.

To be continued  ...