Question: Sir, you say in one of your quotes, “I see that I think, therefore I am.” Please explain.
Speaker: I had said this in response to that famous quote of Descartes that the West so admiringly seems to follow. Descartes has said, “I think, therefore I am.” So I needed to say, “I see that I think, therefore I am.”
When you say, “I think, therefore I am,” what you mean is that – “I am the mind. I am the thinking mind. I think, therefore I am.” But the moment you declare that – “I see that I think, therefore I am,” you have declared yourself to be the witness of the mind. Now you are saying that, “My identity is not that of the mind, but of, the beyond mind.”
All the evils of the western civilization are contained in this single maxim, “I think, therefore I am.” If I AM only when I think, then to BE, I will have to…keep thinking. And that is hell. You cannot be silent. You are only as long as you think. So to remain, it is necessitated, that the mind remains occupied in thinking. Whosoever has said this, paid no attention to what he was saying, and its repercussions.
But when you say, “I see that I think, therefore I am,” then you have seen yourself in a different dimension. Obviously, it is not just a matter of changing words; it is not just a matter of saying one thing versus the other. It is the matter of saying, from realization.
When you realize that you can be the watcher of the mind, that you can be distinct from your thoughts, then there is no need for you to engage in compulsive thinking. Now, you ‘are’, even when there are no thoughts. “I see that I AM, when I think. And I see that I AM, when I do not think.”
