Imagine a screen, imagine a Flame, and imagine an object. The shadow of the object falls on the screen, say a film is being shown on the screen. The shadow of the object is falling on the screen. The shadow doesn’t fall on the screen unless the screen is illuminated. So for the shadow to fall, or for the reflection to occur – or instead of the screen, let’s call it a mirror. Okay?

For the mirror to catch the reflection of the object, there has to be a light, right? The yoga philosophy says that mind is the mirror. The world is the objects and relationships, but I, the Pure Self, am the Flame. I am providing the illumination to another force called the mind. Mind is regarded as a particular type of energy-field. So my Light falls on the mirror called the mind. Into that mind the whole world reflects. See? All the suffering, all the pain, all the pleasure, all the excitation, all the depression and everything. Okay. So what we are saying is to understand that the world is something different from the mind. And what is happening in the mind – all the purities and impurities, limitations and aspirations, and successes and failures, and expectations and frustrations – they are not the nature of the Pure Flame itself – that beyond the mind there is that Pure Flame, which is actually never touched by any pain, by any ignorance – and is now not touched by it – that beyond your mind, that is conditioned by all of this, there is another Light.

People say, “What Light? There is no Light. What? What Inner Light? Doctors perform brain surgery, and they haven’t seen any Light coming out of there.” So, well, if there is no Inner Light, tell me how it is that when you go to sleep at night, at 2:00 a.m., you do not wake your wife or husband and say, “Darling, would you please turn up the lights in the room so I can see my dream more clearly”? If there were no Light of Consciousness, in what light do you see your dreams?

Editor’s Note

Transcription Self 52 from Tape #2077 (1980).