I heard Maharshi say, "He is concentrating on the reflection and complains that he cannot see the original."
It struck me forcefully. What did he mean by reflection and what was the original? I shut my eyes and tried to find out the meaning. Immediately after, I felt a pull in the region of the heart, similar to what I felt two days previously but much stronger in intensity. My mind was completely arrested -- stilled, but I was wide awake. Suddenly, without any break in my consciousness, the "I" flashed forth! It was self-awareness, pure and simple, steady, unbroken and intensely bright, as much brighter than ordinary consciousness as is sunlight brighter than the dim light of a lamp. In ordinary consciousness the "I"-sense dimly remains in the background -- as a matter of inference or intuition -- the whole of the consciousness being occupied by the object. Here, "I" came to the foreground, occupied, or rather became, the whole consciousness, and intensely existed as pure consciousness, displacing all objects. I was, but I was neither the subject nor the object of this consciousness. I WAS this consciousness, which alone existed. There were no objects. The world was not, neither the body nor the mind -- no thought, no motion; time also ceased to exist. I alone existed and that I was consciousness itself, self-luminous and alone, without a second... Suddenly, and again without any break in my consciousness, I was brought back to my normal, ordinary consciousness.
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