A recorded lecture by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
August 1970, Humboldt State College, California


Student:  Today in our discussion group we were discussing levels of
consciousness and this rose (sic) a couple of questions.  The first
one is, at what level of consciousness is it unnecessary for an
individual to incarnate again.


Maharishi Mahesh Yogi:  At the level of consciousness where the
development of the self is full. And that is.


S: (interrupting) Is this Cosmic Consciousness then?


MMY:  Right.


S:  I see.  And at this point if the person leaves the body or dies
if you want to call it that and goes on to wherever he goes, does he
have his individuality?  And if he does can he incarnate again?


MMY: He doesn't go.


S: I don't understand.


MMY:  Cosmic Consciousness is a state where the small 's' has become
big 'S'.  Self.  And Self - big 'S' Self - means unboundedness.
Unboundedness.  Eternity.  When the status of the individual has
expanded to unboundedness, that is his status and that is he.  Hmm?
When the status is unbounded, he is beyond time and space.  He's all
over.  Once he is all over, where he can go?  Hmm?


S:  He's individual, but yet he's unbounded everywhere?


MMY:  This is what the small self becoming big Self means.  In our
meditation that unbounded awareness, that awareness, it has already
expanded to eternity, to infinity.  Infinite is the boundary of the
individual consciousness, huh?  On the level of consciousness.  On
the level of the body he is so many feet long and so many feet wide.
Individual.  But his awareness is so much unbounded.  When the
individual is so much unbounded, and the body ceases to function,
then what will happen to that unbounded awareness?  Nothing can
happen to It.  Hmm?  That It is 'I' capital.  It.  Unboundedness.
And therefore, it doesn't leave the body and doesn't go anywhere,
because being everywhere it cannot leave a place and go to another
place.  It cannot leave one time, go to other time.  So the
unboundedness is free from the boundaries of time and space.  And
that is why a man living Cosmic Consciousness does not go somewhere.
His body goes from manifested state to unmanifested state.  The body
goes, he doesn't go.


S:  Thank you.  Could you speak a little bit on chakras and kundalini?


MMY: (interrupting)  Now, now, now, now, now.  I'll speak more on
this, hmmm?  To make it little bit more clear.  What is happening.
(a group enters the lecture hall) Oh, come on.  The poets enter the
room now.  Come on, come on.  I am having a poetic flight.  (laughter)

Now how does CC grow?  How does one grow in CC?  We have known it is
the growth of the nervous system.  Growth means transformation.
Purification of the nervous system.  Modification of the nervous
system.  Due to which that pure consciousness becomes permanent.  One
example will clarify this situation.  Green water in a glass, green
water in a glass.  Now the sun is shining everywhere and the glass is
in the sun.  The reflection is green.  This is like the small 's'
self- when the nervous system is not purified, it is green.  The
water is green, it's not very clear.  Nervous system is clouded with
all kinds of impurities.  Now that green water has green reflection.
The sun, sun shining evenly everywhere is not green.  It's neither
green nor red or no colour.  It's colourless.  If we modify water,
green water being modified, green becoming less and less, hmm?  That
means the reflector of the sun is being modified, resulting in the
modification of the reflection.  The water becoming less and less
green, the reflection is becoming less and less green.  Less and less
green means more and more towards the nature of the sun.  Less and
less green reflection means more and more becoming like the sun.  At
a point, at one particular moment, the water is no more green.
Completely pure.

Still, the water could continue to be modified.  This modification
could continue 'til the reflection has gained the quality of the sun
around it.  The reflection has become the omnipresent sun.  It has
gained the quality of the sun around it.  This is like Cosmic
Consciousness.  The reflection then is a reflection.  It has its
structure according to the shape of the glass, but that the quality
of the reflection is the quality of the sun.  The reflection feels,
'I am the sun'.  Hmm?  This is realization.  The reflection which had
its an identity different from the sun has now gained the quality of
the sun.  'I am the sun.'

Just like that, the nervous system, reflecting the omnipresent being,
and the reflection is of a particular quality.  Hmm?  But with
transcendental meditation the modification of the nervous system
keeps on improving the quality of the reflection.  Quality of
reflection keeps on becoming purer and purer.  A time comes when the
individual reflection, the Self, has gained the quality of
omnipresent being.  Hundred percent.  The Self is Being.  The small
self has gained the status of big Self, big 'S'.  In this state, the
nervous system, due to the nervous system, the big Self can be
located and yet it is unbounded.  When the reflection has become like
the sun, and the reflection has gained the quality of the sun around
it, then it is omnipresent sun.  It is the same sun that shining
everywhere.  Yet, because of the glass it has its individuality.  So
it is an individual entity and it is omnipresent sun both at the same
time.

  Now, the glass breaks.  Water spreads.  What has happened to the
reflection?  Nothing has happened to the reflection except that is
ceases to be located.  The reflection that was here when the glass
was intact was the same sun as everywhere - it has the same quality.
Now the glass is not there, it's broken.  Where has gone the
reflection?  It has gone nowhere.  It's just there, because it has
already gained the status of the sun.  It's there, but only it ceases
to be located.  The individuality drops off with the body ceasing to
function and the cosmic status of the self remains undisturbed.
Nothing can happen to the unboundedness.  Nothing can happen to
Absolute Being because it is already non-relative.  Absolute is non-
relative, nothing can happen to it.  When the body drops, nothing
happens to it.  It doesn't go.  It doesn't come out from the body and
doesn't go anywhere because anywhere it can go, it already is there.

And therefore we don't talk in terms of death.  Hmm?  A man who has
risen to Cosmic Consciousness, we just don't talk about him in terms
of death.  We talk about his body ceasing to function.  He doesn't
depart from the body.  He doesn't go anywhere.  Only for other people
he ceases to be located.  And this was the thing, even during, when
the body was functioning.  During when he was living.  He was, he was
there.  He could be located and even when he was being located as an
individual in time and place, even then he was beyond the time and
everywhere in space on the level of his consciousness.  Hmm?

What happens when the body ceases to function?  What happens?  The
ego, individual ego had already gained the status of cosmic ego.  And
cosmic ego is there on the cosmic level.  So nothing happens to the
individual ego.  Nothing new happens to the individual ego.  Only
that the individual ego is not able to associate itself with the mind
and senses and project itself to the field of action and in the
environment.  Only it's because there is no means available for the
projection of the ego through the action into the environment, this
phenomenon ceases to happen.  The ego ceases to function because the
means of action - the nervous system and the senses - they are not
available.  So what happens to the ego?  It only ceases to function
through the senses because there is no senses.  It ceases to
experience because the means of experience are no more available.

What happens to the intellect?  Hmm?  That intellect of the
individual even during lifetime was one with cosmic intelligence but
because the nervous system was there, the senses were there, the
mechanism of thinking was there, it was able to think and decide.
This deciding, the phenomenon of taking decisions has ceased to
function.  Hmm?  Has ceased to be.  Only this phenomenon of taking
decisions.  So the intellect is not able to function.  Same is the
mind.  Mind functions through the brain and when the brain is no more
available, mind ceases to function.  But its status as Cosmic
Intelligence can never be shadowed, can never be overshadowed.
Senses, they already had been fully developed, even when they were
functioning on the isolated boundaries of time and place.  Hmm?  When
the man was living Cosmic Consciousness.  That time the senses were
functioning.  Now the machinery is no more available.  They do not,
the senses are not able to function.  That is all.  So only the
functioning stops.  Nothing happens to these individual subjective
aspects of life.  Ego, even during lifetime had already been cosmic
ego.  Intellect had already been cosmic intelligence.  Mind was
already cosmic mind.  Senses had been fully developed.  Hmm?  And so
the isolation aspect of the senses only drops off.  The cosmic aspect
continues.  So it's only the individuality drops off with the body
ceasing to function.  The cosmic aspect, hmm?  Remains.

Cosmic Consciousness has two aspects to it - one cosmic aspect, the
other individual aspect.  The glory of the individual aspect is that
by virtue of this individual aspect, cosmic aspect can be lived.
Hmm?  This is the glory of the individual aspect of Cosmic
Consciousness by virtue of the nervous system functioning normally-
that the cosmic aspect of life is possible to live on the individual
level.  And this is the glory of the fully developed nervous system.
That cosmic unbounded aspect of life is capable of being lived on the
individual level. Hmm?  It's a very great, it's a very great blessing
that the individuality can live cosmic existence, cosmic
intelligence.  This is the glory of Cosmic Consciousness, and when
the body ceases, individuality drops off, cosmic status remains.  So
one doesn't leave the body.

It is said that the ego and the mind, they are already cosmic in
structure, even when the body is functioning.  And nothing can happen
to the cosmic structure when something happens to the individual
level of the cosmic structure.  What does it matter?  Hmm?  Cosmic
structure remains undisturbed when the individuality drops.  What can
happen to the ocean if a drop drops off?  Nothing.  So when the body
drops off in the cosmic, cosmic value of life only ceases to be
located, that's all.  We don't talk in terms of death of Cosmic
Consciousness- he doesn't die.  Because normally dying is associated
with leaving this body and going somewhere.  Like that.  So when he
doesn't go, hmm, his mind is already cosmic.  His prana, the breath,
already cosmic.  Already it is cosmic.  Not that it merges into the
cosmic, no.  Not that the individual prana merges into the cosmic
prana.  Not that the individual mind merges into the cosmic mind.
Because already during lifetime, the individual mind was one with
cosmic mind.  The individual prana was one with cosmic prana.
Therefore, no new merger takes place at the time of death.  No new
phenomenon of merger of the individual mind or individual prana into
the cosmic mind or cosmic prana takes place at the time of death.
Nothing new happens at the time of death, only the old body drops off.

Nothing new happens because already all that was to happen to the
individual consciousness had already happened, even during lifetime.
The individual mind is already one with the cosmic mind.  The
individual prana is already one with the cosmic prana.  So the
individual mind is cosmic mind.  Individual prana is cosmic prana.
Only the individuality of cosmic prana which was due to the body
ceases to be.  The individuality of the mind, which was due to the
body, ceases to be with this ceasing of the body.  Hmm?  Nothing
happens new at the time of death, only that the individual ceases to
be located by others.  Is that clear?


S: Could a man in CC choose to reincarnate to help raise the level of
man?  Raise the level of consciousness of man?  Once he's reached
this CC, can he incarnate again to help further the evolution of man?


MMY:  Incarnate means come back.


S:  Yes I know.


MMY:  Now we have seen he doesn't go.  (laughter)


S:  Take up another body?


MMY:  So when he doesn't go, there is no question of coming back.


S:  Yes, but I'm speaking in.


MMY:  (interrupting) Anyone who will go will come back.  Go has to be
back.  One doesn't go, doesn't. There's no question of coming back
when he doesn't go.  There is no question of coming back.  When his
going is arrested, he doesn't get a passport to come back.  His going
is arrested, it doesn't go.


S:  Thank you.


MMY:  Is that point clear?


S:  Uh, yeah kinda.  I don't see if a man reaches Cosmic
Consciousness, and he leaves the body, and like you say he's
unbounded, then can he choose to come back to earth in a body to help.


MMY:  The desire is out of hand.  He can't make a choice.  Because.
hmm?  A seed which has been roasted, a roasted seed, firstly it can
not desire to germinate and in case it desires to germinate it has no
more potentiality left to germinate.  Even if a roasted seed desires-
firstly, he cannot, it cannot desire to germinate, because there is
no possibility left for desiring.  In case, by some chance maybe, it
desires to germinate, it can't.  It cannot germinate because that
possibility has been roasted.  (laughter)  In the fire of knowledge,
that possibility to germinate has been roasted.  Now a man in
enlightenment cannot- firstly he cannot desire to come back, secondly
if by any cosmic mistake he desires, the coming back is out of hand.
That possibility is out of hand, it just cannot, cannot, cannot come
back.


S:  Can he influence the relative world?


MMY:  While alive he does in every way.  As long as he is individual,
he is living that cosmic life and therefore is a means.  His
individuality is a means to set in motion, to set in vibration that
cosmic life.  Cosmic life breathes through him, pulsates in his, in
his pulsations.  And this is a very great thing.  If one could set
the cosmic existence to pulsate, it's a very great thing.  And this
cosmically conscious man does automatically.


When I am answering, don't make questions.  When I am answering, if
you are manipulating a question in the mind, then you are left with a
problem.  When I have finished answering, then you start thinking
'What is the next angle to raise?'  It will be very beneficial.  And
if, when I'm talking you do strike with some question regarding what
is being said, note it down quietly and keep it.  When you engage
your friend on your side, on this or this, remarking how beautiful it
is, then the following two sentences are gone.  Don't formulate a
question when I am, when I am speaking, uh?  Yes, go ahead, what did
you.


S:  I have no more questions, thank you.

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