
Neither conscious nor unconscious
excerpt
series:
Tao - The Three Treasures
Volume 3 / Chapter 4
Aug 14, 1975 Chuang Tzu Auditorium

544



The seventh question:
Osho is mistaken, it is question 6
Is the whole conscious of itself?
No, neither conscious nor unconscious. That is the meaning of supraconscious.
Unconsciousness is a sleep state: you are not aware of yourself. Consciousness is self-awareness – you are aware of the self. But that creates a division: the self and the awareness of it. You become two. The whole is neither conscious nor unconscious, the whole is supraconscious, because there is no division between the self and awareness.
And when you become one with the whole you also are neither conscious nor unconscious. Or, you are both together. Unconscious in a way because there is no self to be conscious about, and conscious in a way because you are so alert. If you can conceive a state – it is difficult to conceive – if you can conceive a state where there is no self but only awareness, nobody to be aware but only awareness, then there is rest, rest just like sleep, and there is alertness, alertness just like when you are awake. Either you can say it is both or you can say it is neither.
But one thing has to be remembered: all that you know is irrelevant when you talk about the whole. All that you know. You know two things: unconsciousness and consciousness, and both are irrelevant. Either join them together, or drop them together. The whole is totally different. All that you have known up to now cannot become a category for it. And nothing much can be said about it. Because for whatever I say, I will have to use your words. And then there is bound to be misunderstanding.
So it is better to move into the whole and know it, rather than ask questions about it. Ask questions about yourself because there is the problem, and that problem has to be solved. With the whole there is no problem – forget about it. Just ask questions about yourself so that they can be solved. One day, when you move into the whole, you will know. And there is no other way to know it. This much I am giving – and this is not information, it is just a hint, don’t take it too literally – the whole is supraconscious. It is both and it is neither.
Tao - The Three Treasures
Volume 3 / Chapter 4