Questioner: Sir, if I try to ensure to be aware of what is going on right now, it just takes me away from listening to you. Is there a fundamental mistake that I am making in understanding it?
Acharya Prashant: Not really a great mistake but still unless one reaches the last point, one has not reached. There is something called Mantra and then there is Maun.
The thought of awareness is Mantra but that is not awareness. It is still not awareness. Awareness is silence. You cannot think of awareness, but you can think of stuff that takes care of the rest of your thoughts. Such beautiful thoughts are the adages, the mantra, the verses, aphorisms, the words of the great Teachers. Those words by themselves are not awareness but they are the penultimate steps. They are very close to the final, to the ultimate.
Awareness is not a thought. Bodh is not a thought, but there are thoughts that can help. They are very special thoughts, they are thoughts emanating from awareness. Actually, they are not thoughts at all, they appear like thoughts. Just call them words, just call them divine words.
When they come to the mind they cleanse the mind of other thoughts — that is the mantra. Once the mind is cleaned there is just Mauna (silence). That silence is awareness. In that silence, you don’t have anything to think about because the thinker himself is gone. Now, who will think?
So, you are almost there if you have actually found out something that quells thoughts, you are almost there.
