# 11. Awareness and Consciousness
Awareness is primordial: it is the original state, beginningless, endless, uncaused, unsupported, without parts, without change. Consciousness is on contact, a reflection against a surface, a state of duality. There can be no consciousness without awareness, but there can be awareness without consciousness, as in deep sleep.
Questioner: What do you do when asleep?
Maharaj: I am aware of being asleep.
Q: Is not sleep a state of unconsciousness?
M: Yes, I am aware of being unconscious.
Q: And when awake or dreaming?
M: I am aware of being awake or dreaming.
Q: I do not follow you. What exactly do you mean? Let me make my terms clear: by “being asleep” I mean unconscious, by “being awake” I mean conscious, by “dreaming” I mean conscious of one’s mind, but not of the surroundings.
M: It is almost the same for me. Yet there seems to be a difference. In each state you forget the other two, while to me there is but one state of being, including and transcending the three mental states of waking, dreaming and sleeping.
Q: Do you see a direction and a purpose in the world?
M: The world is but a reflection of my imagination. Whatever I want to see, I can see. But why should I invent patterns of creation, evolution and destruction? I do not need them. The world is in me; the world is myself. I am not afraid of it and have no desire to lock it up in a mental picture.
Q: Coming back to sleep: do you dream?
M: Of course.
Q: What are your dreams?
M: Echoes of the waking state.
Q: And your deep sleep?
M: The brain consciousness is suspended.
Q: Are you then unconscious?
M: Unconscious of my surroundings — yes.
Q: Not quite unconscious?
M: I remain aware that I am unconscious.
Q: You use the words “aware” and “conscious”. Are they not the same?
M: Awareness is primordial: it is the original state, beginningless, endless, uncaused, unsupported, without parts, without change. Consciousness is on contact, a reflection against a surface, a state of duality. There can be no consciousness without awareness, but there can be awareness without consciousness, as in deep sleep. Awareness is absolute, but consciousness is relative to its content — consciousness is always of something. Consciousness is partial and changeful; awareness is total, changeless, calm and silent — and it is the common matrix of every experience.
Q: How does one go beyond consciousness into awareness?
M: Since it is awareness that makes consciousness possible, there is awareness in every state of consciousness. Therefore, the very consciousness of being conscious is already a movement in awareness. Interest in your stream of consciousness takes you to awareness. It is not a new state. It is at once recognised as the original, basic existence, which is life itself, and also love and joy.
Q: Since reality is with us all the time, what does self-realisation consist of?
M: Realisation is but the opposite of ignorance. To take the world as real and one’s self as unreal is ignorance, the cause of sorrow. To know the self as the only reality and all else as temporal and transient is freedom, peace and joy. It is all very simple. Instead of seeing things as imagined, learn to see them as they are. When you can see everything as it is, you will also see yourself as you are. It is like cleansing a mirror. The same mirror that shows you the world as it is will also show you your own face. The thought “I Am” is the polishing cloth. Use it.