With our warm thanks to Marion and Veronica who revised the translation from French.
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Why do thoughts disappear as soon as they are observed?
Consciousness and the object are one, like the mirror and the reflection which appears in it.
When a thought is present, consciousness is not separate from it. There is no observer, no division between the observer and the observed.
The next moment, thought is no more. Consciousness is thus without thought; it is pure consciousness.
It is from the point of view of pure consciousness that the memory of consciousness with an object remains.
So we cannot speak about the observation of thoughts because, at the moment when the thought is present, it is not observed, but is dissolved into the consciousness that contains it.
Consciousness knows itself not only in its nature without thought, free from any content, imperishable, immutable, but also in its oneness with thought. It is this contrast between consciousness without an object and consciousness with an object which gives the feeling that thought disappears as soon as it is observed. But in fact one succeeds the other; they are not simultaneous.
So the observation of thoughts is a tactic, useful for allowing consciousness to become aware of itself, but it is still a refined strategy of the ego, which maintains a division between subject and object. Like all tools which are useful only at the moment we use them, the observation of thoughts, sooner or later, merges into the omnipresence of consciousness, whose nature is not separate from the object which lies within it.
Why do we forget ourselves?
Consciousness knows itself first of all in its oneness with an object. It forgets its nature without an object, and must find it again, like a diamond that forgets its brilliance when locked into its protective gangue.
All meditative practices point toward this awakening into the objectless nature of consciousness, neglecting the object in order to realize the non-object. As long as the feeling of division between subject and object is maintained, the mirage of separation is not shattered and the essential nature of consciousness not yet revealed. It is only at the end of the quest, when the seeker realizes he is not different from the object of his quest, that oneness is realized, and the belief in a subject different from the object is dissolved.
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