Destruction of Mind Equals Liberation - The Fire and the Log

Rama: "(expressing fear) O Sage, you speak of destroying the mind as the path to liberation. But this terrifies me! Without my mind, will I not become like a stone—unconscious, unable to function, dead while still breathing? What use is liberation if it means the end of experiencing?"

Vasishtha: "(reassuring) Your fear is common, Rama, but founded on misunderstanding. When we speak of destroying the mind, we do not mean destroying consciousness or even the capacity to think. Let me clarify with an image."

Rama: "Please do, for this doubt haunts me."

Vasishtha: "Consider a log placed in fire. As the fire burns, the log gradually becomes fire itself. At the end, there is no log—only fire. Now, did the log become 'nothing'? Did it cease to exist? No—it transformed into something more essential. Its log-ness was destroyed, but its substance became light and heat."

Rama: "(listening intently) So the mind does not become nothing, but something more essential?"

Vasishtha: "Exactly. What is destroyed is the 'mind-ness' of mind—its illusions, its false identities, its habit of projecting separation where there is unity. What remains is pure awareness, which was always the true nature of mind but was obscured by mental modifications."

Rama: "But what of thinking, deciding, remembering? Will these cease?"

Vasishtha: "(shaking his head) The sage continues to think, but thinking no longer thinks him. The difference is subtle but total. Before liberation, you are a thinker who occasionally has moments of awareness. After liberation, you are awareness that occasionally uses the instrument of thought. The tool remains; the false ownership dissolves."

Rama: "Can you give me an example of how this manifests?"

Vasishtha: "Consider two men walking through a forest. One has never heard of tigers; one knows tigers exist. Both hear a rustling in the bushes. The ignorant man is curious, perhaps mildly cautious. The knowledgeable man is gripped by fear—his heart races, his mind spins with imagined dangers. Now, which man has more mental modification? The one who 'knows' more."

Rama: "(admitting) The knowledgeable man."

Vasishtha: "And if a sage walks the same path, knowing fully well that tigers exist, yet also knowing himself as the deathless awareness in which both tiger and fear appear—what then? He responds appropriately to rustling bushes, but without the agony of anticipatory fear. His mind functions; it does not malfunction."

Rama: "So the destruction of mind means the ending of malfunction—of the unnecessary suffering the mind adds to experience?"

Vasishtha: "Precisely. Consider your nightly sleep. In deep sleep, your mind is utterly inactive. Yet you do not die; you do not become unconscious in any harmful sense. You simply rest in pure being. And upon waking, you say you slept well, meaning awareness was present even to know the absence of thoughts. The sage's liberation is like bringing that restful purity into waking life, while retaining the ability to use thought when needed."

Rama: "But I cannot imagine functioning without the constant mental commentary."

Vasishtha: "(laughing) That commentary is precisely what obscures your natural functioning! Watch a cat stalking prey—is it thinking 'Now I must crouch, now I must be patient, now I must leap'? No—it acts from pure presence, and its action is flawless. When your mind is destroyed—meaning silenced from its incessant modification—you act like this. Freely. Appropriately. Without the friction of self-consciousness."

Rama: "(beginning to grasp) So I will not become less functional but more functional?"

Vasishtha: "The greatest sages demonstrate this. They can lecture for hours, solve complex problems, navigate difficult situations—all without the heavy machinery of ego-driven thought. Their minds have become transparent, like clean windows that let light through without distorting it."

Rama: "And the liberation itself—what does it feel like?"

Vasishtha: "(smiling) That is like asking what water feels like to a fish who has never left the ocean. Liberation feels like nothing—because there is no one separate to feel it. And yet it feels like everything—boundless aliveness, peace without border, joy without cause. The mind that would ask 'what does it feel like' dissolves in the asking. What remains is beyond feeling—it is the source of all feeling, untouched by any feeling."

Rama: "(nodding slowly) Then I need not fear this destruction. It is not death but birth—birth into my true nature."

Vasishtha: "(confirming) The death of the caterpillar is the birth of the butterfly. What the caterpillar calls death, the butterfly calls awakening."