Question: When consciousness becomes conscious of itself, liberation happens. Who is the one that got liberated? Who feels the ease of “getting rid of it all”? Is it the mind?
Sri Prabhuji:
Ego (mind) is the cause for feeling of separation. Ego creates a sense of separate individual. It is the ego which suffers. When ego traces its source to pure awareness, sense of separation disappears along with the separation.
Who gets the relief ? The false identity of ego is suffering. After enlightenment the ego continues as sublated ego. We can call this as enlightened ego or burnt ego. Enlightened ego is like a burnt rope. Burnt rope appears like a real rope but has no ability to bind. Similarly enlightened ego is harmless. Enlightened ego claims liberation.
Unenlightened ego identifies with body-mind-intellect. Enlightened ego identifies with pure awareness and claims freedom. In reality, there is no more an individual.
The situation is more or less similar to suffering in a nightmare(dream). Enlightenment is like realizing in the dream that it is all a dream. Dream character is no longer afraid of the nightmare knowing well that both he/she and dream is unreal. Dream may continue for some time but dream character loses suffering.