In response to a question about recognizing consciousness as the basis of all life, Gurudev shared the following:
How is your breath coming in and going out? You’re making no effort. Even in sleep, the air goes in and out. There’s something creating the rhythm of life.
Have you ever wondered? There’s something by which your intellect, emotions, body, and the entire universe function. What’s that?
This happens on the basis of some energy, some principle. What’s that principle? What’s the basis of the whole creation?
A movie is projected on the screen. What is the screen on which life’s movie is being projected? That basic substratum of creation, in which the creation and mind are sustained and the life force is functioning, from where we feel love, is the higher self.
The five elements
The four elements in creation, earth, water, fire, and ether are sustained by the fifth element, space. We categorize three types of space:
- The physical space where the heavenly bodies float.
- The space where thoughts move.
- The space which is consciousness itself.
Consciousness is all-permeating. It’s there, everywhere. So the higher self is everywhere and it’s the basis of this whole creation. But you might think it’s stagnant. No, it’s not stagnant! It’s not a dead space. The space is scintillating and so lively!
Where are you?
Have you ever asked where you are in your body? Are you in your arms, in your heart, in your brain? Where are you? You’re everywhere and nowhere. Heart transplants happen. Many people have undergone brain surgery that removed part of their brain. Still, they’re complete. So where are you? In the brain, the heart, the hands?
You’re everywhere, and yet you’re nowhere. You’re inside of you as well as outside. But there’s no inside or outside to it. It’s closer than the closest and farther than the farthest.
Our linear thinking mind says, “Hey, how is it possible? Something is either close or it’s far.” The conditioning of mind here breaks. It’s given an opportunity to see beyond what it knew and perceived to be true. Something more, another dimension.
You have preferences, aversions, likes and dislikes. They belong to the ego, a limited identity. When you recognize that something much more basic to existence is in you and others, you see that the ego complex keeps us separate and apart.
Beyond ego
Don’t think ego is bad. Ego is part of existence. But when your vision doesn’t transcend it, you’re caught up in cravings and aversions. You’re blind to the largest perspective. But one gets a glimpse of space beyond ego, which is what you are. It’s the same everywhere.
Then, how can one hate or dislike anything? Aversions simply vanish. All these bodies are just a wave of one huge life force. The whole planet is one organism.
When every single body that you see are seven billion bodies together, you can imagine they’re waves, seven billion waves arising at once.
Will one wave hate another wave? A portion of water here will dislike the portion of water there? Can a portion of air here dislike the portion of air in another part of the room? Impossible!
So when the glimpse of this reality comes to your attention, hatred towards anybody evaporates. Consciousness is all the same.
When the hatred disappears, you see the oneness in everybody.
Editor’s note:
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