In yoga, the one Life, Being and Power responsible for the manifestation, transformation and maintenance of the realm of nature, is referred to as consciousness. It is self existing, self aware and self referring.
What we perceive or don’t perceive with our senses has its origin in consciousness.
Bible texts often give us messages that relate to duality between God and nature or the world as we will read in the bible passage of
1 John (2:15-17) which warns us, not to be caught up with worldly, material things that are only temporary in nature.
He tells us not to love superficial things. Yet this is exactly what most of us do every day and we do it, because we think it brings us happiness. We crave the satisfaction of our senses. But does this bring happiness or does it lead to even greater desires?
What does John say?
“Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world - the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life - is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.”
Yet we are in this world and need to function in it. We experience it as our home, even if it is only temporary. It is the place, where we are born into a family and the place where we ourselves have families. We are given a body, mind and spirit in order to fully express our potential, but why should we not love the things of the world.
Does our love of the world deceive us?
Is the world not what it seems to us?
Can we love and do the will of a God we have never seen or experienced and only read about in the holy books?
Can our mind give us understanding of matters that lie beyond sense experience?
Other parts of scriptures tell us, that we need to accept the Fatherhood of God by faith, but it also tells us, that we are made in His image. If we are made in His image, Genesis 1:26 but how come we don’t know it?
Faith is described as ‘the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not yet seen.’
Hebrews 11:1
God is surely more than a substance.
What is God?
How can we know God?
How can we love without knowing?
Perhaps our dilemma in not understanding lies, in that we really don’t know who we are. We are ignorant of our true nature as well as of the nature of God.
This is why Jesus said: ’Father, forgive them for they know not what they do’, Luke 23:34, when he was being crucified.
Do we act out of ignorance? We see ourselves as body mind organisms and in this manner our attention and love is focused on material objects, on things.
We say that we love or have feelings for our spouses, our children, but we seldom love them unconditionally until we eventually realize that there is a higher level of understanding of ourselves and of the world.
Yoga offers us an approach to this higher understanding. It teaches that, what we call God, is Sat, Chit Ananda; ever existing, ever conscious, ever new bliss, joy or love.
It also teaches, that we are individualized Sat, Chit Ananda or made in the image. Therefore, all the attributes that are in God are in us also.
We need to realize, that we are not this mind or body, but that we are expressing through mind and body. But first, we must become conscious of whom and what we are and then we will come to know who God is and that we are a part of Him.
This leads us to God and Self realization.
Self realization as defined by Paramahansa Yogananda is, “the knowing in body, mind and soul that we are one with the omnipresence of God; that we do not have to pray that it come to us, that we are not merely near it at all times, but that God’s omnipresence is our omnipresence; that we are just as much a part of Him now as we ever will be. All we have to do is improve our knowing.”
When we realize, that God is as much a part of us now as He ever will be, we are filled of great joy. Joy is what we experience as a result of our love.
It is by knowing who we are that we can love ourselves and our neighbour whose innermost being, the Self, is the same in all of us. It is then that we do no longer see ourselves as being separate from one another and from our source, or God, whose nature is Bliss. It is then we can love God with all our heart, mind strength and soul; It is by loving God, that we can love God in all the human family.
Self and God realization ought to be our primary purpose in life. Through it we can experience God, as spirit expression in the world and existing beyond the world.
The question then becomes, how can we experience the Self?
We do this through meditation and contemplation. It is through this process that we rest in the joy and peace within. It is the place where we experience oneness and wholeness. What is perceived in meditation is not based on faith, but on actual experience, by knowing the All in all.
This experience of knowing is called enlightenment.
Through contemplation and meditation in AUM, we can receive answers to our questions as described in the following experience:
For a long time in talks with like minded friends I have suggested the importance that we identify with our true nature, our Self or soul and not with our ego or personality self, which causes us to perceive one another, God and the world around us and all of creation as separate. This sense of separation is the basis of our unhappiness.
Somehow, the message got lost and the general response was mostly a blank stare as if to say:’ what are you talking about’?
There needed to be a better approach to communicating this important message. One early morning I contemplated the question. After receiving the answer, I said to Jennifer, my wife, I finally got an answer to my question of how to explain the subject of identifying with the Self. Her reply was: ’Don’t say anything, I know what you are going to tell me’ and proceeded telling me exactly what I had received during the contemplation. Perhaps this shows us the oneness of mind or the omnipresence of Spirit acting in and through us.
I only mention this, because it proves the bible verses, ‘knock and the door will be opened’, Matthew 7:7; ‘ask and you shall receive’, Luke 11:9, are true.
From another perspective it tells us, that universal mind, of which our mind is a part, responds to what we place into it.
Contemplation leads us to the uncovering of the mysteries of the universe through the expansion of our consciousness.
Finally, we come to the answer to my question?
The Self or soul is the witness of all our experiences. It witnesses the waking, dream and dreamless sleep state and even states beyond the dreamless state.
It is nothing that needs to be achieved, it just needs to be experienced and every person is a witness to his experience.
It is not a separate state, it is being, existing, it is consciousness itself.
It is ever present, none changing, eternal.
We are witness to our body, to our thoughts, the sky, the birds, the ocean, the work that is performed, all is perceived by the silent witness.
We are witness to one another, I witness you and you witness me. The witness, the consciousness is the same in as all, it only expresses in different ways. The underlying principle is it is wholeness, oneness. We see things as seemingly separate because we look at our world through the screen of our conditioned mind, but at its basis is oneness.
We become that with which we identify. If we identify with the ego, we perceive everything separate from one another and from ourselves. We see the material world as our real home and ourselves as creatures in a material world and subject to its limitations.
When we realize that everything in this universe has its origin in consciousness, we must conclude, that consciousness is the real me, the real you, the real us, individualized as the Self, or soul in as all.
All this seemingly diversity of expression of life is fundamentally one.
We are ripples on the ocean of existence while identifying with our material nature, but in reality we are pure consciousness, pure being, in which all the laws of nature, all laws governing life, have their origin in what we name God.
Realizing this, we will know, that we are in this world, but not of it; that we are eternal, never separate from its source. We can then enjoy the world as free spirits, as jivanmuktas or liberated souls, attached to nothing.
Knowing that our nature is spiritual, we abide in spirit. Abiding in spirit we are guided by spirit, doing the will of God. ‘He who does the will of God abides forever’. Peace and Joy.
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