Know Thyself

Have you ever asked yourself who and what we are?

The majority of people look into the mirror and thinks, this is me. They acknowledge that they have a mind and a personality. They see themselves as being separate from one another, their surroundings and God.

Christians are told that they have a soul, but very few have an answer when asked what the soul is. They are taught to believe what they are told and to have faith in the scriptures.

Who are we really? Are we body mind beings, or are we spiritual beings that function through the mind and body?

Humanists (A system of thought that rejects religious beliefs and centers on humans and their values, capacities, and worth) will say, we are body mind beings.

Those of Christian believes may attest of being a body, having a mind and a soul.

Soul defined

The soul, in many religious, philosophical, psychological, and mythological traditions, is the incorporeal and, in many conceptions, immortal essence of a person, living thing, or object.[1] According to some religions, including the Abrahamic religions in most of their forms, souls — or at least immortal souls capable of union with the divine[2] — belong only to human beings. For example, the Catholic theologian Thomas Aquinas attributed "soul" (anima) to all organisms but taught that only human souls are immortal.[3] Other religions (most notably Jainism and Hinduism) teach that all biological organisms have souls.

Vedanta (end of the Vedas) teaches that the nature of our Soul is Existence-Knowledge-Bliss Absolute. It is the very embodiment of Peace, Desirelessness, Perfection, Truth, Beauty, Infinity and Eternity.

Why does the ordinary person not experience the soul?

According to yoga, on account of Maya, or ignorance, man has forgotten his true nature and finds himself entangled in the relative world of good and evil, pain and pleasure, life and death and the other pairs of opposites.

From the cradle to the grave, the un-illumined soul engages in ceaseless action, striving to shun evil and realize the good.

His activities are influenced by love and hate, attachment and aversion, and he hopes to experience, through action, infinite and external happiness in the world. The question is, can he find what he is looking for?

Only gradually does he discover the impossibility of attaining happiness through works associated with I-consciousness and the desire for results. 

Then he may start to ask, what is this life all about? Who am I?

To solve the riddle one must learn that for work to have a spiritual (lasting effect) effect he must perform work as yoga that is to say, the doer must regard himself as an instrument of God, and surrender the results of his action to God and remain unruffled by love or hate.

Work performed in this spirit purifies the heart and prepares it for meditation and Self Knowledge.

By the means of knowledge, or Jnana, man can realize the true nature of the soul, attain peace, and becomes liberated from the endless suffering of the world.

Then the liberated man engages in service to humanity, but his activities are quite different from those of an un-illumined person.

He is free from I consciousness and the longing for results. He never loses the knowledge of the soul.

But what about being spiritual? What does it mean?

If one regards himself as a spiritual being then his material body and mind should be utilized to serve a spiritual end. He then follows a path of unselfishness, love and promotes peace and happiness for all. He loves all of creation and sees himself as playing a part in it.

What is Truth

Ultimate Reality (Truth) is transcendental. It is not perceived by the senses or comprehended by the mind. It is however experienced. This experience is direct and immediate, and becomes possible only when the senses and the mind have been made absolutely calm or still

Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen; I will be exalted in the earth.

                                                                            Psalm 46:10

Can human beings experience God?

It is the consciousness in man that experience the Universal Consciousness, the two being in reality identical.

But there are infinite possibilities of self deception. To prevent this deception, there are three criteria of truth.

These are:

 A)    Scriptural Authority,

 B)    Reasoning and

C)     Personal experience.

On the awakening path self control is vital, without it, progress in Self Knowledge is slow.

How does self control benefit?

By means of self control one empties the mind of the worldly contents, its transient desires and passions and then through contemplation, fills up the void with the spirit of truth.

Meditation without self control is difficult.

The path is narrow. True knowledge is always accompanied by direct experience.

To know the Soul is to realize, that the Self of man is Pure Consciousness.

To know God is to become one with God.

It must be emphasized, that intellectual understanding must be followed by actual transformation of life; otherwise it is of no practical benefit.

We need to watch our reasoning and realize that much of what we call reasoning is the rationalization of our desires. Most people understand a thing the way they want to understand it; they prove only what they want to prove.

Therefore the attainment of Truth demands complete non – attachment to everything including our own thoughts and ego.

The seeker of Self Knowledge must practice four disciplines.

1)    Discrimination between the real and the unreal.

Self control should be distinguished from meaningless austerities.

Self control means the strengthening of will power and the intellect or discriminative faculty which controls the sense organs.

One needs to have the conviction, that only God is real. Substance and all other things are unreal and illusory.

2)    Renunciation. This is the disregard for sense pleasure and to the experience of the happiness one expects in heaven after death.

The student realizes that no pleasure, whether here or hereafter, is permanent.

Even good actions, such as charity, study, or worship are finite by nature and so are their results.

Self knowledge is not the direct result of any action, it always exists.

The student merely removes ignorance, the barrier to this knowledge, so that the glory of the Self can shine forth.

It is like the wind that blows away the clouds hiding the radiance of the sun.

Just as the sun is not a product of the wind, so also the Self is not the product of the discipline.

Only worldly happiness is the product of our actions.

3) The six treasures. These form the ethical foundation of   spiritual life.

They are: calmness – the dwelling of the mind in God after it has detached itself from all sense objects through firm knowledge of their inherent defects.

The aspirant devotes himself to hearing about God from a teacher or from the scriptures and using his reasoning in what he reads, and then meditates on its meaning.

Self control – restraining the organs of perception and action from their respective objects, and keeping them under control

3)    Longing for liberation.

This is the intense longing of the student to free himself, through the knowledge of the true Self, from the bondage to the body, mind and ego, the bondage created by ignorance.

Our aim is liberation of consciousness.

We attain full liberation of consciousness, when we have realized the Self.

Pure consciousness or Transcendental Consciousness is untouched by any limitation of the phenomenal world. It cannot be expressed in words nor can it be realized by thought.

It is Ultimate Reality.

When the soul merges with pure consciousness, we have what is called in Christian terms the ‘mystical marriage’.‘The Father and I are one’.

Yet, when the soul identifies with the mind and the senses, it becomes deluded as it thinks itself to be separate and apart from Pure Consciousness.

Hence, it is necessary to be aware of right identification at all times.    

Pure consciousness is the true Self of man and all living beings.

Its nature is Truth, Knowledge and Infinity; Good and Beauty; Peace and non duality.

It is the indestructible and unchanging essence of man.

In our daily lives, we experience this consciousness in deep meditation; from it is derived intuition and grace, the power of the spirit.

Spirit is beyond mind. It transcends mind.

Being in spirit means complete surrender of ego identity and full reliance on intuition and grace.

It means being God conscious.

It means, knowing that God walks in this body, thinks in this body, sees through these eyes, God is all there is.

There is only One and all happenings are a reflection of this one Reality.