Wisdom of Consciousness

It is imperative that we leave our facade in order to be happy. We cannot be happy if we are living a lie. We cannot simultaneously be real and fake.

We are faking it when we do the wrong things and pretend we can still be happy. If we lie to ourselves by betraying our conscience, we will lose our dignity. When we lose our dignity, we lose our self-esteem. This only happens when we give into our ego and selfish tendencies.

Some people just don’t care. They don’t realize their carelessness will ruin their life and make it a hell. Anyone who is hell-bent on gratifying the whims of their mind and the demands of their ego is definitely going to get ‘bent out of shape.’

As the saying goes, “Shape up or ship out.” If we don’t shape our mind with wisdom, we are going to get caught up in false friendships. A false friendship is one which takes us away from our real self. We have to be our own best friend; then we are the true friend of everyone. But if we are our own enemy, we will make our friends into enemies, and our enemies our friends. In other words, we will turn away from our well-wishers and embrace those who wish hell upon us. There are many people who love to raise hell, but very few who really want to raise consciousness.

The one who raises your consciousness is your true friend; the one who feeds into your unreality is your enemy. We only have enemies when we are first our own enemy. In other words, when we go against our true nature and embrace the demonic nature, we will be drawn into the company of those who are demented.

Human beings are demented when they are mentally inclined to destroy themselves with bad habits. Only a facadist does that. A real human being doesn’t become the slave of his or her ego. A real human being is really happy, so they don’t seek happiness from hapless people. One who is content within himself does not seek out the company of the malcontent.

It is a bad arrangement to mix with uncentered people. Uncentered people are self-centered, which means they really don’t care about you, they only care about their own small self. They live behind a facade of ‘having it together’ even though they are falling apart inside. How do you know? You know they are falling apart because they are looking for someone to lean on. They want to impress you because they are depressed: their real nature is being pressed down by their ego, and this manifests in the mind as depression. To ward off the depression we seek to impress others with our personality. Our ‘fun-loving’ nature is a facade which masks our real nature. Our real nature is to love wisdom and Liberation (Moksha); our real nature is to love to be totally free; free from superficiality, artificiality, sensuality and all other ego-unreality.

Being caught up in ego-unreality makes us mentally deranged. We are easily upset, annoyed, frustrated, angry, and depressed. We are caught up in ego-unreality when we fail to control our mind and its tendencies.

Yoga is the self-control of our thoughts, attitudes, feelings, and tendencies, and the eradication of all our negative impressions. This total self-control is accomplished through right action. Wrong action is the loss of self-control, and leads to more wrong actions. The loss of self-control leads to the loss of freedom, and we become the slave of our mind and ego.

A person who is controlled by his mind and ego is not a free person. That person is stuck in the facade of personality. We need to leave our facade to realize our real nature. When we leave our facade, WE ARE FREE. OM

We are a push-over when we follow our ego and get distracted by the whims of our mind. If we are push-overs we will never be able to pull ourselves up and reach our highest potential. We are a push-over when we listen to our small self and seek excitement in shallow things, or look for happiness from shallow people. It is our ego that pushes us to be with the wrong people and do the wrong things.

If we are not doing what is good for ourselves, our environment, and the people around us, then we are not doing what is right: we are doing what is wrong. It is wrong to be in our ego and flirt with disaster. It is not called “pushing our luck,” it is called being pushed around by our own shallow mentality, and when we do that our luck has already run out.

Good luck is good effort. When we are not making an effort to improve, we automatically lose our good luck. If we think we can help someone else by flirting with them, by pleasing their personality, or by enhancing their ego, we are deluding ourselves.

Man is seduced by the mystique of a woman, and a woman is enchanted by the charm of a man (or vice versa) and both are flirting with disaster. I understand it is human nature to be attracted to the opposite sex. That attraction is natural. But isn’t there something more than that? Yes, there is our attraction to our True Self. Our True Self is a mystic. When we are connected to the mystic within we are never overwhelmed by the mythical beings we meet outside.

Our own mythical being, our own false self, is outside our being. It is the state of non-being perceived as being, or imagined as being. This false perception (of our self in the form of a “person”) is created by our ego (false identification). Our false perception does not let us see the disaster about to happen. It can be a disastrous mistake to flirt with a mythical being, because we can lose touch with reality and make-believe the unreal is real. When this happens, the truth becomes a mystery to us and we are dumbfounded. We are unable to express the truth when we are impressed with untruth.

When the mind is filled with impressions which are in contradistinction to what is Real, the mind expresses that which is contrary to the Truth. This expression of untruth (through our false feelings, misperceptions, and wrong conceptions) makes the mind very thick and we lose our ability to flow and think clearly. When this happens it is very easy for the mind to get stuck in its images, and this gives the ego a stronghold in our mind. This is a disaster waiting to happen.

The disaster is this:

We are on this journey of Life to discover our True Self and share the wealth of our True Self with all whom we come in contact. To uncover the Truth we have to work hard on ourselves and remain committed to the work at hand, which means putting our good knowledge to good use. If we “know better” but do not “do better” we are going to be “undone” by our own false ego. When we go crazy chasing after the empty things of this world (including shallow relationships), we never experience the fullness of Consciousness which permeates every moment of every day of our Life. Surely, this is a disaster. We can avoid this disaster by being sincere and earnest. The choice is ours. The consequences are already worked out by Nature, and nature is very unforgiving. To avoid a natural disaster (such as getting attached or stuck to an uncentered, i.e., self-centered person) we should live a natural life and attain our Supreme Nature. OM

Years ago in a Satsang (wisdom meeting) at our home, my son (who had just become a teenager), was having a discussion with a friend of his (a few years younger). They were having a talk about meat-eating. In the Satsang we had discussed how it was inhumane to unnecessarily kill animals for food, and that afflicting pain on defenseless creatures (like cows) was an act of violence. My son told the younger boy that whatever actions we did in this life would come back to us in another life, and that if a person killed a cow for food and ate it, that person would face a similar fate in a future life. The younger boy made the following comment:

“Well, maybe I am eating the cow because in the last life that cow was a human being and I was the cow, and that person killed and ate me. Now I am doing the same thing.”

My son replied: “Where will the cycle of violence end? It can only end with us, because we are human beings and can make a conscious choice. So it is up to us to stop the cycle of violence. Only we can do it, animals cannot.”

This story really illustrates the importance of our decisions, our choices. As human beings, we have free-will; we have the ability to carefully consider the consequences of our actions and make up our own mind. Of course we are influenced by many internal and external factors, but really the most significant factor of all is the fact that we are human beings. Being a human being means that we are inherently humane. However, it certainly doesn’t mean we won’t also have tendencies of violence. We have both good and bad tendencies; we have tendencies which are conducive to our well-being and those that are detrimental to it. What we do with our life is our choice. We are free to do whatever we want, but we are not free from the consequences of what we do.

As human beings, we have the ability to break the cycle of violence in our lives. We can deliberately choose to go against the negative current of our mind, or we can be swept away by that current. Unlike animals, we can deliberately change our habits and consciously form new inclinations and tendencies. Eventually, the good that we do becomes an effortless effort, but to arrive at that state requires tremendous effort.

We were born with the tendency to be selfish, but we were also born to be loving and kind. No one wants to see anybody suffer. If you go to a slaughterhouse, you will not be happy to see the suffering of the animals there; you will likely feel repulsed and even horrified. Of course, if you are subjected to inhumane behavior over and over, again and again, you might lose your own humanity. If you use the objective tools of perception (seeing, hearing, tasting, thinking, etc.) for subjective identification, you can justify any wrong doing. It is a common malpractice of people to justify their actions to prove themselves right, for the sake of their belly or bloated ego.

Malpractice, or wrong practices, leads to malcontentment. When we malign our mind to satisfy our selfish tendencies, it eventually becomes our habit to do what is wrong or unhealthy. To realign our mind with our real nature (our human nature) we need the wisdom of Consciousness.

The wisdom of Consciousness (AtamGyaan, or Soul Wisdom) is the understanding of our Real Self. If we lack this understanding, we are bound by our ego to repeat our mistakes until they become an ingrained habit, and then we mistake what is unreal as real, what is false as true, and what is harmful as helpful. We become the victim of our own self-delusion, which eventually leads to our own self-destruction.

Whenever we violate our own true nature we are being violent. Our true human nature is to be loving and caring, to be merciful and forgiving, and to be kind and considerate. If we do not imbibe these qualities we are NOT being true to ourselves, we are NOT being honest with ourselves. If we lie to ourselves, how can we trust ourselves? Because we lie to ourselves we feel insecure, uncertain, and live our lives in constant turmoil and conflict. We are the perpetrators and perpetuators of our own cycle of violence, and only we can break that cycle.

Accepting responsibility for our actions means to act responsibly. It does NOT mean just saying “Well, I accept responsibility for what I am doing, and I am going to keep on doing it even though I know it is wrong.” This kind of thinking is called “self-sabotage” because we are sabotaging our own well-being. If we are not well (mentally and physically) we are going to become a liability to others. This too is selfish and is an act of violence.

We don’t have to point the finger at others and use their mistakes or wrongdoing as an excuse for our own wrong actions and thoughts. This will be no consolation to us when we end up suffering for those wrong actions and thoughts. We need to see what we are doing and foresee the consequences of our actions and change them before it is too late. Otherwise, the cycle of violence will continue.

Personality is the embellishment of ego. Many people are embalmed in their personality. They are mummified but seldom do they keep mum (seldom do they keep quiet). Even if we are outwardly quiet when we are in our ego, we are silently shouting abuses or trumpeting our own praises. This is the nature of the ego-infected mind.

When ego is embedded in the mind, the mind becomes the platform for ego expression, and that ego-expression takes shape in the form of personality. When we feed into our personality we become entrapped by it, because it becomes our habit to live through our personality. If we stopped feeding into it, we could free ourselves from our shallow personality and experience the expression of our True Self.

The True Self is ever manifest, but as long as we are asleep from Consciousness we do not experience it. We are asleep from Consciousness when our ego is in bed with our mind. Personality is the brainchild of ego.

We think we are a self-made man or woman, but in fact, the person we think we are is just a fiction of the mind. We are mythical beings. Our persona is simply a fictional character we create in our mind. Some of us are heroes and some of us are villains, but all of us are mythical beings.

To really understand who we are we need to go beyond our personality. In fact, we need to get out of our personality, because as long as we are stuck in a trap we cannot go anywhere.

We want to go beyond our self-imposed limitations and inadequacies. Ego is inadequate to make us happy. We cannot make ourselves really happy through our ego and personality. Ego and personality will always make us restless, bored, annoyed, angry, and stupid. Ego and personality make us stoop to the shallow things of life and make us degrade ourselves with cheap thrills and puppy love.

Personality is our pet, and when we are in our personality we become the pet of others and we also want others to be our pets. True love has nothing to do with pleasing the ego and personality of others (or our own). True love is constant and consistent because it is rooted in the wisdom of Consciousness, whereas personality-love lasts only as long as our personality is pleased.

We are not puppies or kittens; we are not dogs or cats; we are the Light of the Soul.

Feelings are fluctuations of the mind. We say, “I feel like this”, or “I feel so bad”, or “I feel really excited”, and so on and so forth. Now, these ‘feelings’ are not really ‘my’ feelings; they are the feelings of the mind. Of course, if ‘my’ is also a product of the mind, then I suppose we could say these feelings are indeed ‘my’ feelings.

‘Me’, ‘my’, ‘ mine’ are all instances of ego. That is, they are the result of the identification of Consciousness with the mind (and body). If this ‘me’ is aware (conscious) of the mind and body without any attachment, then ‘I’ am not a prisoner of the mind. In other words, when ‘I’ am not attached to my mind and body, then my ‘I-consciousness’ (which is ego) is not stuck in my mind. When ego is stuck in the mind, the mind gets infected by ego, and the symptoms of that ego-infection are morbid feelings of the mind like depression, anxiety, hate, cynicism, bigotry, arrogance, and so on.

The detachment of the ‘I-consciousness’ from the mind is not just an intellectual understanding. Ego is really distinct from the mind. If it were not so, you would not be able to say “I am observing my mind.”

Mind is thought-force. Mind may consist of many thoughts, just a few thoughts, or even just one thought. Thought always has an object. The object of thought may be as simple as something seen (such as a sunrise), heard (such as music), tasted, touched, or smelled. You see, these experiences are all forms of thought, even though they do not necessarily involve any words. Now, where there is no thought whatsoever, there appears to be no mind. Actually, the mind is still there, but it is ‘still there’, that is, the mind is inactive. There are two states of the inactive mind: deep, dreamless sleep, and the yogic state of Samadhi (sometimes translated as Transcedental Awareness). [The early stage of this Transcedental Awareness is called Samprajnata Samadhi.]

To attain the state of Transcendental Awareness it is necessary to practice observing the active mind without taking any active participation in it. In other words, ego (the ‘I-consciousness’) sees the mind but is unattached to it. Ego is still present, but it is not infecting the mind and the mind does not affect the ego; hence neither (mind nor ego) is effected (moved) by the other. This is what we mean when we talk about ‘breaking the mind-ego connection.’

When the mind-ego connection is broken, one’s self-awareness is crystal clear, and in that state of clarity one realizes that the ego too is just a phenomenon of Mind. The Mind referred to here is the Universal Mind (MahaTattva). In this deep state of meditation one realizes that the mind which is observed by the ego is the object of ‘I-consciousness’. When this object (the individualized mind) is absorbed (dissolved) into the Universal Mind, the ‘I-consciousness’ (ego) is also dissolved. This is the higher Samadhi (Asamprajnata Samadhi).

The ‘one’ who experiences this Transcendental Consciousness is the Self in possession of the ego, mind, and body. This ‘Self’ is known as the living Self, or Jivatman. When the Jivatman (the embodied Soul) attains perfection in this Transcendental Consciousness, the Self is said to be Jivamukta, or a Liberated Soul (actually, a free living soul; a liberated embodied soul).

The person (embodied soul) who is really free, is free from all the fluctuations of the mind. That person realizes the identity of the ‘I-consciousness’ and the Universe, and is established in That which is beyond both. The liberated soul is beyond duality. This state of Oneness is filled with profound peace and joy. This transcendental peace and joy are NOT feelings of the mind, but constitute the very essence of our being (ATMAN). Experiencing this Essence is the ultimate aim of all living beings, and no one can ever find lasting fulfillment without It. OM

Ill-will creates ill health. Anyone who harbors a grudge will always find the grudge boomerangs on them. Whenever we have ill-will towards others or ourselves, it makes us sick. Mental sickness, and even physical sickness, is usually rooted in some form of ill-will. For example, we can make ourselves physically ill by being “down on ourselves’. When we put ourselves down, our immune system also goes down.

Putting ourselves down means we are not picking ourselves up with inspiration. If we are doing the wrong actions—actions which are hurtful or harmful—it will be very difficult to inspire ourselves. Wrong actions typically consist of either negligence or over-indulgence. In other words, wrong actions are rooted in indiscipline. If we do not control our mind, our mind will control us and we will be miserable.

A miserable human being is a miser of good energy. In other words, they keep their good energy to themselves instead of spending it on good actions like exercising, studying, meditating, serving the family, working hard, and staying inspired. We have to spend our energy on good actions; otherwise we are bound to be miserable.

A miserable human being is damned. Literally, they are suffering from self-damnation. The flow of good energy is blocked by their own obstinate ego. Ego refuses to cooperate with the good; ego holds on to images of others and is unable to see others as souls. When our ego is embedded in our mind, we feel tense, annoyed, and angry when things don’t go our way.

We think others are in our way, but really we are in our way. In other words, our ego is in our way and making us unhappy. Ego drives us to follow our whims instead of following our heart. “Heart” means the core of our being; it is that center of consciousness seated in the mind that is untouched by unreality. If we don’t listen to our heart, our heart will become silent and we will become heartless.

We should only become heartless with our own ego. We should have no place in our mind for ego. Ego will prompt us to repeat our mistakes and prevent us from changing for the better. Unless we are changing for the better, we are changing for the worse; there is just no such thing as the status quo. If we are changing for the worse, we are certainly not going to feel good about ourselves, though we may try to put up a façade.

Let’s face it. We cannot hide from ourselves because we have to live with our self everyday. People who hide behind a façade of false persona eventually find it very hard to live with themselves. Then they take out their frustration and anger on others, usually those who are closest to them. First they hold others in contempt, but eventually they begin to hate themselves.

Bad habits lead to self-hate. Self-hate leads to self-destruction. With our self-hate we destroy both our health and mental balance. The only way to ward off this ill fate is to take back our life and start changing for the better TODAY. Even the longest journey begins with one step in the right direction. Take that step today, and keep moving forward from here to Eternity. OM

The life is short and the journey is very long. Unless we stay on track, we will not reach our destination in this incarnation. Our ultimate destination in our Home, and our Home is the state of Absolute Being / Absolute Consciousness / Absolute Bliss (SATCHITANAND).

To get back Home, we need to be “upward” bound, NOT outward bound. To be “upward” bound means to be committed to the process of spiritual growth; and spiritual growth is the elimination of ego. To be “upward” bound means to be determined to go beyond our small self.

We have to be intensely committed, sincere to the core of our being, and earnest in our ceaseless efforts to improve on a daily basis. “Spiritual growth” is not something we do only on weekends, or only in the morning and evening. We have to “keep on trekking” all day long, and keep our spirits high regardless of the obstacles we encounter. We have to keep on attaining higher and higher heights of consciousness, and we do this by becoming humbler and humbler, until we become as humble as a blade of grass.

Being humble doesn’t mean letting people walk all over you. A humble wife is not a door mat; a humble wife is one who holds her head high, is modest in her demeanor, and very loving and forbearing in her nature. A humble husband is one who is deep in his understanding, and cannot be moved from the path of Truth under any circumstance.

Truly speaking, all of us are husbands and wives, because our ultimate soul mate is none other than the Supreme Being. Atman (Soul) is eternally married to Paramatman (Supreme Soul), and that eternal union is the state of YOGA. We practice Yoga when we practice good qualities like high character, modesty, compassion, forbearance, depth of being, courage, and tenacity in rising above all our shortcomings.

If we want to attain the highest state of Consciousness, the highest state of Being, and the highest state of Love, we have to have a one-track mind. A married man or woman does not look outside of their marriage for fulfillment. A truth-seeker on the path of Eternity, the path of Moksha (Total Freedom), does not look for satisfaction in the world of Samsara (the society of the self-involved). We have to direct our search inward, then we will find the guidance we require to continue forward on our journey. Of course, we should seek the advice of seasoned travelers, but we should be wary of those who would mislead us, knowingly or unknowingly. Fortunate are those who have the guidance of a true preceptor.

If we have not yet come in touch with a preceptor of Truth, then we must let the scriptures (the Revealed knowledge and the teachings of the Wise) be our roadmap on this journey of life.

Our life’s journey did not begin with the birth of the body, nor will it cease when this body passes away. Our life is only a fraction of a moment in our endless journey to Eternity. We WILL find our way back Home, because our True Lover and Beloved is calling us in our heart. All we need to do is listen to our heart.

Listening to our heart means slowing down our racing mind. The racing mind makes lots of noise, and then we don’t hear the “voice within’. When the mind is looking for diversions, our attention is diverted from our spiritual growth and we are “off the track.” To get back on track we need to constantly fine tune our mind and intellect to the wisdom of Consciousness.

Ultimately, this practice of constantly filling the mind with wisdom, purifies the mind to such an extent that the Light of the Soul shines in the mind with all its luster, and reveals the Essence of Being. We discover within our own being our True Lover and Beloved. We realize our Essence and know for certain (with Absolute certainty) that we are Home at last. OM

We should always speak our peace, and never speak our anger, never speak our frustration, and never speak our annoyance. This is called non-violence.

When we break our commitment to our higher nature we violate our own real self. This is called violence. Keeping our commitment means staying on track; it means NOT looking for an excuse for our weaknesses or shortcomings. It means NOT breaking our principles to please our ego or the whims of our mind.

Principles have nothing to do with images. When we set a high standard for ourselves and make up our mind to live up to that standard, we cannot compromise with our principles, otherwise we will not reach our goal. For example, if you want to build an airplane—a real airplane, not just a model airplane—you will have to keep in mind the principles of aerodynamics. You will have to follow these principles, otherwise your plane will never fly! In the same way, we will remain grounded to our ego if we do not hold onto our principles. If we do not set a high standard for ourselves and make up our mind to live up to that standard, we will never attain our highest potential.

We have the potential to be mentally at peace and physically fit, but only if we follow the principles of sound mental and physical health. If we break those principles we will lose both our peace of mind and our health. We cannot violate the laws of nature (for example, live an unnatural life) and expect to be naturally healthy; instead, naturally we will be unhealthy. Similarly, we cannot violate the laws of Consciousness and still expect to be peaceful and content. As human beings, the law of our conscience tells us that we must be humane. We can never be at peace with ourselves if we are inhumane.

We can speak our peace only when we are at peace with ourselves; otherwise, we will only be expressing our ego, and that ego-expression is always hurtful. It doesn’t mean that we should be people-pleasers and be afraid to speak the truth. It just means that our words should correspond to our actions and should come from the depth of our being and not our ego. OM

Samsara* is the world; not the world of nature, but the world of human beings who torment themselves by going against their true nature.

This world is filled with people who are caught up in self-love and self-hate. This surreal duality is projected as attraction and repulsion, infatuation and disgust, and loving and hating others, superficially. The world of Samsara is superficial; it is not real. Samsaric love is impermanent and painful. Samsaric relationships are relationships of convenience and connivance.

A man or woman who is in love with their small self (ego) is very small-hearted. Their world revolves around themselves. People who move in lockstep with their ego are driven mad. This madness manifests in the form of anger, grudges, greed, despair and desperation. Everyone in Samsara is a desperado. They are anxious to ‘go somewhere’, meet ‘somebody’, get ‘something’, and be ‘someone’. But they never find what they are looking for, because what they are really looking for what they really want is to be FREE.

We cannot find freedom by living in our mind ruled by the tyrant ego. We need to kick our ego out and ‘put our house in order.’ The problem is, many of us have become complacent; we have been accommodating our ego for many, many years. We have learned how to live with our ego even though it is a tyrant. We follow the dictates of our ego and the whims of our mind, and we never know real freedom.

We say we are free, but are we really free? One who is a slave of their mind and ego cannot be called free. One who is bound by their selfish desires and petty preferences is always on edge, always ready to explode in anger when their wants are not met. And how can our wants ever be met when we keep on increasing them?

It is time to simplify, verify, and rectify our lives. If we don’t, we are never going to find peace; we are never going to be at peace with ourselves or be able to live peacefully with others. We have to make time for inner reflection and quietude. If we are constantly thinking and worrying and looking for ‘something new’ we are going to get old very quickly.

We need to take time for inner renewal. This means we have to do our ‘homework.’ We have to stop going out and looking for excitement, and instead we need to conserve our energies and direct them for self-improvement. Self-improvement means making ourselves less selfish than yesterday. The less selfish we are, the less of a liability we will be to ourselves and others. If we become completely unselfish, we will no longer be in our own way, nor will we be a burden to others. On the other hand, if we are undisciplined and careless, we will become unfit for happiness.

This world does not have to be an ugly place. It can be a beautiful experience in our eternal journey, but only if we keep our eternal nature always in view. We have to stay focused on what is important and real, otherwise we will spend our life remembering what is unimportant and trivial. We need to stay connected to our real nature, otherwise we will get caught up in unreality and find ourselves stuck in the madness of Samsara. OM

*pronunciation: sam (son) sar (rhymes with ‘far’) a (like the ‘a’ in ‘about’)

click here to listen to sound file

Oh Human Being,
You are the Shining Light.
Oh Human Being,
You are a diamond in the night.

Be your positive self
and rise above all negativity.
Stand firm on the pathway of Eternity
and enjoy this endless journey.

You need not suffer any more.
Open your mind to the Divine,
Fill your mind with the wisdom of Consciousness.

We are souls,
that is all we are.
That is all we could ever be.
We are the Light of the Supreme.

OM