abhaygupta

Ko Hum?

Can you imagine the chaos that our life would be if we forgot our own physical identity even for a moment?

Imagine asking the person standing next to you in a shop, ‘What is my name?’ I am sure we’d be driven out post-haste and labeled a mad person. If you don’t want to try it in a shop try it at home. Getting up one morning,try asking your spouse ‘Who am I?’

A similar chaos prevails in our life when we forget this all-important identity, Chido Hum. The chaos manifests as hurts and pains, anger, fear, anxiety, greed etc. We consider these manifestations to be a part of ‘normal worldly existence’; the reality is that no one calls us mad because everyone has the same symptoms! Inside a lunatic asylum no one calls each other mad!!!

What we refer as the ‘normal world’ is actually a collection of people who have all forgotten their true identity. Only a few among them seek their true identity, and yet fewer come to realize the true identity. Very few come to the point of self-realization ‘Aham Brahmasmi’.

The last remark of Arjuna in Bhagwad Gita (XVIII-73) is a great pointer in the direction - ‘Nashto moha smrtir labdha’ [My illusion is dispelled and I have regained memory.] It took the Lord Himself more than three hours of sermonizing a devoted disciple before he made the declaration - smrtir labdha!!! We neither have the advantage of Lord Himself available to us, nor are we in the same league of being a devoted friend of His that Arjuna was, whereby He'd feel obliged to come and direct us. With such handicaps, how much time, how many lives we need before we can remember our true identity, is anybody’s’ guess.

We can no longer delay this enquiry about our true identity.

Did I hear a chuckled response, ‘What will happen when I find my true identity?’ My answer is a counter-question, ‘What happens when your blindfold is removed?’

Consciousness Revisited

Our true identity is pure consciousness, Shivo Hum.

Consider a source of light; say Sun, which radiates light in all directions. The Sun can be equated to the soul (atman) while its light can be compared to consciousness (chetana).

Consciousness at the highest level, at the level of Shiva is referred to as chid. Shiva is niraakaar (without form), hence His energy is the non-vibratory energy; Silence and Peace are thus associated with that non-vibratory condition called Ananda.

The first vibratory manifestation of the Shiva-energy is Ahamkaar (Aham+Aakaar), loosely translated as MY FORM. Ego can be compared to a transformer that converts the pure consciousness, a non-vibratory very high energy, to a usable, vibratory energy form. It is the light of the ego that further percolates to the intellect and the mind, and through them to the senses. We are living in a highly attenuated energy environment.

Attenuation of Consciousness

The first important aspect is to understand the nature of this energy, the light. The light is a highly attenuated because of the Ego. This attenuation can be understood somewhat by referring to the solar model.

Sun (Atman) alone is the self-luminescent body in the solar system; all other planets and their satellites, like the moon, are simply reflecting the light of the Sun. We experience the light of the Sun during day and the moonlight (reflected sunlight) at night.

Our ego is an entity, if one can loosely call it that, very similar to the moon. The ego is reflecting the light of the Self (Sun). The normal consciousness we are operating under is therefore not the light of the Self (Sun) but the light reflected by the ego (moon). The reflected light is grossly reduced in intensity, and loses many of the original powers – just like the Sun reflected in a mirror may reflect the light but its image will be as cold as the surface of the mirror!

The next important milestone is that consciousness and mind, or intellect, do not exist as separate entities. One can’t say that ‘this is mind’ and ‘this is consciousness’ or ‘this is intelligence’ and ‘this is consciousness’. When water and salt become one we experience salty water. We cannot normally experience consciousness separately because the instruments for experiencing, the five senses and the antahkarana, are one with consciousness.

When light is incident on objects the objects are illumined. When the light is incident on the blue object it is reflected as blue, while from a red object it is reflected as red. The colour of the reflected light is a function of the colour of the object (when the light is pure white).


Likewise, the consciousness at the level of mind and at the level of intellect reflects the basic nature of the mind (raag - dwesha) and intellect (avidya) and not the purity of the consciousness itself. What we experience through the mind is actually its nature; it is either ‘I like what I see’, or ‘I don’t like what I see’ or ‘It does not interest me’.

In our normal (unconscious) existence, instead of us working under the direct light (Sun) we keep working under the light that is severely attenuated and coloured; attenuated by the ego principle and coloured by the antahkarana.

Our ignorant living is thus eclipsed !!!

It is not a Solar or the Lunar Eclipse. Pray, we are eclipsed. This should give a clear indication about the fact that we are living in the darkness; let us choose to live in the bright sunshine of the Atman that is ever-present and available.

What To Do To Experience the Luminosity of The Self

Learn to meditate.

Witnessing the pure light can be a long-drawn practice spanning many lives; the process can however be catalyzed by the Master. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar does it in 40 minutes!!! Ramateerth Paramhans could do it to Narendra (Vivekananda) instantly with the touch of his hand!!!

If not the realization, Aham Brahmasmi, may I make a beginning with a declaration So Hum.

May I realize the Beautiful Truth this Mahashivratri, ‘Shivo Hum, Chido Hum.’
Satyam, Shivam, Sundaram.

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“If there was nothing but silence, it wouldn’t exist for you; you wouldn’t know what it is. Only when sound appears does silence come into being. Similarly, if there was only space without any objects in space, it wouldn’t exist for you. …… Space comes into being the moment One becomes two (suggesting ‘space’ and ‘time’), and as ‘two’ become ten thousand things (creation)’, as Lao Tse calls the manifested world. So world and space arise simultaneously.”
Eckhart Tolle


If you look up on a night sky you will see the stars and the moon. You are most likely to miss out the background against which they exist. We tend to identify only that which exists, that which is differentiated and miss the vast ocean.

When Einstein enunciated the Special Theory of Relativity in 1905 it involved drastic changes in the traditional concepts of space and time. The concept of space till then was a three dimensional model. The relativity theory postulated that space is not three-dimensional and time is not a separate entity. Both were expressed as intimately connected four-dimensional continuum, ‘space-time’.

A break from the traditional thinking of space-time resulted in the realization in an apparently unrelated and a different dimension, that mass was nothing but a quanta of energy. It revealed for the scientific community a new understanding of matter and energy. An apparently disparate entity, energy, emerged from rationally unrelated entities, mass and speed of light. It was actually the birth of a new awareness, of new scientific consciousness.

When we talk of space, referred to as akash in Vedic scriptures, we need to be willing to let go some of our conventional understanding of space. Akash is not the space as understood in the context of space travel or what is experienced by the astronauts, a gravity-free emptiness. It is not to be mistaken for a plain, dead emptiness, or a simple void. The concept of akash is an extraordinary perspective developed by Indian sages. It is an all-encompassing, all-powerful dynamic concept.

Space is one of the five mahabhoots (prithvi, jal, agni, vayu, akash) referred in Vedic literature. While prithvi is the grossest, the akash is the subtlest among the five.

Akash is principle of Existence. It is the raw material, the primal matter, from which all creation is born. It is the ever-present vast ocean; it is the cause of manifestation, it is the ocean in which creation exists, and it is the ocean into which all creation dissolves. Space is thus also referred to as Hiranyagarbha, the infinite creative womb. It is an all-encompassing idea of Existence.

A close analogy can be of an iceberg floating in water. The iceberg is composed of water, it exists in water, and when it dissolves it will be water. The concept that it is, akash contains both, the manifest as well as the unmanifest; the manifest as differentiated creation and the non-manifest as undifferentiated akash. It contains within itself all-intelligence and all-energy.

Eckhart Tolle in his best-selling work, The Power of Now, explains space thus, “Just as no sound can exist without silence, nothing can exist without no-thing, without the empty space that enables it to be. Every physical object or body has come out of nothing, is surrounded by nothing, and will eventually return to nothing. Not only that, but even inside every physical body there is far more ‘no-thing’ than ‘something’. He further explains, ‘Space has no ‘existence’. ‘To exist’ literally means ‘to stand out’. Although in itself it has no existence, it enables everything else to exist.’

Space and Time

Time is a dimension lower, and contained within space. Akash itself is beyond time.

As we have discussed earlier that akash is a field encompassing both the manifest and the unmanifest. In itself, akash is more an idea of unmanifest than manifest; there is always more space than matter. When the unmanifest changes and becomes manifest, this moment of transition, of change, is the instant of the birth of the idea of Time. This is the birth of a new center, one that defines a new field, a kind of a circle on its own.

It is only the manifest aspect that comes within the frame of time; the unmanifest is beyond time. All existence has a beginning, undergoes a continued process of change, and dissolution. Hence it is only that the manifest aspect of space that can be associated with time.

The idea that akash is, is beyond time.

Akash and Science

Einstein had concluded that that space and time are not different entities and that both space and time are intimately connected and form a four-dimensional continuum, ‘space-time’. Despite being only a part expression of reality, he achieved the great scientific milestone with this realization, the famous equation E=mc2. Space-time integration expressed by Einstein was, however, an expression of only the manifest aspect of space. It did not deal with the unmanifest aspect of space.

Einstein’s next milestone, the General Theory of Relativity was an intuitive attempt to integrate the non-manifest aspect of space or the akash itself. The theory, however, is yet not conclusively established despite more than a hundred years of efforts of eminent scientists like Stephen Hawking (Unified Field Theory or the Theory of Everything). The reason for them not making headway is the faulty assumption that ‘one can never talk about space without talking about time and vice versa’.

Physics can deal with objects, only that which exist, and that too within the limitation of the subject; physics cannot deal with non-existence. The field for that kind of an aspiration, as visualized in the Theory of Everything, is metaphysics where the emphasis is on development of the subject first to a point beyond akash; when the subject is so evolved any object can be explained completely.

Stephen Hawking has to cease being a scientist and instead become a rishi if he has to succeed with the Unified Field Theory or the Theory of Everything. He needs a new constant, one that is beyond the speed of light. The constant needed for the Theory of Everything is paramgati, or omnipresence.

Use of the Idea of Space

The akash is ever-present. It contains within it the apparent opposites, the manifest as well as the unmanifest. Undifferentiated existence, if one can call it that, or more appropriately, the ideas of Being or Existence, are the ideas pertaining to the dimension of akash. It gives us a direction towards understanding a dimension of the Divine, i.e. omnipresence.

Space is an idea of existence. Space is also an idea of that which is unchanging; it is always similar and immovable. Time on the other hand is an idea of constant change. When we integrate that which is unchanging (space) with that which is forever changing (time) do we step into the field of pure consciousness (pragya), a field of Presence. It is the doorway into the next dimension, omniscience, the integrated knowledge that knows both, ‘I’ and ‘existence’.

The idea of space is an idea of tremendous significance as it helps one to step beyond the narrow points of views acquired by unconscious living. Dissolving the differences and moving into the field that can contain within itself the apparent opposites can lead an inquisitive mind towards the Universal Consciousness.
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