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In our journey thus far we came across many milestones – body, senses, mana, buddhi, chit, ahamkaara and their characteristics of raag-dwesha, avidya, abhinivesha and asmita respectively, and the three gunas i.e. sattva, rajas and tamas.

We then came to Consciousness. What next? Isn’t consciousness the end of the journey?!!

No! It is just the beginning. You have only seen the light at the end of the tunnel; you are yet to step out into that light.

Remember the mantra, ‘Tamaso Ma Jyotir Gamay’ (May we move from darkness towards light.)

This is the destination where we need to change the mode of transportation. Now we have to perform action, purushartha, to move out of the tunnel and be in the light. We have to contemplate and meditate on all these aspects.

Everything Is Consciousness

Every dimension of our being, be it body, mind or ego, is percolated by consciousness. Take away Consciousness and the body is ready to be cremated or buried.

We are indeed living as Consciousness. But are we really living as Consciousness or is it something else? Let us examine this a little bit.

We are living as body-consciousness (seeking comfort), or sense-consciousness (seeking gratification).

There are some who are living as mind – consciousness (mana-mauji). All the children fall in this category. (If only we could live with the purity of a child it would not have been bad to live as minds-consciousness.)

There are yet few who are living as intellects. (This is a group for whom walking out of the tunnel is most difficult.)

And, all of us are indeed living as ego-consciousness, the big sense of ‘I’.

There are yet more who live in self-consciousness; they are overly concerned about what others think of them.

The Truth About Our Consciousness

The fact not to be forgotten is that when we are living as body, mind, or ego-consciousness we are actually living in an auto-mode. Everything is happening automatically, instinctively and involuntarily. Something happens and we get angry; we go past a chaat - shop and we become hungry!

We do not know what exactly is happening inside; and we keep reacting to these involuntary impulses from within.

We are living automatically as a habituated being living by rote. We are thus not living as CONSCIOUSNESS ; we are actually living as SUBCONSCIOUNESS.

We need to live as CONSCIOUSNESS.

What it implies is to get back control of your life.

If you have to get angry, do so; but do it as a matter of your choice. No person or situation should have a power greater than yours to be able to trigger anger in you. Choose to be angry like a Mother chooses to be angry with her child; she invariably warns the child initially that she will get angry.

The Consciousness that is our aspiration is that Pure Consciousness. It is pragya.

The seat of that Consciousness is the point between our eye brows.

The ways to reach there are two – Silence and Music.

Silence is about SAMENESS; when you can learn to enjoy the SAMENESS, are not driven by an impulse seeking change, you are on your way to the mouth of the tunnel.

The Music is about the harmonized differences of various notes. When you can start to accept the differences in the environment and are not driven to make everyone a photocopy of your being, you are on the Way.

The Rainbow

We all want to be ever joyous and happy. We want a rainbow to shine over our lives.

Living as Subconsciousness is like living as the moonlight. A rainbow can’t be seen in the moonlight!

First step out of the tunnel; let the vision get used to the brightness of the sunlight. Then on a rainy day you may be lucky to see the RAINBOW.

Once you have seen the RAINBOW the joy will never leave you. It will be the MOMENT that will fill your heart with the music of LOVE and the song of life will find its expression on your lips, (a song like the one mentioned at the end of this post).

Now listen to the song ‘Kisi ki muskurahaton pe ho nisaar …… at email ID abhayblog@gmail.com [whose password is - abhayji]

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In the last post we had come to an important milestone – our true identity, the CONSCIOUSNESS that we really are.

It was just a glimpse of the destination (which is Pragya); it was a milestone that actually read ‘AWARENESS’.

Where do we move beyond consciousness? The real fun starts from this point onwards.

Awareness is what a dog has – always relaxed and always alert. He is 100% present. When you infringe his territory he barks, as you retreat he gets into the same comfy position he was before you ‘happened’. From his relaxed position of advantage he keeps a watchful eye till you go beyond his Lakshman Rekha. He does not go back to thinking, speculating what could have been your intention for coming into his territory or how he will attack you more ferociously next time you trespass! He does not celebrate his success, nor does he brag about it to other dogs. He will respond to the situation next time as it presents itself. He acts instinctively and forgets. He does not have a concept of ‘forgiveness’.

When you become AWARE, you notice that the ceiling and pedestal fans rotate in opposite directions; that the digits on a calculator and the telephone are marked differently; that normal switches and electronic switches are ‘ON’ in opposite directions!!!

Awareness implies being 100% present. Awareness implies that Only Consciousness is present, and not the consciousness attenuated by the mind; in other words it implies our presence without the interference of our mind.

With awareness you now start looking into yourself. When something causes irritation you say, ‘Oh! I can sense some irritation’ or ‘Yes, I almost got angry’. You no longer wish to eliminate the cause of irritation or anger. Instead, you watch the rise of anger; as you continue to keep watching you also witness the ebbing of anger. The consciousness, at the point between your eyebrows, can now observe that the anger arose on its own, that the cause of anger was not really the other person or his wayward act but the involuntary response of our own antahkarana. You acknowledge that the other person was behaving strictly as per his character, be it tamasic or rajasic. It was actually foolish on your part to expect him to behave any other way.

You also become aware that your getting angry this way, involuntarily, has not helped improve the situation ever.

Instead of worrying about changing the world you simply resolve to change yourself. In the process you progressively liberate the ‘Real You’ from the clutches of involuntary mechanisms that are constantly operating inside you.

Osho said, ‘Awareness is like fire to thoughts. It is just like you burn a lamp in the house and darkness cannot enter. Thoughts are like darkness; they enter only if there is no light within… If you really become integrated in your awareness, thoughts don’t enter you; you become an impenetrable citadel. Not that you are closed, remember – you are absolutely open, but just the very energy of awareness becomes your citadel. You can see them coming ……. Then you can move anywhere, then you can go to the very hell - nothing can affect you. This is what we mean by enlightenment. If you can retain one-minute of awareness, you can become a Buddha.’

Look around. Just look; don’t interpret, don’t judge.

What do you gain by awareness? You’ll gain nothing! Rather you’ll lose many things – the miseries, the pain, the anguish, anxiety, ambition, jealousy, hatred – you’ll lose all. You become unburdened!

Are there any tools to facilitate awareness to take root? A disciple of Swami Rama suggests three simple tools. When an inappropriate thought occurs:

• Do not deny their presence.
• Do not justify their presence.
• Do not feel guilty about their presence.

Let’s live in ananda. Life is a beautiful journey. Let us not convert it into a race.

Aum Shanti

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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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We touched upon consciousness in the last blog. We stumbled upon two relationships quite naturally, Consciousness and Time and Consciousness & Space.

Both these aspects, the space and time, mean different things to different people. All our experiencing occurs within the realm of space and time, and because of the variations in the understanding of the concepts of space and time the understanding of consciousness gets partially or completely eclipsed. Since we make no progress with consciousness due to an inadequate perspective of space and time we tend to give up on this most wonderful field, the consciousness. In the process we miss out on life altogether, instead we satisfy ourselves with just plain living.

Time

Einstein climbed to the top of Mt Sinai to get close enough to God. Looking up he asked the Lord ……, ‘God, what does a million years mean to you?’ The Lord replied, ‘A minute.’ Einstein then asked, ‘And what does a million dollar mean to you?’ The Lord replied, ‘A penny.’ Einstein asked, ‘Can I have a penny?’ The Lord replied, ‘In a minute!’ From Internet Humor

Time in itself is the scale to measure change. We are not talking about lesser dimensions of time like chronological time, or a slightly larger canvas of past-present-future, but will attempt to unravel time on the largest possible canvas, the cosmic time.

Time has no beginning or end. To visualize anything without a beginning or an end is difficult if it is considered on a linear scale. Shifting imagination from a linear model to a circular model helps; the understanding is instantly transformed - a circle has no beginning or end.

Time should be more appropriately viewed as a circular flow instead of a linear flow, because everything in the cosmos is occurring in a cyclic pattern. There is a water cycle, a tree-seed cycle and everything is occurring in a particular cycle. The reasons for time appearing to be linear is the fact that time as a circle has a rather large curvature. If we view a small arc of a very large circle it will obviously appear to be a straight line. It is for this reason that the earth was considered flat by the western mind till sea faring became a possibility in the 15th century. You may recall the ridicule and persecution thrust upon Galileo by the Church when he propounded his theory that earth was not flat but was circular.

Time, being cyclic in nature, throws up the dimension of eternity, having no beginning and no end. It rolls on, on and on, forever at its own pace. The pace of time itself is not a constant; as Einstein atop Mt Sinai learnt from the Lord Himself! What you call a day and night here might be just a second on another planet. The earth goes around the sun in one year, but the sun itself is going around the galactic system, which takes around 200 million years!

The peculiarity of all cyclic existence is alternation of two aspects – manifestation and dissolution. Water, for example, exists as water and then dissolves back into the atmosphere and continues to exist as vapours. It continues to exist as vapour till many conditions again cause it to manifest as water. You would also have noticed that there is no randomness in Nature. There is a regularity of occurrence in any cycle, a kind of a harmony or laya.

This brings us to the extraordinary vision of time as given in our scriptures [also see Gita Chapter VIII, verse 16 to 20].

Just like we have day and night, manifestation of sunlight and its apparent disappearance, the circle of Absolute Time has two sides, one half of the circle as manifestation of creation and the other half of the circle as dissolution of the same. The Manifestation Phase, or the Day of Brahma, is the endurance of our solar system, which is equal to 4320x106 earth years [read 'ten raised to the power of six' here and every other place of occurrence]. The Night of Brahma is of an equal duration. This one cycle, a day and night of Brahma, i.e. 8640x106 earth years, is called a KALPA. At the commencement of each day of Brahma the three worlds [Bhu, Bhuvr, Sva, as in Gayatri Mantra] come into existence and at the end of the day dissolve back into their primal cause. The two moments, of appearance of manifestation and commencement of dissolution, are termed as Utapatti and Pralaya respectively, and the intervening period is called Sthiti. Each of these dimensions are presided by the deities Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesh respectively.

Brahmas’ life, like human life, is also described to be 100 years. These 100 years are comprised of 365 days, but each cycle of day & night is 8640x106 earth years!! One life span of Brahma is termed as the Kaal.

What happens at the end of Brahma’s life span (of 31536x1010, [read 'ten raised to the power of ten'] terrestrial years)? At the end of Brahma’s life is a moment described as Mahapralay, when Brahma himself dissolves, and this state continues for another 100 Brahma years, after which a new Brahma appears. The cycle of time goes on.

Beyond Kaal ???

You may recall that Shiva is also referred to as Mahakaal and Chid.

Beyond Kaal is that aspect of Shiva that is called Mahakaal. The state of dissolution of Brahma is the time- consciousness receding into itself and existing as a more fundamental state of consciousness beyond time, a state of greater purity, as it were. When manifestation dissolves at the moment of Pralay and Mahapralaya, everything is resolved back to its primal condition, which we shall discuss subsequently.

Lower Dimensions of a Kalpa

A day of Brahma, i.e. 4320x106 earth years, is divided into 14 Manvantras, each presided by a Manu (teacher). At the end of each Manvantra a new Manu is born. The Manu for the current Manvantra, the seventh of the fourteen, is Vaivasvata [also refer Gita Chapter X, Verse 6].

Another scheme divides the day of Brahma in 1000 yuga-cycles, each of Satyug [1,728,000 years], Treta Yug [1,296,000 years], Dwapar Yug [864,000years] and Kali Yug [432,000 years], together adding up to 4320x106 earth years.


Such is the expansive view of time on a cosmic time scale.

How Does It Help You?

Look at the misery caused for those caught up in the time dimension. If a sensation persists longer than it should, it progressively becomes a ‘feeling’, an ‘emotion’, ‘temperament’ and finally an ‘emotional disorder’. If you were caught up in the yet narrower perspective of time, the past and the future rest assured that the hurts of the past and the anxiety of the future will ruin your present. But if you could live like a child, just consciousness, present in the Now, life becomes full of masti.

It is only when you permit your consciousness to emerge from its eclipsed state can you come to realize its higher dimensions that exist beyond time – the dimensions of space, energy and causation.

Shiva will then become a distinct possibility for you.

You will be able to realize Aham Brahmasmi or Shivo Hum.

May the joy of Shiva be yours!. May the Shiva bless your consciousness to attune to His consciousness!!.

Chidananda roopah, Shivoham, Shivoham


Note: If you would like a little help with the time dimension you may view the powerpoint presentation titled “TIME’ posted today i.e. 03 Nov @ our shared email ID abhayblog@gmail.com whose password is abhayji

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abhayji

In case you are accessing this blog for the first time you are advised to go to the first blog at the bottom of the page. Do not try to read through the entire blog in one go. Instead read one item at a time. Let some time elapse before you read the next item.



‘Earth , water, fire, air, space, mana, buddhi and ahamkaar,
altogether these eight constitute My differentiated material energies (Jad).
Beside these there is another, superior energy of mine, consciousness (Chetana),
with which I bear this entire world.” [Gita VII – 4 & 5]


We come to the most important aspect of our existence – consciousness, the Chetana.

In the above verse the Lord describes two aspects of His being, Jad and Chetan. All matter including mind is grouped under the category Jad and His second aspect, the chetana, with which He bears the matter.

We are not the body; it shall be cremated when prana leaves it. We are not the forever changing antahkarana, the manas – buddhi – ahamkaara, that we discussed so far through these blogs.

We are the consciousness.

So What Is Consciousness?

This is an important milestone, a threshold that demands some imagination. Electric energy running through the wires cannot be comprehended by a five year old. If you try to indicate it by switching on the light, the little girl is most likely to mistake the electricity to be the light of the bulb. The light of the bulb is because of electricity, but in itself it is not the electricity.

Likewise, everything (including no-thing), in the world is because of consciousness but it is not what you see, hear or feel. Consciousness belongs to a different realm altogether. This is what the Lord implies in the above quoted verse of Gita; He bears the world with Consciousness, just like a thread running through the beads. In itself the thread is invisible but the knower knows what is it that is holding the beads together.

So how do we know this most subtle thing called the consciousness because of which everything is. We can move from the known to the unknown is a Vedantic principle. So we start our enquiry from the current absolute i.e. you. You are absolute because you never have a doubt about your own existence. At the manifest level consciousness is the Principle of Experiencing. A person in a coma cannot experience things the way you can, even though he may be clinically alive. It is because of consciousness that experiencing becomes a possibility. The capability, to experience a sensation, lies at the bottom of the consciousness spectrum.

The second aspect about consciousness is as a Principle of Creation. The ruling diety of consciousness is Shiva, hence Shakaracharya said , ‘Chido Hum, Shivo Hum’, Shiva and chid are same without any differentiation.

Everything is created by consciousness. All creation is nothing but your consciousness. If you wish to validate this statement through a most elementary experiment, close your eyes and you find that the world as you know - the room , the house, the trees, the sky, everything disappears. But they disappear only for you. Similary, when Shiva, the supreme deity of consciousness, opens His eyes the cosmos is created and when He closes His eyes the entire cosmos dissloves back into His consciousness. If you can raise your consciousness to the level of Shiva’s maybe the world would dissolve at the closing of your eyes!

Why Do We Miss Out The Consciousness?

Take a plane piece of paper and put a dot in its centre. Hold this paper to another person and ask him what he sees. You are bound to get the reply, ‘A dot’. No one will say that he sees ‘A paper with a dot on it’. No reference is ever made to the background. Likewise, while being outdoors when you look up on a clear night all you will see are the stars; and you miss out on the sky all together!

Our entire body is pervaded by consciousness, and it is because of its presence everywhere we miss out on it altogeter. While we are with things we become occupied by them and thus miss out on consciousness. Please recall the example of light of the bulb and electricity quoted above; so long the light is glowing you will not bother about electricity.

It can be safely concluded that so long as we occupy ourselves with material objects consciousness will continue to elude us.

The third aspect that contributes towards the confusion on this subject is that consciousness is a vast spectrum across space and time and even beyond the space and time. The incomprehensibility of consciousness to the Western mind would be evident from what a Nobel laureate had to say while speaking on ‘How to Win a Nobel Prize’. Tim Hunt of Cancer Research UK, who along with Paul Nurse won the Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine in 2001 said, “……….. setting luck aside, there are ways of stacking the odds of landing the Nobel in your favour. One way is to take a chance on finding something no one is even close to discovering’. The best bet according to Hunt was to find just the right kind of experiment. ‘It is no good trying to understand consciousness, you’ll just flail away getting nowhere, and it’s no good wanting to know how your left foot goes in front of your right because anybody can do that. But somewhere in between is that land where you might make a really big difference and discover something really important. That’s where you want to focus your effort”.

The difficulty in comprehending consciousness is compounded because, due to lack of real understanding of the complex reality, a single term, ‘consciousness’, is being used in English language. The Eastern mind has always known consciousness across the entire spectrum. In Sanskrit it is referred to differently, as Rtambhara Pragya, Pragya, Chetana, Chaitanya etc, depending upon the spectrum-band of consciousness being referred to.

• Consciousness and Time
  
  Our consciousness with respect to time, past, present and future, is called differently. The terms used for consciousness with respect to time are consciousness, subconsciousness and unconsciousness.
  
  The experience in the present is called awareness or being conscious of a thing or an event. Our current awareness at the next instant becomes our subconsciousness, a storehouse of our memories. In other words, the experience that has passed through our consciousness constitutes our subconsciousness. The third aspect, that which exists but has not been experienced by us yet lies in the realm of our unconsciousness.
  
  The unconscious spectrum is the largest. We are not aware of so many things that are happening right here inside our bodies let aside in the universe, but they are happening all the same with perfect precision. Be it the heart beating rhythmically or the planets going around the Sun in their respective orbits. The unconscious dimension is obviously full of higher intelligence that makes things happen as per a grand design. Our subconscious is the next, a rather narrow spectrum containg our experiences of this lifetime only. Our consciousness is just a point, whatever we experience at this instant, Now, is our consciousness.
  
  Consciousness and Space
  
  There are three states of consciousness in space we have all experienced. These are the awake, dream and sleep states. In the awake state the entire machinary of our body and mind is pervaded by consciousness. While being awake we are so occupied with the external environment that there is never a free moment to experience the background that consciouness is. In the dream state the sense- consciousness, i.e. the consciousness that exists between the mind and senses, is withdrawn, but the mind remains occupied with the subconscious and the unconscious aspects of consciousness – time spectrum. In sleep state the consciousness is totally withdrawn from the mind also and consciousness rests in itself.
  
  This brings us to a rather interesting next dimension of consciousness. You will recall that when we wake up after a good nights’ rest we often proclaim, “I had a wonderful sleep’. Who is it that knows that you slept well even when you were nearly comatose? The consciousness which knows this truth, that which was present even when the mind-consciousness had been withdrawn, is called the pragya. This is the non-reacting consciousness, an aspect capable of pure experiencing. This consciousness-state, pragya, can be experienced even in our waking state if we can learn the simple art of restraining our impulsive reactions that emanate from the auto-mind; yogis practice becoming pragya through meditation. Meditation is thus also loosely called wakeful-sleep. It is the state of consciousness being aware of itself.
  
  Beyond the pragya lie other dimensions like medha, intuition etc. At the top of the consciousness spectrum is the Rtambhara pragya. It is the state when an individual starts living as consciousness. Beyond this state is when consciousness loses all differentiation and becomes one with the divine consciousness.
  
  Consciousness Summarised
• Sense-consciousness, whereby the senses become capable of experiencing the objects.
• Mind-consciousness, whereby experience through the senses becomes a possibilty .
• Consciousness which pervades the entire antahkarana at all times. This is the realm of self-consciousness, a consciousness that reacts based on a notion how the world perceives us. It is a self-consciousness that shapes our personality; it makes us do things so that they are acceptable to the world.
• Pragya, the consciousness that knows that you slept well. It is the ever-present consciousness that exists in space but beyond time.
  ü Pragya being conscious of its own state, is chid. This is a state beyond space-time; existing as unmanifest, ever present irrespective of the environment and the individual; this is a state when a person can proclaim Chido Hum, Shivo Hum.
• That which experiences chid has to be yet higher consciousness. This dimension is represented by the reigning diety of consciousness, Shiva. This dimension can be compared to all consciousness collapsing to a single point, something like the Ganges recoiling in its entirety from the mouth of the delta back to Gangotri.
• The highest state is Krishna-consciousness, Rtambhara Pragya, when consciousness loses its own identity. It is the moment of the drop merging with the ocean and becoming one with it, forever resting in the paramdham.
  
  Prajananam Brahma - Rig Veda
  [Pure consciousness is Brahma]
  
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# posted by Abhay Gupta @ 10:07 AM 0 comments