Truth 1: Consciousness is the only reality, we are Consciousness.
What is consciousness? The one asking this question is consciousness. You are consciousness.
Consciousness cannot be defined. It can only be realised. Consciousness is unmanifested while everything else is manifested. Everything originates from consciousness. Consciousness is beyond time, form and causality. Anything that originates from consciousness is in the scope of time and has a form and a cause. Anything in the scope of time is temporary and has a beginning and end. Consciousness is existence.
Consciousness that pervades the entire universe and beyond is whom we call God or Spirit.
We can understand Consciousness with the following quote from Kena Upanishad – “Consciousness is – what speech does not enlighten, but what enlightens speech ; what one cannot think with the mind, but by which the mind is made to think; what cannot be seen by the eye, but by which the eyes are able to see; what cannot be heard with the ear, but by which the ears are able to hear.
Max Planck said, “I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness“. Paramahansa Yoganandji has termed the subtle thought vibrations in Cosmic Consciousness as “thoughtrons“. They are the very subtle creative energy. The subtle “thoughtrons” becomes grosser and manifest as “lifetrons“. These “lifetrons” are the fundamental force or energy from where everything else in the universe is created. The source of all energy and consequently the matter that we see in the universe, including our body, originates from Cosmic Consciousness.
“The physical world is in reality nothing more than inert matter. The inherent life and animation in all forms, from atoms to man, come from the subtle forces of the astral world. These, in turn, have evolved from the still finer forces of the causal or ideational creation, the creative vibratory thoughts emanating from the consciousness of God.” – Paramhansa Yogananda, God Talks with Arjuna, The Bhagavad Gita.
Truth2: Our physical body functions because of the spiritual body.
The working of the human body looks miraculous to most of us. It is probably the most sophisticated design that exists on the planet. We breathe while sleeping, and digestion and metabolism happen automatically to convert food into energy, excretion happens regularly, we can move our body parts whenever the mind wants to do it, we have intelligence and emotions, and even the body has mechanisms to fight against disease. Inside the mother’s womb, the baby grows with all body parts in the right place and of the right dimensions most of the time. What enables the body to function the way it is functioning?
What we call our body has three layers of body though we are familiar with only the physical body. Behind the physical body, there is an astral or energy body and behind that there is a causal body. They consist of nadis and chakras and have the shape of our physical body with brain and spine. A subtle form of intelligent energy called life energy or prana flows through the nadis and chakras of the astral body which enables the function of the physical body. Consciousness flows through the causal body with more subtle capabilities in the causal chakras and make us aware of ourselves. Individualised consciousness or soul, encased within the causal and astral body, entering the physical body at the time of the formation of the first cell within the mother’s womb, is the source of all consciousness and intelligence within us.
Without the astral and causal body, the physical body will not function. Science can explain the physical body in terms of biology and chemistry but cannot comprehend the astral and physical body. They are very subtle and beyond our sense perceptions. The soul along with the causal and astral body leaves the physical body at the time of physical death.
How about the body of the plants and animals? Poet and Mystic Philosopher Ibn Arabi said, “God sleeps in the rock, dreams in the plant, stirs in the animal, and awakens in man”. What does this mean?
The soul is covered by five layers, called koshas or sheaths. The outermost kosha is called Annamaya kosha, then Prannamaya kosha, Manomaya kosha, Jananamaya kosha and the innermost one is called Anandamaya kosha. The physical body is the Annamaya Kosha. We are aware of it in normal consciousness. We have very little awareness of the other koshas. However, with meditation, as we expand our consciousness, we get access to them.
Only for humans is it possible to open up all the koshas and realise the soul. In inert matter, for example, a stone, none of the layers are revealed. So it is just an inert matter. In a plant, there is life but no mind and consciousness. Animals have minds and consciousness, but no intelligence to judge good and bad. Humans have intelligence.
Truth3: Our true nature is soul, but we think we are ego.
Who am I? This is the most fundamental and yet the most profound question one can ask. More astonishing is we need many lifetimes to realise the true answer to this question. We continue to live without knowing who we are in the true sense. This is the reason why sometimes we say life is beyond our comprehension and we seek God’s help. Why it is so difficult to realise who we are?
It is easy to mistake a rope, lying in a dark place, for a snake. This is a delusion. Similarly, we also live in delusion. The apparent answer of who am I is not the true answer. The apparent answer to who am I comes from our identification with the world. We use our name, social position and possessions to identify ourselves. This is our external identity. We call it ego. Our true identity comes from within which is ever existing consciousness or soul.
How did we get two natures? When the soul, encased within the causal and astral body enters our physical body, life energy or prana flows down the astral spine to activate the chakras, enabling our senses and then rest in the lowermost chakra as the Kundalini force. Similarly, the consciousness moves down the causal spine and then flows outward making us aware of our body and the outside world using our senses. Becoming aware of the body and the outside world, we begin to identify ourselves with them. This is our ego nature. We forget the consciousness or soul which is our true nature. This is how delusion starts for us.
Now the obvious question is why delusion? Similar to a storm that is needed to form the waves from an otherwise calm sea, delusion is needed to create the differentiated manifestations from the undifferentiated Cosmic Consciousness. Delusion is needed for creation. There is duality in everything in nature. There is death for birth, darkness for light, bad for good, unhappiness for happiness and so on. This is the law of nature. Ego and soul bring this duality to us and comply with the same laws of nature.
The rope remains as rope though we mistake it to be a snake in the darkness. Similarly, we are ever existing consciousness though we mistake ourselves as ego temporarily. Our true nature is forgotten but not lost. Similar to the light of the torch can show us the rope, the wisdom of spirituality can make us realise our true nature.
Truth#4: We live in an eternal life cycle that we can influence.
Our consciousness or soul, our true nature, ever exists. So the next obvious question is what is death? Our physical, astral and causal bodies are energies at three different frequency levels. The physical body is gross matter, astral is subtle energy and causal is a subtler idea. Accordingly, we can think of three worlds – physical, astral and causal where we can live. Death can happen in all these three worlds. What we commonly understand by death is the death of the physical body in the physical world. The astral and causal bodies and consciousness within them continue to live in the other two worlds.
Who decides in which world we live and how is it decided? It is us who decides how long we live in each of the world. The design of the universe provides us with a very fair law of karma that governs what happens to us based on our work. Every action that we do, either physical or mental, influences our lives in the future as per the law of karma.
The events of this life including physical death are influenced by our past karma. At the death of the physical body, we move to the astral world. We live in the astral world for a duration determined by the karmic law and again take birth in the physical world in an environment determined by our past karma. This cycle repeats depending on how we use our free will and live our lives. At the appropriate time, governed by the law of karma, we will have the opportunity to move up to the causal world. We again may have iterations between causal and astral worlds, depending on how we perform. Eventually, when we are free from the law of karma, the idea of separation will disappear and what remains is ever-existing consciousness.
To realise our true nature is our supreme goal. The law of karma prepares us towards this goal. Till the time we are not ready, we need to live in one of these three worlds. That is why the world is considered a learning school. We need to keep coming to this school to learn till our learning is complete.
Truth#5: There is a cosmic influence on who are today.
Every person on this earth is different. Some are poor, while some are rich, some are healthy while some are unhealthy, some live a long life and some die early. The nature of every person is different. Some are very active while some are lazy, some people work selflessly while others are selfish. Though it may look like that there is no fairness in the short span of physical life, the truth is that everything is fair in the long span of eternal life. Our intelligence is not enough to comprehend this. The law of karma ensures that we are responsible for what we are today.
Every manifestation of Consciousness has three attributes called the gunas – Sattvic, Rajasic and Tamasic. In every manifestation, they are present in different compositions. This composition determines the innate nature of the manifestation. In the unmanifested, these three gunas are in complete balance i.e. Nirguna or Cosmic Consciousness. When they are not in balance, they create the form or manifest.
A sattvic person is more selfless, helpful, and generally sees good in everything while a rajasic person is very active but self-centred. A tamasic person is lazy and generally sees bad in most situations.
The law of karma helps us to develop our character and prepare our minds so that we can realise the supreme truth. Every action that we do leaves certain impressions within us and also creates impressions in the environment. The inner impressions, from current and past lives, contribute to our character. The outer impressions contribute to the environment that we encounter. While doing any action today, we are given our character and the environment as per our past karma and our free will, which is always with us. Depending on how we use our free will today will determine our future.