(July 7,2013) Spiritual Message for the Day – Back To Our True Selves

Back To Our True Selves

Divine Life Society Publication: A Textbook of Yoga by Swami Krishnananda

Q: Through meditation, japa and asanas, we are trying to get back to our true selves. And in trying to get back, aren’t we going away from ourselves? Aren’t we making ourselves more complicated?

Swamiji: You are not going away from yourself. You are going away from that which is not yourself. All that you see with your eyes is not yourself. But that which sees is the Self. You are seeing something, and that which is seen is not the Self. But who sees that?  That consciousness which sees is the Self.

Now actually your effort is to move towards the consciousness that sees, and not the object that is seen. And when you say ‘we’, ‘I’, and all that, who is that ‘I’ and ‘we’ that you are referring to?  "Are we not complicating ourselves?" you said. Now, who are these ‘ourselves’? Who is that talking? It is not your body, it is not your relations, it is not your sense organs. It is that which is in the state of deep sleep, to give an instance.

You were existing in the state of deep sleep, but in what way were you existing?  Were you the son of somebody, or a professional, a man or woman, rich man, poor man? What were you at that time? None of these things. These great things that you are evaluating so much in the world have no meaning in that state of sleep, and yet you are more happy there than when you possess the kingdom of the earth. That is, you are in yourself at that state, and in that ‘yourself ‘– I had already explained this sometime earlier – that ‘yourself’ which is in the state of deep sleep is pure awareness only, awareness of pure existence. You are existing as consciousness, or there is consciousness of existence.

Again we are coming to the old definition of sat-chit. You existed as sat-chit; and you were very happy; therefore, it is ananda. So you existed as sat-chit-ananda. Inasmuch as these words are difficult to understand, I am not using the Sanskrit words too much. It is pure awareness of being only. And, as we analysed this situation earlier, this awareness of being cannot be only inside the body, because awareness cannot be located in any particular body or spot. This is because if consciousness, that awareness, is only in one place, there must be somebody to know that it is not in another place, and that who knows that it is not in another place is itself only. To know that it is not in another place, it has to be there already. That means to say, your consciousness is all-pervading. So only in the state of deep sleep you have an indication of your real nature of all-pervading, pure Existence-Consciousness. To reach that state you are trying your best to withdraw yourself from all entanglements with which you are connected in waking and dreaming.

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Textbook of yoga – Questions Answered by Swami Krishnananda

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