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.
Continue to read:
Textbook of
yoga – Questions Answered by Swami Krishnananda
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