The physical world we normally experience is a shadow of the real world. The real world, the world of spirit, exists behind a veil, and the veil is our own conditioning. In truth, we are not bound by the world of space, time, matter, and causation, but the veil prevents us from seeing this truth. It also prevents us from living in power, freedom, and grace.
In the fourth state of consciousness, we begin to sense the deeper reality that is orchestrating the physical world, and there is a tearing in the veil that separates the physical and spiritual realms. Just as we have to wake up from the dream state to experience waking consciousness, we have to wake up from what we call waking consciousness to glimpse our spirit, our inner self. This is called glimpsing the soul, and it’s the fourth state of consciousness. It’s simply to be in touch with our soul.
This leads to a fifth state of consciousness, or cosmic consciousness, when our soul fully wakes up in waking, dreaming, and sleeping. Our body can be fast asleep, but our soul, the silent witness, is watching the body in deep sleep. Our body can be walking, and the silent witness is watching the body walk. Our body can be playing tennis, and the silent witness is watching the body play tennis. Our awareness is localized in space-time, and it’s nonlocal, or transcendent, at the same time.
Just as Christ said, “I am in this world, but not of it,” in cosmic consciousness we are still in this world — waking, dreaming, and sleeping — and yet we are connected to our source in waking, dreaming, and sleeping. Like a lamp at the door that shines inside the room and outside the room, we are in both places. When this happens, synchronicity, chance encounters, and hidden clues increase. We start to understand the power of intention. We start to watch our internal dialogue, and we say, I know that how I speak to myself actually causes things to change in my physiology, in my world.
In cosmic consciousness, we find that relationship is the most important thing in life; everything in life is a confluence of relationships. We begin to see that everything is a balance between feminine and masculine energies, the yin and yang, and anytime there is more of one than the other, we are out of balance. Right now, we need to reawaken the feminine because the dominance of the masculine has led to belligerence, arrogance, and aggression, the very problems we see in the world right now.
In cosmic consciousness, we are aware that we are not the physical body, nor are we the mind and all the roles we play. We are the silent witness, and a sense of freedom and liberation comes out of this awareness. We are involved in our roles, and yet we are free at the same time. Then we recognize that after death our spirit will continue to play other roles, and we feel more ease. As we abide in cosmic consciousness and allow it to blossom, the universe plays itself through us, and the whole dance of life becomes effortless.
Once we have glimpsed our soul, we find the outside reality much more interesting because we glimpse the soul of other beings, too. We glimpse the soul of a flower, of a tree, of a mountain, of a river, and we commune with it and say, “This is my extended body. I have a personal body and I have an extended body, and they are both equally mine. Those trees are not just trees; they are my lungs. Those rivers are not just rivers; they are my circulation. This earth is my body, this air is my breath, and the fire in my heart is the fire in the stars.”
If we don’t interfere with nature’s intelligence, then we start to awaken into the sixth state of consciousness, or divine consciousness. In cosmic consciousness, the spirit was fully awake in the observer in waking, dreaming, and sleeping, but now the spirit begins to awaken in that which is observed. In divine consciousness, we see and feel the presence of spirit in everything. If I look at a leaf, I say, “This is a leaf, but it’s also sunshine, and earth, and water, and air, and the infinite void, and the whole universe playing the part of a leaf.” The leaf is a pattern of behavior of the whole universe. The pattern is transient, it’s changing, and just for the moment, spirit is localizing as a leaf.
If I take a picture of a giant wave on the ocean, the movement of the ocean is frozen by taking the picture. I show you the picture and you say, “Oh, that’s a beautiful wave; let’s go see it.” We go to the ocean, and that wave is no longer there because what we saw in the picture was a frozen moment of observation. So, too, in the act of perception, we freeze the movement of the universe into a leaf, or a table, or a cloud, or a rainbow.
When we wake up to divine consciousness, we don’t just see a leaf, or a table, or a cloud, or a rainbow; we see the whole universe being all these things. We feel the presence of spirit naturally unfolding in whatever we observe. We’re not doing anything to make this happen; we’re just allowing the universe to unfold and play itself out through us.
In ordinary awareness, we see the obvious, the apparent, that which everybody else sees. But in this extraordinary awareness, we pierce the mask of appearances and go beyond to that field of light where spirit shines, where everything connects with everything else. This going beyond is a new quality of awareness. We are like a speck of awareness in the vast expanse of awareness, and our own awareness expands until it is outside the edges of space, and beyond the corridors of time.
When we enter this reality, we feel safe even in the midst of danger. No matter how turbulent and chaotic the world is around us, we feel deep peace inside ourselves. In the noise and din of everyday existence, in the marketplace of life where everyone haggles, we feel an unshakable inner silence. An inner voice speaks to us, and it guides us to make spontaneous and correct choices, weaving the web of our destiny. Prayers get answered and miracles occur, and we feel wonder at the sheer fact of our existence.
In divine consciousness, the soul wakes up in everything we observe, and this awareness allows us to commune with other souls. Communion is not mere communication; it is soul making contact with soul. It is the sharing of spirit. In communion, we feel equal to all beings; we feel neither superior nor inferior to anything. In communion, we have empathy for all beings; we feel how they feel, and we communicate without the use of words.
Through communion we experience intimacy with the world. We feel the presence of spirit in ourselves and in everything, and with this shift in our consciousness, we can become what we perceive. We can commune with the spirit of anything in the natural world, and it responds to us. We can ask the cloud to rain or the tree to bear fruit, and we can perform miracles. All miracles are examples of divine consciousness, which means that the divine spirit is no longer difficult to find; the divine spirit is impossible to avoid.
Next, we awaken to the seventh state of consciousness, which is unity consciousness. This is when the spirit inside us, which is now fully awake, merges with the spirit inside objects, which are also now fully awake. They become one, and there is only one spirit. We are that one spirit, and the whole universe is the manifestation of that one spirit. In unity consciousness, love radiates from our heart like light from a bonfire. Our personal self becomes the universal Self, and we see the whole universe in our being.
This is when we can really understand the Vedic expression “I am not in the world; the world is in me. I am not in the body; the body is in me. I am not in the mind; the mind is in me. Body, mind, and world happen to me as I curve back within myself and create them.”
Normally, we think of ourselves as a person who exists in a place, in a city, in a country, in the world. But this is not the true reality; it’s the other way around. The world exists in us. What we call the physical body and the physical world are projections of our consciousness. Without us — the “I am” — the world would not exist. John Wheeler, a theoretical physicist and colleague of Albert Einstein’s, said the universe doesn’t exist unless there’s a conscious observer. The conscious observer could be a mosquito, or it could be me or you. But just as you can’t have an electrical current unless there’s a positive and negative terminal, so, too, you can’t have a physical universe unless there’s a creator and somebody to observe the creation.
The universe is conscious, and
because it is conscious, it is conscious of itself. So infinite consciousness is its own observer. Where is the observer? The observer is in the discontinuity, the gap, the off. What is the observer observing? It has to observe itself. Before infinite consciousness observes itself, there is neither space, nor time, nor matter. Nor is there causality. There is only a possibility or potential for all these. But when the observer, which is in the discontinuity, observes itself, which is also in the discontinuity, the off observes the off and mysteriously switches on. This is how infinite consciousness interacting with itself creates the observer, the process of observation, and that which is observed. All creation is self-interaction.
Interacting with itself, infinite consciousness first creates the mind, then it creates the body, then it creates the physical world. Everything we call physical is a translation of different vibratory frequencies of consciousness in the mind. And the mind, in turn, is an interpretation of consciousness unto itself.
In a beautiful verse, Rumi says, “I have lived on the lip of insanity, wanting to know reasons, knocking on a door. The door opens. I’ve been knocking from the inside!” In other words, we are all contained in the one mind, whether we want to call it God’s mind, infinite consciousness, spirit, or the unified field. There is no inside, there is no outside; it’s all one activity of a single consciousness. Our fundamental nature is pure consciousness. And the soul, as an aspect of pure consciousness, has to observe pure consciousness to create space, time, matter, and causality.
In the relative, I am the observer looking at objects. In the absolute, I am the simultaneous manifestation of both the observer and the object of perception; they interdependently co-arise. At the deepest level of existence, when I look at you, I am looking at myself. My deeper self is interacting with itself and creating both me and you. When I look at a tree, I am looking at myself. My deeper self is interacting with itself to create both the observer of the tree and the tree.
The world exists in us; we do not exist in the world. This is a difficult concept, and you could spend a whole lifetime trying to understand it intellectually. However, from a practical point of view, the next time you look at a tree, or you look at another being, or you look at anything, just say to yourself, That tree exists in me. That being exists in me. Those stars and galaxies, this table and chair — everything exists in me. If we tell ourselves this, then soon we find ourselves having a knowingness about it. If I tell myself, That tree exists in me, then I’ll be in love with the tree. If I tell myself that you exist in me, then I’ll be in love with you. Then sooner or later, I’ll have that intimate relationship with everything in existence.
Everything in the universe is alive. The Earth, the stars, the Milky Way, and other galactic systems are a living organism. The universe is one gigantic, living Being. When we have a feeling of intimacy with this Being, when we fall in love with everything that exists, the universe speaks to us and reveals its innermost secrets.
What we call the laws of nature are actually the thoughts of a sentient Being. What we call the universe and galactic systems are the body of that sentient Being. An electrical storm in the atmosphere of the Earth is the same electrical storm in a synaptic network of our brain. In our brain it comes as a thought; out there it comes as a flash of lightning in the sky. Is the storm in the synaptic network of our brain any different from the storm out there? As far as the universe is concerned, they are both its behavior. It’s our misperception that makes us think, This is me, and everything else is separate from me.
You and I are part of a conscious universe. The universe is thinking. It’s creative. It imagines. The universe is full of creativity, and it couldn’t be full of creativity if it wasn’t conscious. I am creative because the universe is creative. I am conscious because the universe is conscious. I think because the universe thinks. I am imbued with subjectivity because the universe is imbued with subjectivity, which means the universe has a sense of “I am. I exist.” And my sense of “I am,” my sense of my existence, is not separate from the universal sense of “I am.”
If you could really understand this, then you would realize that you are not a solid body that exists in space and time. The essence of your being is the source of space and time. Your soul co-creates with the source of all creation. As you wake up to this awareness, you realize there is nothing you cannot create. Then one day, the consciousness that seems to be “inside” you, merges with the consciousness that seems to be “outside” you, and you see the whole universe as your own manifestation.
There is no difference between what is happening in your inner world and what is happening in your outer world. The outer world is just a reflection of your inner world. The world is a mirror of your mind, and your mind is a mirror of the world. But you are neither your mind nor the world; you are the creator of both. Even that idea is only a partial truth because there are no inner and outer worlds. There is only the self-interaction of the one Being, infinite consciousness.
This is the mystery of creation. Whatever we think within ourselves, we become in space and time, and that alone is experienced. When we are suffering and agitated, the night becomes an epoch, while a night of revelry passes by like a moment. Both the suffering and the revelry are part of the dream, and in the dream, a moment is no different from an epoch.
Vedanta declares, “Whatever is in the mind is like a city in the clouds. The emergence of this world is no more than thoughts manifesting themselves. All these worlds are no more than modifications of consciousness, and in the infinite consciousness, we have created each other.”
Once we understand that there are different states of consciousness, we also come to realize that the laws of nature only apply to a waking state of consciousness, or a dream state of consciousness, or a sleeping state of consciousness in the ordinary cycles of life and activity. As we navigate in these states of consciousness, we navigate in different worlds.
The soul abides in many states of consciousness simultaneously, but what we experience each day depends on where we put our attention. Through attention, every thought, every desire, becomes a little seed of information localizing from our nonlocal soul. And because human beings are storytellers, we tell ourselves stories about our own thoughts. If we call a friend and she doesn’t return our call, we may think, She doesn’t like me; maybe my nose is too long. We tell ourselves a story, then we live out that story and we call it a life. The same thing happens to us at night, but the logical mind is asleep, and we call it a dream.
One night I dreamed that I was playing golf and won a trophy. There were a hundred people in the gallery, and they all cheered when I got this beautiful trophy. The next day my photo was in the newspaper. Then I woke up and said, “Oh my God, I made up the whole thing. I was Deepak who won the trophy. I was the golf course, I was the hundred people, and I was the photo in the newspaper.” But I didn’t know that when I was dreaming; I only knew it when I woke up.
Then one day I wake up from waking consciousness and realize that everything is a projection of my own consciousness, of my own inner self. In all these states of consciousness, I am the producer, the director, the actor. I am the protagonist, the hero, the villain. I am the prisoner, the guard, the prison. I am the freedom, too. And I didn’t know it, but now that I’m fully awake, I know it. Now I can choose to play, and that play is called leela, the play of the universe.
In my native country of India, leela is the cosmic dance of Shiva and Shakti, the masculine and feminine powers of creation. The cosmic dance is a lovely symbol for creation. One foot on the ground represents the stillness of the field of the absolute, and one foot raised in a dance step represents the dynamic field of the relative. But beyond the pretty imagery, leela is about the delight and freedom of creation.
Infinite consciousness creates and plays through us in different frequencies: deep sleep, wake up from that into dreams, wake up from that into waking state, wake up from that into glimpsing the soul, wake up from that into co
smic consciousness, wake up from that into divine consciousness, wake up from that into unity consciousness.
Infinite consciousness is a field of all possibilities, and when the universe is flowing through us without interference, we find all of these realities where consciousness plays itself out as space, time, matter, and causality. But go beyond the field of thought, the field of emotions, the field of ego, the field of personality, and there’s only one field left. That’s who we are: the field of pure consciousness localizing as a person.
As a person, I appear to be separate from others, so I think, I am Deepak. I am here, and you are there. This one is a friend; that one is an enemy. This one is good; that one is bad. But it’s all a projection of consciousness. There’s no such thing as “a person.” What we call a person is infinite consciousness manifesting as a transient pattern of behavior. If you think of yourself as a person, then you will see people everywhere. But if you realize you’re not a person, then you will feel the presence of spirit, the one Being, everywhere. The Being who’s looking out of my eyes, and the Being who’s looking out of your eyes, is the same Being in a different disguise.
The universe is the dream of the infinite consciousness, and in this dream is born the ego-sense and the fantasy that there are others. But all these others are nothing but dream objects. In the tangled hierarchy of creation, everything is inseparably one, and there is only interdependent co-creation.
Look at any object in your surroundings, perhaps a table and chair. They appear as objects in the field of your perception, but that is the superstition of materialism, the mistake of the intellect. If you rely on sensory perception alone, you will never experience the whole. You will only experience bits and pieces of reality because your eyes, and ears, and nose, and mouth, and hands are bits and pieces of sensory apparatus.
The table upon which you write, the chair upon which you sit — everything in existence, animate or inanimate — is the whole universe in a particular pattern of behavior. Go beyond the pattern of behavior, and feel the presence of that which is doing the behaving. You will see and feel the presence of spirit in every object of your perception.
Power, Freedom, and Grace Page 7
