To know who you really are, you have to detach yourself from the world and turn to your consciousness.
The world around us looks so real, and to proclaim that it is only an illusion may seem sheer nonsense. How can it be? Yet, it is possible to accept this idea. I believe you agree with me, if I say that the body is some sort of an extraordinary machine. It is made up of a combination of materials, but it functions as a unit. Can you say confidently that you are the body? Are you the hair that is cut and thrown away when you go to the hairdresser? The body changes through the years, are you this changing form?
Can you say that you are a particular thought? Many thoughts pass through the mind each day. They are like a movie that passes in front of your eyes. Sometimes the movie is interesting, and sometimes it is boring. Sometimes it engenders happy feelings sometimes it causes the rise of sadness or anger. Do you remember a thought that you thought an hour ago? Yesterday? How can these thoughts be the real you? You think of them, but you are not them.
The same thing goes for your feelings. It is not true to say, “I am angry”, “I am sad”, and “I am happy”. It is truer to say, “I am letting now a feeling of anger, sadness or happiness to occupy my consciousness for a while”. You, the basic you, stay the same, while feelings come and go. You are not your feelings, which change constantly.
THEN WHO ARE YOU? The mind cannot describe what is beyond it, because it has not been there. It can understand mental descriptions, which only give it a clue of the reality beyond it. To know who you really are, you have to transform your awareness beyond the mind. You are beyond the physical body, feelings and thoughts. You are the eternal, impersonal consciousness that created and infused life into this conglomeration of body, feelings and thoughts that you call “me”.
This homogeneous, indivisible, complete consciousness manifests in everything. It is the life principle of the manifestation that you consider to be yourself. The manifestation, which is the combination of body, thoughts and feelings, is nothing without this life principle. We can certainly say that the consciousness is the only real thing, and every manifestation is just a creation, and therefore not permanent, eternal or real in the sense that it can exist by itself.
Can you become aware of this great consciousness? Yes, of course. You are it. You are letting thoughts and feelings cloud it. If you constantly pay attention to the outside world, then it becomes very real for you. If you find a way to detach yourself from it, and turn your attention within, to the consciousness beyond the mind, you can tear off the screen of illusion, and live consciously in this great consciousness.
Silence of the mind is the prerequisite to awakening spiritually. Only when the mind is silenced and there are no thoughts, you realize who you really are — the vast, eternal consciousness.
This is what has been called spiritual awakening or enlightenment. This is what yogis, saints and seekers on the spiritual path seek. It is here and now. All you have to do is change the way you view the world. You have to learn to dis-identify yourself with your body, feelings and thoughts, and develop true detachment. Through constant meditation the mind is made quiet. Then, from deep inside will raise a great silence, peace, life, consciousness and being. This is the real you. This is enlightenment.
When you are spiritually awakened, your life will probably go on as before. You will still have to eat, sleep and take care of the physical life, though you know through your experience that everything is just an illusion. If you view a movie with detachment, you may enjoy it, yet you will not be moved by what happens in it. You know it is just a movie, the projection of light and color on a screen. You see it, but it does not cause thoughts or feelings to arise. It is the same with the world. The world is not real. You, your real “I”, live in an undifferentiated eternity, yet the body seems to continue to live in a created world.
When you are spiritually awakened nothing can influence you anymore. You are beyond life and death. You will still have to provide food, clothes and a house for the body, yet, whatever you do, you will do with inner detachment. You may go on acting intensively in the world, yet remaining uninvolved in consciousness, as if outside of the world.
When you wake up to your real consciousness, and manage to stay in it more or less permanently, you may disregard the power of the mind, or you may use it to mold your illusion — your world, though by now you stop believing in its reality.
Going beyond the mind, beyond the illusion of the world, and awakening spiritually, puts a great power and responsibility in your hands, for then you have the power to influence the world.
Tags: enlightenment mind spirituality
Nicely written article. Seems a bit like the premise of the Matrix in that we haven’t fully woken from our mind’s illusion.
Is it not this illusion that we can surround ourselves with happiness and whatever feeling we then desire?
I can’t really relate to the first half of the article. To me the world is a mash of science (physics, chemistry, biology etc…) and thats real enough for me. I basically come from the dirt (food/energy) and go back to the dirt (recycling).
The second part I’ve heard before. I’ve even tried it! It works quite well. Its a great escape mechanism from the nasty unnatural world we have to live in today. I always just forget after a while to see it less seriously and ‘m back on the rollercoster again.
I think mixing with people (especially strangers) causes deep unrest in the mind. People require a great deal of thought and thus detaches you from your goal of ‘inner peace’.
this is good well i think at most either this is the real world, it is an illution that was created by a highter being, or your just simply in a coma and is having a very long dream
Easier said than done,ISTM. I meditate a bit, and have for many years. Once, I was listening to an “Enlightened Teacher” tell of the years he spent in concentrated meditation when it struck me: perhaps enlightenment is merely the result of self hypnosis via meditation- one hypnotizes ones self into the belief the are “one with all” and become enlightened……
Who you are is an individual. What you are is the same as all other individuals. That sameness is an individuality that is non-physical with the ability to chose. The choice an individual has is to accept or deny that all other non-physical individuals have that same choice. That is, all other individuals can accept or deny that you are an individual with choice. Accept that or not, that is your ultimate ability.
Nice article.
So basically nothing will entertain you, move you or have any effect whatsoever on your existence and you’ll go through each day, simply forcing yourself to feed and cloth yourself until you die?
Enlightenment sounds awful.
I don’t think that true enlightenment is achieved through detachment but through full involment and saturation of ones every interaction with the physical world.
This is an interesting piece and it brings up a very good point. If we focus hard enough, we can experience a universe which we can shape and mold which is entirely detached from the “physical world” which we collectively call reality. Descartians would say that there is no “collective” reality, just what one mind is observing. There is a fundamental flaw though.
If it is truly possible to enlighten ourselves such that the real world can be placed on an equal pedestal with our “greater consciousness”, then one should also be able to entirely detach from the physical world, and exist as an entity in this “greater consciousness”. Complete detachment from the physical form would be great evidence for this theory, but because the physical dependence on the body can not be severed (admitted in the piece), this theory cannot be seen as anything more than an interesting interpretation of the word “Imagination”.
Cheers.