“Brahman is already known since it is the self in everyone”.
I dedicate this work to my Guru, at whose lotus feet I now rest.
When I first saw the above quote, I knew that it encompassed everything. It is like looking at the reflection of a reflection, until the stillness bathes one in the ananda (bliss) of truth, witnessing all questions and answers dissolve into each other as part of the indivisible Self.
For the first few weeks after absorbing these words into my ego-consciousness, I found my self (oops trying not to jump ahead there) reciting this title over and over in my waking state. It became my mantra which slowly began to reveal itself to me as the days pretended to pass by.
The last time I did this kind of thing I was five years old; I sat in the downstairs toilet at home gazing into the mirror that my parents had so boldly erected on the opposite wall. “Matthew, Matthew, Matthew”, over and over again until my being fizzed ecstatically without reason.
I open my arms wide with the resounding affirmation, “Yes, ‘Brahman is known already since it is the Self in everyone”.
This quotation from Sri Sankara’s Brahmasutrabhasya can be broken down into four simple parts:-
1. (What is) Brahman?
2. Known already – what is knowledge?
3. (What is) the Self?
4. Everyone – who and what is ‘Everyone’?
Before isolating and revealing them, we can also postulate that this statement contains itself in the form of ‘Brahman = Knowledge = Self = All’.
This is a little like a binary equation which states that 1 = 1 = 1 = 1. One who experiences God knows that he is Knowledge and this is the Self which is All.
What is Brahman?
The word means to ‘grow without limit’. Brahman is Ekameva Adviteeyam – one without a second. He is described as the substratum of everything. He is the essence of the essence. In order to be such he is thus the root out of which he grew himself, viz., he is the Creator (of) himself.
Brahman is God. He is the creator without limit, he is beyond the grasp of the thinking, reasoning mind although this mind can sense him like guessing someone’s age by the wrinkles in their skin.
Brahman is experienced (according to Shankara) as ‘sat cit ananda’; existence, consciousness and bliss. In personal terms I can say ‘I exist’ or ‘I am’. This is the one thing that I can be sure of and that no one being can dispute about another.
‘Cit’ is knowledge. As soon as I become aware that ‘I am’, the consciousness of this knowledge arises. Not only am I aware that knowledge exists but also that ‘I am knowledge’. When we shine this phrase through the ego; ‘I am knowledge’ there is a definitive sense of ananda or bliss; we smile or shine with this simple realisation. The ego thinks, ‘cool – if I am knowledge, there is much I can do and that can be ‘mine’. The truth of this bliss is that it is the interior shining outwards towards the ego, illuminating it. As time passes (the sun rises and sets), although the ego is initially still one with this radiant nucleic energy, it begins to mistake itself to be the source of this Brahma-Shakti (God like energy). It is only the substation of the substratum, it is only the finger of the hand or the alloy of the metal. Without the hand however, the finger lacks placement, purpose and intelligence.
This leads the monkey mind to the big question ‘Why?’
Why does God create and why does the human get lost in the desert of the world and stew in the pot of misery, misgiving and pain etc?
Why does the ego, (which is God shining inwards as well as outwards), forget itself in the world?
The answer is ‘BeCause’. He creates Be-Cause he can, in order to see himself in the mirror of his own no-mind and enjoy him/herself because as we know, that is his nature! When we re-member that we are truly disembodied, viz., that we are spirit residing in this fascinating flesh, we experience ourselves as the ‘Be Cause’; the Being which Causes.
Thus what is Brahman? We are.
We are the adults that grew from children, whom in turn sprouted from the sperm and the egg, which by coincidence resemble the 1 and the 0. From the nothingness evolved the one.
Brahman created the world as his mirror and decided that whatever he placed in front of it would be reflected. The ‘suchness’ or elements appear differently depending upon the angle of perception.
The Guru tells us ‘Aham Brahmasmi’ (I am Brahman) and then prompts us to ask ourselves ‘who is this ‘I?’
In the beginning we ask ‘who am I’ and we hear ‘I am Matthew’. We thus begin to think we are who we ‘think’ we are. Then we reflect this out to the world for an alternative view and we begin to perceive ourselves to be that which the world labels us to be.
As we progress we see that we are ‘neti neti’ (not this, not this), but rather the subtlest layer of all. Something that reads between the lines, that is the essence of this ‘Brahman is known already’. Look in the mirror of love and slowly God will reveal himself as the naked lover does.
Like all realised beings, Shankara (who wrote a commentary on the Brahma Sutram) creates a short circuit to the wiring, making us question and see “Who am I?”
What he is saying has always been my salvation. “I am God”. What else could I possibly be? When I was a boy I prayed every night to ‘the King of the Universe’. Is it not obvious that I exist because I was created by some force so great that it is incomprehensible to the fathoming mind?
For many, the first thing we see is an Iswara; a personal God, a ‘Krisna’, an individual deity with whom one feels attraction and perhaps a sense of divine love. In other words it is an iconic mirror, which we can place on a pedestal.
When I look deeper I see that Sraddha (faith) and knowledge come from within me, from Brahman within. They surface through my logical mind which reveals to me that I emanate from God as soon as I say “I believe there is a God, who creates, sustains and destroys everything”.
In the year 2000 I had a dream in which I saw the word ‘LOOK’. Finally I realised that ‘I am’ God looking at himself.
I was able to look at this ‘unreal’ dream and subsequent events and see that there is no difference between Atman (The Self) and Brahman; the microcosmic Atman is a reflection of the macrocosmic Brahman. It is like looking into one mirror reflecting in to another behind.
Jesus said, “I am the way” and the Vedas tell us the same thing; ‘Aham Brahmasmi’ (I am Brahman). With repetition, we become that which we perceive. We must move into the light of knowledge that we are this divinity.
What is Knowledge?
We are told that ‘Brahman is Known Already’. This is simplicity reassuring us in the same way as the Upanishads relate to us the story of the tenth man who forgot to count himself in the ‘man count’. As soon as we say ‘it is known already’ we can say “okay I’ll tell the world” or “you are the tenth man” reveals that you are ‘that which you were looking for’ as was the case with the tenth man.
Knowledge is self revealing. It informs by its own nature, it is how we understand the perception of our identity and ultimately demonstrates itself to be the Self. Where can we find this knowledge which will reveal to us our nature as God?
We are told that there are three means of doing so. By personal experience, by receiving the Guru’s teaching or shakti and by reading the scriptures, believing and making their content real.
I believe myself fortunate to have been found by my ‘Ishwara’ (Personal Deity), in the same way that my mother hauled me out of the deep end of a swimming pool when I was three and drowning!
“Both Isvara and Jiva (individual soul) are manifestations of Brahman on the relative plane; but Isvara is free, like a spider which moves freely on its web, whereas the jiva is entangled in the world.”
When I met my Guru I was entangled in the dualities of existence.
His teaching was that I needed to ascertain the difference between ‘real’ and ‘unreal’. I learn daily.
In a state of Nirvikalpa Samadhi (a state of non-differentiation of all things and where the mind does not attach itself to external objects) such as He experiences, the subject and the object are in ‘yoga’, yoked or as one. For this to take place one must develop Egagrata Dristi (single focus) which causes the Seer to be consumed along with the seeing and the seen; notably the devotee of the Avatar becomes like the Avatar himself.
Shankara guides our awareness back to the one and only truth beyond any need for question, where knowledge and devotion are in essence no different.
“Believing is seeing” (Sathya Sai Baba) is another way of saying that if we have enough faith, we will be able to see and this seeing is true knowledge. We are able to see the illusory world or Maya in the light of Brahman. When it becomes clear that all there is ‘is’ Brahman then the concept of illusion confusion dissolves back into its Elf.
It is said that we can only have avidya (ignorance) if there is vidya (knowledge).
By this revelation we also know that there is nothing we need to do or learn in order to return to our oneness. Ignorance is merely the opposing pole of knowledge. Any merging is actually an illusion as we are already one with. What we need to do is remove the cataracts of ‘this and that’ or ‘mine and thine’ from the eye.
We can see that two great pillars of Advaita Vedanta (Shankara and Ramanuja) found themselves saying the same thing to the world;
“Thus there are many who follow opposite views by depending upon logic, texts and their semblances”.
Ramanuja (Qualified Non-Duality) says “All words convey differences” – which is quite amusing really because he invests so much effort arguing against Shankara and in saying so he admits that without words there is no difference between himself, Shankara and all other selves. We reach that point of union where in the words of Ramesh Balsekar we say, “Who cares?” meaning there is no ego left to be concerned anymore. All is Brahman.
The Dao Te Ching tells us that “he who speaks doesn’t know”. In the bliss of Nirvikalpa Samadhi, in the silence of un-differentiation, we know.
There are two levels of truth – absolute and relative. We superimpose the apparent world upon Brahman, just as we mistake ‘a snake to be a coiled rope’. From the relative point of view they appear to be different but from the absolute view we know that the substratum is one in the same Brahman. Or as the Thais might say, ‘Same same, but different!’
And so it is from this naked stance that we can see the essence of all life, is life itself and of existence, existence itself. How can we separate the essence from the object sensed or perceived. Ultimately we cannot. For without the former there is no latter, the cause is in the effect.
I have heard of the term ‘the evolution of (human) consciousness’. Is this not really the unveiling of maya in order to reveal consciousness which just ‘is’. This is a process of Viveka (discrimination), between that which is real and that which by appearances, like the snake in the rope, is not.
I could be writing about anything right now and I feel that the ‘content’ seems to shimmer ‘like the moon gliding across the water’, (or is the water gliding across the moon). Whatever meanings one extrapolates, the ultimate truth remains; All this is still Brahman. I see the thoughts that fill my vessel. They accord to my perception of sense and pre-programming. The consciousness that ignites my mind can travel to another apparent locale in space-time. It can ignite another vessel in a different tongue according to a different structure and take on a different meaning. When boiled down to make a broth, all is consciousness in its naked form(lessness), manifesting wherever it so pleases. Then I awaken to realise that I was dreaming again.
Knowledge is weeding in the garden of Viveka (discrimination) and Vairagya (dispassion), to ascertain the real from the unreal. In a heightened state of Brahmic Consciousness, Savikalpa Samadhi illustrates to us all the lemmings in this world walking to the cliff and then falling. We make no attempt to stop them as this would be a form of superimposition. We have seen through the world, its mayic systems and droned clones. Instead we stand in our place laughing aloud; ‘I am that!’, as part of our being inevitably falls with them. One can see Brahman wherever one turns one’s eyes.
Knowledge is putting into practice the state of being in Samadhi which is natural and arises spontaneously. It is a state of complete absorption and thus peace. We commence with Savikalpa Samadhi which uses an object as its focus (such as the image of the guru) to bring stillness and peace. This oneness eventually becomes that of Nirvikalpa Samadhi, whereby all formal appearances and differentiations are transcended. At such a point, the realised being will say ‘I am That Brahman’. The result of constant practice of Savikalpa is that Nirvikalpa Samadhi becomes a permanent state of saturation in the bliss of being from which one never returns. Many question “is it possible to live and function in the world like this?” I question ‘Is there any better way to live?”
The pre-eminent manner by which we dismember ourselves from Brahman is when we mistake ourselves to be our body and hope that this body will last forever. There are so many veils between this surface layer and the immortal self, that the intellect initially and incorrectly mistakes ‘this body’ to be the permanent or Real Self. The body, the prana or chi, the organs, senses, ego, intellect and mind are all mere coverings of the Brahmic nature within. If we identify ourselves to be any one of these layers then we are living in ‘maya’. The Superimposition of this outer sheath is yet another of Brahman’s Leela’s (plays) in which we can occupy ourselves for an aeon or two.
However, through the knowledge derived via one of the three means and subsequent experiences of ever increasing Samadhi, the mind is transcended like the lone sailor who crosses the pitiless ocean on the sails of his devotion. When the mind finally rests in total stillness, it is as though all that remains is a cavern in the chest wherein resides Krisna et al.
If we continue our Vichara (Enquiry) we begin to understand that we must be something other than flesh and bones. We ask God for help because we can no longer bear the suffering rounds of mental pain and disease and thus we have begun our homecoming.
The Vedic texts advise us that personal experiences are the most valid means for realising Brahman because this is how all things become real. The actor first discovers himself while in the process of acting, whether it be in front of the mirror or on the stage. Every time we have a taste of this ‘Self’ it promotes a certain state of being or mind which separates the wheat from the chaff.
The removal of false ignorance simultaneously begins to reveal the non-dual self. As time seems to pass and this awareness establishes itself, the possibility of a dual existence diminishes. All weeds are being uprooted for permanent dislodging.
The idea of this Cit or knowledge is therefore to remind us that we are the Supreme Being. We use the accumulating wisdom to purify the heart-mind until it reflects like a mirror.
The state of Oneness, Union or Absolute Reality is something that transcends the fetters of mind and senses and requires no outside authority for its approval. It simply is the all and nothing.
This Cit that we seek does not even arise via any form of effort or action on our part, despite any misconception that this is the case. If there is effort, the ego is still rallying as the master. The beauty of this non-duality is that as we ‘un-grow’ towards Sat-Cit-Ananda, we are able to witness the duality of Self and Non-Self like a child peeling the layers of glue from his hands in play. In it Self, this witnessing of Self and Non-Self reveals both to be true.
Knowledge simply exists as part of the equation ‘Existence-Consciousness-Bliss’
The more that we know God the more we see how we resemble him/her, in the same way that I see my parents in myself, purely because their DNA was the master file for my own. Knowledge of Brahman destroys all ignorance associated with NamaswaRupa; names and forms. We understand that we are the bliss that saturates our universe, which flows outwards through the ‘names and forms’ that we find ourselves ‘in’. Thus Savikalpa Samadhi will eventually lead to Nirvikalpa Samadhi.
It is said that there are three Upadis; limiting adjuncts or conditions – parts of the ‘body’ that we must transcend in order to make real or ‘realise’. We must know that we are not the flesh, we are not the energy that pervades it and we are not the memory, seed or causal that gave it presence to begin with. We need to see that we are the substratum beneath, behind and at the cause of the ‘causal’. In knowing that we are not these layers, we understand that our essence enlivens and sustains them all.
With this right knowledge, that we are the same as all things around us, suffering ceases and we attain Prashanti Nilayam; The Abode of the Highest Bliss. Whenever we see two, there is fear and pain.
The Self
‘I recently felt irritable while sitting, pondering. My mind reached for tea, for chocolate, for music, some comfort, some anything to hold on to for itself. Within I heard this voice say, but there is nothing ‘there’ that is not ‘here’ that can provide that which you seek to run from through your senses; you cannot run from your Self. Self cannot run from Self. I was ‘getting’ on my own nerves; trying to gain something via my senses which ‘mind’ thought would provide some temporary satiation, but in fact keep me from my Self.
Love gives me the confidence and strength that I need to hold to my truth and walk day by day, one step closer to my Self. I have realised that there is only one thing in this life that truly matters; which can be named or termed in many different fashions and all boils down to the same thing.
Here I call it the love of the Self.
It is quite clear that this love makes one a healthier human being. What is so wonder full is the speed with which our world mirrors this to us. As we grow stronger all those in our microcosm reflect this back to us as a sign of recognition and confirmation. For me this is proof of sameness and oneness. Confidence and therefore trust in my Self has become my guiding light.’
When I was a boy, whenever I had a big event, an interview or match, an exam or suchlike, my mother’s parting words were always, “Be your Self Matthew. I love you.” For me, this is another way of saying ‘Brahman is known already since it is the Self in everyone.’
Some thirty years later and my parents now communicating from within me, I am able to discriminate that My Self is not different from my mother or father. I know this in the same way that I know ‘I am’.
‘I have learned over the years that humans are viewed and estimated by their actions in the world. How one performs on the yoga mat is merely a glimpse of the infinite within. It has taken me a long time to realise that Yoga is not merely performing postures or chanting ‘Ram’ or ‘Allah’. It is the life long journey to the summit that reveals a panoramic view, whereby all surroundings are recognised as part of the self. Each moment is a snapshot of the whole and like our DNA, also contains the whole.
In order to walk my path steadily, I have needed to wander wayward many times. Lose the self to find the self, forget the self to reveal the self.
I have always believed in God because he kept talking to me. I knew that he was the design on the cup and the colours on the carpet and not the vengeful ogre of my inherited religion. When I abandoned myself, he always stood silently reminding me of his patience and love.
This divine grace drives me to serve all through my love for the Self in all.
The divinity within brought me to yoga in the first place, from the days when I felt lost and isolated. This divinity does not ‘practice’ to ‘do’ anything, or arrive anywhere. It is, everywhere and always.
People keep teaching me that we are all unique and so I make little attempt to offer advice or change anyone anymore. The truth is seeing our reflection in the appearances that surround us. We realise that yoga emanates from within and that there is nothing to learn. We all remember yoga, as it reveals itself to us from the centre. Yoga is the art of letting go, relaxation and listening.
Illusion confusion? Transcending my mind has shown me that in a certain light, I am an illusion. One that breathes, eats, sleeps and enjoys a simple uncomplicated life. I come from consciousness, ‘am that’ and then, return.
We are, as Carlos Castaneda put it, unique ‘bundles of energy’, all relating intrinsically to the one. I like to teach the bodymind, watch people learn without effort and see them having fun. Over time, what may have seemed complex, having been broken down, is simplicity itself. Ying and Yang, binary, all quantums leaping from the ‘one’, which sprung from the ‘none.’
In the year 2000 I made a little trip to India to visit Sri Sathya Sai Baba. Over the next three years I saw him twice more, spending four months in his vicinity. When one has faith that the Guru (he who brings light), will do so, then one is prepared to sacrifice everything in order to achieve this.
When you sit in the presence of such a sage you are captivated by their presence. Their Prana Shakti is an emanation of pure love. Anything else that one sees is merely the soot or dust on the mirror of the perceiving mind.
In brief, this is the Saint’s message; The world is a mirror of thine eye.
It took me a while and then I started to realise what I was looking at.
My Self.
Every day I watched this man come and go and every day my eyes would get lost in his being;
My Guru Baba reminded me to see myself everywhere that I look. When I was a boy I knew my shoes amongst all others by their face. They had a shape that was mine. Now my Guru was telling me to caste away this concept of mine, the mould or upadi and see my true self everywhere. This is a matter of practice and the more one does the easier it gets.
The human being is a hologram of light rays and particles. Each of these parts is known to contain the ‘whole’, such is the method we use for cloning. The beauty is that all existence is holographic.
One day my guru came and stood next to me for a few moments. I heard a strange popping sensation in my brain and then a fizzing sound in my nerves. I heard the inner voice say ‘Krisna’. This Being who stood before me was telling me his name. Tears rolled down my cheeks and those salty drops returned back to the ocean of the Self.
I have since lived in this awareness and realised that there is no division between ‘this’ Krisna and ‘That’. This is his teaching; ‘I am in you and you are in me’.
When we begin to taste this divine Self and the bliss that ignites our existence and indeed our mind and senses, we realise that it is naturally the same for us all. Hence the thing which is doing the experiencing must in essence be one. This is the meaning of ‘same’. I remember watching television with my brother when I was about seven. I asked him what he was experiencing that moment, in order to ascertain if it was the same as me. He did and of course it was as “the self tasting the self.”
You see more and more that you are a reflection of everything in nature. …..You see how like a tree you earth yourself into the ground, in order to hold your energies and concentrate them into doing one thing at a time. You see the cat within you that climbs the tree of life, hunting for game and passing the time experiencing yourself. You see yourself as the seer of the cat. You see the cat become conscious of itself upon your seeing it in the tree. You recognise yourself as both cat and self and see yourself merge in yourself and all things. You see that everything you shine out reflects back. You see that the pigmentation in the leaf is a genetic code, defined by some high intelligence which can only be a part of you.
You say ‘I am’ understanding this now, this constant impermeable truth. You have seen that all things lead to liberation and that all paths lead to the topmost form of yoga, your very self.
You have fully realised this consciousness of which you are and which emanates from you, brings life to all things in all universes. You see that this tree and your brain both have branches and are fed by the same light from the inner and outer sun. The light shines into the leaves in the branches and its cosmic energy is transported to the centre of your brain. In this space in your brain time and space are merely constructs of consciousness. You see that the time it takes to go from here to there, from birth to death can be viewed from any place or angle in this space. You see that everything is a matter of perspective and that ‘matter’ is a perspective of time and space.
This is consciousness experiencing itself, nothing new or old. The cat has sensed itself being watched in the tree, the serpent has witnessed the fruit of its own seed, the self gives and receives unto the self alone now.
The Sanskrit word Atman means ‘Self’. When I first went to an Ashram in South India I remember going up to a European man in order to ask him, “Where are you from?” He replied, “Atman”. I remember thinking how pretentious he was, but have since understood his truth.
I have heard and seen this truth in my Guru and now see it from all those realised beings that abound, whether it be termed ‘Qualified’, ‘Dual’, ‘Monistic’, singing, whistling or dancing. I have realised this within my own being and this truly is the source of my shanti. Each day is an opportunity for me to see this Self that I am, on the streets in my town and in the world that sprouts from my being. The workmen next door are making a heck of a noise, their sound in my ears is just another fragment of my own voice.
We all have one thing in common. We have a ‘self’ to which we refer. Whether one is educated or not, this is the foundation for Vedantic thought. We all say ‘I am’.
The more that I ‘meditate’, ‘practice’ or ‘play’ with the awareness that my essence or Self is the Self within all things and that the route of this Self is Brahman, the more I know “well of course I am known already, here I am as the substratum behind all things, revealing myself as I choose”.
Brahman revels as the Self-Revealer. He is the music when I listen with my heart. I hear the notes, the melodies cascading before my inner ear and feel his hand shaping my own upon the strings of my life.
All of these words are my very self. They begin and end as such. This work materialises like a ray of consciousness reflected and refracted through my physicality onto paper. It then appears as separate from me.
Are the words apart or a part of my self? They are both. This essence is divided into numerous partitions, all containing that single code of akashic benevolence, otherwise known as OM.
‘Everything including sound etc. comes to exist when proved by mental functions resulting in the reflection of the Self in them’.
We are instructed to dissociate ourselves from our body (so that we can ascertain the true nature of the Self), by continual repetition of the saying ‘Neti, Neti’, ‘Not this, Not this’.
Whenever we think we are ‘something’, by subsequently knowing or thinking ‘Neti Neti’ we negate all superimposition. We begin to see we are the essence that animates the anger that we are feeling. The emotion may be real as far as mind is concerned, but the more we disassociate our selves from it the clearer our nature as ‘pure being’ becomes.
Grow inwards and life is easier. The need to compete in the game of the world’s name and fame diminishes. The inner being, the Buddhic nature radiates freely. Striving and overreaching ceases. Each day as we play more truly as our innermost self, those around respond in a like manner. We experience this Self directly from within our bones and know it to be the Witness consciousness and thus the Self of all. This witness imparts its consciousness to our minds and illuminates them.
As my life passes I see how my ego (the part of it which is closed, impatient, intolerant, angry etc.), dissolves before my true Self. I see how it rallies around my being like poisonous creepers at my ankles. Joy arises as the radiance of Self awareness increases and the ego retreats into the deep forest of no man’s land, from whence it came. This cycle spirals upwards from unconsciousness as the Self makes itself evident.
When we cruise at this plane of awareness we know without a shred of doubt that this Self or Atman is Brahman, is God, in the same way that the sun shines its light equally into many different water pots, reflecting its own image in each separately. Although the reflections appear as distinct from the original source, this source still remains only as one.
Of All
The sun is the same sun for us all and so is the ultimate source of existence or Brahman. Naturally the uninformed argue this out, but the bliss in which the wise man is consumed no longer demands that he enter such debates.
Our faith is often born in moments of great despair. The atheist may develop some belief, be it in the name of Rama or his personal inner self. Rama isn’t concerned with which name we use, only that we draw upon the resource of our own wellspring and in doing so, become self reliant.
I have sorted through many quotes and can see how they all belong in each pigeonhole; ‘Brahman’, ‘Knowledge’, ‘Self’ and ‘Within All’ and, have an attraction towards one perhaps more than another.
The Gita teaches us that the divinity present within each one of us as individuals is the same divinity that we call God. It teaches that this all pervading God is our highest self and that we are one with this reality. Thus my highest self is that of yours too. There is no distinction as in essence (Latin essentia, from esse, to be) we are all Being as one human soul in many bodies.
In the same light that the Gita teaches us to regard happiness and misery with SamaRasa or equanimity, it also advises us to see the one Atma in all things; be they animate or otherwise. With equanimity of mind, established consistently over a long period of time, we begin to sense Sathya and Amrita Bhavas; the mood of truth and the flavour of the divine nectar of being.
“The one deity remains hidden in all beings. He is all pervasive, the Indwelling Self of all, the regulator of all actions, the support of all beings, the witness, consciousness, non dual and without qualities.”
With this knowledge we are liberated from ignorance, the cause of all fear. We are able to walk this earth as equal with all beings everywhere, a threat to none and a blessing to all. There is no longer any need to return to another womb in order to struggle through the barren desert of another pain filled existence. Although we feel the pain and suffering of all hearts to be our own, there is no longer any need to respond to the anger and hurt of others with anything other than understanding and compassion. We live under the same sky and share the same earth.
Conclusion
The truth is that these words can take on any shape or form-less form, as Brahman is known already. He is writing these lines in celebration of himself, of his glory infinite in all things, everywhere.
In Sat Cit Ananda (Truth, Consciousness and Bliss) all beings, human or else, dissolve into the ocean of love and knowing. There are no words to write or un-write. The scribe is scribed, like the cloud writing its name in the sky so that the wind may disperse it in passing.
Knowing that we are the same as all princes and paupers, all others sentients and un-manifests brings ultimate Prasanthi (supreme calm). This liberates us from the feeling of being bound, allows us to be Brahman of all places in all things.
It removes the concept of ‘concepts’ and the idea that we could either be bound or were in need of liberating. We are a race on a planet encapsulated in a wave of time and motion, supported upon Krisna’s lap while he sips tea in tune with your breath.
This is my prayer, singing the praises of being. The sage knows that which is and in some senses is not, as ‘all this verily is Brahman’. There is no Jnana without Bhakti, there is no Shankara without Krisna, no me without you.
Who am I? I am the essence of existence and non existence, my Self and yours merely appear as separate.
Live as one and love as one, loving one another as the one in the other.
For my friends,
Matt Gluck copyright 2006