Wisdom of the Ages:

The Pratyabhijnahrdayam: The Secret of Self Recognition by Jaideva Singh (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1982.)
1st copyright: August 2006 to Ruth Angela of Lotus-Blessings.com

Recognizing THAT as Yourself.

I do not pretend to understand the way that humans are created. Nor do I have any real grasp of how our universe appears so real and yet we know through quantum science it is entirely formed of tiny electric particles with wide spaces between them and thus is truly UN-real and ephemeral. Such knowledge I may never truly understand until I leave this form, and I am no longer trapped inside this mind as my window on reality.
But I do not feel that I must know all this to still experience the reality of myself. I can know the truth of who I am by the fact that I AM it. I am not learning something vast and unknown. What could be more familiar, closer or more 'me' than this? Could anyone know the ME-NESS of me better than I can? There is certainly no book that can give me the information more than I already know and there is no exercise that can make it more real than it already is. So I have all the tools and knowledge I need right INSIDE me. Then why do we continually run our minds over these issues like a tongue to a sore tooth, seeking answers outside and everywhere but the very source of them? Why can't we just KNOW that Godness of ourselves as easily as we know our toothache when it is sore? I do not know that answer, but I would like to offer some hope in the quest to be able to rest in that questing for what my teacher calls "The Self."

On page 59 of this illustrious text is Sutra 5:

"Chiti (universal consciousness) itself descending from (the stage of) Cetana (the uncontracted conscious stage) becomes Citta (individual consciousness) inasmuch as it becomes contracted (Sankocini) in conformity with the objects of consciousness (cetya)."

Jaidev Singh says, "Truly speaking Citta (individual consciousness) is not anything else, rather it is the exalted Citi (universal consciousness ) itself."

So this individual consciousness which is what we ARE is the very "stuff" of stars, the very essence of the universe itself. Like gold in the furnace burning as a liquid we are; then we are poured into the mold and a bracelet of gold is formed and shaped. It emerges cooled and solid. It is a formed entity with an independent life from the gold liquid that birthed it. This is how we are formed from the liquid light of the universe. We are set in a form and we continue our lives unaware in general that we were ever part of a huge vat of liquid gold, and each and every entity we see around us was shaped into something different from the SAME gold, something that shows the art of the maker, the jeweller. One entity maybe a cufflink, a tie pin, an earring, or even a false tooth. All the sea of gold items we see on the jeweller's shelf are nonetheless gold just as we are all aspects of the One universal energy that is "All that is." All are made as we have been by congealing from a lighter form into a heavier one, by taking on an identity and shape OUT of THAT.

This of course sparks speculation within the mind. Do you mean that Hitler was also formed out of THAT? Indeed so. Could Stalin or Ghenghis Khan, the murderers of so many souls, be THAT? Indeed so. What about something disgusting like feces; is that also THAT? Indeed everything comes from THAT.
So we sit and ponder the fact that Aunty Em too is the same consciousness as we are even though she has atrocious teeth and breath and a very negative attitude to everyone. Can this be? So take away that personality of Aunty Em that creates many emotions and see her as a heart beating inside a form. What gave her that beating heart which has been pumping away for her lifetime? What made her hair stop growing the way it did? What strange power enabled her to be richer than anyone else in the family? Something magical made her heart start beating, her hair stop growing at 40. Some force enabled her to find real estate at rock bottom prices and some fate enabled her to sell it at top prices. So who is Aunty Em really? Is she the personality we dislike, or is she a manifestation of some liquid GOLD in a certain shape and form that has some role to play in the divine plan?

It makes life a little easier when we start to see the GOLD in everyone. It is there all the time through time whether we perceive it or not. My teacher, Muktananda, would say it is a blue light that emanates from everyone. He told us that at times could see it everywhere when he would look at a crowd of people. Sometimes I have seen it as a sort of blue halo around a person. Sometimes I have seen it spark across my eyes in a flash of blue. Even in the fraction of a second that it took to know I had seen it, it left me changed. It was pregnant with so much potential... the blue so translucent and deep with promise of everything wonderful and unimaginably bright and free. That is the source of ourselves, the Citi or the universal consciousness that forms everything from itself. It is the 'gold' within everything. It has confirmed for me what I have read in the Pratyabhijnahrdayam that we are formed from the very same essence as universal consciousness. I have been blessed and lucky to have seen this, and it has confirmed everything I had learned from my teacher, so I am sure of this.
But what if we cannot see blue streaks of light to confirm our immersion in THAT? Is there something else that we can do to confirm that this Sutra is correct?

Why cannot we know all the time that we are this blue light manifesting as "me"? Where and what is this "me" that is always present, but eludes us moment by moment as we search and effort to capture it and say:"Ahaha.. THIS is what I have been seeking. Now I understand?" How can we understand it if we cannot know it by effort or by the mind? What else can we do?
All the wise teachers will say "Look within." This involves some form of meditation where the mind is rested and quieted so that what is "us" inside can be heard or at least experienced. The voice of our inner Self is so SILENT, so quiet and inoffensive. The mind on the other hand is so loud and restless. We can read books on meditation and even pay for training and be on our way to an experience of our inner Self. These methods do work and have for millennia. Yet for many people the mind dominates our awareness and shouts down that small silent Self.
In Sutra 13 of the Pratyabhijnahrdayam we find the following:
Acquiring the full knowledge of it (i.e. the authorship of the five-fold act of the Self), citta itself (i.e. the individual consciousness) by inward movement becomes citi (i.e. universal consciousness) by rising to the status of cetana. (self; soul, conscious individual)

This means that once we know what makes our heart beat, our hair grow, our life transpire in whatever form it does we can experience ourselves as conscious. It is the essential universal intelligence within us. How can we be separate from that? How can we NOT be the very God that Muktananda says "dwells within you as you."

Thus by meditating to go inside or by not meditating and going outside, as long as we are breathing and our hearts beat, we are BEing the Self. This knowledge can itself be sufficient to bring relief for a seeker to make us "conscious." Whether our mind believes it, experiences it or not. It is the truth. We live, we breathe, we exist in the sea of THAT. Just such knowledge can be enough. What events occur changes nothing. How many good deeds we might do, or even harmful ones will not change that truth. Thus it is not only saints who can come to the knowledge that "Your God dwells within you" but it is the prisoner in the jail, the murderer and assassin. The "gold" remains gold no matter what shape it is formed into. The beggar and the king are all of the same "stuff" of God.

And dear reader, indeed so are you. Rest in that knowledge and go about your BEingness. For you are THAT.

Ruth Angela (C) Lotus-Blessings 2006

"Only barbarians are not curious about where they come from, how they came to be where they are, where they appear to be going, whether they wish to go there, and if so, why, and if not, why not." --Isaiah Berlin

More Wisdom from the sages next moon. We will discuss the wisdom of the Hawaiian Kahunas and what they knew about psychology and the soul thousands of years before Freud. This article will remain open at this site.

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