BONDAGE IS A MENTAL CONSTRUCTION
Your very nature is freedom. If Divinity is omnipresent, and if Divinity represents freedom, then, because of the nature of omnipresence, which is freedom itself, you should feel free.
There is a difference between reality and actuality. Reality could be appearance, while actuality is that which is. So, this bondage which shackles you, these handcuffs, this ball, this chain, that does not allow you to move as you want to move, where does that come from? Does it exist? If you find any reality in it, is this reality of your mind, or is it an actuality?
You go to see a movie or a magic show, and you see the magician cutting a woman in half. You know it is an illusion, yet it is still there. It seems real. But is it actual? The woman will turn up a few minutes later, more alive than ever.
So, what is bondage? Can bondage be described as an illusion? Are you living in an illusion, or are you living as you are? Teachers tell you to be like Buddha, be like Krishna, be like Christ. But I tell you, be yourself! By being yourself, you can get rid of the illusion of bondage. You that are boundless, you that are boundaryless, why do you go through the suffering of the sense of bondage?
If you are going through the sense of bondage, where does bondage come from? Where does this illusion or superimposition upon yourself come from? It stems from your thinking. Think that you are bound, and you are bound. Think that you are free, and you are free. If you keep thinking, “I am weak, I am weak, I am weak,” you will become weaker and weaker.
YOU CAN ONLY RELEASE YOUR GATHERED PATTERNING THROUGH YOUR MIND
So, you have no control over yourself. Due to the patterns in your mind, resulting from the various experiences you have undergone in this life or perhaps in ages past, you have created patterns upon patterns within your subconscious mind. Because the subconscious mind is unable to contain all those patterns upon patterns, it has to release them. And the only way it could release them would be to expel those patternings through the conscious mind, through the analytical mind, through the thinking mind, which in turn expresses itself through your five senses, like hearing, seeing, touching, smelling, and tasting.
These patterns originate in the subconscious level of the mind, which is non-existent in substance. It is only a coming together or a bundle of impressions. These impressions come in two different ways. They can be gathered from past experiences and collected from your environment. If the climate impresses you so much that it leaves those scars of patterns in the mind, what do you do to be non-affected by the outer impressions? The way is to strengthen yourself, but how do you maintain yourself? How can you get rid of the patternings, and how can you stop yourself from the input that is thrust upon you through your teachers, through your parents, through your friends, through the environment at large? How can you stop yourself from being influenced by these influences? What tools do you have?
THE MIND IS THE ONLY TOOL YOU HAVE TO CLARIFY THE MIND
The only tool you have is the mind itself, where the conscious level of the mind—the analytical level that functions from the left hemisphere of the brain—can be guided through the various patterns of the subconscious level of the mind. You do not need to destroy those patterns because there is nothing in the universe that is destructible, and science today has proved that you could never kill even a single atom. Even when this body is discarded, it is not destroyed; instead, it will revert to its original elements: water will return to water, air to air, ether to ether, and dust to dust. That is the idea.
However, humans have an innate ability to reach further back with the help of the conscious mind and go beyond the subconscious mind to a level that I term the superconscious mind. Although it is also relative, the superconscious mind is at the subtlest point of relativity, and therefore, it has maximum clarity.
Through spiritual practices, through a scientific method which has nothing to do with religion, you reach that area of the superconscious level of the mind, and then the clarity that is felt there could be brought back down through the same hotline to the subconscious and then to the conscious level of the mind which interprets itself in your daily actions.
DRAWING UPON THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN WITHIN AND ALLOWING THE LIGHT TO SHINE THROUGH
If you can remove the veils of the subconscious mind, that totality of impressions that are gathered there, or pierce through them and reach the superconscious level, then that superconscious level, that finest point of relativity which is connected to that which is Absolute, the absolute light, then that absolute light will shine through the tunnel that you have created and the patternings, the dirt in the subconscious mind and the conscious mind is banished. The darkness is banished.
That is how you treat yourself holistically, where you draw upon this power of the Kingdom of Heaven within. You draw from there and allow that light to shine through this hotline, this channel, this tunnel, so that you can become more and more integrated, suffused, and infused by this divine light that is within you. The entire universe is contained within you. There is no somewhere where you have to go to find it. It is there within you, and knowing yourself, you will spontaneously know everything that is outside you.
So, you reach a state which could be called Unity Consciousness. Where you, the little I – John, Jean, Jack, or James – is in touch with the higher “I” within yourself, the universal “I”. So here the small I merge away into the big I, and living in the area of the Big I, you find all the joy and all the bliss which is your essential nature.
EVERY BREATH YOU TAKE IS AN EXPRESSION OF THAT WHICH IS DIVINE
When you talk of bondage, you are talking of darkness. Why analyze darkness? Switch on the light, and darkness is automatically banished. It is banished. It is not annihilated. Immediately, you switch off the light, and the darkness is there.
Within the relative level of existence, you will always have the opposite poles. They exist there simultaneously. When there is day, there must be night; where there is heat, there must be cold. But why just think of the darkness of the night? Let the sun shine. See the sun. Here is a matter of attention. Where are you putting your maximum attention? Where are you leading your conscious mind by the vehicle of your very own consciousness? Remember, the conscious mind is limited, while the superconscious level of the mind is boundless, boundary-less, and bondless. There is no bondage. And it is so easy. It is within you, and these resources can be tapped in such a beautiful way that, day by day, you feel that deep peace and calm, where you think more integrated.
Suffering only comes from fragmentation. One side of the mind is pulling in one direction. We live in a state of fragmentation, where the mind pulls us in one direction and then the other, and that is suffering. But this suffering can be made into an offering, and what do you offer? You offer your mind and your body, your entirety that you know of, even if so limited, to that which is limitless, and which is not far to find. So, so near. Every breath you take is an expression of that which is divine. Every time you move your hand, you do it through the strength of Divinity.
So, by reaching the superconscious level of yourself, you are doing nothing else but finding the Kingdom that is within you. Seek ye first the Kingdom that is within, and all else shall be added unto thee.
… Gururaj Ananda Yogi: Satsang US 1982 – 50
