THERE IS ONLY ONE CONSCIOUSNESS
When Jesus said: “I am the way. I am the life. I am the truth.” Which “I” did he speak about? Jesus never said that as Jesus the body, but he said that as Christ. There is a difference between Jesus, the embodied little being and Christ, the Universal Consciousness. To become one with the Father, one has to reach that level of consciousness, and that level assumes or becomes just as vast as God, and then honestly, you can say, “I and my Father are One” – for there is no other way at all without achieving this consciousness. You could call it Christ consciousness, Buddha consciousness, or Krishna consciousness; it means the same: the emphasis is not on the man’s name. The emphasis is on consciousness, the totality of consciousness, pure consciousness, which embraces the entire universe. So those sayings are very accurate, and that is the only way, and the only way can be the truth.
THERE IS ONLY LIFE, AND LIFE IS LOVE, AND LOVE IS GOD
Everything is alive. There is no such thing as death. Nothing can die. It is only because of your conception that you say when I leave this body, “I am dead”. Which part of you says you are dead? You will not even know it. Someone else will say, “Oh, Guruji died.” No, they will never say that. The day I say, “He passed over.” There is only life, and life is that love, and love is that God.
The way, the truth, and life are different aspects of the same thing. He who can live life lives God. But we do not live life; we only exist like anything else, like even a piece of stone that exists. But we think we live because we walk around, talk, believe, do this, and do that. Is that life? If it was life, then why are there contradictions in our lives? Life itself has no contradiction. How come all the conflicts come about if we live life? So, we have forgotten what life is. We only have a peripheral view of things and not the centre. We live off-centred. How will the wheels go if you have a cart and the hub is not in the centre? They will not turn smoothly, and that is why our lives are not turning smoothly. Therefore, you go through this guff, guff, guff.
THE INNER SELF OF MAN REQUIRES NO TRANSFORMATION
Our spiritual practices aim to bring us to our centre; the centre is life. The centre should control the periphery, like in a wheel with its spokes and the rim, so that the wheel can run smoothly. We live in the peripheral world that we are so conversant with, and only the true spiritual seeker will try to find the centre.
I made a massive study where I found that when people join a spiritual organisation in the beginning, ninety-eight per cent of people do not enter it because they want to see the centre or find Divinity; they join it because of all kinds of troubles they go through. This could be emotional, physical, domestic, or job problems. That is why they start on the spiritual path, but they have started, which is begun. These things would smooth themselves out, by going nearer and nearer to the centre. We have been hearing of many of the experiences of our meditators, and they just find it so miraculous this mercy, which we call Gurushakti, that such transformations come.
You are not transforming the centre; the centre is perfect. You are changing the spokes and the periphery and fitting it into the centre. That is the transformation of man; for the inner self, the centre, no transformation is required. Transformation means change, while the centre in man is changeless. As soon as Divinity starts changing, it loses its Divineness, and yet, the periphery we see, the unbalanced wheel, is an expression.
WHEN ONE APPROACHES THE CENTER OF ONESELF, THE PERIPHERY BECOMES PERFECT TOO
Now let us look at this differently: if everything emanates from the centre, why is the rim buckled and not running smoothly? Goodness can only come from goodness. Manifestation comes from the Manifestor, and every Manifestor is Divine, so its manifestation must be Divine. From a rose, you will have a rose fragrance. From a Jasmine, you will have a jasmine fragrance. True or not, but then why this? Is there any reality at all in this? There is no reality in the world you see around you. We live primarily in an illusory world. In his Vedantic philosophy, Shankara would say that you perhaps go through a street in the semi-dark, see a piece of rope lying there, and mistake it for a snake. But on close examination, you find it is not a snake. It is a piece of rope. So, when one approaches the centre of oneself, what happens to the periphery that seems imperfect? They, too, become perfect, and when you observe the perfection even in the manifestation, only you would say, “I am the way, the truth and the life,” for then you see everything to be Divine, even the buckled wheel is Divine. So why not “That guff, guff, guff.”
IT IS ONLY THE EGO SELF THAT EXPERIENCE THE BUMP
We are experiencing that because we bumped the cart through our samskaras and past lives, and it is only the ego self that is experiencing that, not the authentic self in you. When we have eyes to see and ears to hear, we will look at everything from the hub, the centre and every imperfection which the ego self conceives of; you will find that, too, will seem perfect by not looking at it from the mind and ego centre. Therefore, we say, “Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder.”
But which part of you is the beholder? Your centre or the periphery? As we go deeper and deeper into ourselves, through spiritual practices, we learn to accept and surrender the periphery to the centre because we recognise in the beginning the value of the centre and the value of immortality of the centre. We realise this eternal quality or eternalness. Then the periphery is of no consequence, yet it is necessary to carry on this little body, for you have always been and always will be. So, by viewing everything from the centre of our soul, the past, the present and the future become one, for the eternity of existence is but a split second, and yet we divide up this split second into so many parts, and we start experiencing the parts and not its wholeness. Only by diving deeper into the centre can we experience everything in its wholeness.
THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE BETWEEN YOU AND ME AND BUDDHA AND CHRIST AND KRISHNA
There is a very favourite analogy of mine: it is dark down here because the sky is overcast with clouds. Where did the clouds come from? They went from that sun that drew water up in the form of water vapour, and because the clouds became dense, things look dark down here. The sun is unaffected, but we are observing the darkness. If only we realise that all this too must pass away, that the clouds must disperse and the sun will be there again, giving such beautiful sunlight. So, who is the creator of the Manifestor of the Darkness? That light, the sun.
Do you see how we can view things from totally different attitudes, from a different way of thinking? That is why I go around the world talking, talking, talking to give people an understanding so they can have a better appreciation of life and regard life to be life and start living instead of being the so-called living dead. When you live, then you are awakened. That is why Buddha was called “The Enlightened One” or “The Awakened One.” There is no difference between you and me and Buddha and Christ and Krishna, no difference at all. One is awakened, and one is sleeping. When you are asleep, you are unconscious. When you are awakened, you see and observe everything around you. The Queen’s Parade could pass when you sleep, and you will miss it all because you are asleep. But if you are awake, you will enjoy the beautiful pageantry of life.
DO NOT DISCARD THE THORNS, FOR WITHOUT THE THORNS; THERE WILL BE NO ROSE
Do you see how simple it is? I am telling you these very things in the simplest way possible. I could tell it to you very, very technically. If I were to speak to a group of University Philosophy Professors, I would say the same things but differently, and yet that would be a lot of play with words. So, be simple. Be accepting. Be surrendered to whatever there is, for it is only by surrendering to that “Isness” within us that we come to learn and know the true “Isness.”
Therefore, in one of our prayers, we say, “You have to die to be born again.” You have to die to find everlasting life, and that does not mean discarding this physical body. It is by discarding that mental self that you are put in turmoil. So, you discard chaos and turbulence, and everything is calm and beautiful. In this acceptance, we would appreciate the rose more despite the thorns because without thorns, would the rose be there?
Many times, people come to me for consultations on their various kinds of problems and the best thing the guru would tell his chela not to discard the thorns because if you discard the thorns, you will discard the rose but accept the thorns and the rose together, in its wholeness, in its fullness. Everything in life is beautiful and wonderful; there is no ugliness. If Divinity is omnipresent, we know there is no difference between Divinity and beauty.
Anandam Param Sukham said that Ananda, the joy inside, is the greatest joy one could ever aspire to. Satyam, Shivam, Sundaram. Satyam, Shivam, Sundaram. Satyam, truth. Shivam, God. Sundaram, beauty, is but one.
So, when you look at everything through the eyes that show you beauty, you realise this: you will not see through the patterned eyes but through the eyes of Divinity. And that is true. I am the way, the light and the truth.
… Gururaj Ananda Yogi: Satsang UK 1983 – 17
