What if electricity imagines itself to be an electrical appliance?

 

You are NOT the body.

What if electricity imagines itself to be an electrical appliance? What if it thinks that the date of manufacture of the appliance is its birth date and the end of functioning of the appliance is its death? That exactly is the problem with you.

Let us examine electricity further. It is a phenomenon that exists in nature and is known in various ways. It is tapped by various means. It is harnessed in order to run various appliances. It is present everywhere but its use is localized. It is extremely subtle and yet extremely powerful. It can charge a mobile. It can also charge a turbine and assist in sending rockets to space.

If the electricity thinks it is the appliance, it is foolish on its part, is not it? Similar is the perception that you are the body.

In essence you are the consciousness. You are the light that illumines everything. You are trapped into thinking that you exist as an individual that possesses a body. Sometimes you think that you are a minute piece of the consciousness- the Atman or the Soul. Neither is correct.

You are not minute and limited in any way. You are the vast unending presence in which the entire creation floats. You have never been born. You therefore will never die.

You need to simply start thinking in a different way. If you do that your perspective begins to change. It is the false notion that you are the body that is behind all your woes. By thinking that you are the body you think that all the other bodies are different and that you have to preserve your body to interact with them. That self preservation drives you. You become too much preoccupied with it.

All the bodies, all of creation is you. Only one exists. There is no two. That is the truth.

If you are the vast presence then what follows? Everything is inside you. The presence is about eternity that has no sense of time; no past and no future. The whole imagined world exists because you think it exists.

If you start thinking deeply about this a change comes over you. You become thoughtful and observant. Time slows down. You relax. Instead of reacting to the world you simply watch it. Then you start watching yourself. You realize that there is an observer observing everything. It is also observing you and you become it even as you think that you are the body and mind you think yourself to be.

This detachment is very necessary. You start observing everything. You also observe your thoughts. You realize that your thoughts are separate from you. That is one very big achievement because the mind is the ego. It keeps you trapped in the notion that you are a separate individual. If you start observing and questioning it, it slowly loses its grip over you.

Then a different thought pattern engages you. You start thinking about the world around you. Is it real? Slowly you start questioning its existence. This reduces your anxieties further. If it is not real then how can it frighten you? How can there be a snake within the rope? Your mistaken assumption that the rope is a snake does not make a snake out of the rope.

You realize the world is a mirage. It is an appearance. It appears to be a vast reservoir of water but it cannot quench your thirst however much you try. You can enjoy all you want, gather all the wealth you can, surround yourself with a mountain of possessions but you are destined to die unhappy.

You have to change direction. The water reservoir is within you. This drives you towards introspection and meditation. You remain the observer even in the meditation. Watching thoughts. Watching the subtle sounds and lights. Watching the stillness. Watching the peace. Watching the joy. You are not to become all of this. You look behind it to know who is experiencing it. You need to get at the source.

Gradually there appears another phase of you that is ever watchful. You remain observant while you are awake, in the dream as you sleep, and even in deep sleep. You are in the turiya state; beyond wakefulness, dreams, and deep sleep.

The next step is turiyatita. The turiya state is the observer state. Here there is the observer and the object being observed, as well as the act of observation. The presence is beyond all of that. It is nonduality. It is not even existence. Existence is objective.

The presence has nothing to do with any concept. It is beyond all concepts. Abangmanasagocharam. Beyond mind, thoughts, and words. It is absolute silence. That silence is Satchidananda. Ever present, consciousness, bliss.

All of this does not require any effort because you are always that. It requires a change in perception. Your experiences in this world, positive and negative, are leading you towards it. The intelligence within you is guiding you. If required that intelligence will appear before you as the Guru.

The external Guru will push you in. The internal Guru will pull you in.

You need to just be yourself. You need to stop pretending. You need to be aware of what you are. That awareness, the shift in perception, will do everything for you.

You are the electricity, not the appliance. You are the one presence behind everything, not an individual. You are the gold, not the gold ornaments. You are the one you seek as God.