Chapter 19 — You are Part of the Collective Consciousness
We now move to a slightly more complex subject. It is about the relationship that we have with the world around us. Why do we see what we see? How do we see what we see? How do we fit into the scheme of Existence?
Matter, energy and beyond
What is this world made up of? Our five senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch are our gateways to perceiving this world. They tell us that this world is made up of matter or objects in various forms, shapes, colors and qualities.
We see ourselves living in a three dimensional world fundamentally made up of the five basic elements - earth, water, fire, air and space. We see all the objects in this world undergoing change with time. They all undergo creation, sustenance and dissolution with the passage of time.
Classical physics tells us that matter is governed by the laws of physics like the three laws of motion, the law of gravity, the laws of fluid dynamics and so on. All objects are considered to be made up of molecules, which are made up of atoms, which in turn are made of three types of particles - protons, neutrons and electrons. We learned all these fundamental things in school.
But according to modern science, the world is not fundamentally made up of matter. The fundamental particles are not protons, neutrons and electrons. Modern science says matter itself is actually energy!
The scientist Albert Einstein’s famous equation, E=mc
(where E is energy, m is mass of the object and c is the speed of light) proves the equivalence of matter and energy. I was reading a very recent article , also published in the US Journal Science , on a research that proved Einstein’s equation. The fundamental particles in the nucleus themselves are considered to be made of smaller particles called quarks, which are bound by gluons. The surprising thing is the mass of gluons is zero and the mass of quarks is only five percent. The study says, the missing 95 percent comes from the energy of the movements and interactions of quarks and gluons. So, energy and mass are equivalent.
This truth discovered by science a few decades ago, was declared by the Eastern rishis in the
Upanishads, the essence of the vedic knowledge. The very first line of the Isa Vasya Upanishad, written thousands declares, Isa vasyam idam of years ago, sarvam or all that exists is energy!
Quantum world
Today, we are in the age of the quantum world. We talk of quantum physics, quantum leaps and quantum thinking. What exactly is meant by the word ‘quantum’?
Quantum simply means a jump from one state to another state without going through any of the intermediate states. Today, no one has the time to go through intermediate states. We want instant results in everything. We want quantum results! A small story:
One man found it difficult to sleep and visited his doctor. He begged the doctor to give him a really strong medication. The doctor told him, ‘Not much is required. Just take half of this pill and you will sleep very well.
The man went home and took out the pill. He took the whole pill to ensure that he slept well. In the morning, he woke up and felt thoroughly refreshed and cheerful.
He got ready and went to the office. He went up to his boss and said, ‘I am ready to move anything today! I slept like a log and woke up feeling like a kid this morning!’
The boss replied, ‘That’s nice, but where were you yesterday?’
We want quantum results in everything! Coming back to the topic, we learned in physics that an atom is made up of a nucleus with electrons orbiting at specific distances from the nucleus.
We learned that the electron usually remains in its orbit (its regular circular path of motion). But if it is excited by means of heat or some chemical reaction, it absorbs energy and jumps to the higher orbit. If it releases energy, it jumps to the lower orbit. The important point to note is that when the electron jumps from one orbit to another, it makes the jump without moving through the space in between. One moment it is seen in one orbit, and the next moment it is seen in the other orbit! This is called a quantum jump. A quantum jump is a change from one state to another without passing through anything in between.
Matter is vibrating energy
Matter is actually energy vibrating at various frequencies and manifesting itself in various forms. We are not able to see this vibration with our eyes because the frequencies of vibration are too high. It is just as when movement is too fast, the eye cannot perceive the moving objects as independent frames. The eye sees the objects merging into each other continuously.
In the same way, the vibration of energy cannot be perceived by the eye. It appears to be solid matter! Energy in gross form is matter. Matter in subtle form is energy. The body is the gross manifestation of the subtle mind. The mind is the subtle manifestation of the gross body. An important thing to be understood here is that the perception of the world varies from person to person because the functioning of the mind varies from person to person!
Even interactions between people are only energy interactions. For example, an atom that consists of a nucleus with a cloud of electrons around it can be compared to a football field. The nucleus is like a peanut in the center of a football field and the cloud of electrons is like the empty space in the field. Another comparison I came across is, if you were to remove all the space between all the atoms on planet earth, the remaining matter would come to just about the size of a sugar cube!
What we see as solid matter, as the football field in this example, is actually the electron clouds or huge empty spaces interacting with each other. In the same way, our interactions and contact with other people and objects are also only interaction of energies. There is an exchange of energy that happens. You give some of your energy and you get energy from that person or object!
The world of infinite possibilities
Now, what is the origin of matter and energy? What is the origin of the body and mind? From where does the energy in all objects arise? What then is the reality behind this perceived world? If we are not able to see reality as it exists through the senses, what is the nature of reality?
This question is asked in the Shiva Sutras, an ancient vedic scripture on the science of enlightenment. Shiva’s consort Devi asks Him, ‘What is the nature of this wonderfilled universe?’ As a response, Shiva delivers 112 enlightenment techniques which, when practiced , give the answer as a direct experience!
This question about reality leads us to a world beyond matter and energy, beyond the limitations of space and time. This is the world where all the possibilities exist as seed. It is the essence and the origin of thoughts, and it is the essence and origin of events in the material world.
In this world-beyond, ordinary logic does not exist. Cause and effect relationships do not exist. The happening of one event does not cause another event to happen, but correlated with the other event that it is happens. This correlation has no dependence on space and time. So what we call the seed is the ocean of infinite possibilities from which the waves of events arise.
This whole Existence and all its events happen as causeless auspiciousness, like waves arising in an ocean. Existence is an ocean of bliss and ecstasy. Out of the causeless, overflowing ecstasy, the wave of creation rises in the ocean of Existence! That is how things happen. The Divine, playing with its infinite manifestations in innumerable universes is called sustenance. Dropping from the play and relaxing into Itself is called dissolution. Dissolution is the settling back into the Absolute or Parabrahma state. Then for no logical reason, the play starts again…! This continues. What we see as results are the infinite happenings in the universe.
The real nature
We see this causeless and ecstatic play of Existence through our own individual perception! Our very perception collapses the beautiful happening into a localized reality. Each individual ‘boils down’ the beautiful happening into his own individual reality.
Someone asked me, ‘I see this table here. All the people in this room see this same table. Then how can you say that this table is not a reality?’ Please understand that what you see as this table here is not the same as what the other person sees! Each person in this room sees this table differently! That is the truth. That is what I am trying to explain here.
As long as the mind tries to perceive, what is perceived is not the ultimate reality. Only an infinite being can perceive reality exactly as it is happening. Also he cannot explain it in words, because words cannot describe what is beyond space and time. He can only tell you to wait for it to become your own experience! That is why Shiva answers not with philosophy but with techniques. He directly gives techniques for Devi to experience the reality, the nature of the universe.
Let me explain this concept based on the energy-matter idea. We saw that matter is actually energy. Classical physics said that the electron is a particle. However, quantum physics says that it is a wave. Actually, the electron exhibits the properties of both a particle and a wave in different situations. Physicists have now concluded that the electron has a dual nature as a ‘particle-wave’!
Since the electron is a particle, what is the location of the electron? Since it is a wave, what is the momentum of the wave? The answers to these questions lead to a very startling discovery that the particle-wave can be either a particle or a wave or even both at the same time. But you cannot determine both the location and the momentum of the electron at the same time, because the very act of observing the location of the electron will change its momentum, and the very act of determining the momentum of the electron will change its location! This is what is known in science as the Heisenberg Uncertainty principle.
The particle-wave is both a particle and wave at the same time until the act of observation comes into play. This act of observation can now be connected with our act of observing the causeless happenings of Existence. When we observe, we observe through our own set of conditioning, what we call engrams or preconceived and deeply engraved memories and conclusions. Each individual’s act of observation is colored by his own conditioning or engrams. Based upon that, he boils down the happening to suit his own experience of reality!
In the case of the particle-wave, the very act of observation ‘collapses’ the waveparticle to a particle or wave. This is what the physicist Erwin Schrödinger showed in his hypothetical cat experiment.
Suppose you put a cat and a vial of poisonous acid in a chamber and seal it. There is no way the observer outside can determine whether the cat is alive or dead. Since we cannot know, the cat is both dead as well as alive. It is a distribution of probabilities which includes the probability of dead as well as alive states.
When you break open the chamber to see the condition of the cat, the very act of breaking open the chamber could potentially change the state of the cat. The cat could be killed by the acid vial being broken due to breaking the chamber. So, it can never be known what the outcome would have been if it were not observed in its true happening.
This leads us to a deep understanding that both possibilities exist simultaneously, and it is the very act of observation that changes the possibility into a particular reality.
Let me give another scientific experiment that highlights how the very act of measuring distorts the beautiful reality. You may have heard of the double-slit experiment with light.
In this experiment, a beam of light is aimed at a barrier with two vertical slits. On the other side of the barrier is a photographic plate that is used to record the light as it falls on it after passing through the barrier. If only one slit is open, the pattern on the photographic plate is as expected, a single line of light aligned with the slit. If both the slits are open, we would expect two lines of light on the plate aligned with the slits, but what is observed are multiple lines of light and darkness in varying degrees. This is the principle of interference where light beams behave as waves that interfere with each other.
Now, if the light beam is slowed down enough so that instead of a stream of light particles or photons hitting the plate, each individually hits the plate, then there photon should be no interference and the plate should show a light pattern aligned with the slit. But the resulting pattern still showed interference!
How is this possible? There is only this one photon, what can it be interfering with… other than itself ? It was concluded that each photon not only goes through both the slits, but also simultaneously takes every possible path on the way to the target!
To see how this can occur, experiments were done to track the individual photon paths. But what happened was that the measurement in some way disrupted the paths of the photons. Whenever an attempt was made to observe, only two bright lines on the photographic plate aligned with the slits! If they didn’t attempt to measure, again the pattern became the multiple lines of light and darkness!
Each photon moves simultaneously in a number of paths. But an effort to measure the paths causes it to collapse to a single path! In the same way, our very effort to perceive the infinite risings of the ocean of Existence causes it to appear as what our limited mind perceives!
Once a student asked a Zen master, ‘What is the path?’ The master replied, ‘Everyday life is the path.’ The student asked, ‘Can it be studied?’
The master said, ‘If you try to study, you will be far from it.’ The student asked, ‘If I do not study, how can I know it is the path?’
The master said, ‘The path does not belong to the perception world. Neither does it belong to the non-perception world. Perception is a delusion and non-perception is senseless. If you want to reach the true path beyond doubt, place yourself in the same freedom as the sky. You name it neither good nor not-good.’
Let us start with what really happens on a physical level when we perceive things. When there is a perception of physical reality, the various parts of the brain show a change in neural activity as the neurons, which are the basic building blocks of the nervous system, fire in synchronicity. This results in the random visual patterns of light being perceived as specific shapes and forms. This is how the input from each of our senses is perceived as an experience of particular sound, touch, smell, taste or sight.
If you now step back and look, you can see that before the observation or the perception, both the world as well as you, that is the seen and the seer, existed in a dynamic and chaotic state of activity. The act of perception changes that chaotic state into some sort of an order that becomes both the seen in the outside world and the process of seeing in the seer (as the activity in the nervous system) at the same time. At the moment of seeing, the probability of what is seen collapses into a specific form.
In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna, the lord and master, chooses to give Arjuna the experience of Krishna’s cosmic form. Until then, Arjuna had seen Krishna only as the six foot tall, handsome friend. But upon Arjuna’s request, and after Krishna sees that Arjuna is ready to receive the cosmic form experience, He decides to give it to him. Arjuna then sees Krishna as the manifestation of the entire cosmos in all its seeming chaos.
He cries out, ‘O Lord! I can see all the gods and deities in Your body. I can see all the sages and divine serpents. O Lord of the Universe, I see many arms, stomachs, faces, eyes and your limitless form. O Universal Form, I cannot see your beginning, middle or end.’
Arjuna is unable to bear the experience because he loses his intellectual control over things! He begs for equilibrium, meaning he wants his mind to be under his intellectual control again. He wants to know the cause and effect of things and feel that they are in his control, because the experience rips him away from his perception of the cause-and-effect logic itself.
As long as cause and effect logic is under your control, you feel you are perceiving reality! Your ego is strong and steady. But the moment the logic is shaken, you feel tremendous fear. You feel you are just a drop in an ocean. What Arjuna sees is the absolute Reality, but he is afraid of that very Reality because it doesn’t conform to his logic. He begs to revert to the earlier state of perception through his five senses alone, through his own solid identity, his own solid ego.
Perception of space-time
Let us analyze what space is.
Take a basic element, a point, a onedimensional object. When a point traces across a direction, it generates a line.
Now, let us trace the motion of a line, a two-dimensional object. If it moves in the same direction as it is in, of course it will just continue to be a line. If it moves in a direction not contained in it, it traces a surface or a plane.
Similarly, if a surface or a plane moves in a direction not contained in it, it will trace a solid, a three-dimensional object.
So, a line is an infinite number of points. A surface is an infinite number of lines. A solid is infinite number of surfaces. Similarly, we can imagine a four dimensional space as an infinite number of three dimensional spaces.
Now, just as we built up these higher dimensions from the lower dimensions, we can also see the lower dimensions as parts or sections of a higher dimension space. For example, a point is the intersection of two lines. So, a point is a section of a line. A line is a section of a surface. A surface is a section of a solid.
Extending this, we can say a solid is a section of a four-dimensional body. Our three dimensional space is a section of a four dimensional space. P.D.Ouspensky , in his book Tertium Organum, explains these very beautifully. He extends this to say that many separate three dimensional bodies, like humans for instance, may actually be the sections or parts of one four dimensional body!
He explains this with a simple example. Suppose a horizontal plane intersects the top of a tree, parallel to the surface of the earth. Now, on this plane, the sections of branches seem to be all separate, not connected to each other. But, from the three dimensional space, we can see that these are all sections of branches of one single tree.
In our four-dimensional world, the maximum dimensions in space can be only three. We can call this fourth dimension time. So, the four dimensional world can be looked at as a space-time continuum. It can be said that time is the fourth dimension of space.
We understand time in three forms – past, present and future. We think that the past is over and does not exist anymore. The future has not yet happened, hence it does not exist. The present thus happens at the transition of the non-existent future to another non-existence, the past.
In the three dimensional world, we see that the seemingly separate sections of the tree in the two dimensional world are actually joined in the third dimension. In the same way, if we imagine a consciousness that can rise above our plane of living, this consciousness can also see the continuity in the fourth dimension of time with the past, present and future all existing simultaneously. This consciousness sees the simultaneous happening of events, which the ordinary consciousness sees as distinct events separated by periods of time.
A three dimensional body, moving in time, traces a four dimensional body. Across time, we can see the motion as we grow from a child to youth, to adult, to elderly person. But we are not able to see or feel this ‘four-dimensional body’ because of our limited perception. Being in the same three-dimensional world, we see only the section of the four dimensional body that is the normal three-dimensional body. It is like one of a series of pictures on a cinema roll.
To understand how a four-dimensional world is perceived in three-dimensional form, let us first see how a threedimensional happening is seen in a twodimensional world.
Suppose you are in a two-dimensional world, the world of planes and surfaces. Your life, your perception is restricted to a plane, like a vertical wall. Now, imagine a wheel with each of its spokes painted in a different color is rotating perpendicular to the plane in which you live.
How will you perceive the motion of this wheel? When a spoke of the wheel intersects the plane, you will see a line of a certain color at the intersection of the wheel and the plane. Then, after one spoke passes, there will be a gap when you will not see anything. Then, the next spoke of a different color will pass through the plane. So, you will perceive the motion of the wheel as lines of different colors happening at regular intervals of time.
What is happening is this, the limited perception in a lower dimensional world is changing the perception of space to a time! Since you can see only phenomenon in two of the three dimensions of space, you see the third dimension only when it becomes manifest on your plane over time. Hence, you see it as unrelated to your two dimensions of space, and you call it a phenomenon in time.
Now, imagine when a green spoke passes through the plane , simultaneously another independent phenomenon occurs, say the barking of a dog. In the two dimensional world, it will be seen as a correlation between the appearance of the green line and the sound of a dog barking, when in reality it is not!
It is not possible for the two-dimensional being to believe that there can be a rise of events outside his plane of perception. That means, to understand the threedimensional world, he cannot be in the twodimensional consciousness, he has to rise to the three-dimensional consciousness. Similarly, to understand the fourdimensional world, we have to be in the fourth-dimensional consciousness.
Is this possible? Is it possible for us to go beyond the perception of the senses which give us only a three dimensional view? Can we actually see reality instead of mere glimpses of reality as phenomena in time? The answer is YES.
Through in-depth rese-arch and development, the Eastern mystics and sages have discovered that it is possible to understand Reality as it exists and to experience it also. This can happen as a natural way of life, not just as a chance happening. This experience has happened in them.
Through meditation, it is possible for us to experience this same state of awareness. A beautiful Zen story:
Once, two soldiers were looking at a flag flying in the wind. One of them said, ‘The flag is moving.’ The second one said, ‘No, it is the wind that is moving.’ A Zen master passing by saw the argument going on. The soldiers requested the master to help them resolve this serious issue.
One of the soldiers asked, ‘Master, I say the flag is moving. But he says the wind is moving. Which is correct?’
The master says, ‘Neither is correct. Only consciousness is moving.’
As of now, what we feel as reality everyday of our life is also a ‘virtual’ reality. It is only a perception of things being separate in space and time. If you look deeply, you can see how our very perception of the world itself is questionable. From whatever quality of consciousness we see, that appears as our reality, not the absolute Reality.
Reality consists of eleven dimensions
We think we live in a world of the three dimensions of space and the fourth dimension of time. However, there are actually eleven dimensions. The fundamental dimensions are length, breadth, depth, time and consciousness. The higher dimensions are combinations of these fundamental dimensions.
For example, a stick has length, breadth and depth. It is in time and space. Now, if we keep length and breadth and just remove the depth, the stick will be seen, but the hand will pass through the stick. You can also keep the depth and remove the length and breadth. Then nothing will be seen, but the hand will hit something if you try to pass it through.
In this way, there are various combinations leading to the eleven dimensions that make up the universe. When you are in a plane above the four dimensional spacetime you can currently perceive, you can see these eleven dimensions, you can see Reality as enlightened beings can.
Chaos is order - order is chaos
Whether it is the energy in the atom or the energy in the cosmos, there is a big chaos in the energy play. Within that chaos, there is an order that you cannot even imagine. When chaos moves in an order, it creates what is called consciousness or intelligence.
Anything in chaos is wild and energetic. Anything that has order is dull. In our life, we can see: anything in chaos, anything wild, radiates energy. We can see that when kids are allowed to be free, they are so wild. They radiate so much energy. In our own lives, if we are allowed to break some rule, we feel so much joy. We radiate so much energy. Chaos is directly related to energy. The freedom of chaos, and not being bound by rules, is the reason why we feel so energetic while dancing freely, without any decided steps.
The moment we know we are bound, we will be dull. The dullness will automatically enter into us, even if it does not affect us directly physically. For example, if you are sitting in the hall and you know that the hall is open, and you know you can leave at any time, you will be alive, fresh and joyful. Suddenly, if you get the information that the hall is locked and you cannot leave, will you be able to sit comfortably? No! Any rule curbs freedom, reduces the energy. Any regulation brings your energy down. Even in your house, if somebody says, ‘Do not sit in that place’, you will feel like sitting only in that place. But until that rule is made, you will never even bother to sit there!
Even habits like smoking are maintained for the subtle mental satisfaction that you are wild, that you are not bound. If you scan yourself consciously, you will understand that almost all of your happiness comes only when you break some rules, when you are chaotic!
The whole of Existence is chaos. In the universe, so many planets are moving. There are no traffic signs or cops or signboards! Yet, the planets are moving so beautifully in order. In the same way, in quantum physics, the smallest elements are not even particles. They are both particles and waves, and a multitude of probabilities! But there is an order in that chaos.
If the universe is chaos without any order, it will head toward destruction. ‘Chaos in order’ is what I call ‘cosmic intelligence’. Take the planet earth on which we are living. Even if a single thing is missing, whether it is temperature or water or air or fire, if anything is missing, we will not be able to live on this planet earth as we live now. So, this is not just an accident. The whole chaos has some order.
Science is still not able to prove that there is order in the chaos of the universe, that there is order inside the atom, because that understanding requires us to go beyond the intellect. The rishis, the vedic scientists are very clear that there is an order in the chaos. This is what they call ‘cosmic intelligence’.
I had an opportunity to meet Dr. Charles Townes, the Nobel laureate and physicist, who is well-known for his work on the laser and maser devices. He told me so beautifully, ‘I feel the whole universe is something special, the whole universe is a spiritual being. It has its own intelligence. Even though I am not able to specifically prove it with mere words, I feel it is an intelligent and spiritual being.’
Please understand, the whole universe has its own intelligence. It is not just power. It is energy also. There is a difference between power and energy. Power plus intelligence is energy. Energy without intelligence is power. The cosmos is not just a force. It is ‘force plus intelligence’. It responds to your thoughts, to your prayers, to your being, because it is intelligence.
Once somebody asked Buddha, ‘Who is the creator of this universe?’ Buddha replied, ‘The universe itself is its creator.’ If the creator and the created are two separate entities, it means only the creator is intelligent and the created is not intelligent. The cosmos itself is the creator because it has its own intelligence. The cosmos is a living energy. You are sitting inside a living energy. says beautifully, The Taittreya Upanishad
‘From the Consciousness, or god, or the Ultimate Consciousness, came ether, space. From ether came air. From air came fire. From fire came water. From water came the earth. From the earth came food. This is the way existence has happened.’ Thus, mystics again and again emphasize that we are from Consciousness, we are from god. The creation itself is the creator, it is simply intelligence expressing itself. As long as you believe that what you see as the universe is material, mechanical, without any intelligence, you will have nothing to aim for in life. ‘Might is right’ will be the ultimate law.
Believing the world is just matter is the basic mistake. This belief is the root of all terrorism and violence on planet earth. As long as we believe the universe is just dead matter, it is going to create only more and more thirst for power. If we feel the whole world is chaos, then naturally we will think, ‘When everything is chaos, let me catch hold of whatever is possible and live as much as I can.’ We will be inspired to live with the idea ‘might is right’.
Again and again, the cosmic intelligence proves that it responds to our thoughts. There are hundreds of experiments done, not only with plants and animals, even with stones, fire and water. All these things respond to our thoughts. The experiments done by the Japanese scientist, Dr. Masaru Emoto, prove how water responds beautifully to our thoughts and how it changes its very structure according to those thoughts that it is exposed to.
Only when we realize that the universe has its own intelligence, when we realize the universe is a spiritual being, the seed of peace is sown. Only when we understand that our thoughts are responded to, our way of life is rewarded, our prayers are answered, there is a living intelligent force and there is an order in the chaos, only then we can realize and work for peace, bliss and spirituality. Then, instead of trying to own or expand our boundaries and borders, we will try to expand our consciousness. The moment we start believing or trusting that the universe is ‘intelligence’, we can simply relax, trusting It.
There is a beautiful Zen story:
A disciple goes to a Zen master and asks, ‘Master, please explain to me how you started, how you traveled the path, how you attained the ultimate experience.’
The master says, ‘When I started, mountain was a mountain, river was a river and tree was a tree. When I was traveling, mountain was not a mountain, river was not a river and tree was not a tree. Again, when I attained, mountain is a mountain, river is a river and tree is a tree.’
Before achieving, even though you think you are extraordinary, you are ordinary. After achieving, even though you are extraordinary, you understand you are ordinary.
There is a wonderful chaos in what you call as ‘order’, your body, mind and being. When you experience that there is an order in the chaos of the cosmos, the macrocosm brahmanda), ( you realize there is a chaos in the order of the microcosm, the body ( pindanda).
You are not just a simple body. You are not just a microcosm. You are the macrocosm in miniature form. You realize you are the ultimate, endless ocean of potential energy just like the universe. You experience you are something beyond, something more than what you think.
Now you think you are in an order, because you think your boundary is very small. The moment you experience the cosmic consciousness, the order in the chaos, you will realize the chaos inside your order. You will realize the energy, the consciousness inside your body. Then you will never bother about how to keep yourself in order, it will simply happen. You will not work for discipline, discipline will simply happen in you!
Only when you realize the cosmic consciousness in your body, the macrocosm in your microcosm, you will really become orderly, you will really learn how to be orderly without reducing your energy. As long as you try to become orderly, you will only suppress your energy, and you will also be suppressing everyone else.
First, when you realize the order in the chaos, you will become a spiritual being, you will experience love and bliss. When you realize the chaos in the order, you will become a compassionate being. When you realize the order in the chaos, you will experience the experience part of love, bliss. When you realize the chaos in the order, you will express the expression part of love, that is compassion.
Seer-seen-seeing
We see two things in the process of ‘seeing’, the seer and the seen object. Actually, what is happening in the process of seeing? (Though the example of eyes is taken here, it applies for all the senses.) From the seer, consciousness takes a jump continuously to the seen, because it is not able to relax into the seer itself. Because of its restlessness, it gives life to the seen. The continuous jump that happens between the seer and seen - from the seer to the seen, from the seen to the seer, again from the seer to the seen and again from the seen to the seer - is what is
SEEING. When the seer is not completely in bliss within himself, he starts becoming restless and jumps. When he jumps, he gives life to the seen. Because he gives life to the seen, the process of jumping becomes SEEING.
There are two ways to drop this process of seeing. Either the seer or the seen has to drop for the process of seeing to stop. When the seen is renounced, it loses its power over the seer. There is no point in jumping because there is nothing to be seen. When there is no place to jump, the seer relaxes in the seer himself, then seeing does not happen. When seeing is not there, the seer is enlightened.
A person who stops this jump by dropping the ‘seen’ is a renouncer, a sannyasi. He takes away all his desire to see things, to believe that any of the sense objects hold value for him. The seen becomes unexciting, and the jumping stops. He becomes enlightened through renouncing. This is true selfknowledge -gnana. In the path of gnana, the seer experiences detachment and a complete witnessing of life. In this way he tries to discover Reality. The main objective is the development of a sharp and pure intelligence through which Reality can be experienced. Adi Shankara, the great enlightened saint from India, walked on the path of gnana and attained enlightenment. He created the most profound and sharp scriptures on Selfknowledge ever written.
On the other hand, when the seer himself drops, what remains is the seen, and again the jumping between the seer and the seen stops. Reality is seen. The seer becomes bhakti enlightened through devotion or. When the identity of the seer drops, dissolves into the seen, deep devotion to Existence happens! Everything becomes an exciting manifestation of Existence for him! His identity is no longer there. He merges into Existence itself. That is why enlightened saints like Meerabai from bhakti India, who went on the path of, were in a trance all the time, merged into the god consciousness, forgetting their own identity. She just sang praises of god and walked around on the streets with no self consciousness whatsoever.
So, in some way, either the seer or the seen has to drop. Only then the jumping between the seer and the seen will stop. When the jumping stops, the process of seeing also stops.
Whether you are stuck with the seer or with the seen, get completely stuck and you are enlightened! If you are jumping between the seer and the seen, not relaxed in either, you are under the illusion of a separate existence of the seer and seen. This jumping is what manifests as your individual seeing.
When the frequency of the seen is more than the seer, the seer can be changed or manipulated by the seen. When the frequency of the seer is more than the seen, the seen can be changed or manipulated by the seer.
As we said earlier, out of causeless, overflowing ecstasy, the wave of Creation arises in the ocean of Existence. The Divine, playing with its innumerable manifestations in innumerable universes, is called sustenance. Dropping from the play and relaxing into Itself is called dissolution. This is settling back into the Absolute state. Then for no logical reason, the play starts again. In this way, the universal Consciousness assumes innumerable forms, thus creating countless seer(s) and seen(s)! This is the origin of the physical world.
Collective Consciousness
We are not disconnected and separate islands as we think. Maybe in the physical layer, we all seem like individual islands. But whether we like it or not, whether we accept it or not, whether we want it or not, we are all interlinked by the collective consciousness.
It is like this: if the food is poisoned, only the person who eats it will suffer, not everyone. In this sense, you can think of yourself as an individual. But as you move towards the subtler levels of Existence, you can see our interconnectedness more clearly. For example, if the air is poisoned, whoever is breathing it will suffer, even if they are a long distance from each other. This connection is at the breath level. This means that in the subtler energy layers, the distance between us is reduced.
Even more than the physical and breath levels, we are connected more closely at the mental level. When I say mental level, I mean the level of thoughts. Our thoughts affect not only us but also everyone around us and beyond. Your thoughts are more infectious than your cold. In fact, people may escape from your cold, but they cannot escape from your thoughts.
Take a simple example of going to a college football match on a Sunday. When you enter the stadium itself, you can see the air charged with emotions. You are also immediately affected by the cheering mood prevailing there! Similarly, if there is group violence, like a religious fight or collective grief, like a death in the house, the mood affects you beyond your control. (The chapter on ‘Intelligence’ has more details on this.)
If you catch a cold from someone, you might suffer physically for a few days and then finally get over it. But when you catch thoughts from people, you suffer mentally you think with them. Similarly, anything affects the people around you. If an individual mind is polluted, not only the individual, but a much bigger group suffers. For example, if one person who has a disturbed mind sits as a leader of a city, the whole city will be affected by the decisions that he makes! His disturbed thinking will result in wrong decisions and hence will be harmful for the whole city. Going a step further, if one corrupted visualization leads to a particular action, the action can have tremendous impact on a huge population, not just on that person with the corruption.
For example, take the case of the atom bomb. It is nothing but a ‘visualization’ of the nuclear theory! The basis of the nuclear bomb can be found in the famous formula E=mc, that was discovered by the physicist, Albert Einstein. But corrupted visualization of this formula led to disturbance of the whole planet earth. We are all now threatened by this one theory, by this one invention. Today planet earth has enough atomic weapons to burn itself 700 times, over and over again.
Seeds of violence are created whenever we feel we are individuals, unconnected or unrelated to others. We become selfish, dogmatic and violent. When we live with only individual consciousness, we dissect, we cut things into pieces and analyze. Such logic always destroys things. On the other hand, by tuning into the collective consciousness, we unify things.
Understand: not only in the mental level, even in the deeper conscious levels, the deeper you go, the more deeply you are connected. Just see this diagram here. I shall try to explain the truth on the basis of this diagram.
These seven circles represent the seven energy layers in us. The first layer is the physical body, the body that you can feel as your hands, legs etc. The second layer is the pranic body, the body in which your prana or life energy or breath circulates. Like this, there are seven energy layers that make up the total body, with the physical body being just one of those layers.
Now, in the physical layer, you, god and I can be represented as three different points in the circle. In the physical level, the distance between us is great. pranic level, If you go inward a little to the the distance between us is reduced. If you go in deeper to the mental level, the distances are further reduced. When you go deeper and deeper, it finally merges into one. You can see that at the innermost point of all these layers, god, you, and I are one. There is no distance. That is the Truth even at the gross level! It is only your perception that causes you to think you are a separate entity.
You are not a separate entity as you think. When you love someone intimately, his or her love and suffering affects you. It comes and goes out of your being. It is because, in the deeper levels, you don’t have an individual entity, you are a part of collective consciousness. You don’t want suffering, but somehow you are not able to escape from it. Again and again, whether it is physical pain or mental suffering or spiritual bondage, you keep exper-iencing it. This is because you are not aware that you are part of the collective consciousness. Once you become aware and realize that you are a part of the collective consciousness, that you don’t have an individual identity, that you don’t have a separate ego, you don’t suffer.
In Existence, there is nothing such as a separate, individual identity. Once you experience this, you go beyond pain, suffering, depression and disease. Please understand that as long as you have your own set of concepts, you remain as an individual consciousness, and you continue to suffer in some way.
Why do you think you continuously resist heat and cold, aspects of nature? Whatever nature offers, you resist. There is a beautiful saying:
Man as a rule is a fool
When it is hot, asking for cool
When it is cool, asking for hot
Always asking for what is not!
When it is cool, you resist the cold. This happens because you think you are different from Existence. I myself have lived in the extreme cold of the Himalayan mountains, with the bare minimum of clothing. The body was never disturbed. I never had a problem. The reason is that I never thought that I was different from the atmosphere. I never had the feeling of separation from nature. I sannyasis in the Himalayas have seen many who do this same thing.
It is only when you start thinking that you are different from the atmosphere that you start resisting it. There is a very simple practice you can take up now. If you are feeling cold, just relax into yourself. Identify the area where you are feeling cold. Witness that area. In that area, don’t resist the atmosphere. Don’t resist the air. Don’t resist the temperature. Just say to yourself, ‘I am not going to resist nature. I am not going to resist the temperature. I am not going to resist Existence. Let me relax.’ Make a conscious decision. You will see the body relaxing, and the idea of cold disappears! You become completely comfortable.
When I say this, people ask me, ‘It is alright to practice it here, but what about in real extreme conditions?’ The mind always likes to think of extremes, even if they are never going to happen. Be very clear that even in extremes, you can do this, if you put your effort into it with totality. The problem right now is that you don’t have that much totality, that much clarity. If you can totally fall in tune with nature, you can surely be comfortable even in extreme conditions. There are many human beings who do that and so can you.
One more thing is that in the air, all possible bacteria and viruses are present. At any moment a single virus or bacteria can cause a disease in you. But if you are in total tune with nature, then even if the virus or bacteria goes inside you, you will not be disturbed! The moment you start thinking that you are somebody, some individual separate from Existence, then the whole of Existence becomes your enemy. Existence is not here to kill you or destroy you. It is your only trustworthy father, mother, friend and teacher.
When you are in tune with the collective consciousness, when you become a part of the collective consciousness, nature is with you. Nature becomes your friend, and it protects you.
Wherever you want to achieve success in the social or economical line, only when you feel in tune with the whole group, only when you fall in tune with the collective consciousness, will you be able to achieve what you want to achieve. As long as you feel you are an individual, as long as you want to keep a distinct place for yourself, as long as you want to have an idea that you are ‘somebody’, an ‘identity’, be very clear, you will be resisted and you will be resisting. Whether it is home or office or vacation, this will happen. If you disappear into the collective consciousness, you will again and again be protected and taken care of. You will attain complete success, not only socially and economically, but you will also experience it as a feeling of fulfillment. The feeling will be inexplicable. The moment you start resisting, you start making hell out of it.
A small story:
A man was told by a group of people that his wife had fallen in the river and he needed to jump and save her. He immediately jumped in and started swimming against the current.
Everybody was surprised and shouted out to him, ‘Hey! Why are you swimming against the current? She would have obviously gone downward with the current.’
He replied, ‘You guys don’t know my wife. Even if she falls in the river, she will fight it like she fights everything else! She will move only against the current!’
As long as you resist the current, whether it is your workplace or your house or your company or any place for that matter, as long as you don’t disappear into the collective consciousness, you will continuously create hell for yourself and for others. Even in the physical layer, if you think you are something separate, be very clear, you will be inviting diseases. In the mental layer, if you think you are a separate individual, again and again, you will be sowing the seeds of violence. The seeds of violence will be created when you feel you are an individual. With collective consciousness you unify, but with individual consciousness you dissect, you cut things in pieces. Logic always breaks. Intuition always unites.
The moment you understand that you are deeply connected, totally connected, intensely connected to the whole group, to the whole universe, not only do you start experiencing the bliss, you also start living. You start opening up many dimensions of your being.
Right now you are stressed out, disturbed continuously, you have to think too much. With this one body, you have to think so much. You can enjoy so much. If you disappear into this collective consciousness, you will have so many dimensions, so many possibilities that you simply cannot imagine it! See, now with one body, there is a feeling of joy and you are able to enjoy so much. Imagine what you can do if you have two bodies? And just imagine what you can feel when you have many bodies! This is the experience you will get when you realize you are a part of the collective consciousness. When you experience the feeling of oneness or collective consciousness, you forget all the differences of your name, wealth, social status and prestige. Whatever you think of as you just disappears. What you are is revealed.
If you have observed a school of fish swimming or a flock of birds flying together, you will see a fleeting synchronicity in their motion. There may be hundreds of birds flying together in a V-shaped formation, but when they have to change direction, they will all do so at the same time, with no confusion or time delay! Scientists have been trying to understand how this is possible. Even studies of insects and animals have shown that when faced with threats, their responses are so fast that they cannot be explained by normal methods of communication.
An interesting experiment was done to study the power of thought on dogs. The dog owners were asked to leave the house with no intention of going to any particular place. After leaving the house, they were given instructions to go to specific places and then at random times, they were asked to come back. It was found that at the time the owner started back home, almost always at the same time, the dog would go to the door and wait for the owner.
In the huge tsunami that rocked the Andaman and Nicobar islands of India, it was found that before the tsunami hit the islands, all the animals, including the huge ones like elephants, had all moved to higher grounds, safely away from the ocean. There have been a number of accounts of animals and insects being aware of upcoming earthquakes minutes before the earthquake actually strikes. What is the difference between these animals and us? It is their connection with nature! Being in tune with nature enables them to sense nature’s signals. In the case of humans, because of our false sense of identity and ego, we have lost touch with nature and have become insensitive to the direct signals of nature.
You can see so many instances in history where the same discovery was made at about the same time by people in different parts of the globe and by people who did not even know each other. The reason is because the ideas are floating in the collective consciousness. It is like this: there are hundreds of electromagnetic waves in the air but your television set picks up only the waves of the frequency to which it is tuned. Similarly, the minds that are ready and waiting for the floating ideas will rt that tune in and conve potentiality into reality!
When we have repetitive thoughts, we emit and receive those thought waves that are of the same pattern. We are more or less stuck in our web of thoughts. This is how an average person leads most of his life. But intelligent people understand the law of the cosmos and tune into the higher intelligence to become the channels of creativity and innovation.
Just as the universe gives us so many hints of its existence as one being, we can find hints from nature about the nature of reality. In a series of experiments in the 1920s, it was found that no matter what portion of a rat’s brain was removed, the rat still retained its memory of how to perform complex tasks it had learned prior to the surgery. The rat’s brain actually showed ‘holographic’ memory. Scientists proposed that memories are encoded not in neurons, but in the patterns of nerve impulses that crisscross the brain, similar to how a hologram is formed by various patterns of laser light crisscrossing each other. This might explain how the human brain can store up to ten billion bits of information in the brain, which is the small size of two fists!
The universe is a hologram and we are a part of that hologram. In a hologram, every single part of the hologram, even if split, reflects the totality of that hologram. Likewise, we too reflect the totality of the universe. The universe is not an assortment of living and dead matter. It is a huge interconnected Whole. You are very much connected to your fellow beings around you - the trees, animals, birds and rocks on earth as well as the planets, stars and galaxies in the universe. Whether you perceive it or not depends on the plane of consciousness from which you perceive it all.
Q: According to science, vacuum is the absence of matter. But according to you, vacuum is energy. Matter is manifestation of energy. How would you define vacuum?
Please understand that science has changed its view. Now scientists are coming up with a clear-cut idea that no such thing as ‘vacuum’ can be created. Even in space, where you say vacuum exists, ether is present. Ether is the gross form of energy. Science is also coming up with the fact that ether is also matter. It can be measured and handled. Science has evolved to the extent that it can understand spiritual truths to a certain degree. They have started understanding that vacuum is not the absence of matter. It is the absence of certain parts of matter. There are five major elements – earth, fire, water, air, ether. Vacuum is the absence of four of these major elements – earth, water, fire, air. That’s all. It is not the absence of matter, it is the absence of four elements. Thousands of years ago the eastern rishis Vastu Shastra developed the science of. It is the science that teaches one how to utilize the power of ether in daily life. It is the technique of building homes and houses in a way that the ether energy is enclosed in the space of the home in the best possible way. Today, scientists are working to understand methods of how to use ether!
So, according to me and according to science, vacuum is energy. Vacuum is not the absence of matter.
Q: It has been said that an individual has control over his mind. Does this mean that outside minds can still influence an individual’s mind and thought process? How can we control this and be liberated from anger and depression?
Nice question. Do you have control over your mind?
Questioner: Sometimes I find it difficult...
Alright. This is the answer that I get from almost everyone. The statement that an individual has control over the mind, is only said, never practiced and never experienced. Next, outside minds can influence the individual’s mind and thought process.
Are you married?
Questioner: Yes!
Then you will agree that your husband can very well influence your thought process. This influence happens not only through words from him, but even otherwise it happens!
For example, let us say you want to come here for meditation. You tell him you want to go for meditation. He doesn’t protest, but he puts on a long face. Just the memory of his face can influence your meditation here. When you are sitting here, you will be meditating on his long face! Even if he is not in town when you come here, just the memory of his long face, just the energy that he radiated when you asked for permission on an earlier occasion is enough - you will fall into a low mood here when you are meditating.
So understand, others can influence your mind without even expressing their thoughts.
Q: How do we control these influences of mind so as to avoid anger and depression?
Through meditation!
You are just like an onion. If you peel the onion layer by layer, what is there inside? Just emptiness! The onion thinks it has got something solid, but when it is opened layer by layer, it is empty. Similarly, man thinks that he is the individual consciousness, but if we peel the individual layers, he will experience he is the cosmic consciousness, the collective consciousness! This is the one and only way to prevent anger or depression that sneaks into your consciousness from others, through others, by others. As you meditate, your awareness will increase and you will start becoming a witness of the individual consciousness. Anything that you witness will dissolve into the cosmic consciousness.
Q: Why do we have to have to suffer? In childhood, we are trained to be separate from others. In school, we are taught to be somebody. As adults, we are taught to compete with others. If the ultimate truth is that we are all one, that we are all bliss, then why can’t mass consciousness also reflect this joy, peace and love?
This is a beautiful question. I shall answer this step by step. This question has a lot of potential meaning.
The people who created today’s educational system are not enlightened. The ancient education system called the gurukul rishis. was created by the
Unfortunately, it is no longer alive.
Let me say a few things about the education system that was initiated by these enlightened masters. In this system, any child who belongs to the country belongs to the master! The master takes care of him. The parents hand over the child to the master a few years after his or her birth. In this system of education, children were not compelled to wear clothes until a certain age. By not wearing clothes, the children did not develop the idea that they were individual bodies! They were straightaway allowed to relate with Existence, with ether. They were allowed to relate with flowers, forests, trees, earth. They were not given an idea that they were somebody.
Also, they were not given the idea that they were male or female. Actually, males are 51 percent male and 49 percent female. Females are 51 percent female and 49 percent male. But their lesser half is suppressed by society and they are made to think that they are purely male or purely female. This causes many repercussions in their consciousness.
These are some basic things you should follow while bringing up children. If you have to put clothes on them, put on single piece clothing covering both the upper and lower body, instead of putting on two piece clothing that separates the upper and lower body at the hip. Also, don’t give them the continuous idea that they are somebody. Of course, it might be a bit difficult for you, as you need to send them to school, but at least try with your best effort.
In the gurukul system, children were first given a meditation technique. Even if they got the idea that they were male or female, they could use this meditation technique and dilute that imbibed feeling. This meditation technique helped them flush the feeling out, and again and again helped them tune to the collective consciousness. That technique is what we call the
Gayatri mantra. From seven to fourteen years of age, Gayatri children practiced the, through which they continuously tried to connect to the collective consciousness. By the age of fourteen, they would have had a glimpse of the collective consciousness. They would have had a glimpse of the blueprint of the collective consciousness. After they had a glimpse of the blueprint, depending on the intensity of it, they were given deeper techniques. By the age of 21, they became enlightened!
I tell you honestly, there was a time when 70 percent of the people were enlightened. The other 30 percent were working towards enlightenment. The social structure created by the enlightened masters was such that people were either already enlightened or working towards it. There was no other category. There were only enlightened people and seekers. Unfortunately, we have lost the system today. That is why we have to conduct these meditation programs every week all around the world. gurukul system in our KAILASA in We have a
India. We are reviving the vedic system without disturbing the modern education, so that children can once again grow up connecting with the collective consciousness.
Question: We are all part of collective consciousness. Then how does god come into this?
The collective consciousness is what I call god. The Whole is what I call god. When you are Whole, you are holy.