When we say, “All this is Brahman,” it means, by implication, that I am also Brahman because everything is Brahman, the whole universe. Everyone is Brahman, and Brahman is God. So, this means you too are God.
Your mind that doesn’t know this is like the weather. The sky is not affected by the weather. The sky hosts the weather. Similarly, there is this power that is spontaneous, natural, full and present, hosting the movements of the mind. When I use the term God I mean this power. When I say, “You are God,” I mean this power. When the mind is bright, when the mind is unsullied by negative associations, uncorrupted by negative desires and old habits and addictions of all kinds, when all that is reduced, then that which is shining and is recognised by the mind as its own radiance that is what I’m pointing to and that is is God.
How close to you is this power? It’s not possible to be distant is it. It’s not possible to walk away from this because this power is absolutely the radiant, permanent, eternal reality of ‘I am’. To know that this very mind is reflecting this power is joyful and is liberation. Many, many names can be given to this power. Shiva. Soul. Spirit. Heart. Guru. But what it actually is, is consciousness/existence. It is existence itself. Conscious of itself. It’s conscious/existence.
This is real, right now. There is an absolute power right now which is experiencing you and reading these words, as it happens, in this moment. It’s always there. It is radiant. It is bright. It is full. It is infinite. We call this God and that is beautiful. You can’t see it within normal sensing faculties in just the the same way you can’t see the light in space unless it reflects off the moon. You can’t see it but you can know it most asuredly because you are that which, itself, is seeing.
You can never see your eyes. You can look in a mirror but you’re just seeing a reflection. You can never see your own eyes but it’s absolutely obvious that they’re there and you enjoy them, and you’re not confused about that. Similarly, you can never see consciousness but it’s absolutely embedded and apparent that that is shining right now and fuelling your entire life.
The spiritual practitioner seeking to discover this can often be inhibited for a long time because they are doing sadhana and meditating in the belief that they are going to find consciousness as a thing. It’s impossible. It’s not a thing. It is that which is experiencing the things, it isn’t an object. Everything you experience in life is an object but consciousness is the only ‘thing’ which isn’t a thing. It’s transcendent. The only phenomenon that isn’t a thing is consciousness. So, to discover consciousness is a different way of knowing yourself, a different way of seeing. To know this is a different way of knowing yourself and an appreciation. We appreciate, which is why the Upanishads call it ‘realise’. We realise.
This sky of conscious/existence, this wonder is the biggest, most present element of humanity. It’s huge yet elusive and missed without the words of the Guru. Humanity goes about the place in darkness responding in ignorance to reactions, desires, attitudes, wants and needs, hence societies arise. Billions of people believe themselves to be a single body, a single separate and self-contained mind with identity and ideas. All compassion and respect to that. But amidst those billions and amidst you there is a precious karmic seed which provokes you into investigating a hunch you have that it’s not quite like this. We’re looking beyond these things, into the reality of ‘I’, that which literally is – Oh a wonder