Beyond Consciousness

Beyond
Consciousness
Fundamental Principles of
Nonduality
Andrew Vernon
GOLDEN
DAY
Beyond
Consciousness
FundamentalPrinciplesof
Nonduality
Beyond
Consciousness
FundamentalPrinciplesofNonduality
AndrewVernon
GOLDEN
DAY
First Edition 2009

Copyright 2009 by Andrew Vernon
ISBN number 978-0-615-24920-9
For contact information, visit the website
www.wayofthebird.com
Preface
The predecessor to this book, You Are He, was a series of commentaries on the teaching of my spiritual master, Shri Ranjit
Maharaj. It was of necessity colored by his way of expressing
himself and by the terms he used. In this second book, I have
tried to express my own understanding in my own words,
using plain language. There is no special terminology here
and no use of words that you cannot find in an ordinary
English dictionary. I have tried to say what I want to say as
clearly and simply as possible, while remaining true to the
essential thought of my teacher and to the teaching of the
other great masters of this tradition.
Since the publication of You Are He in 2003, I have been refining a list of about 70 key concepts, or fundamental principles, which together provide a framework for a philosophy
of nonduality that is not dependent on any particular path or
way. These principles are set out in list form in the first
Preface v
Beyond Consciousness
chapter of this book. The remainder of the book is an expansion of, and a fuller explanation of, those principles. The various chapters in the book have for their titles the essential
questions that occur sooner or later to the spiritual seeker:
What Is This World? Is There a God? Who or What Am
I? What Is Realization? and so on.
These questions are universalit doesnt matter whether one

comes to them from a Hindu tradition, from Christianity,
from Buddhism, or from any other path. When you take them
literally, religions appear to be completely different from one
another and even contradictory. However, on a deeper level,
they are seen to be pointing to the same, inexpressible truth.
We have to understand truth for ourselves in our own way.

When we read a spiritual book, we are really reading our own
words and hearing our own voice. We are experiencing our
own understanding reflected back to us, as in a mirror. For
this reason, we should pay careful attention to how we feel
when we are reading. If what we read makes us depressed or
unhappy, we should stop reading it. On the other hand, if we
find that a quiet kind of happiness steals up on us as we read,
then we should certainly continue.
Andrew Vernon, Marin County, California, August 2008
vi Preface
Contents
Preface
Fundamental Principles
What Is This World?
What Is Reality?
19
Is There a God?
25
Who Or What Am I?
39
What Is Life?
47
Is There Free Will?
53
What Is Realization?
65
Epilog: After Realization
71
Contents vii
FundamentalPrinciples
1. The world is the manifestation of the will of the Absolute.

2. The world of multiplicity, of separate objects that the mind
sees, is an illusion.
3. The world is fundamentally a positive, joyful place.
4. Consciousness or knowledge creates and contains the
world.
5. The experiencer of the world is a temporary appearance
only.
6. The world of names and forms is not real. In reality, there
is only oneness.
7. The form is being animated by the self-awareness of consciousness.
Fundamental Principles 1
8. There is no birth and no death for the self-awareness of

consciousness.
9. The entire process of evolution of consciousness, through
the infinite number of forms, is manifest against the
unchanging background of the Absolute Reality.
10. The unmanifest is the Absolute Reality.
11. As air appears in space, consciousness appears in reality.
12. The unmanifest and manifest aspects of reality are not
separate, just as the sun and its light are not separate.
13. It is the manifest aspect of reality that we call God.
14. Reality can never be explained or experienced because it
cannot be an object.
15. Because reality is what you are, there is no path to it and
no way to find it.
16. The manifestation of consciousness is an expression of our
own absolute freedom.
17. Reality is absolutely trustworthy.
18. Consciousness is the divine power, is God, is full of
2 Fundamental Principles
goodness and beauty, and is the object of all worship.

19. The power of universal pure consciousness is God to the
human being.
20. Consciousness, in its formless state, does not identify with
anything other than its own existence and bliss.
21. Love is the power that makes the One into the many in
order to have the many return to the One.
22. Consciousness is enjoying itself as bliss in every form.
23. Consciousness is present as existence itself.
24. Consciousness is aware of its own existence as happiness,
joy.
25. The self-awareness of consciousness is bliss.
26. The enjoyment is in the awareness of the non-existence
of I.
27. It is the enjoyment of the moment that is real and alive.
28. Space is not empty. Even the space between the electrons
in an atom is pervaded by consciousness.
29. Consciousness is like space without the quality of

emptiness.
30. Enjoyment is the natural activity of being.
31. Happiness is the natural state.
32. The human soul is an expression of consciousness, a vehicle of Gods will, an embodiment of love.
33. Consciousness, when allowed, moves toward light,
harmony, and beauty. Like attracts like.
34. Consciousness is a field of receptivity, in which there is no
outside or inside.
35. We cannot say what we are, because we are not any thing.
36. The separate I sense that appears in the human being is
only apparent not real.
37. The sense of I or individual consciousness depends on
the food consumed by the body for its continued presence.
38. No one is born and no one dies.
39. Real happiness is awareness of presence, of being.
40. Unhappiness belongs only to the mind. Outside of it, there

is no such thing.
41. To know what you are is to be what you are.
42. There is a bubble on the surface of the ocean. The bubble
bursts. Has it become realized? No, there was always
only ocean.
43. Self-realization is the simple revelation of the mystery of
infinite consciousness.
44. Life is living and living is life. There is no one living a life.
45. Devotion is a natural process that manifests itself at a certain stage of spiritual development.
46. Life is not linear. There is no continuous individuality
from moment to moment.
47. Life has no center. There is no fixed point in the
machinery.
48. The drama of world events and of each individual life is
playing itself out as it must.
49. There is no mind, apart from its contents.
50. The power of universal consciousness is giving to all the

fruits of past actions.
51. Life is the affirmation of being.
52. Life is perfect unfoldment.
53. There is only one power, only one manifestation. It is not
broken up into separate parts or individual existences.
54. There are no accidents in the life of the sincere seeker.
55. Everything manifests by means of natural processes,
governed by natural laws.
56. There is no doer. There is no question of doing. There is
just manifestation, one everything.
57. Consciousness is living out this life, and all other lives,
according to its own laws.
58. Everything happens in the only way it can happen. What
is happening now is the result of what has happened in
the past.
59. Grace is always available and is available to all.
60. The longing for unity, for reunion with the source is the
common thread that runs through all the diversity of the

universe.
61. Love for God is the first and last duty of the human being.
62. Free will for human beings is a matter of conscious participation in the divine will.
63. Consciousness never searches, never strives to find the
answer, because for it there is no question.
64. Consciousness lives to praise, to say I am, to accept
without reservation.
65. The quickest and safest way for a spiritual aspirant to
become a realized or enlighted being is to give up all
desires in complete surrender to God.
66. Liberation is understanding that there is nothing to
understand.
67. Ignorance doesn't exist.
68. Nothing negative exists.
69. Being is being positive.
70. Everyone knows the difference between positiveness and
negativeness by feeling, sense. Negativeness is

self-centered, collapsing in. Positiveness is expanding,
radiating.
71. The one who is free enjoys his freedom, without having to
do anything.
72. Everything is perfect. Everything is as it should be.
WhatIsThisWorld?
This world is a living, breathing, ever-changing, blissful manifestation of the will of the Absolute. The universe is the form
of the Supreme Lord. The world of multiplicity, of separate
objects that the mind sees, is an illusion. There is only oneness
in the world, however it may appear to the mind and the
senses. The world is fundamentally a positive, joyful place. It
is the birthright of human beings to experience the bliss that
comes with true knowledge and universal vision. If we do not
always see the world in this way, it is because we have identified ourselves with the individual I or ego. It is the will of
the Absolute that we should forget our true nature in this
way, and it is also the will of the Absolute that we should
return again to the source and find our true selves again.
How does it happen that the Absolute Reality, which fills this
world to the brim with universal pure consciousness, comes to
be identified with the individual form, the individual I? To
What Is This World? 9
better understand how this can happen, we can think of a

dream. In a dream, a thought or image emerges and starts a
series of associative scenes, which are based on material
stored in the memory. At the same time, the experiencer of the
dream appears and enjoys or suffers the experiences in the
dream.
The whole process of the unfolding of the dream is entirely

spontaneous, and the experiencer has no control over what is
happening. When we wake up from the dream, we do not
imagine that we have died or even that we have lost anything
at all. In the same way, when one awakens from spiritual
sleep, the experiencer, or I, who appears as the experiencer
of this waking world is seen to be only a temporary appearance. In fact, the I does not exist and the world of separate
objects and separate individuals does not exist either. There is
only consciousness. In the state of spiritual sleep, consciousness, which is self-aware and self-existent, manifests in a particular form and spontaneously identifies itself with that
form, taking the form to be self. This in turn gives rise to the
sense of not-self, or other than self, and this is the fundamental illusion, on which all other illusion is based. In reality,
there is no self and no not-self.1
Just as we dream our dreams in the state of deep sleep, so the
10 What Is This World?
dream of individual existence appears in the deep sleep of

God. God is omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscienteverpresent, all-powerful, and all-knowing. The nature of God is
being, consciousness, and bliss. God is manifest as the impersonal divine power, and He is also the supremely intelligent
Being who controls that power. However, in accordance with
the law as above, so below, God also experiences a deep
sleep state, in which He forgets himself and ceases to know
Himself as He truly is. In this divine, deep-sleep state, the
identification of the dreamer with the dream occurs and the
life of the individual I begins.
The Absolute Reality IS, but it cannot be said to exist or not to

exist, because it is beyond the comprehension of the limited
human mind, with its dependence on dualistic thinking. Existence begins when the Absolute manifests as God the Creator,
which is the original, wide-awake state of God. The will of the
Absolute sets in motion the various levels of creation with the
infinite number of beings, each of which is an indivisible part
of Itself, like waves on the surface of the ocean. The Creator,
1. One point that will be emphasized in this book is that the understanding that one does not exist as an individual entity is not something to be feared. One does not lose anything realone only gains
(or regains) that which is most true in oneself.
having created the universe, then goes to sleep, entering into

the creation and animating it, but forgetting His infinite and
unlimited true nature to become finite and limited through
identification with the various beings of this world.2
It is said that the realized or enlightened person is asleep to

the world and awake to the reality. Sometimes it is said that
the awakened person is not aware of the world and only
aware of reality. Both these statements mean that the enlightened person is aware of his or her true nature as pure consciousness and therefore sees the world of separate
individuals and beings as illusory. Being aware of reality as
ones true being produces a state that is like that of being very
deeply asleep. There is always a deep peace and fullness
there, whatever the circumstances of the external life.
The power that conjures up the dream of the world is consciousness. Consciousness exists in all forms and is in fact the
2. This explanation is of course not intended to be taken as literally

true. Rather, it is of the nature of a myth. A myth, like all the various
creation myths in human religious literature, is intended to convey a
meaning in a way that goes beyond the limited human mind. When
one takes a myth in the right way, one receives an intuitive, emotional, perception of Truth that has nothing to do with everyday
logic.
very existence of all forms. Because everything appears in

consciousness, it means that consciousness is subtler than any
objects and also subtler than the space that surrounds them. It
surrounds objects in its own light. Consciousness pervades
everything that appears in it, just as the dream encompasses
all of the dream-objects. It creates and contains the world.
Consciousness is not possessed by an individual person.
Rather, the apparent individual is an appearance in consciousness.
This consciousness that is the creator of the world appears to

be limited once it identifies itself with the individual form.
However, consciousness is not at all limited. Consciousness
knows itself and IS itself always and at all times, and only
appears to be limited by the concepts of the human mind.
When, in a particular individual form, this consciousness
knows itself as it really is, individual consciousness or I is
transcended and is understood to be a temporary manifestation only. This is the true meaning and purpose of the individual lifefor the individual consciousness to realize itself as
universal consciousness, and, in that realization, to understand that its true nature is the Absolute Reality, which is
beyond consciousness.
The world of names and forms, the world of separate objects
is not real. It is created by the mind. In reality, there is nothing but being, consciousness, and bliss. Within the dream of
the world appearance, there is only the all-pervasive, universal power of consciousness projecting itself through and
within all things gross or subtle, like the colors that are
formed when pure white light is refracted through a prism.
We do not see the pure light itselfwe only see its appearance as color.
Consciousness is not actually experiencing anything directly.

Experiencing is carried out by the brain and the other organs
of perception that are manifest in the individual form. The
form is being animated by the self-awareness of consciousness.3 Consciousness is always aware of its own existence,
and that is all that is really happening. There is not really any
experiencer at all. The experiencer is part of the experience
itself, just as the individual who experiences the dream is a
part of the dream. Experiences are illusorythey are not happening to anyone who actually exists, so how can they be anything other than illusion? The individual I, who appears to
be having the experience, is an illusion. Therefore anything
3. Perhaps a more precise way to express this is to say that the individual form, which has no life of its own, serves as a vehicle for consciousness, which is what is truly alive.
that appears to happen to this imaginary person is also completely illusory. There is no substance to experiences. They
come and go, appear for a moment, then disappear and are
forgotten. All of the experiences of ones so called life have
come and gone. Where have they gone?
The world of experience is an insentient world. It has the feeling of life only because of the presence of consciousness.
When an experience occurs, it is perceived and processed by
the memory that is already there. If it were not so, there
would be no sense of recognition in the perception and therefore no perception at all. There are no new experiences for this
reason. The circle of perception-recognition-memory is a
mechanical process. It happens spontaneously without anyone doing anything. The only life comes from the light of consciousness which illuminates the present moment as the light
illuminates the frame that is passing in front of it in a cinema
projector. In reality, there is nothing but this living light of
consciousness itself, which is always one light, never separated or divided in any way. Consciousness lends the feeling
of life to the individual form because of its own self-awareness. There is no birth and no death for this self-awareness.
What is known is always in the past. The unknown becomes

the known by being assimilated into the knowledge we
already have. In this way, knowledge becomes static or crystallized into a pattern. This pattern then forms the basis for
interpreting other experiences. The process begins in the
infant and continues throughout the life of the body. We
assume that a very small child is having experiences. Actually, it is not, because there is no I center to whom the experiences occur. When we look at a baby or infant we are seeing
only the self-awareness of consciousness animating that form,
just as it is the self-awareness of consciousness that animates
animals, which also have no concepts and consequently no
sense of I. However, the experimental movements that the
baby is constantly making are laying the foundation for more
coordinated movements in the future. In the same way the
eyes, ears, and other sense organs are accumulating the
impressions on which future perceptions will be made. At a
certain point, the process of perception starts on the basis of
these impressions stored in memory and that same process
continues for the remainder of that lifetime. No experience is
real. No experience is ever experienced by anybody. Nothing
that can ever be experienced is real. 4
4. Once again, it should be stated that this understanding, though

radical, is not to be feared. It is the beginning of a much greater,
more permanent happiness than can be found in any fleeting experience.
Although this world of names, forms, and experiences is not

real, still it could not appear without reality. Forms of increasing levels of complexity are evolved in consciousness. The
entire process of evolution of consciousness, through the infinite number of forms, is manifest against the unchanging
background of the Absolute Reality. Consciousness evolves
forms so that ultimately it can realize itself through the form
of a human being in whom spiritual understanding has come
to maturity. However, when that happens, consciousness realizes that there never was anything except itself and that the
whole process of spiritual seeking and realizing that went on
in that form was only a dream. Then why did it go through all
that process of evolution at all, when there was never anything apart from Itself to be gained at the end of it?
The only answer that can be given is that it was done for
sport, for enjoyment, and for the pleasure of finding itself
again after being hidden to itself for so long. The world is the
play of consciousness. Consciousness hides itself from itself
by means of a gap that appears between the human body
and mind and the pure state of Self-knowledge. Because of the
appearance of this gap, consciousness forgets its true nature,
identifying itself with the limited human mind, and the
human mind is not aware of itself as pure consciousness. This
gap is called ignorance, for the sake of explanation. How-
ever, ignorance has no actual existence, as it is pure nothing, a

zero.
WhatIsReality?
Reality cannot be known or experienced. Consciousness itself

is not the final reality because it is an appearance, a power, a
manifestation. It has definite attributes, such as a definite
existence and its self-knowing is bliss or happiness. The Absolute or final Reality, on the other hand, can have no attributes,
because these would limit its absoluteness. The unmanifest is
the Absolute Reality. It cannot be said to be existing or nonexisting. It is beyond any kind of opposites. Nothing that the
human mind can say or think can approach the Absolute. We
cannot even say that it is absolutely intelligent, because then
we would have to say that it is absolutely non-intelligent,
because to have the one and not the other would also limit its
absoluteness.
As air appears in space, consciousness appears in reality. It
What Is Reality? 19
contains the dream of the world. Consciousness cannot be

separated from reality, or considered as something other than
reality, just as the dreaming consciousness cannot be considered as something separate or different from the dreamer. In
terms of cause and effect, the Absolute Reality is the efficient
cause and the manifestation of the divine power of consciousness is the effect. Once the divine power has manifest, that
power then becomes the material cause for the creation of the
universe. It is the manifest aspect of reality that we call God,
because it is that consciousness that gives life to all the forms
of creation. 5
Nothing ever happens in reality. The only way that we can

speak about reality is by negation. So, for example, we can say
that reality is not an experience. There cannot be anyone or
any thing that exists outside of reality to experience it. Reality
cannot be known. There can be no means of knowing that is
outside of reality that could know it. Reality can never be
known nor experienced because it cannot be an object. However, this does not mean that it is a subject. We cannot say that
reality exists nor can we say that it does not exist. It is beyond
5. On the scale of the solar system, it is the sun that gives out light
and warmth, but it is the light and warmth that gives life to the
inhabitants of the planet Earth.
20 What Is Reality?
both existence and non-existence. Nevertheless, there must

certainly be an unmanifest reality to provide the basis for the
manifestation. Language is not able to encompass it because
language is based on duality. The human mind wants to be
able to affirm or deny. It cannot describe that which is beyond
all opposites.
It is misleading to speak about reality as though it could possibly be known in any way. However, we also have to understand that consciousness can know itself. When this happens,
the nature of reality is automatically understood.6 Consciousness knowing itself, which is self-knowledge, is the pure state
of consciousness, and this state is the manifest, or active,
aspect of reality. Although this state of self-knowledge is still
not the Absolute Reality, it is the closest possible approach to
that reality. The appearance or manifestation of universal consciousness cannot be in any way separate from the absolute
reality. The nature of consciousness cannot be other than the
nature of that Absolute Reality. This means that reality can
know itself indirectly by the Self-knowing of its manifest
power, and this is the nature of enlightenment. Reality mani6. This is like going from one level of understanding, on which
meaning and purpose is hidden, to a higher level, on which these
things are abundantly clear.
What Is Reality? 21
fests consciousness, and in the Self-knowing of that consciousness, reality knows itself.
From the point of view of Self-knowledge, reality is understood to be the source of consciousness, whereas from the
point of view of the individual human mind, that understanding cannot arise. The sun of the Absolute Reality is obscured
by the clouds of identification with the illusory objects in the
illusory world perceived by the illusory individual I. The
individual person cannot know reality at all but consciousness knows itself to be the radiance of the Absolute Reality.
Because reality is what we are, there is no path to it and no

way to find it. Reality is never reached or achieved. However, when we know that our existence, our being, is nothing
but pure consciousness, we also know that we are the unmanifest reality that is the source of that consciousness. The
power and activity of consciousness, and everything that
appears within it, are seen as a playful manifestation, an
expression of our own joy, but one which is not essential, not
necessary, or required in any way. The manifestation of consciousness is an expression of our own absolute freedom.
Reality never changes, but through the manifestation of its

power, it is able to create, maintain, and destroy all of those
22 What Is Reality?
forms that appear in consciousness, while still remaining

absolutely free from any kind of limitation. This absolutely
free reality is what we are in our innermost true nature.
Reality is absolutely trustworthy. We ourselves are not separate from reality. Therefore, we are connected to the source for
the entire creation. How can anything bad ever happen to
us when we are one with the source of all that appears? Naturally, I trust that everything will unfold rightly, as I myself am
connected to the source of that unfolding. I am myself the only
One. 7
7. This understanding does not evoke a feeling of loneliness, such as

the ego experiences. Rather it is the awareness of the inseparable
oneness that unites all beings and forms at the most essential and
fundamental level. It is the awakening to the real unity behind the
appearance of multiplicity.
What Is Reality? 23
IsThereaGod?
The world of nature, of earth and the organic lifeforms that

inhabit its atmosphere, the mineral and rock formations, the
plants and trees, the fishes, insects, birds, and animals that
have taken form within this context, and also those aspects of
the natural scene that are out of our reach: the sun, the moon,
and the infinite numbers of starsthis worldthe gross
world of natureis the expression, the manifestation, of consciousness. When we contemplate this natural world, we see
that it is full of beauty, purity, and the innocence that comes
from the absence of ego-based thought. Human beings can
live in harmony with this world by seeing in it the manifestation of a supreme power, of which they are also a part. When
one considers the natural world, one cannot help but be filled
with awe at the creative intelligence that allows an infinite
number of forms to appear and grow from a few simple laws
Is There a God? 25
and a few basic elements. This feeling of wonder and awe is

natural to human beings and is the basis of our religious sensibility. Out of this feeling comes the understanding there is
a God. For tens of thousands of years, human beings or their
ancestors lived in awe of the immense natural forces all
around them without any concept of religion or of God. Still
that sense of awe was there, a feeling of wonder that later
evolved in more sophisticated and settled societies into the
search for answers to the fundamental questions of life.
Pure consciousness is the divine power, is God. It is the worshipper as well as the object of all worship. Because there is
no separation between the Absolute and its power of universal consciousness, by worshipping that power the worshipper
is able to worship that which is the source of everything, but
which does not have any attributes of its own. Consciousness
is the direct expression of the freedom and purity of the Absolute, which, in itself, cannot be known or experienced. Consciousness, however, can be known and experienced, not in
the way that we are accustomed to experience objects, but by
being that. 8
8. This is why we say that consciousness is the worshipper as well as
the object of worship. One becomes That, or, more precisely, one
realizes that one already is That.
26 Is There a God?
It is consciousness that is the object of all of the devotion of all

spiritual aspirants, of any religion, anywhere and at all times.
The power of universal pure consciousness is God to the
human being. Worshipping the Absolute through consciousness is like worshipping the sun through its light. The manifest power is everywhere even though its source remains
hidden, just as daylight is visible everywhere, even when the
sun is hidden behind the clouds.
Consciousness, in its formless state, does not identify with

anything other than its own existence and bliss. That is to say,
there is no duality, and so no experience of other. It is the
identified individual soul that evolves the many different
forms in order to have more and more complex experiences.
That process is going on within consciousness, but reality is
not involved with it, just as the one who is sleeping is not
involved in the dream. The experiences are imaginary, as is
the person who is apparently experiencing them. Consciousness remains aware of the bliss of its own existence in
all of the various forms but it does not accept any individual
existences or objects.
There are many analogies for the relationship between consciousness and the forms that appear within it: the ocean and
its waves, gold and the ornaments made from it, electricity
Is There a God? 27
and the appliances connected to it. Under the all-seeing, allwitnessing eye of consciousness, the process of evolution continues by itself. As long as there is desire for more and more
experiences, new forms continue to appear and to interpret
those experiences by assimilating them into the already
known. Consciousness, meanwhile, simply rests in its own
happiness, blissfully unaffected by the drama of the individual experience. This play of experience is going on at the level
of the mind, and is based on the concept of I or I exist.
This is the basic illusion, the fundamental ignorance, by
which human beings are bound. However, ultimately, this
bondage is only in the mind and can be transcended by going
beyond the mind to the level of Self-knowledge. The world of
experience, of names and forms, goes on by itself, with consciousness only acting as the power that makes everything
possible.
In itself, consciousness is the all-loving, infinite, and supreme

Lord. Consciousness as the Creator is the first impulse to arise
in the unmanifest Absolute. The nature of that first impulse is
love. Love is the power that makes the One into the many in
order to have the many return to the One. Love is the universal power of attraction that holds the atomic particles in their
orbits and keeps the systems of stars rotating around the centers of their galaxies. The nature of this power of universal
28 Is There a God?
attractiveness is conscious love. The first impulse of duality

creates both the object of love and the source from which that
love emerges. God is both personal and impersonalpersonal
when manifest as the creative and vivifying power, and
impersonal as the unmanifest Absolute. It is the personal God
that creates the individual beings and that gives them the
impulse to love.
Consciousness enjoys its own being. It does not accept or

reject any particular action or aspect of what is appearing. It
enjoys its own bliss in all the forms: in the stone, in the plant,
in the animal, and in the human being. For example, in a tree,
rooted in the earth and with its branches swaying in the
breeze, consciousness is enjoying itself as pure bliss. In the
human being, consciousness enjoys itself as bliss in the state
of deep sleep, and in any other circumstances where there is
an inner peace, or when the mind is not disturbed by the restlessness of unfulfilled desire. For the most part, however,
human beings live in a state of disharmony with their true
nature, which is pure, blissful, and divine. If all human beings
were able to live in harmony with their own true nature, they
would live in harmony with all other human beings, and with
all of nature, and the Earth would be a Paradise. As it is, consciousness continues to enjoy itself as bliss in every form,
whether that form knows its true nature through Self-knowl-
Is There a God? 29
edge or not. In those beings who have realized the truth of the
all-pervasive consciousness, it illuminates the mind with wisdom, so that that person becomes a beacon of light in the
darkness of ignorance.
Consciousness is present as existence itself. All that is ever

happening is that that existence is being felt. The world of
human concerns and aspirations is superimposed on That.
There is only one existence. It is the human mind that divides
that unitary existence into individual entities, eternally separate from one another. The human being conceives of God in
the same way, as a separate being. He then prays to that God
for whatever it is that he believes he needs. This is inevitable.
It is simply the way that the mind works. It is a stage that we
all must go through. Ultimately, however, the realization
occurs that God is oneself and that God is not apart from oneself.
No one ever doubts that he or she exists. Taking that existence

to be real, and given the fact that there is only one existence,
then ones own existence must be the only existence. There
are no individual existences. There is no limit to this self-consciousness-self-existence. This consciousness is subtler than
space and exists prior to the arising of the experience of space.
The universal existence that is consciousness means that noth-
30 Is There a God?
ing is ever really created nor is it destroyed; it only changes its

form. For example, there is a huge and solid mountain. The
mountain is consciousness in the form of a mountain. After a
million years the mountain has become dust. Dust is consciousness in the form of dust. So nothing has been created or
destroyed and nothing has really happened. Consciousness
was there in the beginning and consciousness is there in the
end. One understands this not by knowing consciousness as
mountain and also knowing it as dust, but by knowing oneself. From that point of view, one knows that everything that
has a form is also nothing but consciousness in its essential
nature, just as one is oneself nothing but consciousness. This
is an intuitive knowing, or knowing by being. One then sees
apparent disintegration or destruction but does not feel that
anything has been destroyed. One only feels that there is
change. This direct being-knowledge of the universal is Godconsciousness, in fact, this consciousness is God.
God-consciousness, or universal pure self-consciousness, is all

that exists. When we, as apparent individuals and centers of
sense perception, apparently experience something through
the senses, or when we apparently think a thought, nothing at
all is actually happening. The fullness of consciousness
remains undisturbed, just as the light is undisturbed by the
pictures passing in front of it in the cinema projector. If it
Is There a God? 31
were possible for consciousness to become something other

than itself, it would mean that duality was real, because there
would be a subject and an object. However consciousness is
never anything other than itself. It is always what it is. Therefore, the realized or enlightened person is only ever aware of
himself as Self-knowledge and so he feels that he is himself
manifest in every form. In the literature of various cultures
and religions, there are many fine poetical expressions of this
type of universal vision. In the Hindu tradition, the Ashtavakra Gita and Avadhuta Gita. In the Muslim tradition, the
poems of Rumi or Kabir. In the Christian tradition, the words
of Christ as recorded in the Gospel According to Thomas. In Chinese culture, the Tao Te Ching of Lao Tzu. In the modern age,
the poems in Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman or the poetry of
Rainer Maria Rilke. And of course there are many other
examples.
Consciousness is one. There is not a second consciousness.

Therefore anything that appears cannot be apart from consciousness. Everything is an appearance in consciousness, a
modification of consciousness, a form of consciousness, a
reflection of consciousness. Any of these expressions could be
used, as long as it is understood that whatever form appears,
consciousness itself always remains full and perfect. Consciousness may appear to change its form or take various
32 Is There a God?
forms, but this is not a real change or change of nature or

essence, only an apparent change, just as the waves come and
go on the surface of the ocean or the characters come and go in
the movie that is being projected. In the first case, there is
nothing but water, in the second case, there is nothing but
light. In the world, there is nothing but consciousness, nothing but God.
What is consciousness? It is your own being, your own existence. It is your own manifestation, your own expression.
Nothing is closer to you than that. It is limitless and infinite.
Consciousness is like space, only without the quality of emptiness. Space is not empty. Even the space between the electrons
in an atom is pervaded by consciousness. Consciousness can
be seen as a kind of energy. It has definite existence, even
though it is so subtle. This consciousness is the joy that we feel
when life seems good to us. That joy or bliss is the self-awareness of consciousness. It is our self-awareness, as there is only
one self-awareness. If we were in any sense separate from
reality, we would have no being or consciousness. Therefore,
whenever there is self-awareness or the sense of being, of
presence, of self-existence, that awareness and that presence is
consciousness, that is God. All that is happening is that consciousness is aware of its own existence as happiness, joy.
That happiness is the true nature of the human being, and of
Is There a God? 33
all beings. We do not have to search for happiness, because it

is what we are. We ourselves limit this happiness by our own
wrong thinking. We imagine that we have to search for, and
find, happiness, but we ourselves are the source of that happiness.9
Enjoyment is the natural activity of being. Happiness is the

natural state. This natural happiness is not an intense kind of
pleasure like that which is experienced on gaining some material object that has long been desired. Rather, it is a feeling of
peace and fullness that is free from desire. Because it is a natural activity, this enjoyment is going on all the time, whether
we are awake, dreaming, or deeply asleep. Happiness, or
bliss, is the constant background against which the changing
scenes of our lives play themselves out. Who is enjoying this
bliss? No one is enjoying it. It is the self-awareness of consciousness that is itself the bliss. Nothing external is needed.
It is self-illuminating.
For a person who has realized truth, who is enlightened,

enjoyment or pleasure in life comes from the awareness of the
9. This truth must be realized. It is not enough to know it as we

know an object.
34 Is There a God?
non-existence of I. This person is aware of his own freedom

from the limitation of the individual I, which before was the
cause of bondage. For such a person, it is the enjoyment of the
moment that is real and alive. There is no expectation of
future results or attachment to the past. He or she lives in harmony with the joy of universal consciousness that is always
there in the background and does not identify with the passing events and circumstances of the play of the world. Nevertheless, it is not the person who is enjoying. It is the selfawareness of consciousness that is the enjoyment.
The so-called realized person is actually not a person at all.

There is only the universal consciousness that is active there.
Any ego or personality that remains exists only for practical
purposes and its apparent actions are not the actions of an
individual entity. The individual entity or soul, has no absolute existence, as there is nothing but pure universal consciousness at all times. However, the individual soul has
relative existence because of the thought I am or I exist
that arises in the mind. This thought is essentially an expression of the wish to be that is inherent in consciousness. and
which is the mechanism through which consciousness manifests itself in an infinite number of forms. The human soul is
an expression of consciousness, a vehicle of Gods will, an
embodiment of love. It appears because of the desire for exist-
Is There a God? 35
ence in the body, and it persists as long as that desire is there.

The desire to be causes the soul to take birth and the concept
I am causes it to feel that it exists as a separate individual.
In this condition, the soul may be drawn to religion or take up
spiritual disciplines in order to reach God, which it also
conceives of as a separate entity. Eventually, and usually after
a long search, the understanding may dawn in that expression
of consciousness that it is itself the object of its seeking. At
that moment, which is known as Self-realization, enlightenment, or awakening in the various traditions, the individual soul effectively ceases to exist (actually, it never did
exist as a separate entity) and the illusory sense of individual
existence resolves itself into the real existence of universal
consciousness.
During the process of self-seeking, consciousness effectively

conceals itself, attracting itself to itself in order to ultimately
reveal itself to itself. There are thus two currents in consciousness: one manifesting and outgoing, from more subtle to more
gross, and the other dissolving and returning, from more
gross to more subtle. Consciousness attracts itself to itself by
means of the principle that like attracts like. The apparent
individual soul is nothing but consciousness itself, but it is
limited by the I concept. Consciousness, when allowed,
moves toward light, harmony, and beauty. It is naturally
36 Is There a God?
attracted toward these positive aspects because they are

aspects of its own nature, which is manifesting wherever and
whenever possible. This is why true religious feeling is always
of an elevating character. It is made up of the finer, more
refined emotions. Feelings of kindness and compassion are
based on the more or less partial awareness of the underlying
oneness of being. No one is without this awareness to some
extent, but some are more aware of it than others. The more
we feel these positive emotions, the closer we are to our true
nature and the happier we will be.
Consciousness, in the human being, is always present as an

undifferentiated field of receptivity, in which there is no outside or inside. Temporary insights into this oneness of
being are within the experience of everyone and certainly
within the experience of those who are following a spiritual
path. Without these experiences, we would not know which
way to go and would not even have any incentive to follow
the spiritual path in the first place.
God the Absolute allows the manifold appearance of the universe to occur within Himself through the power of consciousness and, at the same time, draws the elements of that
manifestation back into His own being. This descent-ascent, or
projection-withdrawal, of the elements of the universe is a
Is There a God? 37
natural process that happens within the undisturbed oneness

of the Absolute Reality, like breathing in the human body.
38 Is There a God?
WhoOrWhatAmI?
We cannot say what we are, because we are not any thing. We

cannot point to any object and say That is what I am, Who
would do the pointing? Therefore, the answer to the question
Who or what am I? must come through understanding the
identity of that I who is asking the question.
Consciousness cannot actually become an individual I or

have in reality any existence apart from itself. It it could, it
would mean that there was more than one consciousness. and
consciousness would no longer be a unity. Therefore the separate I sense that appears in the human being is only apparent not real. There is only one consciousness, so the individual
consciousness must be the universal consciousness, and the
sense of separation nothing but imagination. This means that
the ordinary, everyday sense of existence that we have right
Who Or What Am I? 39
now is the universal pure consciousness. We are ourselves allpervading God-consciousness and nothing apart from that.
What is the nature of consciousness? It is infinite and limitless. It has itself no kind of form but only manifests where
there is a form. It is all-knowing, and knows itself in every
form. Wherever there is knowing or perception of anything,
that is consciousness. Wherever there is not knowing and
absence of perception, that is also consciousness. To say that
one thing is consciousness and another thing is not consciousness is impossible. All that can be said is that consciousness is
more completely revealed to itself in one condition than in
another. Consciousness is also present when there is ignorance of the true nature of the human being, only in ignorance, there is incomplete knowing. God allows Selfignorance to appear, because without Self-ignorance, there
would be no Self-knowledge. In other words, God becomes
identified with the individual forms through ignorance in
order to realize Himself through Self-knowledge. Therefore
ignorance is also an aspect of the divine power.
Even when there is ignorance of oneness, no one will deny his

or her own existence. This is because consciousness knows
itself as pure existence in every form, even when there is a
mind that believes itself to exist separately. It is consciousness
40 Who Or What Am I?
that says I am, and it is also consciousness that says I am a

separate individual. Because the human mind is there, we
make a concession to its point of view and speak as though
there were such a thing as ignorance. Clouds in front of the
sun do not affect the sun, but they effectively block the sun
from the human point of view. It is in this way that we speak
about ignorance. So consciousness is all-knowing, even when
there is ignorance, and it is existing, even when there is no
sense of individual existence.
One mistake we make is to assume that consciousness is

dependent on the mind, that is, that consciousness is there
when there is the knowledge I am and absent when that
knowledge is not there, as in the state of deep sleep. Consciousness and existence are one and the same, and to say that
we cease to exist when we are asleep would be an absurdity.
Therefore, consciousness is also there in the state of deep
sleep. Consciousness is not dependent on the mind and the
knowledge I am is not the whole of consciousness, but only
one manifestation of universal consciousness in a particular
form. Consciousness is infinitely greater than the individual
sense of I, just as the ocean is infinitely greater than the
individual wave that appears on its surface.
Form cannot manifest without consciousness. But can con-
sciousness manifest without a form? This is rather like asking

Can the source of a river manifest without the river? Consciousness contains the active, creative principle that gives
rise to all form within itself. We can conceive of consciousness
as possibly existing in a state in which there is not the slightest differentiation or duality at all. However, such a state or
condition would be identical with our conception of the Absolute, insofar as it is possible to conceive of it. Therefore, we
can think of the Absolute as the source and consciousness as
the form. Consciousness is not dependent on form, because it
is in itself formless. However, the meaning and purpose of
consciousness is inevitably bound up with the manifestation
or creation of forms. From this point of view, there is no difference between form and formless. Form is formlessness and
formlessness is form.
In the human being, the sense of I or individual consciousness depends on the food consumed by the body for its continued presence in that form. This shows that consciousness is
a form of energy that is able to maintain its association with a
particular form under certain conditions, that is, in the presence of the functioning of a vast number of life-processes,
which, together, refine the super-subtle consciousnessessence from the gross forms of food. This does not mean that
consciousness is created by food, because consciousness was
there to begin with, but this process of assimilation of food is

the means that consciousness has evolved to maintain itself in
the microcosm of the human body.
The sense of I or individual existence that is so important in

human society is an illusion. I am or I exist is a concept
that arises in the mind. There is no You. You do not exist.
There is no I. I do not exist. You and I are assumptions that have no substance behind them.10 Many actions are
performed and relationships formed based on these concepts.
Almost all human affairs are carried out on this basis. But
what meaning and significance can these actions have when
their basis is false, unreal, and imaginary? All those actions
and relationships that are founded on the concept of individual I, which is itself based on ignorance, are reduced to
zero.
The whole cycle of birth, the arising and pursuit of desire, disillusionment, and death, all happens within the subtle sphere
of the mind, like a dream. No one is born and no one dies.
Human society, with its emphasis on individual rights and the
10. This understanding comes only when the true oneness of existence is realized. Until that time, the I and the you have
empirical or relative reality.
fear of suffering and death, is based on an illusion. This is

why, over the centuries, those who have gained some insight
into these facts have turned away from worldly affairs and
withdrawn from human society in order to search for reality
within themselves.
The cycle of birth and death of the endless variety of species,

including human beings, has as its purpose the eventual arising of true spiritual insight. This insight is realized at any
given time by those individuals who are prepared to receive
it. This kind of teaching about the non-dual reality is not
intended for the majority, but only for those who happen to
be mature enough to understand it. All religions are divided
in this way, with an outer form, based on belief, ritual, and
obedience to authority, and an inner or secret core of teaching, based on universal truths. For the majority, consolation
and hope within the dream of life is provided by belonging to
an established faith and creed, while for the minority, who
cannot be satisfied by the external form and who seek personal verification of truth, the inner knowledge is also available from a small number of enlightened teachers.
Consciousness wishes and intends to realize itself and the
universal process of inner evolution that results in Self-realization is how it achieves its purpose.
It is not an individual person who experiences Self-realization or enlightenment. It is consciousness itself, realizing itself
through the means of a particular form. There is a bubble on
the surface of the ocean. The bubble bursts. Has it become
realized? No, there was always only ocean. By means of this
self-effacement or destruction of the false pride of individuality, consciousness manifests itself in all its purity on the level
of the human mind and on the level of the world. As a result,
the mind, and the world experienced through the mind, are
seen to be nothing but consciousness.
Self-realization is the simple revelation of the mystery of infinite consciousness. The pure, infinite God-consciousness is
spread out everywhere in this world that appears to the
senses, but, as long as there is Self-ignorance, we cannot see it.
When that realization does occur, we understand that there is
only consciousness, and that there is no difference between
ourselves and the world. The perceiver and the perceived,
together with the concepts of knowledge and ignorance, illusion and reality, and inside and outside, all disappear. There
is no difference between the manifest world and its manifesting principle. Both are pure consciousness and nothing else,
just as the waves and the ocean are nothing but water. The
world is a mystery that is in no way different or separate from
the mystery of ones own existence. The world that has
become oneself is not known as an object is known, in duality.

To know what you are is to be what you are. So it is sometimes said of realized or enlightened beings that they are not
conscious of the world and not conscious of themselves. This
does not mean unconscious but conscious only of the oneness of consciousness within the apparent multiplicity. This
Self-consciousness or Self-knowledge is the fulfillment of
the process of the self-manifestation of the Absolute Reality.
Real happiness is awareness of presence, of being. It comes as

a result of Self-knowledge and not otherwise. This happiness
is always available and is not in any way dependent on external circumstances. We all have the source of eternal happiness
within ourselves, but we do not understand it and cannot be
certain of it until Self-knowledge occurs. Then we know,
beyond any doubt, that the bliss of consciousness is our true
nature, and always has been. Unhappiness belongs only to the
mind. Outside of it, there is no such thing.
WhatIsLife?
We do not know anything about what life is in itself because

we are ourselves the conscious source of all life. The movement or process of becoming a sentient, living being is something that has just happened to us. No one can say what life is
because the source cannot be known. Only the external
appearance can be known. All that is known of life is known
in the process of living, which itself is a manifestation of life
and occurs within and through the impersonal power of consciousness. However, the source is not separate from its manifestation. God the Creator is manifest as the creation. Life is
living and living is life. There is no one living a life. I (this
form) and you (that form) are just expressions of life manifesting itself in different ways.
As long as we imagine that we are individual persons, we are

deluded. Living is a process that takes us by surprise. Suddenly we appear to be born when the sense of I arises in
What Is Life? 47
early childhood and we find ourselves witnessing our own

existence. But we identify with that sense of individual existence and forget our true, universal existence. We lose touch
with it because of the concepts that get formed in us, even
though the true lifeforce is always there, everywhere present.
That pure, universal beingness is the manifestation of life
itself. It it were not there, we would not survive as sentient
beings for a single second.
The Absolute is beyond existence and non-existence, but

through this universal beingness it knows existence. This
being-consciousness-bliss is not a concept and cannot be
approached through concepts. Rather it is that which is
always already there when all conceptualizing has ceased. We
do not understand that the idea we have of our own existence
is only a concept. It has arisen at some point in the past, which
we have forgotten, and, at some point in the future, which we
cannot know, it will leave again. In between these two
unknown and mysterious points in time, we have what we
call our life. In fact, this individual or personal life is nothing but the operation of thought. When we wake up every
morning, the concept of I appears and with it all the memory of what has gone before comes to the surface. We are carried along in this superficial flow of experiences, in which
moment follows moment, hour follows hour, and day follows
48 What Is Life?
day, leading at last to that point where we reach our final

moment. This flow of consecutive experiences is only a
dream that has arisen. It has no substance whatsoever. The
idea of individual existence has no more reality than the character who appears in our dream, whom we forget as soon as
we wake up. 11
Within the dream of life, the dream of spiritual seeking arises

and leads to the dream of meeting the true teacher. Devotion
to the teacher and the teaching leads in turn to understanding
and eventual awakening from the dream. Devotion, and the
commitment that comes with it, is not something that we
choose to do or not to do, but is a natural process that manifests itself at a certain stage of spiritual development. It is an
indication that the mind is turning inwards, in the direction of
pure consciousness, and away from the illusion.
Life is not linear. There is no continuous individuality from

moment to moment. Reality is always already waiting for us,
in the vertical dimension outside of time, not in the horizontal
flow of time. Life is there before we were born and is there
11. This understanding brings liberation from the bondage and suffering that comes from the false idea that we are separate from others and separate from God.
What Is Life? 49
after we die. Even if we say it is there now or in the

present moment, we are using the terms of the illusory horizontal dimension. In reality, there is no time. Past, present,
and future are all only concepts relating to the imaginary center we call I. The I concept has arisen along with the
awareness of our own physical body and its space, and which
is opposed to the concept not-I which defines other physical
bodies and their spaces. However, I is still only a concept. It
is a convention that enables us to fit more or less smoothly
into the machine-like functioning of human society.
Life has no center. There is no fixed point in the machinery,

either in the bee-hive of human activity, or in the inner psychology of the human being. The point is self-defined, that is,
mentally, and relates to other points, which are also only conceptual. To this imaginary point we attribute the various
experiences and events of our lives, In fact, there is nothing
connecting these experiences together. The drama of world
events and of each individual life is playing itself out as it
must. There is no permanent individual soul, apart from the
thought of its own existence, just as there is no mind, apart
from its contents. When the thought I exist is there, then
there is an individual soul, and it can attribute to itself the
doing of various actions, which it considers good or bad
according to its mental programming. It then suffers or enjoys
50 What Is Life?
the results of these actions, over and over, because of its selfbelief, which is really nothing but Self-ignorance. How long it
will take for this Self-ignorance to turn into Self-knowledge in
a particular case no one can say. God has infinite patience.12
The perfection and fullness of the Absolute is not affected by

the processes which happen to arise in consciousness. Even
when Self-knowledge does occur in some human being somewhere, that realization consists of the understanding that
nothing has ever happened. Self-ignorance and Self-knowledge are both aspects of the same process. Perfection appears
as imperfection in order to realize itself once again as perfection. It is part of the perfection of the Absolute Reality that
there can be the arising of imperfection in it. Without imperfection, how can there be perfection?
Life is a process in which the power of universal consciousness is giving to all the fruits of past actions. It does not
require the intervention of individuals because the law of
cause and effect operates mechanically. All actions have their
corresponding results, good or bad, positive or negative, and
anything in between. For the individual soul, which is created
12. This is another way of saying that consciousness is beyond time.
What Is Life? 51
and maintained by thought, the accumulated results of past

actions become the tendencies that shape further experiences
and actions. The imaginary individual takes himself or herself
to be the doer of the actions, but they are happening by themselves. There is only one power, only one manifestation. It is
not broken up into separate parts or individual existences.
Actions leave their impressions in memory, and those impressions become the cause of other actions.
Once the process of spiritual seeking begins in a particular

expression of consciousness, it continues to expand and
develop according to its own laws, which, for the most part,
we do not understand. One example of these laws is the phenomenon that there are no accidents in the life of the sincere
seeker. Every significant event seems to be arranged for the
purposes of spiritual evolution. Life appears to come more
and more under the influence of a higher law and the understanding grows that we are being taken care of. This process
of living, or life, is the affirmation of being. The will to be, to
exist, and to experience, is the root cause for the manifestation
of the infinite number of forms. It is a positive force, an
affirming force. The inertia of matter is the denying, or resisting, force to the manifestation of forms invested with life. The
universal pure consciousness itself is the power that mediates
between the two.
52 What Is Life?
IsThereFreeWill?
Life is a play that is already written in all its essential points

and we are the actors in it. What makes this play different
from a play in a theater is that we, the actors, do not know
what is going to happen. It is as though the lines that we are to
speak only come into our heads the moment before we are to
say them, and the actions that we are to perform only occur to
us as we are performing them. Except for some exceptional
individuals with extraordinary psychic powers, this is the
case for every human being on earth. The only difference is in
how the play of life is understood, because it is understanding
that determines how the play is experienced. From this point
of view there are three types of individuals:
1. The person without spiritual aspiration who lives a

worldly life. Such a person has no understanding of the
true situation and assumes that he or she is fully responsible, is doing everything, and has free will.
Is There Free Will? 53
2. The spiritual aspirant or seeker. The aspirant may know

or suspect the true situation and have some level of acceptance of it. This person is in the uncomfortable position of
knowing that he or she cannot do anything, while having
to act as though fully responsible.
3. The realized or enlightened being. This individual has full
understanding of the true situation and has surrendered
to it. He or she acts in life with the understanding that it is
a divine play and so does not take it too seriously.
From these categories, we see that in no case is there genuine
free will for human beings. Only God has free will. However,
because consciousness is God and consciousness is our true
nature, we are free to the extent that we know ourselves and
accept ourselves as that consciousness. In practical terms, this
means that we are free when we remember ourselves as pure
consciousness. We are free to the extent that we can separate
ourselves from the limitations of the mind.
The ordinary idea that it is possible to do whatever one wants

is an illusion, based on the false assumption of separate individuality. There is nobody there. How can an imaginary
entity have anything other than imaginary will? In fact, all
actions are happening as a result of previous actions, accord-
54 Is There Free Will?
ing to the law of cause and effect. Human beings are so accustomed to believing that they are individuals, and human
society is so completely bound up with that false assumption,
that it is not possible for them even to think without relating
that thought to the imaginary center called I. The assumption that there is free will and that I am doing arises out of
this false notion of individuality.
For the spiritual aspirant, the question of free will is highly

significant. Free will for the aspirant means the will to pursue
spiritual practice based on Self-remembering, acceptance of
the teaching about ones true nature, and surrender to the
divine will. Some aspirants who study non-dual teachings
prematurely adopt the point of view of enlightened beings
that there is no free will and that therefore spiritual practice is
not necessaryanything that has to happen will happen by
itself. This is incorrect, because it is precisely for the benefit of
spiritual aspirants that the power of discrimination has been
given.
The difference between the worldly person and the spiritual

aspirant is in the conscious knowledge of ones own limitations. As long as the imaginary entity is there, that is, as long
as there is ignorance and as long as we take ourselves to be
individuals, the entity that we take ourselves to be does have
imaginary free will. It is this imaginary free will that is

appealed to by spiritual teachers who encourage spiritual
seekers to practice disciplines, abide by moral strictures,
study various texts, or adopt other practices to purify the
body and the mind in preparation for enlightenment. As long
as we consider ourselves to be separate individuals, we must
make efforts along these lines. We are attracted to practices
and disciplines because we feel that we can gain something
from them. It is precisely because we do not yet have the
understanding that the realized person has, which is that we
are already ourselves and that there is truly nothing to be
gained, nothing to be acquired, and nothing to be accomplished, that we must exert ourselves to gain that understanding. And for this understanding, spiritual practice is
absolutely necessary.
As spiritual aspirants, we are still more or less attached to the

illusion of separateness and are not yet completely ready to
let go of it. If we could let go of it, we would already be
enlightened. As long as we believe that the sense of separate
I is what we are, then we will continue to hold onto it
fearing, with very good reason, that if that goes, then we go
with it. Duality brings about this sense of separate identity,
and desire maintains it. But as long as it is there, we will
never be completely happy. A sincere seeker understands
this, and longs for liberation.
We can perhaps imagine a society in which each of its members lives free of the imaginary burden of individuality that
creates the sense of separateness. In such a society, there
would be no selfishness, no greed, no violence, no lawsuits, no
police, no pollution, no abuse of power, and none of the other
negative factors that are so characteristic of the society in
which we live today. The violence and corruption that plagues
human society has at its root the false assumption of separateness and the desire to protect what one considers to be me
and mine. As a result human beings are lost in selfishness
and the self-centered pursuit of an individual ideal of happiness. This inevitably brings the individual into conflict with
others who have different ideals or different goals, and with
society as a whole, which tends to flatten out individuality
and make all of its members conform to a pattern of conventional or normal behavior. There will always be bitterness
and suffering in a society that is based on the illusion of separateness. There are no solutions to the problems of society on
the level of society itself. The only solution is on the level of
the individual. Each person must come to his or her own
understanding of the truth that there is only oneness in this
world and that there is only an apparent separation between
the individual forms. All beings are expressions of the same
unity, the same life.
Everything manifests by means of natural processes, governed by natural laws. There is nothing that is outside of the
scope of nature, nothing that does not conform to the laws
that govern the greater whole. The universe is a single expression, a single manifestation that contains an infinite number
of different aspects, attributes, and forms, but which still
remains one indivisible unity. Where is the doer in all of
this? There is no doer. There is no question of doing. There
is just manifestation, one everything. While it is true that
human beings function as separate forms, they are only separate from one another in the way that the cells of the body are
separate from each other. Each cell performs its own function
but all are necessary and all have their place. There is an
underlying unity that allows the cells of the body to function
in harmony with one another, each one doing the work that is
appropriate to itself. In the human being, the false belief in
the separate I or ego destroys this harmony and is the cause
of suffering and misery, both for the individual and for the
world.
Consciousness is living out this life, and all other lives,

according to its own laws. It operates spontaneously, without
for a moment deviating from the laws which, effectively, run
the universe like a vast machine. It is a dreaming consciousness. It flows on and on, evolving forms, sustaining them, and
destroying them according to the play of the three forces
(active, passive, and neutralizing). Consciousness is the power
that allows everything to happen, just as electricity powers all
kinds of appliances. However, the actions themselves unfold
as the result of the interaction of forces, through the connecting mechanism of cause and effect. Everything happens in the
only way it can happen. What is happening now is the result
of what has happened in the past. In this sense, life is perfect
unfoldment. It is perfect because it is as it has to be and cannot
be otherwise. What we experience, good and bad, is a result of
the good and bad actions that we have performed in the past.
If we do not receive the fruits of those actions in this life, then
we will receive them in another life.
We may imagine an ideal world, but it remains only a thought

without a thinker. However much one may dream of a better
world, the fact remains that the world is what it is because we
are what we are. No matter what you say or do, only that
which is destined to happen, will happen. Desire for change,
for things to be other than what they are, is a potent cause of
suffering, as is the identification with any desire. Things are
as they are, and will be brought to the issue determined. The
universe is set up to run more or less by itself. Of course, this
does not mean that the Absolute Reality, acting through the
manifest divine power, cannot intervene in that process. It
would be absurd to suppose that the One who makes the laws
out of His own Being cannot change those laws or override
them if He so wishes. In general though, it would seem that
the Lord does not intervene in the working out of the processes that He has set in motion. Even if He does intervene to
modify or cancel some effect, the motive for this intervention
cannot be other than love and compassion. It would be an
injustice to project our human weaknesses onto God and suppose that He is capricious and is capable of arbitrarily bestowing grace on one and not on another. Grace is always available
and is available to all. Prayer is an effective means of receiving divine grace, if that prayer is sincere and heartfelt. The
aspirant who prays to God for grace is opening a pathway
within himself or herself to receive an influence that is always
available, but which requires a particular attitude of devotion
and surrender to be activated.
What is ultimately required of the spiritual aspirant is surrender to the divine will. One must understand ones position. It
is necessary to make efforts to gain true spiritual knowledge
and understanding. However, at a certain point, one must
also understand that one cannot find what one is seeking by
ones own efforts alone. Divine grace is necessary, and this
can only be gained by weakening the ego which has functioned for so long as ones sense of separate individuality.
Why did the original impulse of consciousness come out of

the unmanifest Absolute? Why did the One become two? To
answer this question in a way that will satisfy everyone is of
course impossible. However, to satisfy the non-dual point of
view at least, we must answer it in a way that retains the fundamental unity of the Absolute but that also explains the
appearance of diversity in the universe. Let us first consider
the analogy of the magnetic field. In a complete magnetic
field, we find that there are two poles: positive and negative,
and there is also an invisible third factor, which is the field
itself, which spontaneously arises between the two poles. This
magnetic field is a unityit cannot be broken into parts without ceasing to exist, and yet is undoubtedly has these three
aspects. The field is not the result of the two opposite poles.
It arises in conjunction with them and is inseparable from
them. The duality that is present in the manifest universe,
from highest to lowest, and from most vast to most small, follows this same design.
Duality is in fact threethe male, the female, and the attraction between themthe positive, the negative, and the attraction between themthe Creator, the creation, and the
attraction between them. The longing for unity, for reunion

with the source is the common thread that runs through all of
the diversity of the universe. This irresistible attraction is
divine love and it is the principal manifestation of the will of
the Absolute. This will penetrates and pervades every atom of
the cosmos.
When we understand this, we can understand the nature of

the aspiration that has been given to human beings. This gift
has been given so that, at the appropriate stage of spiritual
development, we may voluntarily choose to love God. It
would be of little use to the Lord if the beings that He created
must of necessity love Him and surrender to Him. He wants
us to choose to do so, by making use of the power of discrimination that distinguishes us from less evolved forms of life. It
is this ability to respond to divine love with love from within
ourselves that makes us truly human. Love for God is the first
and last duty of the human being.
It is because of divine love that we live and breathe, and it is

for the sake of divine love that we follow the spiritual path.
Free will for human beings is therefore a matter of conscious
participation in the divine will. It applies to those who have
advanced sufficiently in understanding to be open to spiritual
influences and who do not follow a merely superficial,
worldly pattern of life. The vast majority of individual souls

do not exercise the power of discrimination. They go from
birth to death to rebirth thinking little of the consequences of
their actions, while at the same time firmly believing in their
own independent existences and their own power to do.
Such souls are subject to disaster, disease, accident, and sudden death. God maintains the creation with its endless cycles
of creation and destruction of forms in order to bring about
spiritual evolution. When, in one of the infinite number of
forms, there arises the stirring of the conscious longing for
unity, the Lord responds immediately with His grace. At that
moment, the aspirant comes under higher laws and is no
longer subject to accident.
WhatIsRealization?
The quickest and safest way for a spiritual aspirant to become

a realized or enlightened being is to give up all desires in complete surrender to God. This does not mean that no desires
arise, but that there is no identification with them. This nonidentification with any desire includes, ultimately, non-identification with the desire for enlightenment. All grasping and
striving ceases in the understanding that there is nothing that
one can do to gain what one wants, and that all the efforts that
one is making to reach an imagined goal come from the mind,
from ego. When the understanding comes that one does not
exist, only He exists, there is nothing left but to give up every
kind of striving and await the working out of the will of the
Lord.
To the realized or enlightened, there is no doubt that it is oneself that one was seeking. The complete absence of doubt is
the characteristic of the realized or enlightened person. Liber-
What Is Realization? 65
ation, or final understanding, is the understanding that there

is nothing to understand. Oneself is enough. Everything else
is just zero, time-bound, and so non-existent. The world created by consciousness is ones own manifestation, but it is
only a play which appears for a while and then is gone. It is
not oneself. There is nothing to be done. It is only to be understood. No amount of states or experiences can bring this
about. Only understanding makes any difference. Understanding is not a state, nor is it an experience. Still it is there.
From the enlightened point of view, it is clear that there are

no techniques or methods that can make you what you
already are. The whole mental structure of hope and desire,
based on the acquisition of knowledge, has to wear itself out
naturally. There is nothing that anyone can do to make this
happen. The spiritual path is ultimately seen to be an illusionwe are already at our destination. However, it is absolutely necessary to dream the dream of spiritual development
before awakening can take place. While this process is going
on, we are not incorrect in feeling that we are making
progress on the path.13
13. If this were not so, teachers would never teach.
66 What Is Realization?
There are many obstacles for the spiritual seeker, as well as

many joys. The joys are there for encouragement and the
obstacles are there to be overcome with time and with proper
guidance. As long as we are individuals, we are able to learn
from our own experiences. We make our own mistakes and,
sooner or later, we benefit from those mistakes. But at the
same time, all of this stress and suffering is unreal. Ignorance
does not exist, and so all of our attempts to dispel that ignorance through study and practice are eventually understood
to be unnecessary. We were not able to accept the fact of our
own freedom at the time, and so it was necessary to do all of
these things. The situation of the spiritual seeker is paradoxical. He or she is engaged in a pattern of ultimately needless
efforts, but because those efforts are an aspect of the process
of evolution of consciousness they cannot be dispensed with.
What is sought cannot actually be found by seeking, but, without seeking, it can never be found! The seeker can neither do
anything, nor can he or she not do anything. However, the
false assumption of individuality makes it impossible to see
the humor in this situation, until final understanding occurs.
Nothing can be properly understood as long as we imagine

ourselves to be individuals. This assumption keeps us in an
impossible position in which we take ourselves to be the center of the universe even though we have no individual exist-
ence at all. The false center of the I brings about inner

conflict and suffering. But the conflict is all for nothing and
the suffering is unnecessary. The genuine spiritual teacher
points out this paradox until, in the end, we understand for
ourselves the truth of what he or she has been telling us.
We are accustomed to think of the world in terms of duality,

as being made up of opposites. This is why it seems natural to
us to be engaged in a process of striving to accomplish something against a denying force of resistance or inertia. This is
because of the influence of the mind, which is based on duality. In reality, nothing negative exists. Just as the sun is
always shining above the clouds, for consciousness there is
only being and its own self-awareness, which is pure happiness. Being is being positive. On the level of pure consciousness, there is only the affirming, plus sign of positiveness.
There is no denying, minus-sign of negativeness. Consciousness will not be denied or thwarted in its urge to realize itself.
The supremely positive force of Self-knowledge will unfold
and bring all sincere seekers to the same understanding in the
end. Realized or enlightened beings understand this and so
they are not concerned with the apparent progress or lack of
progress of individual seekers. They know that every path is
unique because it is an individual expression of consciousness
and also that it is the same eternal, infinite, and all-pervading
power that is unfolding and realizing itself within all.
Everyone knows the difference between positiveness and negativeness by feeling, sense. Negativeness is self-centered, collapsing in. Positiveness is expanding, radiating. The answer to
the question whether the world is good or bad is that there is
both good and bad in the world that we experience through
our thought, through our minds. However, that from which,
and in which, this world of duality appears, that is to say, the
power of pure consciousness, is itself entirely positive. Consciousness never searches, never strives to find the answer,
because for it there is no question. Questions arise in the mind
and on the level of the mind. All questions are therefore products of duality and for this reason there are no definite
answers. Words simply cannot convey what is beyond them.
If there were definite, unequivocal answers to the questions
that seekers ask, they would have been provided long ago.
Thinking is therefore ultimately of no use and must be abandoned. 14
While all of this confusion and struggle is going on on the

level of the human mind, consciousness continues to create
14. At the appropriate time.
and maintain the infinite wonders of the natural world as a

constant reminder of the truth, beauty, and goodness that is
inherent in existence itself. While mind is mired in ultimately
meaningless questioning, consciousness lives to praise, to say
I am, to accept without reservation. This is our true nature,
our true being beyond the mind. The one who understands
this does not worry about anything. The one who is free
enjoys his freedom, without having to do anything, knowing,
in the completeness of that beginningless freedom, that everything is perfect, everything is as it should be.
Epilog:AfterRealization
There is a remarkable consistency of opinion among the saints

and sages of the Indian traditions about what happens, or
what should happen, after enlightenment or realization
occurs. Rather than attempt to express it anew, let us simply
allow the words of the great teachers of the eternal religion to
speak for themselves.
The eyes of a saint are always concentrated on the supreme Self. The
minute he is aware of himself, sainthood is lost. (Shri Neem Karoli
Baba)
He has no desires. He rests happily in the Self. (Ashtavakra Gita)
Remain well established in peace and tranquility, free from mental

conditioning, whether you are embodied or disembodied. When the
reality of Brahman is realized, there is no room for worry or anxiety.
(Vashishthas Yoga)
Epilog: After Realization 71
The jnani enjoys his unbroken transcendental experience in spite of

such apparent rise or existence of the ego, keeping his attention
always on the source. (Shri Ramana Maharshi)
Be asleep even in the wakeful state, abide in the Self and remain
uncontaminated by what goes on around. Your silence will have
more effect than your words and deeds. (Shri Ramana Maharshi)
To observe silence means to keep the mind fixed on Him.

(Shri Anandamayi Ma)
Only by becoming identified with the Lord, can one worship Him.
(Shri Anandamayi Ma)
Abiding in the Self, free from all notions about oneself, the world,
and the Lord is the highest bhakti. (Swami Dayananda)
When he has fully attained the knowledge of the Self, and realized it
as his only refuge, he devotes himself exclusively to contemplation
of the Self. He alone is the true knower of Brahman who directs his
mind towards the Self, and shuns all other thoughts as distractions.
(Brihadaranyaka Upanishad)
72 Epilog: After Realization
Maintain breakless awareness on that supreme energy that is the

seed of the universe. (Shiva Sutras)
Worship consists of constant contemplation on the deity that is

ones own essential Self. (Vijnanabhairava)
He is always in tune with Self. Like the bee, only interested in honey
from the flower, he is always resting in the Self. Inside and outside,
only Self. (Tukaram)
Your mind has been changed; wrong thoughts go and He remains.

Then you understand real devotionalways looking to Him and not
to yourself. (Tukaram)
The realized mans wish is always fulfilled. He wants reality. So he

is never unhappy, he is always happy. (Shri Ranjit Maharaj)
In this way, when you are established, be in your state. Be

happy with your Self. (Shri Ranjit Maharaj)
The only happiness is awareness of the presence of the Self.

(Shri Ranjit Maharaj)
One who does not get excited by the possession of spiritual knowledge of the root cause can, with love and devotion, cultivate and
brighten it. (Shri Nisargadatta Maharaj)
I Amness is presently your nature. Worship that only. That I

Amness is something like the sweetness in the sugar cane. Abide
in the sweetness of your beingness. (Shri Nisargadatta Maharaj)
Your only duty is not to forget Him. Always remember Him, that
is, be in communion with Him. (Dadaji)
Spend your time seeing the atma in all situations everywhere, recognizing yourself as the non-dual atma and enjoying the ananda of
yourself. (Shankara, Vivekachudamani)
The greatest religion of all is the religion of Self, which means our
consciousness must be always there and that is the sign of the real
sage. (Samarth Ramdas, Das Bodh)
To remain in our own Self is the true religion. There is no other

sadhana, there is no other God. (Shri Siddharameshwar Maharaj)
74 Epilog: After Realization
To be with ones own nature is the main characteristic of a realized

person. (Shri Siddharameshwar Maharaj)
One who has understood the path of no-mind has no care. He is

always immersed in His own Self. (Shri Siddharameshwar
Maharaj)
Body typeface: Book Antiqua 10.5 pt

Header/title typeface: Palatino Linotype
Cover photographs:
Front: Mandala (Hindu)
Back: Mandalas: Islamic (left), Buddhist (right)

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Beyond

First Edition 2009

These questions are universalit doesnt matter whether one

We have to understand truth for ourselves in our own way.

Andrew Vernon, Marin County, California, August 2008

What Is This World?

Is There Free Will?

Epilog: After Realization

1. The world is the manifestation of the will of the Absolute.

8. There is no birth and no death for the self-awareness of

goodness and beauty, and is the object of all worship.

29. Consciousness is like space without the quality of

40. Unhappiness belongs only to the mind. Outside of it, there

50. The power of universal consciousness is giving to all the

common thread that runs through all the diversity of the

negativeness by feeling, sense. Negativeness is

What Is This World? 9

better understand how this can happen, we can think of a

The whole process of the unfolding of the dream is entirely

Just as we dream our dreams in the state of deep sleep, so the

10 What Is This World?

dream of individual existence appears in the deep sleep of

The Absolute Reality IS, but it cannot be said to exist or not to

What Is This World? 11

having created the universe, then goes to sleep, entering into

It is said that the realized or enlightened person is asleep to

2. This explanation is of course not intended to be taken as literally

12 What Is This World?

very existence of all forms. Because everything appears in

This consciousness that is the creator of the world appears to

The world of names and forms, the world of separate objects

What Is This World? 13

Consciousness is not actually experiencing anything directly.

14 What Is This World?

What is known is always in the past. The unknown becomes

What Is This World? 15

4. Once again, it should be stated that this understanding, though

16 What Is This World?

Although this world of names, forms, and experiences is not

What Is This World? 17

ever, ignorance has no actual existence, as it is pure nothing, a

18 What Is This World?

Reality cannot be known or experienced. Consciousness itself

As air appears in space, consciousness appears in reality. It

contains the dream of the world. Consciousness cannot be

Nothing ever happens in reality. The only way that we can

both existence and non-existence. Nevertheless, there must

Because reality is what we are, there is no path to it and no

Reality never changes, but through the manifestation of its

forms that appear in consciousness, while still remaining

7. This understanding does not evoke a feeling of loneliness, such as

The world of nature, of earth and the organic lifeforms that

and a few basic elements. This feeling of wonder and awe is

It is consciousness that is the object of all of the devotion of all

Consciousness, in its formless state, does not identify with

In itself, consciousness is the all-loving, infinite, and supreme

attractiveness is conscious love. The first impulse of duality

Consciousness enjoys its own being. It does not accept or

Consciousness is present as existence itself. All that is ever

No one ever doubts that he or she exists. Taking that existence

ing is ever really created nor is it destroyed; it only changes its

God-consciousness, or universal pure self-consciousness, is all

were possible for consciousness to become something other

Consciousness is one. There is not a second consciousness.