Reality is a play of consciousness . . .

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The World is a Play of Consciousness!

This is a talk which explains the title
through the examples of many different religious traditions and mystical paths.

With great respect and love, I welcome you all with all my heart. The great sages of Kashmir Shaivism have said, Iti vaa yasya samvittih kreedaatvenaa khilam jagat sa pashyan satatam yukto jeevanmukto na samshayah. "He who sees this entire world as a play of consciousness is liberated while living."
Following the same teaching, Baba Muktananda said, "Meditate on your own Self. Worship your own Self. Kneel to your own Self. Understand your own Self. God dwells within you as you."
In the Katha Upanishad the sages said

Wake up! Seek the truth.
Rise above ignorance.
Search out the best teacher,
And through the Master find the truth.

Even through the truth seems simple, even though spiritual practice can be simple, yet the spiritual path can be very difficult. It is the most difficult path to tread. Yesterday somebody said, "During Baba's time I felt an incredible happiness, but now I don't feel it." When traveling the spiritual path, we do not always experience the same thing.
When people used to say to Baba, "Once I felt happiness, but now I don't, "Baba would answer, "Go back to the time when you experienced happiness and see how you were in that moment." Meditating on one's own Self is going back to that moment; it is understanding what we were and what we have become.
When I was in Delhi recently, a senior diplomat came to pay a visit, and during our conversation he asked a very casual question, "What do you think you want to give to people?"
I said to him, "I don't think about giving anything."
He asked, "Do you think people need your message because they are so ignorant?"
I said to him, "If they were ignorant, how could they understand the message?"
You can never teach an ignorant person; you can always teach a wise person. It is only when you have understanding that you can really hear the truth. A great saint named Kabir said

Wake up! Seek the truth.
O friend, hope for the Lord
While you are still alive. Learn now.
Plunge into the experience of the Lord
While you're still living.
While living, attain salvation.
While living, attain the state of liberation.
If you don't break the ropes of your karmas
While you are alive, what makes you think
That the ghosts will do it for you when you die?

So it is while we are living that we must experience liberation.
Sheik Nasrudin heard this message, so he decided to try it out on his donkey. He stopped feeding his donkey; he wanted it to be liberated while alive from the need to eat food. Seven days passed by, and Nasrudin was getting very happy that his donkey could live without having to eat. He was thinking, the message has some truth in it. While living, you can become liberated. But on the eighth day the donkey died. Nasrudin said, "What bad luck! He died just when he had learned how to live without food!"
Experiencing the state of freedom does not mean renouncing that which we think should be renounced. While living, we must experience the truth, but this does not mean abandoning that which God has offered to us. We create quite a few ideas about what spirituality is, what the path is, what a religion is, what meditation is. Yet the scriptures tell us that things are not what our minds think they are.
Experienceing the truth while living is beyond the realm of our mind, our reason. Only when we lose so-called body-consciousness do we experience the truth. Losing the awareness of body-consciousness cannot be brought about artificially. Many say that you run and run and run, you feel very high. Other people think that if you sleep and sleep and sleep, you will get very high. But don't underestimate the experience of the truth; don't think that it is analogous to these supreficial experiences. The inner experience is beyond all of these analogies. This is why the scriptures say, neti, neti; not this, not this.
Kabir says

It is an idle fantasy to say that after death
Your soul will automatically merge into God;
If you find the Lord now,
You will also find Him (or Her) after you die.
If you don't make an effort to find Him now,
You will end up with an apartment in the city of death.

Kabir had a great way of putting things! And it is so true if we don't do anything now to bring about this inner experience, when will we achieve it? We do not need to go far to find God. The Lord exists in our daily duties, but how many of us really look at our duty as God? Whatever your vocation is, whatever your life is, how many times do you feel you're serving God while performing your duties?
As we travel we get to see so many kinds of people working in so many different areas. People who sweep the floor of the plane feel, oh well, we're nobody; that's why we do this kind of work. The stewardess thinks, we don't get paid that much. The pilots feel the same, and so do the members of the ground crew. Oh well, they think, we don't have much skill, so here we are doing this menial job. When you see their faces, when you talk to them, you sense that they are feeling, I'm not good enough, and that's why I have this kind of job.
When we feel this way, we need to contemplate. We need to ask ourselves, why? Whey do I feel this way? Why is it I cannot see my duty as God? In the eyes of God, what is high and what is low?
Therefore Kashmir Shaivism says, "If you know the truth, you see this world as a play of consciousness, and then you are liberated while living."
In Europe, once upon a time, there was a peasant who was a saint. One day he entered the king's court and went right up to the throne of the king and sat by it. The prime minister asked him, "Who are you? Why are you sitting by the throne of this great king?" The peasant kept quiet. So the prime minister asked him, "Are you a relative of a great minister in this court?"
The peasant said, "No, no, higher."
"Higher? Are you a relative of the king?"
"Higher."
"Higher than the king? Are you the Pope?"
"Higher, higher."
"Higher than the Pope! Are you God?"
"Higher, higher."
"What is higher than God? Nothing!"
The peasant said, "Ahhh, I am that nothing!"
When you experience the truth, such humility automatically arises. Only then can we see our duty as God, no matter what we do. Only then can we experience happiness in the past, in the present, and in the future. Then our happiness is no longer relative; it is beyond relative terms. So Kabir says

Bathe in the truth now.
Know your inner Master
And develop complete faith in the name of God.
When you are searching for the Lord,
It is the intensity of your longing that does all the work.
Kabir says, if you look at me,
You'll see a slave of this intensity, this longing.

In your longing, you find the Lord; in your search, you experience the truth. When you're not truly searching for God, then even if His presence is right next to you, you don't see it. There was a seeker who wanted to find a great Master, so he set out looking for one. In the meantime, a great dervish came before him. The dervish asked him, "Where are you going?"
"I'm looking for a great Master," the seeker said. Then he asked the dervish, "Where are you going?"
The dervish said, "Nowhere, I'm just walking."
The seeker asked, "Can I walk with you?"
"Yes."
they started walking. They kept walking and walking, and they came across a huge tree. The dervish said, "this tree is telling me there is a thorn which is hurting the trunk. We must remove it."
The seeker said, "No, I don't have any time to waste. I'm looking for a great Master."
The dervish said, "Fine. Let's walk."
It was nightime, and they were in the woods. They halted. When they woke up the next morning, the seeker said, "I'm so hungry."
The dervish said, "Let's go back to that tree. Maybe it has some fruit."
When they got back, many travelers were eating honey from the tree. The seeker asked one of the travelers, "How did you know that this tree had honey?"
The traveler said, "I over heard your conversation. So some of us removed the thorn and all of this honey came gushing out. Do you want some honey?"
The seeker said yes, and both he and the dervish ate and left. They kept walking and they kept walking. In the meantime, they came across an anthill. The dervish said, "The ants are telling me there's a big rock in their way and they cannot build their house."
The seeker said, "I have no time to waste. I am looking for a great Master."
The dervish said, "Fine, Let's keep walking."
When nightime came they went to sleep. When they woke up in the morning, the seeker said, "I've lost my knife. Without a knife how can I continue my journey?"
So the dervish said, "Let's go back. Maybe you dropped it at the anthill."
When they arrived there, a different group of travelers was distributing gold coins. So the seeker asked one of them, "How did you get this gold?"
One of the travelers said, "I over heard your conversation. When we removed the rock we found a bucket full of gold coins. Do you want some? Have some."
the seeker thought, what do I need gold coins for? But still, I'll take some.
Then the seeker and the dervish continued their journey. Eventually they had to cross a river, and they were waiting for the boat to come. In the meantime, a fish was leaping in and out of the water. The dervish said, "the fish is telling me something is stuck in its throat. It wants some herbs to dislodge it."
Even now the seeker hadn't gotten the message. He said, "There is no time to waste. I'm looking for a great Master."
The boat arrived, and they went across. It was nighttime. They went to sleep. At twelve o'clock midnight there was a commotion outside their hut. "What is happening?" they both said, and they went outside.
The boatman was coming towards them with an incredibly beautiful ruby in his palm. The seeker asked him, "Where did you get it?"
The boatman said, "I heard your conversation. I gave the herbs to the fish, and this is what came out of his mouth."
the seeker got very upset with the dervish and said, "You knew the truth, you knew the secret all along, but you wouldn't give it to me!"
The dervish said, "Yes, I gave it to you freely. I didn't even test you."
The seeker said, "But the secret was so shrouded, how could I know it?"
The dervish said, "If it were not shrouded , then how could it be called a secret?"
You have to know it when it's given to you. Sometimes we make ourselves so dense that we don't understand anything. We get so easily carried away.
Another great saint, Guru Nanak, said

O my dear one, there isn't much you have to do.
You just have to give up your pride.
Let go of the company of your desire and anger,
And then you will find the Lord.
Consider both pain and pleasure,
Happiness and unhappiness to be the same.
Then you won't be eaten up by your desire and anger.

Once Sheik Nasrudin went to a spiritual discourse. He decided he would stop eating fish. He felt very spiritual. He went home and he told his wife, "I've given up eating fish."
She said, "What bad luck! Today, for the very first time, I've made a delicious fish soup!"
Nasrudin said, "Oh well, I've given up eating fish, but not fish soup." So he sat for his dinner, and she brought the fish soup. As she poured it, chunks of fish started coming out along with the soup, so she tried to stop the chunks with the ladle.
Nasrudin said, "If they come on their own, why stop them?"
A human desire is so amazing! We forget how our minds continually trick us. We think we are one thing, but we're something else entirely. Therefore, in his poem Guru Nanak wrote

Give up the pride of your mind,
Always look for the truth.
Guru Nanak says, I know this play is difficult,
But when you recieve the grace of a Master, it is possible,
It can become easier.

Wake up. Seek the truth.
Rise above ignorance.
Search out the best teacher,
And through the Master find the truth.

A seeker told a rabbi, "You say God is everywhere. Why don't I see him?" The rabbi asked him to look at the sun. It was summer, and the sun was bright. The seeker tried to look at the sun, and he said, "It's too blinding."
The rabbi said, "The sun is but one of the servants of God. If you cannot look at the sun, what makes you think that you can see God Himself (Herself)?"
We cannot see God through the physical eyes only. We must experience Him in every pore of our body. And unless we turn within, we cannot see Him. Therefore, Baba Muktananda said, "Meditate on your own Self. Worship your own Self. Kneel to your own Self. Understand your own Self. God dwells within you as you." This "you" is the real, perfect you within, which is also your own inner Master.
We will meet here for the next few days. Even though this room is in a hotel, since people will meditate, chant, and hold satsang here, for the next few days it will be our cave. This hall will be as powerful as the top of a mountain, as deep as the ocean. If you want the experience of God, you will have it. So many people have come here from so many different places. On the outside you've already traveled a great distance. While going nowhere, while staying right here, we'll be traveling an even greater distance inside.
One again, with great respect and with great love, I welcome you all with all my heart.

-Swami Chidvilasananda (Gurumayi)
excerpt from the book, Transformation volume 3
a talk given in Paris France on April 14, 1987

ENJOY