Soul consciousness is derived from experiencing the self as the soul, having understood its definition. I am a point of incorporeal conscient light. The essential elements of my own self are purity, peace, love, power and bliss to the fullest extent. Recognising that the self is this, practicing to be like this, evokes the experience of being jut this. Using the mind to envision the self as invisible, immortal and ultra-subtle enables the self to experience itself. I am Me… or OM.. I am Peace. Om Shanti becomes your self-introduction. You introduce yourself to yourself as a peaceful being… detached.
Body consciousness is the endless whirling of the mind from one thought to another, associated or disconnected, thought. You identify yourself as your body, seeing your persona in comparison with others. Perceiving yourself to be greater than or less that the other. Negative emotions fuel your inner landscape yet you use a variety of tactics to avoid feeling your feelings. You find yourself constructing plausible masks, which you refine or replace when their luster dims. You find reasonable justifications for your weak actions.
Your Approach
The recommendation is this: Consider yourself to be a soul and focus your mind on the Source, the Supreme Power, the Higher Intelligence, God. Go within, stay within and savour your inner self. Be with yourself and keep the outside on the outside. Sitting in the consciousness of the soul, you gradually become silent. That is, the mind quietens down. I sit in the silent space mid-point between the extremes of happiness and sorrow that spin around noisily. Being still means just being… not doing.
Everywhere, souls seem to be impregnated with materialism… arrogance, greed or violence. Body Consciousness devours the higher aspects of your soul, drains its energy, and compels you to act against your own interests. The soul becomes burdened, bows under the weight and drags on. Body consciousness compels you to lay blame, generate complaints and criticisms to create the illusion of being OK. You, the soul, forget your essence and sink into lethargy, craving stimulation. In that state, many conclude there is no soul at all. There is only matter, electricity, self-gratification. Only soulless matter is real.
Your Lifestyle
Soul Consciousness generates a balanced and disciplined life. Your daily routine is natural. You rise early to sit in contemplative silence, filling the self with light and power. You prepare and clean your body… make your mind ready to absorb wisdom and higher teachings. You move into the active day, serving to create a better world… attending to duties conscientiously detached… from time to time moving your mind beyond, ensuring that you don’t get caught up in the drama of action and reaction.
As the day draws to a close, you give time for your family, and turn your thoughts in service of the wider world. You review the ups and downs of your day, turn within for rest and recollection. You lay your body down and return to the realm of silence beyond.
Body Conscious life is random and undisciplined. You awaken when your work dictates, tumbling into coffee, shower, clothes, car, office addictive ways, your mind chattering and getting hyper. You take uncalculated risks, sometimes bellowing from the top of mountains, other times getting ground between mill stones of disastrous failures. You lose your sense of self, and avoid remembering your higher priorities. You may live in a state of denial, rejecting the voice of your conscience. You easily get bored with yourself and everything around you. You cry out for love, but can’t recognise it. You get drawn into temptations and emptiness. You sleep to forget and awaken late, perhaps a little shocked.
Your Effort
Soul Consciousness means to come to terms with all aspects of the self. The effort of soul consciousness is to become neutral in the face of all the good and bad that arise within the soul, and focus on your original eternal condition of purity, peace, power, love and bliss. Soul Consciousness means to become still and melt the effect of negativity, the weight that presses down upon the mind as a dark shadow of ill feelings. Spiritual depletion occurs when the soul has acted against itself repeatedly.
Soul Consciousness is being in your power. I , the soul, observe the performance of the other, detached and dispassionate, knowing who I am. Being in your power is an attitude, a position adopted vis-à-vis the other, or independently, so that no activities or behaviour impact you, or cause you to change your position. Self-identity and feelings of self are not subject to the attitude or position of the other. Inner power levels are high. Energy drainers cannot draw your vital essence because you do not permit it. You are naturally and consistently linked, and feel the presence of the Supreme Being with you.
Body Consciousness is to forget who you are and become as the other sees you or wants you to be. In Body Consciousness there are victims and perpetrators. In Soul Consciousness you are equals, comrades at arms addressing a common task, facing a common challenge and enjoying the fruits of shared victory. In Body Consciousness you fall into traps on the pretext of respect, love or honour. Your intellect ceases to serve you, your conscience has stopped functioning and you allow unhealthy relationships to occur. Your energy gets drained and your happiness has been robbed. You did not protect yourself due to lack of subtlety. You have all the information you need, but fail to use it. Your inner functioning is paralysed.
Your Awareness
In Soul Consciousness you remember the Supreme Being. You view your priorities and interactions with others through the lens of the awareness of God. Your mind’s eye does not rush to people, places and things, assignments, failures or successes. Your inner eye sees the soul in front of you. Your soul is alight and empowered. You are aware. In Body Consciousness you lose yourself and cannot see who is in front of you. You have no sense of God. Your soul is dark. Soul Consciousness makes your intuition sharp and accurate. The right things happen fortuitously with the right people. Everything has meaning nd signals your forward movement. It verifies your steps.
In Soul Consciousness you don’t take sorrow. Your connectedness keeps you alert, mindful and careful. Someone may say something hurtful and you immediately rise into your power of tolerance. The electric bolt passes right through leaving no impact or impression. It does not lodge into your heart. In Body Consciousness you take on the negativity and take it in. You are super sensitive and have no resistance or resilience. Your mind gnaws wounds and increases their impact. You form a debt because you accepted sorrow without noticing.
Your Task
Soul Consciousness gives you the power to flex with any scene within the Drama. Inner power is a set of tools, attitudes and poses that protect the soul. Pain taken into the soul at any point in life distorts and corrupts the essence. As long as there is pain, it drives character defects. The process of removal of pain from the soul is painful therefore tolerance is required. Tolerance means to detach and to surrender, letting go of all forms of ego. Ego is resistance, covering up, avoiding realities. Alternating, you have to face and tolerate. Discrimination and discernment, self-diagnosis of your character is required. See: what did I do to myself… what was done to me? Put it into perspective; see the origin, emergence and dissolution of all occurrences. Discern the patterns, and adjust. Neither you not anyone else is to blame. You become reconciled to the paradoxes of happiness and sorrow, justice and injustice.
Soul Consciousness gives you enough distance to judge yourself accurately through rigorous self-checking that reveals the true nature of your motivations. The effort of Soul Consciousness is to become honest. Soul Consciousness tunes you to the original essential frequency of your being… a soundless harmonious note exclusive to you. Any dissonance becomes tangible and the conscience catches the force that drives the soul to perform negative actions. The activated conscience upholds the harmony and integrity of the soul, refusing all thoughts that lead to dissonance. The intellect begins to work.
Body Consciousness is self-sabotage… you undermine yourself, deliberately, knowingly, yet unconsciously. You know, but don’t know, you see, but don’t see yourself. Body Consciousness raises excuses. I had to because… I couldn’t because… I can’t because… Soul Consciousness says: I can… I will… I am…
Body Consciousness sees no way out of dilemmas. Alternately it paralyses the soul or takes you into depression. Your courage ebbs away and is replaced by moral cowardice. You begin to lie and turn your back on truth. You lose your ability to empathise and may become cruel in the name of social conventions. You begin to accumulate debt and your mind creeps into unconsciousness. Your heart no longer has a place for God as it fills with waste and negativity. Now you avoid the disturbing sound of silence.
Your Experience
Soul Consciousness is satisfaction. It is an inner state of total acceptance of the self, or all others and of all scenes of the drama of life. In Body Consciousness you flip flop on the roller coaster of the pairs of opposites, loving and hating, exuberant and in despair. In Soul Consciousness you are calm, deep, and beyond storms. You are balanced in the knowing that nothing can destroy you, nothing can corrupt you and nothing can break into your harmony. You are fully integrated. You are ready. You can leave and return in your perfected state, both physical and spiritual.
Om Shanti