Dimensions of Our Awareness
When you look into the “lake of clear reflection” you see God. You see yourself.
A human being is an extraordinarily complex matrix of energy and consciousness, a miniature version of the matrix of energy and Consciousness that is the fabric of the Universe. That infinite matrix distills itself into our individuality, into human form. In that distillation there is nothing lost, there is reduction of the infinite potential and multiple dimensions of consciousness inherent in that Pure Awareness.
Since we are made of Pure Awareness, nothing in us is “bad.” It is imperative that we approach our individuality and humanness from this understanding and seek to uncover our unity with God. With this as our intent, we can use our capacity for self-inquiry to recognize all the different dimensions of our humanness, of the fabric from which we have been woven.
The level of consciousness in us we call ego does not have the capacity to see the fullness of what we are because it sees itself as separate from its Source. All perception from that level of consciousness has within it the continued attempt to reinforce this misunderstanding, and the ego is incapable of penetrating through, or letting go of, its self-referential perspective. It cannot see the underlying, unlimited field from which its limited level of consciousness arises.
To penetrate through that veil, that experience of separation, we must find the capacity to surrender our limitations. We have to let go of that completely binding place in us that is perpetually doing in order to get something it thinks will complete us. Einstein rightly said that you can’t solve a problem from the place it was created. That statement applies perfectly to the ego.
Learning to Rest in Stillness
All of our binding mental and emotional activity is only a fluctuation of the underlying stillness within, and yet, in that fluctuation there is a blurring of clarity. I like to use the metaphor of Lake Shrinagar in Kashmir, which is often called “the lake of clear reflection.” It is said that when you look into the lake, you see God; you see your Self. As long as the lake remains still and placid, it completely reflects the truth. But if we shake it up, the ripples no longer allow us to see that clear reflection. We lose what’s called vimarśa, our self-reflective capacity — the ability of consciousness to know itself as God. This is the power of the limited consciousness we call ego.
What we want to do in our lives is not to deny our humanness but to embrace the life we’ve been given as embodied beings. This life has been given to us so that we can discover our own divinity, which doesn’t mean dropping our bodies and escaping into transcendence. It means having the direct experience of the union of our individual consciousness (the consciousness our embodied life is the form of) with Divine Consciousness. This is true freedom, what the tantric tradition calls jīvanmukti, which means “liberation while alive.”
Be Willing to be Freed of Ego
What is it we are being liberated from, and what is being liberated? Consciousness is being liberated from its own contracted state. And that is what it means to be free of the ego, which is the contracted state of consciousness that experiences itself as separate and different. Because that is its primary experience, when we act from ego, we grasp and demand, and when we cannot make life look exactly how we want it to be, we scream and holler. That is when the ego becomes ugly and becomes the black hole of consciousness, sucking away energy that would otherwise work to free us, and using that power to add to the density of its own misunderstanding. To find liberation in ourselves, to find that true recognition of our highest essence, we must resist the ego’s pull.
In order to not act from ego, we must surrender our impulse to respond to life from it. Stop demanding and grasping — and when some mental and emotional dynamic comes up, just don’t act: don’t grab, don’t respond, don’t start swinging a sledgehammer. Simply take a breath, pull the energy of that external dynamic back inside yourself and be still. Find some stillness of mind, some stillness of action, and rest there until the turbulence of mind and emotion dissipates. Only in stillness can you recognize that the activities of the ego are only ripples on the lake of Consciousness.
If you can become still inside and surrender how valid you think your ego or understanding is, you will see that it’s possible to stop living from that limited place. Then, all the energy ego had been using to defend itself will be absorbed back into your cakra system and into the channel of Consciousness within it. And, more importantly, it will reveal to you the vastness of Consciousness that is the wellspring of all that energy. Have the willingness to surrender your ego. Sādhana must be based on the fundamental willingness to surrender the need to defend and reinforce the limited part of us. The deepest dimension of Consciousness within you is trying to show Itself. Let It do Its work. Surrender to that power.