Awakening of the gods
  • Home
  • Intro
    • Introduction
    • Mystics
  • Spirit
    • Introduction
    • Plato's Cave
    • Spirit - God beyond Creation
    • Ishvara - God within Creation
    • The Mystic Vision
  • Universe
    • Introduction
    • Basic Creation
    • The View of Modern Science
    • Helpful Creation Analogies
    • Personalized Creation Model
  • Adventures
    • Introduction
    • Adventures in Wonderland
    • Cosmic Hypnosis
    • Ego and God-consciousness
    • Karma and Reincarnation
    • Destiny and Free Will
    • Why is there Suffering?
  • Awakening
    • Introduction
    • Religion and Spirituality
    • Paradise Lost
    • Who and Where are We?
    • The Path to Awakening
    • Awakening and Enlightenment
  • New
  • Wrap Up

Our Adventures in
Wonderland

Ego-consciousness and God-consciousness

Picture
Picture
Quotations on The Nature of ego-consciousness

“We human beings are what we have been for millions of years - colossally greedy, envious, aggressive, jealous, anxious and despairing, with occasional flashes of joy and affection. We are a strange mixture of hate, fear and gentleness; we are both violence and peace.” ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti.

“Forget the past. The vanished lives of all men are dark with many shames. Human conduct is ever unreliable until man is anchored in the Divine.” ~ Sri Yukteswar
 
“Thinking, or more precisely identification with thinking, gives rise to and maintains the ego, which, in our Western society in particular, is out of control. It believes it is real and tries hard to maintain its supremacy. Negative states of mind, such as anger, resentment, fear, envy, and jealousy, are products of the ego.” ~ Eckhart Tolle
 
“Humans have been in the grip of pain for eons, ever since they fell from the state of grace, entered the realm of time and mind, and lost awareness of Being. At that point, they started to perceive themselves as meaningless fragments in an alien universe, unconnected to the Source and to each other.”
~ Eckhart Tolle


“ You have probably come across "mad" people in the street incessantly talking or muttering to themselves. Well, that's not much different from what you and all other "normal" people do, except that you don't do it out loud. The voice comments, speculates, judges, compares, complains, likes, dislikes, and so on. The voice isn't necessarily relevant to the situation you find yourself in at the time; it may be reliving the recent or distant past or rehearsing or imagining possible future situations.” ~ Eckhart Tolle

“Human life is beset with sorrow until we know how to tune in with the Divine Will, whose 'right course' is often baffling to the egoistic intelligence.” ~ Sri Yukteswar

“Thought and sensation are not a part of the soul, but are the experience of the ego consciousness in the dream … if for just an instant there is neither thought nor feeling … it reveals momentarily the presence of the soul, which exists above ego and its instruments of thought and feeling.” ~ P. Yogananda

“All unhappiness is due to the ego. With it comes all your trouble. What does it avail you to attribute the cause of misery to the happenings of life when that cause is really within you?” ~ Ramana Maharshi

“The most common ego identifications have to do with possessions, the work you do, social status and recognition, knowledge and education, physical appearance, special abilities, relationships, personal and family history, belief systems, and often political, nationalistic, racial, religious, and other collective identifications. None of these is you.”
~ Eckhart Tolle


“The essence, the very foundation, of the teaching is that a different state of consciousness is possible for humans. The state of consciousness that is considered normal and that has been running human history for thousands of years is not the only possible state of consciousness. It’s also not the most advanced state possible for humans. It’s nothing new. All the great teachings and teachers have pointed to the fact, since the normal state of consciousness is a state that is extremely deficient, a state that in the ancient teachings has been called suffering. The Buddha called it suffering, Jesus called it a state of sin and illusion, and the Hindus call it a state of illusion. So, all ancient teachings agree that the normal human state of consciousness is, as I call it, a state of insanity. Anybody can verify this for themselves if they look at human history, 90 percent of which - really, if you look at it objectively - would be called the history of collective insanity, with the enormous amount of suffering inflicted by humans on other humans and on themselves and other species.” ~ Eckhart Tolle

“The old state of consciousness is also a state of identification with thought processes. Now what does that mean? To be identified means to derive your sense of self, of who you are from thought movements, to be completely trapped in the mental noise, to have your identity in the mental noise.
Then your whole sense of self is derived from thought, which means an image forms in the head of "who I am," of "that’s me," and that image is always ill at ease, even in the people who look very confident. The self image of the Little Me as I call it, a mind-made sense of self or ego, is always ill at ease. This sense of self needs conflict in order to feel that it exists. It cannot tolerate a prolonged period of non-conflict because the Little Me depends for its continuous existence on the feeling of separateness.” ~ Eckhart Tolle


 “Ego means self-identification with thinking, to be trapped in thought, which means to have the unhappy self, or the unhappy me, become part of their sense of self or identity. It continuously tells them who they are or how miserable they are. They don’t want to let go because there is a fear that they will lose their sense of self.” ~ Eckhart Tolle

“All the misery on the planet arises due to a personalized sense of “me” or “us.” That covers up the essence of who you are. When you are unaware of that inner essence, in the end you always create misery. It’s as simple as that. When you don’t know who you are, you create a mind-made self as a substitute for your beautiful divine being and cling to that fearful and needy self. Protecting and enhancing that false sense of self then becomes your primary motivating force.”
~ Eckhart Tolle

Picture
Picture
Quotations on The ego-conscious Mind-Processor

“The mind is a superb instrument if used rightly. Used wrongly, however, it becomes very destructive. To put it more accurately, it is not so much that you use your mind wrongly -- you usually don't use it at all. It uses you. This is the disease. You believe that you are your mind. This is the delusion. The instrument has taken you over.” ~ Eckhart Tolle

“All cravings are the mind seeking salvation or fulfillment in external things and in the future as a substitute for the joy of Being. As long as I am my mind, I am those cravings, those needs, wants, attachments, and aversions.” ~ Eckhart Tolle

“Not to be able to stop thinking is a dreadful affliction, but we don't realize this because almost everybody is suffering from it, so it is considered normal. This incessant mental noise prevents you from finding that realm of inner stillness that is inseparable from Being. It also creates a false mind-made self that casts a shadow of fear and suffering.” ~ Eckhart Tolle

“The compulsive thinker, which means almost everyone, lives in a state of apparent separateness, in an insanely complex world of continuous problems and conflict, a world that reflects the ever-increasing fragmentation of the mind.”  
~ Eckhart Tolle


“You derive your sense of self from the content and activity of your mind……you believe that you would cease to be if you stopped thinking. As you grow up, you form a mental image of who you are, based on your personal and cultural conditioning. We may call this phantom self the ego. It consists of mind activity and can only be kept going through constant thinking.” ~ Eckhart Tolle

Picture
Picture
Picture
Quotations on The Nature of god-consciousness
 
“When in inner union he is beyond the world of the body, then the world of the Spirit is found where man possesses all - for he is one with the One.” ~ Svetasvatara Upanishad

“I am nothing else but that supreme Self which is eternal, pure, liberated, one, unbroken Bliss, undivided Existence, and unlimited Knowledge.” ~ Shankaracharya

“A drunken man does not notice whether he is wearing his shawl or whether it has fallen off, so the Realised Man is hardly aware of his body and it makes no difference to him whether it remains or drops off.” ~ Ramana Maharshi

“Being is the eternal, ever-present One Life beyond the myriad forms of life that are subject to birth and death. However, Being is not only beyond but also deep within every form as its innermost invisible and indestructible essence. This means that is accessible to you now as your own deepest self, your true nature. But don't seek to grasp it with your mind. Don't try to understand it. You can know it only when the mind is still.” ~ Eckhart Tolle

“Insofar as the genuine mystic is totally emptied of “self” and becomes a pure instrument of God, he or she may honestly and truly declare “I am awake,” as did the Buddha, or “I and the Father are One” as did Jesus, where the “I” refers not to the human instrument, but to God.” ~ Thomas J. McFarlane

“Thou art He, without one of these limitations.” ~ Ibn Arabi

“Is this living Splendor, this beaming Sun of Life, beyond the slightest touch of earthly sorrow, suffering or pain, my real Self? O wonder of wonders, am I this immortal Being, happy beyond measure.” ~ Gopi Krishna

“Before the world was, you were, and when the world is no longer, you remain” ~ Nisargadatta Maharaj

“You yourself are God, the Supreme Reality.” ~ Nisargadatta Maharaj
 
“We are not only permeated by God’s Consciousness, we are made of His essence; we are projections of His light. And our consciousness is essentially identical with the Consciousness of God.”
~ Swami Abhayananda

“A visiting Irish journalist asked her, “Am I right to believe that you are God?” to which Sri Ma replied, “There is nothing save He alone; everyone and everything is a form of God. In your person also He has come.” ~ Anandamoyi Ma

“Right knowledge, destroying ignorance, dissolves the ego-sense consciousness of oneness with the immortal Atman, seated in your heart, and pervading all life and form in the universe.” ~ Papa Ramdas
 
“Forget not that you are the immortal and blissful Spirit.”
~ Papa Ramdas


“Consider not that you are merely a perishable and changing being; you are the absolute, immortal, changeless, omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient Truth.”~ Papa Ramdas
 
“Throw off the mask that enshrouds your real Divine nature and reveal yourself in all your magnificence.” ~ Papa Ramdas
 
“Since most of us exist on a lower level of consciousness, we do not experience ourselves as the divine Self; instead, we experience ourselves as individual souls with distinctly unique attributes, and we deal with others as individuals with unique attributes - though in fact, there is only the one Divinity living and acting in the world as individual souls.”
~ Swami Abhayananda

“At the highest, or deepest, spiritual level, there are no souls; there is only the divine Self ... it is realized by enlightened sages as the highest truth, the sole source and origin of all the manifest planes of existence, and everyone’s ultimate identity.”
~ Swami Abhayananda

Picture
Quotations on Comparison of ego-consciousness and god-consciousness
 
“You see yourself in the world, while I see the world in myself. To you, you get born and die, while to me the world appears and disappears.” ~ Nisargadatta Maharaj

“Mind is consciousness which has put on limitations. You are originally unlimited and perfect. Later you take on limitations and become the mind.” ~ Ramana Maharshi
 
“We are the Divine Self of the universe. But, through Maya, we have become deluded into believing that we are poor, limited, finite forms whose only satisfaction is in the pitiable pleasures of the flesh.” ~ Prajapati

“Throughout history, it has been the contention of the mystics of all cultural traditions that the “vision of God” reveals man's essential oneness with Absolute Being, awakening him to his true, eternal Identity. Prior to such divine illumination, say these mystics, man suffers under the mistaken illusion that he is a limited and finite being.”
~ Swami Abhayananda

“Our essence, the one Divine Consciousness, is the only true ‘I’ in all the universe and beyond; It is everyone’s eternal Identity. But, by His mysterious power of illusion (maya), the Spirit born into this world as soul takes on a limited set of characteristics … which constitutes one’s limited temporal identity, otherwise known as the jiva, or individualized soul.” ~ Swami Abhayananda

“Those who have not found their true wealth, which is the radiant joy of Being and the deep, unshakable peace that comes with it, are beggars, even if they have great material wealth. They are looking outside for scraps of pleasure or fulfillment, for validation, security, or love, while they have a treasure within that not only includes all those things but is infinitely greater than anything the world can offer.”
~ Eckhart Tolle

 
“The thought "I cannot live with myself any longer" kept repeating itself in my mind. Then, suddenly, I became aware of the strangeness of that thought. "If 'I' cannot live with 'myself,' there must be two of me: the 'I' and the 'self' I cannot live with." In that moment, my consciousness withdrew its identification from the unhappy, deeply conditioned and very fearful self. The withdrawal must have been so complete that this false, suffering self collapsed completely, much like a plug had been pulled out of an inflatable toy. What was left was my true nature as the ever-present I AM: consciousness in its pure state prior to identification with form. I woke up the next day in bliss, which comes and goes. But the undercurrent of peace has never left me since then.” ~ Eckhart Tolle

“Fear arises through identification with form, whether it be a material possession, a physical body, a social role, a self-image, a thought, or an emotion. It arises through unawareness of the formless inner dimension of consciousness or spirit, which is the essence of who you are. You are trapped in object consciousness, unaware of the dimension of inner space which alone is true freedom.”
~ Eckhart Tolle


“For many thousands of years, we have lived identified with the conditioned mind, deriving from it a narrow and ultimately illusory sense of self, a "little me" - always struggling, fearful, uneasy, in conflict with itself and others. We are now opening into our natural state of "self," oneness with Being - the vast realm of consciousness or universal intelligence itself, of which the thinking mind is only a tiny aspect. This is the realm of inner stillness from where all the things arise that make life worth living: creativity, peace, aliveness, joy, love.” ~ Eckhart Tolle

“You are the bird of happiness in the magic of existence! What a pity when you let yourself be chained and caged. But if you can break free from this dark prison named body soon you will see you are the sage and the fountain of life!” ~ Rumi

“Because we tend to identify with the separative mind and the transient body, we lose sight of our eternal nature as pure Consciousness. Yet It is always there, just behind our minds.”
~ Swami Abhayananda

“At the heart of every soul is the Self, the one eternal Existence- Consciousness-Bliss. But, through ignorance of its real nature, it races about, identifying with the active mind and senses.” ~ Swami Abhayananda

“You have abandoned all the great, pure, calm oceans of water, and clung to only one bubble which you regard as the whole body of water in all the hundreds of thousands of seas.” ~ Surangama Sutra 

“In all three states [waking state, dream state, deep sleep state], there is an unchanging Consciousness which is not involved in the activities of those states, but who witnesses them, and who is the real you, the real Self, independent of the mind and body. That is our true Identity. There is a fourth state, which can be experienced in deep meditation. It occurs when the mind becomes entirely pure and still and merges into that universal Consciousness. Then, one becomes aware, ‘I am everything; … I am Consciousness and Bliss.’ Such a state is not just imaginary; it is not just a theory. Many people have experienced such a state. It is the experience of that which underlies all of the great philosophies and religions of the world.”
~ Swami Abhayananda

“When we are identified with the physical body, we are operating almost solely through our senses, and we find our gratification in things of sense. When we identify with the mental realm, we are conscious of the inner play of random thoughts and images, and we delight in the play of thought. When we ascend a bit to the intellectual realm, we identify with the critical intelligence which discriminates, censures, and deliberates; thereby elevated in concentration above the rambling mind, we take pleasure in the clarity of discernment. Above this intellect, we experience our soul - at its lower level the repository of our karma, and at its higher level the bearer not only of our highest moral directive and purpose, but the driving impetus guiding us toward our own Source with a heartfelt longing, like that of a moth to a flame. The soul is drawn to the Light within it, and looks, not below to the realm of mental activity or the realm of sense, but above toward the Divine whence it comes.” ~ Swami Abhayananda

“You don't have a soul. You are a Soul. You have a body.”
~ C. S. Lewis


“Man is a soul and has a body.” ~ Sri Yukteswar

“So long as the sense of "me" and "mine" remains, there is bound to be sorrow and want in the life of the individual ... God is one's very own Self, the breath of one's breath, the life of one's life, the Atman.” ~ Anandamoyi Ma

“We are the Unlimited, while appearing as limited; we are the Divine Self, the ultimate Reality, while living in this dream-like phantasmagoria as human forms.”
~ Swami Abhayananda

"When I open my eyes to the outer world, I feel myself as a drop in the sea; but when I close my eyes and look within, I see the whole universe as a bubble raised in the ocean of my heart." ~ Inayat Khan

“We carry inside us the wonders we seek outside us.” ~ Rumi

“I long to escape the prison of my ego and lose myself in you.” ~ Rumi

“Each man is part of the Creator, or Cosmic Man; he has a heavenly body as well as one of earth. The human eye sees the physical form, but the inner eye penetrates more profoundly, even to the universal pattern of which each man is an integral and individual part.” ~ Sri Yukteswar

“The soul consciousness can say … “I and my Father[Spirit] are one.” The deluded ego consciousness says, “I am the body; this is my family and name; these are my possessions.”
~ P. Yogananda

 
“Soul is the essential radiance of God, the Divine Mind; and individualized souls partake of that same reality, though by their connection to body, they are confined to time and space. These souls, enamored of the material world, become disoriented, bound by their own attachment to matter; but by a deliberate reversal of its intention, an individualized soul is able to look within, examine itself, and ‘see’ its Origin, its higher Self, thereby regaining awareness of its true, eternal identity. …… And he is capable of directly experiencing that Divine Identity within himself.”
~ Swami Abhayananda

Picture
Picture
Picture
“When the soul returns to God, the ego is voluntarily relinquished.” ~ Edgar Cayce

 “God is equally present in all creatures; but all creatures are not equally aware of the fact.” ~ Aldous Huxley

“Man can cease to become man, and become God.” ~ Plotinus
 
“You are awareness, disguised as a person.” ~ Eckhart Tolle

“They are no more than unconscious players in the egoic game, a game that looks so important yet is ultimately devoid of true purpose. It is, in the words of Shakespeare, “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
~ Eckhart Tolle


“In normal everyday usage, "I" embodies the primordial error, a misperception of who you are, an illusory sense of identity. This is the ego. The illusory sense of self is what Albert Einstein, who had deep insights not only into the reality of space and time, but also into human nature, referred to as "an optical illusion of consciousness.” ~ Eckhart Tolle

“You might say, “I know I am an immortal spirit,” or “I am tired of this mad world, and peace is all I want” - until the phone rings. Bad news: The stock market has collapsed; the deal may fall through; the car has been stolen; your mother-in-law has arrived; the trip is cancelled, the contract has been broken; your partner has left you; they demand more money; they say it’s your fault. Suddenly there is a surge of anger, of anxiety. A harshness comes into your voice; “I can’t take any more of this.” You accuse and blame, attack, defend, or justify yourself, and it’s all happening on autopilot. Something is obviously much more important to you now than the inner peace that a moment ago you said was all you wanted, and you’re not an immortal spirit anymore either. The deal, the money, the contract, the loss or threat of loss are more important. To whom? To the immortal spirit that you said you are? No, to me. The small me that seeks security or fulfillment in things that are transient and gets anxious or angry because it fails to find it.” ~ Eckhart Tolle

 
As mentioned many times herein, humans are endowed with two forms of awareness – god-consciousness and ego-consciousness. To many, these are strange terms.

What is consciousness? People have written volumes on this topic. From various sources, we get terms such as “awareness of one's own existence, sensations, thoughts, surroundings, etc” or “the quality or state of being aware” or “the state of being awake, thinking, and knowing what is happening around you” or “a sense of one's personal or collective identity, including the attitudes, beliefs, and sensitivities held by or considered characteristic of an individual or group.” Summarizing the above, perhaps we can say consciousness is “a state of awareness of one’s self/identity and one’s surroundings.”

In simple terms, ego-consciousness is the state of identifying with one’s body (“I-am-the-body) and one’s immediate surroundings while god-consciousness is the state of awareness of one’s identity as a god, or as Spirit both within and beyond the universe.

To keep an already difficult topic as simple as possible, we will only consider ego-consciousness and god-consciousness in the context of one’s normal waking consciousness (i.e. not sleep or subconsciousness or other forms of consciousness). This does not limit the discussion in any way.

We start out our existence as souls, created by Spirit to be unique, individualized extensions of Itself. As such, the soul is essentially the same as Spirit. This is god-consciousness, an immortal, blissful state of existence. The terms soul-consciousness, god-consciousness and God-consciousness can all be used interchangeably and are essentially synonymous. Using a non-capitalized version for god or god-consciousness is merely a device to “soften” the truth that the true nature of man is God. Most humans, under the control of their ego-conscious minds, would have difficulty seeing themselves as God. Perhaps “god” is easier to accept. Using “god” also helps signify that we are referring to man within creation. For example, Jesus of Nazareth is quoted as saying, “Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods.” As well, Paramahansa Yogananda has written, “The only effort we have to make is to forget our mortal consciousness; as soon as that is done, we know we are gods” and elsewhere, “You are all gods, if you only knew it.”

Once man returns to his native home beyond creation, the capitalized version “God” may be easier to appreciate. However, capitalized or not capitalized, the essence is the same.

Some mystics refer to this state of god-consciousness as the Self, or Self-realization, or Being or Nirvana. The soul outside of creation is boundless, immortal bliss. It feels a direct connection and oneness not only to Spirit but also to all of the other individualized extensions of Spirit; an all-encompassing reach. It is essentially Spirit Itself.

As such, it is not surprising that qualities such as universal love, joy, compassion, empathy, generosity, fearlessness, peace, happiness, forgiveness, wisdom, etc. are indicative of some level of god-consciousness.

In order to enter the virtual reality world of the universe, one must put on a VR body-suit, much like a player of one of today’s VR games must put on a VR headset or other device in order to enter and play within the simulated virtual environment of the game. Our playing in the universe is just the same. As well, in order to enjoy the game better, we have to pretend to be the character or person we are playing, i.e. part of our consciousness needs to pretend to be the game player and part of our consciousness needs to remember our real identity outside of the game. For us, our identity outside the game is our god-consciousness, the individualized extensions of Spirit that is our true self.

Within the game, our pretend selves are these body-suits that we occupy and the associated mind-processors that come with them. In order to pretend to be these game players, we take on the spell of cosmic hypnosis, i.e. maya and avidya. Maya makes us think this game environment of the world is real and avidya makes us think that the virtual body-suits we occupy are real and who we are. This is ego-consciousness.

Spirit’s cosmic virtual reality game is best played when there is a balanced blend of god-consciousness and ego-consciousness, so that we can pretend to be the body-forms while still retaining awareness of our true god-conscious selves. We get ourselves into trouble when we become so engrossed in this realistic simulation that we begin to believe that the simulation of the universe is real and that our pretend body-forms are our real identity. Our true god-consciousness is forgotten and our ego-consciousness becomes our reality. We become trapped inside the game and forget how to get out. Like most VR games, the virtual game of the universe involves a lot of action, good guys and bad guys, death and destruction, wars, etc. That’s fine when you know the game is not real, just a simulation. Nobody is killed – it’s all just forms of simulated light energy. When you lose that understanding, the game becomes devastatingly real. And such is the current predicament of most of the human “players” on earth today.

Paramahansa Yogananda describes this predicament in a conversation he had with Spirit, as quoted below. Note that Yogananda uses the analogy of a movie picture show rather than a virtual reality game (which had not yet been invented). One can easily substitute a virtual reality game into this quote instead. Both analogies are quite effective.

“I remember one day I was in the movies; movies have one fascination, because I see the whole world as movies. I was in the booth and I saw the operator was reading a novel and I saw this automatic machine was going on and the beam was causing on the screen a terrible horror picture. And I said, “Lord, how is it. I have the whole show of the universe in front of me. You are this operator who is thinking of new plays and Your Nature is throwing this beam in the sky. And I see the hero and the villain are nothing but pictures. Nobody is killed.” Many were being killed and shot in this picture but I saw from the booth it was the light that had created the villain and the light had created the hero. And the Voice said, “….. there is no villain, no hero, they are both pictures of my beam ..… realize that all this world which you see, of terrible wars and troubles, is nothing but a picture show, cosmic motion picture show in the sky” ….. Until you find that out, this world is a terrible show. I said to God, as He was talking to me, “But Lord, look at the audience. They are howling and screeching downstairs at this horror show. I see it is nothing but pictures and light because I see the invisible beam. There are no murders in the beam, no heroes, no villains in the beam. But Lord, what about the audience – they don’t know it.” Then the Voice said, “Tell them all to … realize that this show is given to entertain them, not to get mixed up with it.”
 
Ego-consciousness is associated with the mortal body-suit and the body-suit’s mind processor. This mind-processor is much like a computer program associated with a VR headset or game. It is designed to take the data from the body-suit’s five senses, process the data and then produce and project an immersive holographic movie of a “mini-universe” which contains the condensed light forms of the body-suit and all of the objects within the range of the five senses. This is the world of the ego-conscious mind. One cannot occupy a mortal body-suit without taking on some ego-consciousness. The thoughts that our minds produce are all a function of the ego. In fact, the following words can be used interchangeably – ego-consciousness, body (body-suit), mind (mind-processor), thoughts, and mortality. If you identify with any one of these words, you will identify with all the others. For example, if you occupy a body (or body-suit), you will always have a mind (mind-processor), a myriad of thoughts, a sense of mortality, and ego-consciousness as well. The terms used in parentheses are to help remind us that the things we take as real are not real, i.e. the body is better referred to as a body-suit to remind us that it is a vehicle we occupy in order to enter the VR cosmic playground. It is not our real self.

Similarly, the mind that we usually associate with ourselves is really a mind-processor that comes with the body-suit to perform the functions mentioned above. It is merely a tool. While the mind-processor has some intelligence and reasoning capabilities, it is still quite limited. It is not capable of fathoming the highest realities beyond time and space. Our real awareness is the infinite, timeless god-consciousness, but when we forget that, while in ego-consciousness, the mind-processor becomes our conscious self.

As mentioned, thoughts are produced by this mind-processor. In fact, the mind-processor produces a constant background chatter of thoughts. To see this, just sit still, close your eyes and choose not to have any thoughts for the next 5 minutes. Be still. The mind-processor does not want to be still. The thoughts are almost always either replaying something from the past or anticipating something in the future. The mind-processor likes to live in the past or the future; it only functions in the present when undertaking a highly intricate task.

The illusion of time and space is built into the VR game of the cosmic playground. In order to play in this playground, the vehicle of the body-suit and ego-consciousness must assume time and space to be real. It is part of the game. This is so ingrained in us that to suggest that time and space are not real is very hard to accept. Modern science is helping in this regard, but it is still a major stretch. We will address this topic in more detail in a future entry to the What’s New section of the website, under the title of The Enigma of Time and Space.

As well, ego-consciousness and cosmic hypnosis (or maya and avidya) go hand in hand. Without the spell of maya, ego-consciousness cannot exist.
 
Ego-consciousness without any god-consciousness identifies totally with one’s body-form and its needs. It feels no empathy to any others. It considers itself a separate being with no connection to anyone else. It will do whatever it feels necessary to ensure the mortal body-suit is looked after in terms of safety, food and shelter. The most negative human qualities are associated with pure ego-consciousness, i.e. anger, hate, selfishness, arrogance, cruelty, greed, jealousy, unkindness, violence, etc.

When ego-consciousness exists without much overlay of higher consciousness, the primary concerns of safety, food, and shelter of one’s body-form and the secondary interests of power and control over one’s life can become distorted and perversely implemented. In the last 100 years or so, in the pursuit of one’s own and direct communal interests, well over 200,000,000 humans have died as a result of actions taken by other humans, i.e. wars, massacres, genocides, famines, murders, etc. That’s an average of over 5400 deaths every day of man killing man over the last 100 years. There have been over 150 wars or conflicts during that period. The last 50 years has seen the growth of an international “power elite” group that quietly controls world financial systems, major multi-national corporations and governments, resulting in significant corruption. The world’s wealth is dominated by a small percent of people in spite of massive worldwide poverty. In 2007, in the United States, the top 1% of the people controlled 35% of the country’s wealth while the total wealth shared amongst the bottom 80% of the people was only 15%. In recent years, that wealth distribution has gotten even worse.
 
“If the history of humanity were the clinical case history of a single human being, the diagnosis would have to be: chronic paranoid delusions, a pathological propensity to commit murder and acts of extreme violence and cruelty against his perceived “enemies” - his own unconsciousness projected outward. Criminally insane, with a few brief lucid intervals.” And again, “As long as you are run by the egoic mind, you are part of the collective insanity. Perhaps you haven’t looked very deeply into the human condition in its state of dominance by the egoic mind. Open your eyes and see the fear, the despair, the greed, and the violence that are all-pervasive. See the heinous cruelty and suffering on an unimaginable scale that humans have inflicted and continue to inflict on each other as well as on other life forms on the planet. You don’t need to condemn. Just observe.”
~ Eckhart Tolle

 
“It is a great marvel to me that, despite the fact that we are all the embodiments of the Divine, of God Himself, the most predominant trait of all human beings is that they so hatefully despise each other, and constantly criticize and seek to harm one another.” ~ Swami Abhayananda
 
The good news is that today, most ego-conscious humans have re-acquired god-conscious qualities at least to an extent that most of the time we can keep our more negative ego-conscious traits in check. As one moves through the school of hard knocks and karma and suffering, one begins to acquire traits that are usually associated with beings with higher consciousness, e.g. a connectedness and concern for fellow human travelers, compassion, empathy, sharing, love, etc. Without the acquisition of these higher traits, the players in this game of creation would likely have eliminated each other and destroyed the game’s playground as well.
 
In comparing god-consciousness and ego-consciousness, one can ask, who am I? If the answer is, “I am a mortal being, a body, separate from all others, living in a world that I do know much about, unaware of where I came from or where I’m going”, then one is dominated by ego-consciousness. If the answer is, “I am an immortal, a god, playing for a time in the fantasy-land of the cosmos and returning to my infinite home beyond creation after I am done”, then one has regained god-consciousness. The latter is the answer that a mystic would give.
 
As an aside, it is interesting how the world deals with mystics who have actually said, “I am God”. Historically, in the Western world, those who have used that phrase have been prosecuted and killed. In the Eastern world, they are revered.
 
We saw earlier that our Adventures in Wonderland consist of several stages. At each stage, one of these two primary states of consciousness dominates, i.e. either god-consciousness or ego-consciousness, as summarized below;
                                                                  
The soul is created  -  pure god-consciousness

The “body-suit” is occupied  -  ego-consciousness is now acquired

The gods play in Fantasyland  -  blend of god/ego-consciousness

The Fall  -  almost entirely ego-consciousness

School of hard knocks  - primarily ego-consciousness
              
Journey of Awakening  -  gradual recovery of god-consciousness

The Causal World  -  primarily god-consciousness

Enlightenment  -  pure god-consciousness


The Causal World will be addressed as a new topic in the What’s New section of the website, under the title of Astral and Causal Worlds.
 
Most humans today are in a state of dominant ego-consciousness with some recovered god-consciousness. A small minority of humans today are almost completely run by the false ego-conscious mind-processors. They can only relate to themselves and are consumed by a drive for power and the survival of their individual body-suit at all costs. They do much damage. A small minority of humans today have almost fully recovered their god-consciousness. These are the mystics and others whose vibrations do much good to the world around them. Over the ages, many humans have attained enlightenment and are no longer within the VR game of the universe, having fully regained their original god-conscious state. These liberated ones are back in their original infinite, immortal bliss-conscious state beyond creation. There are also a few rare souls who have won their release from the cosmic game but who voluntarily come back inside the game and occupy a body-form in order to help others. These are the great prophets or avatars that have graced the planet throughout the ages, including today. Some are well-known and some do their work mostly in the background, largely unknown except to a few.
 
The mystics have had much to say about god-consciousness and ego-consciousness. The Bhagavad Gita, perhaps India’s most cherished spiritual classic, tells the story of the battle of Kurukshetra between two great forces, the Panavas and the Kauravas, a battle that historically occurred many thousands of years ago. This battle is also an allegorical description of the battle between the two powerful forces of god-consciousness (the Pandavas) and ego-consciousness (the Kauravas) that takes place within the minds of each one of us. The main players in the battle represent a characteristic of god-consciousness or ego-consciousness. The Bhagavad Gita itself is a dialogue between Arjuna, one of the key Pandava warriors, and Krishna, an avatar. Krishna is, of course, on the side of god-consciousness. He is Arjuna’s charioteer during the battle. The dialogue between Arjuna and Krishna takes place prior to the main battle, as Arjuna looks out over the two armies. At first, Arjuna does not want to fight (i.e. give up his familiar ego-centric live). Krishna informs Arjuna that he must fight. He gives Arjuna an experience in cosmic consciousness, or god-consciousness, i.e. the vision of visions. Arjuna then accepts that he has to fight. The Pandava army is eventually victorious. The battle of Kurukshetra is an internal battle that goes on every day within every human being, a battle that ultimately will be won by the soul forces, but not without epic resistance from the forces of the ego, with much pain and suffering.

As mentioned, ego-consciousness and god-consciousness can be a difficult topic to grasp. But such an understanding is fundamental to knowing ourselves and the choice of world we live in. Perhaps the best way to gain understanding comes from the direct words of the mystics. Copious quotations are provided herein for that purpose, including many each by Swami Abhayananda and Eckhart Tolle who provide particular insight on this topic. The quotations are organized into five areas, as follows;

  • The Nature of ego-consciousness (quotations on the left)
  • The ego-conscious Mind-Processor (quotations on the left)
  • The Nature of god-consciousness (quotations  on the left)
  • Comparison of ego-consciousness and god-consciousness (quotations on the left)
  • The Ultimate Unreality of ego-consciousness (quotations below)

The Ultimate Unreality of ego-consciousness

“It sometimes happens that a man, when bathing in the river, steps upon a wet rope and imagines that it is a snake. Terror will overcome him, and he will shake with fear, anticipating in his mind all the agonies caused by the serpent’s venomous bite. What a relief does this man experience when he sees that the rope is no snake. The cause of his fear lies in his error, his ignorance, his illusion. If the true nature of the rope is recognized, his tranquility of mind will come back to him; he will feel relieved; he will be joyful and happy. This is the state of mind of one who has recognized that there is no ego, and that the cause of all his troubles, cares, and vanities is a mirage, a shadow, a dream.” ~ Buddha

“We live in confident certainty of our (illusory) individuality, regarding as "self" that kaleidoscope of transient mental impressions which is presented to our conscious awareness. But, say the mystics, this superficial play of thoughts, memories, sense impressions, upon the screen of awareness is but a mirage.”
~ Swami Abhayananda

“Because you wrongly identify yourself with the body, you see the world outside you and its suffering becomes apparent to you; but the world and its sufferings are not real.” ~ Ramana Maharshi

“The Real is the eternal ‘I’ that periodically projects this fantasy on its own screen. … The perfect satisfaction you crave can only come by ‘waking up’ from the false illusory ‘I’ to know your true eternal Self.”
~ Swami Abhayananda

“Thinking that you are the physical form that you’re occupying, with its psychological make-up, and the stories that it tells itself about who it is and what has happened to it during its lifetime, is an illusion.” ~ Eckhart Tolle

“The self you think you are is only a mirage;
The Self you’ve always been is that eternal One.”

~ Swami Abhayananda
 
“That illusory separate identity, or individual ego, common to all embodied souls, is an extremely subtle and deceptive mirage. It masks the nondual reality … separating us from the awareness of our true Self, our Godhood.”
~ Swami Abhayananda
 
“Plotinus acknowledges, as do the Upanishads, that the soul is capable of remaining blind to its Divine nature, its innate capacity, attributing an illusory ‘I’ to its transient embodiment, and thereby living a superficial life concerned only with sensual and emotional pleasures, promoting its own aggrandizement and individual welfare. But eventually it must revise its outlook; for, understand, the soul is nothing else but the Divine - as a ray of sunlight is nothing but sun. Its only real identity is Divine Consciousness. Its association with body establishes an ego-sense, the illusion of an ‘I’, a personal identity, associated with one particular physical entity in a spatio-temporal universe. But there was never an actual personal identity; it was always the Divine Consciousness.”
~ Swami Abhayananda

“You identify with the mental activity and the transient worldly forms, and, forgetting your real Identity, you become swept away in the agitated currents of the mind. It is just this false identification which is the source of all your woes and troubles.” ~ Swami Abhayananda

“The ego is an obsession, a shadow, an illusion; all life is One, and that One is yourself.” ~Papa Ramdas
 
“To be conscious always that our individual life is only a thing of play while in reality we are the ever free, all-blissful and omnipresent Spirit or Truth, is to be free from egoism.” ~ Papa Ramdas
 
“The ego or the sense of separation is false. There is only one limitless ocean of joy at once moving and still. There is one light, one power, one consciousness, one existence, one sole Reality that is eternal and infinite.” ~ Papa Ramdas

“Once you realize, beyond all trace of doubt, that the world is in you and not you in the world, you are out of it. Of course your body remains in the world and of the world, but you are not deluded by it.” ~ Nisargadatta Maharaj

“When you think about your mortal life and all your troubles and identify with them, you do an injustice to the consciousness of God within you. Affirm and realize "I am not a mortal being; I am spirit." ~ P. Yogananda

“You are not the body. You are Pure Consciousness.” ~ Ramana Maharshi

“The devotee realizes that he is not the mortal body; he is the immortal spirit that became the body. This perception frees him from all sorrow. He realizes that, like spirit, he is ever-existing, ever-conscious, ever-new joy.”
~ P. Yogananda

 
“You are not a drop in the ocean, you are the ocean in a drop.” ~ Rumi

“Know that you are not this restless mind, but that you are the immortal, all blissful, and changeless Spirit.” ~Papa Ramdas
 
“Outward beauty, loveliness of form, charm of personality, whether it is yours or possessed by another, is of no lasting worth. Be not allured by this false show. Be not deluded by these transitory qualities. Handsome or ugly, fair or dark, delicate or coarse, exquisite or plain in appearance, all the forms that you behold are born of dust. They are dolls of clay. They are fleeting forms that will soon vanish and be no more. They are exactly like garments that we have purchased at the vanity-fair of this world, but which have to be discarded before we depart. Your aim in life should be to transcend them.” ~ Hazur Baba Sawan Singh
 
“You, as an entity separate from the all-pervading, immortal and eternal Spirit of all life and form, do not exist. You are ever one with that cosmic and transcendent Truth.” ~ Papa Ramdas
 
“Only the man who has known his true identity as the eternal Self of all possesses the certainty of his Divine nature. This truth about oneself is not at all obvious to those unillumined by this supramental experience. In fact, such a person finds it difficult to comprehend the fact that his underlying Self is the one eternal Self of all. He has become so accustomed to thinking of himself as existing solely in the separate form with which he is associated that he has great difficulty in releasing his identity from the individualized body, mind and intellect. This “ego,” this individualized awareness of oneself as identical with these appendages is stubbornly insistent; it is this stubborn ego-identification that has been referred to as “bondage” in the Vedantic tradition. To become enlightened to the knowledge of one’s eternal, all-pervading Self is to know “liberation.”

~ Swami Abhayananda

“From the time we are infants and discover this body and mind that manipulates us and in turn is manipulated by us, we feel certain that this body and mind is ourself, is who we are. That identification becomes so strongly rooted in us, that never once do we doubt that we are this particular mind and body limited in space and time, and any suggestion to the contrary strikes us as bizarre and absurd. But, say the seers, the Buddhas, it is merely a case of mistaken identity; that which is born, thrives for awhile, and then decays, is not who you are. You are the one Mind of the universe, which merely witnesses all this world of changing forms, but is never affected by it. You are the Eternal, but you see this transient world of forms and think, “This is me!” ~ Swami Abhayananda

“The evolution of His cosmos brings into being sentient creatures, the most intricately evolved of these creatures being human beings. These beings inherit the eternal Consciousness of their Creator; but they also possess a false sense of individuality (called the ego) … This ego-soul continues to evolve in intelligence and awareness through numerous lifetimes, until at last it is awakened to its true Identity…. Having evolved, and having awakened to their true Self, such individualized souls are released from the need for further human birth, and live in the freedom and bliss of the one eternal Consciousness.” ~ Swami Abhayananda
 
“You are pure Consciousness, the witness of all experiences. Your real nature is joy. Cease this very moment to identify yourself with the ego. You are the Self, the infinite Being, the pure, unchanging Consciousness, which pervades everything. Your nature is bliss and your glory is without stain. Because you identify yourself with the ego, you are tied to birth and death. Your bondage has no other cause.” ~ Shankaracharya

“You have no problems. It has been your ego all the time fooling you, making you believe that something is wrong, and you've been playing hide and seek, trying to find God here, there and everywhere, when all the time God was within yourself as yourself.” ~ Robert Adams

“My Me is God, nor do I recognize any other Me except my God Himself.”
~ Catherine of Genoa



 
Summary

As mentioned, this is an important topic that is fundamental to understanding ourselves and the choice of world we live in. The many quotations are provided to help in acquiring such an understanding.

Listed below are some of the key words that appear often in these quotations on ego-consciousness and god-consciousness.

Words associated with ego-consciousness (taken from the quotations)

Limitations, mortal body, decay, death, delusion, finite, pitiable, illusion, separate, individual, unhappy, fearful, suffering, material possessions, emotions, conditioned, worry, unease, in conflict with oneself and others, caged, dark prison, transient, controlled by the senses, possessive, sorrow, drop in the ocean, confined, within time and space, attachments, pain, ignorance, perishable, greedy, envy, aggressive, despairing, hate, violence, anger, resentment, judging, agitated, restless.


Words associated with god-consciousness (taken from the quotations)

Unlimited, perfect, oneness with all, awakened, eternal, Divine consciousness, radiant joy, unshakable peace, infinitely greater than anything the world can offer, true freedom, vast realm of endless bliss, love, true identity, oceanic presence, indestructible essence, splendor, immortal, all pervading, omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient, magnificence.


When looking at these two lists of words, who would not want to have god-consciousness?

However, like the dwellers in Plato’s cave, we humans find comfort in familiar surroundings and tend to accept poor living conditions without much questioning. It usually takes a big push (in the form of intense suffering) or the cumulative effects of many, many lives of compounded suffering to get us to climb the path up the surface of the cave that leads to god-consciousness. Hard to believe, but true.

As Yogananda ironically noted, “[Man has] such a delusive attachment to the instrumentality of a physical body that even if God were at this moment to offer liberation to the masses, I daresay not many would be eager to depart this merry playground – to leave behind their accustomed bodily residence with its possessions and sensory opportunities … The body-identified sense-oriented are rigidly unconvinced that it is worthwhile to forgo known pleasure for the arcane bliss of Spirit.”

Of course, this life is not always a “merry playground”.

In order to provide a different perspective on this topic, below is a table showing the evolution of two individuals as they travelled through their most recent appearance on earth. The first is Muhammad Ali, primarily known as a world-champion boxer. Ali represents “Everyman”, the path taken by many of us in the world of today. Ali is chosen as he was one of the most recognized names worldwide in recent times. Of course, it is understood that while having Ali represent “Everyman”, few of us live our lives in the limelight as he did.

The second individual is Paramahansa Yogananda, a liberated being who came back to earth to help “awaken” his suffering brothers and sisters from the illusion of their ego-consciousness.
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
As shown in the table, like most of us, Ali’s life was predominated by ego-consciousness, i.e. “I-am-the-body”. In his later years, Ali’s body-form was ravaged by the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. Although his body had become limited in mobility, his mind remained sharp. According to various sources, including his book, Soul of a Butterfly, Ali’s belief in a higher power started as a child and continued to grow throughout his life. It is interesting to note that his sometimes high-profile religious associations evolved over the years as well. In the last ten years or so of his life, he embraced the mystical path of Islam, i.e. Sufism, and followed the teachings of the Sufi master, Hazrat Inayat Khan.

Here are a few quotations from Hazrat Inayat Khan;

“The words that enlighten the soul are more precious than jewels.”

“If people but knew their own religion, how tolerant they would become, and how free from any grudge against the religion of others.”

“The Sufi recognizes the knowledge of self as the essence of all religions; he traces it in every religion, he sees the same truth in each, and therefore he regards all as one. Hence he can realize the saying of Jesus; 'I and my Father are one.'”

“What is rooted out in the quest of truth is ignorance; it is entirely removed from the heart, and the outlook becomes wide; as wide as the Eye of God; therein is born the divine Spirit, the spirit, which is called Divinity.”

“The great, rare and chosen beings, who for ages have been looked up to as ideal in the world, are the possessors of hearts kindled with love.”

“The soul, conscious of its limited existence, is 'man', and the soul reflected by the vision of the unlimited, is 'God'. In plain words man's self-consciousness is man, and man's consciousness of his highest ideal is God.”

“He cannot act except with kindness, he cannot feel anything but forgiveness; every movement he makes, everything he does, speaks of his love, but not his lips.”

“In the end all culminates in one belief, Huma man am, that is, 'I am all that exists'; and all other beliefs are preparatory for this final conviction, which is called Haqq al-Iman in the Sufi terminology.”

“If there is a kingdom of God to be found anywhere, it is within oneself.”

“The individual soul is a shoot that springs from the all-pervading Spirit, its goal being its origin; and every attachment it has on its way is, no doubt, a detaining on the journey. The soul is never fully satisfied so long as it has not reached its destination. The love of the external world is a rehearsal before the performance, which is the love of God, the Inner Being.”

“The soul of the listener becomes the all-pervading consciousness, and his spirit becomes the battery which keeps the whole universe in motion.”

“If one being or thing, however apparently useless, were missing in this universe of endless variety, it would be as it were a note missing in a song.”


Is it possible to follow the teachings of one who said or wrote the above words and not grow in god-consciousness? Note Ali’s comments in the table regarding his later years. I think it’s safe to say that Ali started out with dominant ego-consciousness but grew in god-consciousness, particularly in his later years. It is a pattern that many humans follow in their evolution back to Spirit.

In the case of Paramahansa Yogananda, we see the highest form of mankind, a liberated being who had fully recovered his god-consciousness in a previous existence, but who chose to return to this virtual world to help his fellow mankind overcome their ego-consciousness. The “rules” of this virtual reality game can change over time. Currently, all “players” entering the virtual world, regardless of their background and consciousness, must start the game in an infant’s body-form and with dominant ego-consciousness. However, a player like Yogananda can, at a relatively young age, “see through” the delusion of ego-consciousness and re-acquire his state of god-consciousness. And so he did.

As a world teacher, Yogananda retained some ego-consciousness so that he could feel directly the state of mind of the ones he came to help. He also used to commune with Spirit from a state of awareness that included both ego and god-consciousness. In that state, he would “argue” on behave of the players trapped in the virtual world. One might say that such a discussion was Spirit in a body-form talking with Spirit beyond form. He would often argue that the level of maya that mankind is subjected to in this virtual world is too strong and should be relaxed – the level of maya that keeps most humans trapped in ego-consciousness for such a long, long time.

However, the Spirit beyond form has chosen to leave the “rules” related to maya alone, at least for now. After all, the players in the game are individualized extensions of Spirit Itself.  It is Spirit that is taking on maya in order to play in Its playground.

To wrap up this topic, the table below attempts to summarize the key attributes and nature of ego-consciousness and god-consciousness.
Picture
Top of Page
Karma and Reincarnation
Picture
  Awakening of the gods
               2016-2025