Nature vs Consciousness

These quotes have been taken from Satsangs (discourses) given by our teacher Professor Ojaswi Sharma. He himself was never interested in writing anything but his students felt the need to preserve his wisdom. They taped his talks, transcribed them and sorted out into several Topics. Because the full discourses were very long, shorter passages were chosen on each Topic and presented here.

 

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This tug of war is taking place in everybody, the part consisting of Nature pulling us towards natural enjoyments, but Consciousness trying to pull us towards divine bliss. Therefore, the result is frustration. It is bound to happen.

 

'I' as consciousness does not do anything. All activity happens in the sphere of nature, and therefore 'I' always remains pure. Through analysis one reaches this conclusion. One does not become the doer of things. When one does not remain the doer, one also does not become responsible. One does not remain the sufferer either.

 

Ignorance is always the reason for remaining worried, angry or irritated. Ignorance is the cause. Of what are we primarily ignorant? We do not realise that we are wrong to identify ourselves with the body. We think that we are the body. Gradually we begin to understand that we are not the body but the eternal spirit - the truth - the consciousness which was never born and, therefore, will never die - the One, infinite. Even then the body remains but it does not remain a means for seeking pleasure. The body then becomes an instrument of service, with the inner feeling of harmony with the totality and love for others.

 

You can yourself become your enemy, and you can yourself become your friend.

 

There are two selves: the lower and the higher. The lower self is a bundle of desires. The one who conquers the lower self by the higher self - by wisdom - becomes his own friend. Such people are at peace with their own selves. If you are not able to conquer the lower self, you are your own enemy. The inner battle continues inside you.

 

When you identify yourself with the material world, with nature, with changing phenomenon - that is the body, senses, mind and intellect, you create stress for your own self. From the spiritual point of view, stress is considering yourself as part of nature, and not considering and experiencing yourself as the unchanging truth (that is consciousness). So if somebody wants to go beyond stress, for good, then he must bring to an end his identification with the body.

 

Yes! That is the culmination of spirituality. That, if the body goes away, we stay, because we were never born. That truth we are. This realisation one day has to happen. We existed before this body, we will exist after this body also. We are eternal. The existence is eternal, and our existence is conscious existence - consciousness itself.

 

If we are not the body, is there some truth other than the body?" A very simple thing - the body has changed. It is not the same body that you had when you were five years old. It has changed. The thinking process has changed. But what has not changed is your understanding - your knowledge - that you are the same, in this body, as you were at the age of five. If the bodies that you had at the ages of five, fifteen, twenty and thirty years are not the same, then who are you? What is the sameness? What is that element which remains the same without any change? Find out!

 

When you say that you will die when the time comes, who is it that dies? If you think logically and correctly the conclusion should be that at every moment, part of the body is dying. No one can deny this and it has been proved by medical science. It is the death of the body, but not your death. Then who are you? Find it out. Find it out. Who are you?

 

We say someone is dead but what is dead? The soul has departed. But what is soul? Where has it gone? We should find out about it. It cannot be found out at the time of death. Then it is already too late. So much pain and misery goes on at that time that you cannot find it out then.