"Basic Existence"

    Man has evolved much during the last few thousand years. He has evolved from a nomadic being, concerned only with obtaining the necessities of basic existence and controlled completely by the vicissitudes of nature, to his present condition where nature is beginning to be the servant of man. Man is now able to devote a large proportion of his life to things outside earning a living. The process of evolution is a continuous movement of the disordered to the ordered, the unrefined to the refined and the gross to the subtle. With the majority of mankind this has occurred on the physical and mental planes and can of course continue in its present direction through the rapidly changing sophistication of science and technology. But this is not the only alternative and is not the only path on which man can tread. People today are finding that their values are lopsided, that something is missing from their lives. 

    All of us know subconsciously, though perhaps not consciously, that the spiritual path exists and that it leads somewhere. It is not merely wishful thinking on the part of a few people with their heads in the clouds. The great saints throughout the ages have been living examples of where the spiritual path leads. They have even explained the means, the way, though in general their teachings have been misinterpreted, either by accident or on purpose, by politically motivated groups. All these highly evolved souls have said the same thing using different words. All of them have said: Look within and know thyself. 

    For example, Christ said: “The kingdom of God is within you.” Greek philosophers said: “Man, know thyself, and thou shalt know the universe.” All the Eastern religions put forth the same idea. Paramahamsa Ramakrishna said: “The fabled musk deer searches the whole world over for the source of the scent which comes from within.” In the Bhagavad Gita Lord Krishna says: “Meditation is better than intellectual knowledge.” 

    Therefore, learn from other people’s experiences. The path of evolution, of the evolution of the spirit to self-realization, towards the truth, does not lie in the outside world. It lies within your own being, only waiting to be discovered. You must dive deep inside yourself to find that which has been always there and was even there before your birth. So the choice is yours: either you continue to devote all your attention to fumbling around in the outside world, the way that most people now lead their lives with its unhappiness, or you start to develop a new direction, inwards, and follow the advice of wise men throughout the history of mankind who have made the same journey. You do not have to give up your present lifestyle. All you have to do is to supplement it with spiritual aspiration and practices of yoga which will gradually lead you along the path to meditation. 

    You might say, “Yes, I want to tread the spiritual path, but how do I start?” One of the ways is to do yoga, proceeding from the preliminary lower and simpler stages such as asanas to the more advanced stages such as concentration and meditation. It is in the practices of meditation that the key finally unlocks the door to the higher realms of being, higher consciousness, or whatever you want to call the infinite scope of experience that exists within and without. 

    Let us change our way of looking at our inner self or being. Many eminent scientists have emphatically stated that much of our mental faculties and potential remains unused. Some have said that 95 percent, others that 99 percent of our latent capacity remains dormant. Actually the given figures are only illustrative. What is meant is that almost all of our inner potential is untapped. It is only waiting to be utilized. It has also been predicted that the greatest adventures of the future will lie in the exploration of the largely unknown realms of the mind. Instead of confining our travels to the outside world, we will also start to make deeper and deeper journeys into the depths of inner space. Our slogan for the future should be ‘Wake up the mind’. 

    Most people have the naive idea, even though yoga and psychology have told them otherwise, that the mind only thinks what they are conscious of at any particular time. This of course couldn’t be further from the truth. At any time, scientists have estimated that the mind is sorting out, receiving, rejecting, analyzing millions of visual, acoustical and bodily sensations. We are aware only of that which comes to our consciousness. The rest remains at a level below our consciousness. 

    In western psychology, the unknown part of the mind is known as the subconscious or the unconscious. The known part is called the conscious mind. It is commonly compared to the upper tip of an iceberg, lying above the water, and the unconscious mind to the far larger submerged portion of the iceberg. In yoga the mind is regarded as one entity, with progressively more subtle layers. The less subtle or grosser layers of mind correspond to the parts of the mind which contain our basic urges and instincts, together with the rational part of the mind. The awareness of most people stays predominantly in these layers of the mind, completely neglecting the intuitive, inspirational, creative, and spiritual aspects of being. By treading the spiritual path, one is able to bring consciousness to these normally unknown realms. Modern psychology and yoga are saying virtually the same thing about the mind. 

    The opening up or exploration of these progressively more subtle layers of the mind leads to what is commonly called expansion of consciousness. Knowledge of all the realms of the mind as well as the very centre of your being, the self, that which illuminates your whole existence, is known as selfrealization, nirvana, satori, unitive life or oneness with God.