to recognize our true self as the divine reality underlying all we experience.
As we detach ourselves from all external phenomena and turn increasingly toward the inner light of the mind, we will come to know our true self as the self that is common to all beings. In the words of the wise seer Vamadeva in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, one of India's holy scriptures, we will then be able to declare:
I am the self of all of mankind, as well as of the sun. Therefore, now also, whoever realizes Brahman knows that he himself is the self in all creatures. Even the gods cannot harm such a man, since he becomes their innermost self. Now if a man worship Brahman, thinking Brahman is one and he another, he has not the true knowledge.4
The omnipresence of divine being pervades the entire universe.
All fluctuation and change is God's progressive self-unfolding and self-transformation; it is realization of the inexpressible divine ground. The entire endless diversity of the external phenomenal world is ultimately the manifestation of this one all-embracing mind and thus the universe is its revelation. As Indian philosophy puts it, the universe is "exhaled" from mind over the unimaginably long time span of a mahamanvantara, only to be inhaled again over an equally long period of rest. The Hindu tradition refers to this as Brahman's resting and dreaming.
If Brahman rests in a dreamless sleep, there is no universe. There are no manifold phenomena; there is no thought, and no individual consciousness. Only the single pure consciousness of the one mind remains. If Brahman begins to dream, the whole universe with its phenomena arises in the dream. In the Bhagavad-Gita, considered the gospel of Hinduism, Lord Krishna describes the rhythmic cycle of creation with the following words:
At the end of the night of time all things return to my nature, and when the new day of time begins, I bring them again to the light. Thus through my nature I bring forth all creation, and this rolls about in the circles of time. But I am not bound by my act of creation. I am, and I watch the drama of the works.
I watch, and in its works of creation, nature brings forth all that moves and does not move: And thus the revolutions of the world go round and round.5
This creative genius is the eternal, self-existing, original essence of divine being. It is a singular, great, enlightening entirety; omnipresent, perfect, silent, and pure. It is like an all-encompassing mirror from which the mountains and rivers of the earth, sky, sun, moon, and stars are projected like reflected images.
The moment we turn our sight away from the external and meditatively look within, we realize that this one mind is our true divine self and that separate individual minds do not actually exist. The individual mind, evoked by limited, dualistic thinking, is no more than a microcosmic aspect of the cosmic mind. It is just as if we were to gaze at the sky through a straw and take our limited field of vision for the entire sky. In an old Indian parable, the predicament of individuals trapped within their narrow views is compared to that of a frog living in a well:
There once was a frog who had lived his whole life in an old well by the edge of the sea. One day a fish jumped out of the sea and fell into the well. As soon as the frog recovered from his initial shock, he asked the newcomer, "Where do you come from?"
The fish answered, "I come from the sea."
"From the sea?" repeated the frog, quite amazed. "Tell me, how big is the sea?"
"Very big," replied the fish.
The frog stretched out his foot and asked, "Is the sea this big?"
"It's much bigger!" said the fish.
The frog then took a powerful leap from one side of the well to the other. "Is it this big?"
"My friend," said the fish, "the sea is so big that your well is no comparison!"
"Now you've given yourself away, you liar!" exclaimed the frog. "Nothing can possibly be any bigger than my well!"
As long as we cover up our true self—the unlimited, transcendent mind—with all sorts of concepts and ideas, we find ourselves in a regrettable state of contracted consciousness. The result is that we are still only able to grasp a tiny portion, a small aspect, of the total reality. The unending, universals and metaphysical expanse of the mind is thus reduced to a small range of individual consciousness. A state of contracted consciousness prevents our awareness of the universality of the mind, thus leaving us to eke out a pitiful existence in the dark shadow of maya (the illusion of an external phenomenal world).
THE MIND: THE SOURCE OF EVERYTHING
We could compare ourselves to the old beggar who lives in a run-down shack and eventually dies of hunger, never suspecting that a valuable treasure lay buried beneath his feet. Zen master Hakuin (18th century) pointedly depicts our situation in his Chant in Praise of Zen:
People are in essence Buddha. Just as water is ice and there is no ice without water, there is no human being without Buddha. What a shame that people seek far and wide, not knowing what lies at hand! They are like those who stand in the midst of water, but still cry out in thirst. Born the sons of rich and noble men, yet poor and miserable, they hopelessly wander on. The darkness of misunderstanding grows deeper around them. When can they ever escape life and death?6
We are in our deepest essence Buddha. That is to say, we are none other than the one mind, the eternal unchanging Buddha-essence, the transcendent source of the entire cosmos. We are sons and daughters of the most high. We are the light of light that shines through the darkness as our true self and at the moment of our awakening from the dream of an imaginary, multitudinous world ascends through the emptiness like the sun and illuminates the whole universe with its brilliance. But most of us are not able to perceive the state of our original enlightened being because we only accept as mind that which thinks, feels, and perceives. Some even think that the mind is simply an effect of brain activity inside the bony shell of their skulls or, more specifically, the result of the biochemical processes of brain cells. In truth, the relationship is just the opposite. The mind is not the effect, but rather the cause of all being and therefore also of brain activity.
This cosmic mind is the universal ground underlying all we experience. It is the cosmic focus of consciousness in its totality. It is the unchanging divine essence and the creator of all things. For if the entire universe exists "of him, through him, and to him" (Romans 11:36), its essential nature must be silent, pure, and empty. Regardless of how much movement occurs within it, it remains forever unmoved. Nothing is able to tarnish nor lessen its everlasting brilliance.
That is why the Chinese Zen master Huang-po (9th century) said:
This pure mind, the source of everything, shines forever and on all with the brilliance of its own perfection. Our original Buddha-nature is, in highest truth, devoid of any atom of objectivity.
It is void, omnipresent, silent, pure; it is glorious and mysterious peaceful joy—and that is all. Enter deeply into it by awakening to it yourself.7
As long as we are still blinded by our ignorance, we are unable to realize the spiritual magnificence of our true being. We are caught in maya, the realm of illusory phenomena. In our identification with the fictitious external phenomenal world, we are no longer able to see through the deception and recall our original condition. The deception is the real cause for the ignorance in which individuals think of themselves as separate beings, as corporeal, independent persons. This ignorance leads to attachment, which strengthens ego-consciousness, thus chaining us to the cycle of birth and death. In truth, self-sufficient individuals exist no more than the external world in which they believe themselves to live.
