Consciousness - the Missing Link

 

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Consciousness – the Missing Link

Despite decades of advancement in science and technology, we are somehow facing increasingly complex problems to solve -- both individual and collective -- even in the most affluent nations: identity issues, high divorce rates, unexpected violence, high school dropouts, teenage pregnancy, environmental crisis, energy shortage, unemployment rates, unstable economy, rising healthcare costs, etc. Why and where is the disconnect?

Consciousness is not a thing; it is not an object – it is always subjective. You cannot put it before yourself and examine it. That is the problem before the scientist and researcher – he cannot recognise consciousness because he cannot make it an object of examination. He cannot dissect it and validate it. He cannot find out its constituents – he cannot pull it apart and look deep into it, because consciousness is not a thing. It is ‘no thing’ - but it still is, it is pure ‘isness’ as Osho says.

The disconnect can now literally be felt globally because humanity focuses more on material happiness than inner happiness. Material happiness is superficial and comes from the acquisition of wealth by fair means or foul; this wealth helps in acquiring material comforts – good house, vehicle, clothes, jewellery and so on. This wealth is of absolutely no use in acquiring happiness.

True happiness and joy are not available in the market – this comes from deep within you. It comes from the core of your being and can only be found when we give up this blind chase for material wealth which gives us a kind of egoistic happiness because of the ‘money and wealth’ we have acquired. It cannot give us that deep inner peace and happiness which comes after self-realisation and as we shift away from body consciousness into soul consciousness.

When we learn to go deep within our own being and connect with the divine within, we realise that God is within our own self – with this realisation a feeling of selfless love arises for all beings. The heart is filled with selfless love and its hunger is ultimately fulfilled. Once we keep watering the roots of the tree through meditation, we begin to connect to the essence of who we really are!

There are only two states of consciousness that exist – ego and love. Ego is the narrow state, the seed-form, the atomic stage; love is all-encompassing, love is God. The center of the ego is ‘I’; the ego exists for itself. The nectar of love is the universe. Love exists for all. Let the ‘I’ drop and the ‘love’ appear – this selfless love is the missing link for reaching that heightened state of awareness and consciousness.