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The Wonder That Is Consciousness - Excerpt

What I aver may seem to you, perhaps,
Blasphemous, unbelievable or odd,
For we are guilty of a common lapse,
When we forget that Consciousness is God;
When we ignore that what we see without
And our self inside, with no room for doubt,
Are diverse facets or, say, different shades
Of One Eternal Substance which pervades
The whole creation, everywhere the same
Beneath the varied dress of form and name.

All that we know: our learning, science, art
And all our universe of earths and suns
Are of a wondrous magic play a part,
Which change in consciousness makes clear at once,
When dumb with awe and wonder the ego sees
The world turned topsy turvy and the soul,
In one incredible moment of release,
From but a point become the Cosmic Whole.

From immemorial times we have deceived
Ourselves into the false belief that all
Impressions of the objective world received,
Which on the observing mind through senses fall,
Come from external objects and that we
Are transient shadows, born to live and die,
To come into being and then cease to be,
To act a while and then unmoving lie,
And that the Cosmic Ocean will not stop
Its movement for the loss of our one drop.

This most misleading and fallacious view
Has made mankind oblivious to a Truth
Which only can persuade her most to live
In peace and happiness and render smooth
Her path towards the Target she must win,
Which is: to find Divinity within.

Our consciousness is neither born nor dies
Nor after nascence does it e’er grow old,
Nor like a waif cast on the earth it tries,
A while, to enrich itself with power or gold,
But, on the contrary, this whole display,
This whole stir and this multitude of things
Emerge from it alone, like, let us say,
The lavish dream-scenario which all springs
From mind alone without external aid,
Appearing real for a while to fade.

It is not we who come into the world,
But, strange to say, the world is born in us
Before the day we in the womb lie curled,
And e’en before the birth of primary cells
We come into the orbit of a dream,
Dreamed by the Eternal Mind, or play a role
Assigned by a Cosmic Sun to a tiny beam
To act in Life’s Drama as a soul.

Only a wrong assessment makes us doubt:
The world is inside us and not without,
And lost in this delusion mortal life
Becomes one long drawn night of ceaseless strife,
Of fear, contention, rivalry and hate,
Of passion and desire which ne’er abate,
But as decay sets in our earthly mould
With age, they gain on mind a firmer hold.

So our main effort oft becomes to gain
The highest profit from our brawn and brain,
To rise above our rivals in the field
In harvesting a more abundant yield,
To make the period of our stay on earth
A sunny day of comfort, ease and mirth:
At death to leave a fortune and a name
When, like a gambler who has lost the game,
We end in suffering e’er assailed by doubt
And e’er in woeful ignorance about
The Truth: that ‘tis not Consciousness which dies
But the illusive veil before our eyes.

Not all the learned savants, now engaged
On consciousness-research, to ascertain
The plot and action of the drama staged
And how it is enacted by the brain,
Can e’er contrive in e’en a hundred years
To lift the veil this World-Enchanter wears.
This great exploit, to match with nature’s plan,
Must be himself performed by every man.

To be alive, self-conscious and to know
That we exist to observe this baffling show
Is such a precious, such a most unique
Possession that no thinker, save one weak
In intellect and observation, can
Assign a secondary role to man
And not the primary, for this boundless Whole
Is but a veiled reflection of his soul,
Which Consciousness itself does build and plan
To see, perplexed, the Play as mortal man.

Where is the cosmos, what source lies behind
The hasty verdicts of the agnostic mind?
Wherefrom arise ideas, conceptions, views
And all the mass of learning, stories, news
With which the world is flooded in our day?
Whence comes what we believe or what we say?

And where is birth, where death and all our fears
That our temporal span is of some years?
Where are the sun, the moon, the wind and tide,
Those shining starry crowds which long abide?
Where are the wits and thinkers new or old,
Whence came the thought they did or now unfold?
And where is sorrow, sickness, suffering, pain
Or joy and cheer, love, beauty, loss or gain?
This is a point one ne’er can too much stress:
They all originate from consciousness!

Our mirage of the world, our personal views
And our experience come from that which lives,
Which knows, imagines, calculates and thinks,
And one observed fact with another links
To build the extremely complex world of thought
Which all exists, but where? We know it not.

Perhaps you hardly will believe me, when
I say what might shock nine men out of ten,
That this immense display, this Cosmic show
We carry all with us where’er we go!
The external world and our internal thought
depend for their appearance on our mind.
What of them would survive if mind were not,
Can any one imagine, guess or find?
We are mistaken too when we concede
That subtler forms of matter form the base,
They too are products of the mind, indeed,
As, save it, who can their existence trace?

The argument that one, when fast asleep,
Does not observe the changes that are wrought
Round him, is shallow and does not go deep
Enough, for it again is wakeful thought
Which marks the changes and maintains the link
Between what one mind and the other think.
And even this point and counter-argument
Are but a mental product and event,
Because, save mind itself who can refute
That it of all existence is the root?

The talk about brain cells and genetic code
And all the carefully made-up bookish load
Is again an endless round of forms and names
Which suits the learned, who love wordy games,
For all whatever we know for sure or guess
Must e’er come from the spring of Consciousness.

E’en after a thousand years what e’er we know,
What e’er we prove or still unproven show,
Shall not out of a different seed-bed grow,
But from the same mysterious spring-head flow.
What e’er the future holds, what e’er is past
Nowhere save in the mould of mind is cast.

There is a twist in thinking here which needs
Correction, as it to grave error leads,
Matter on one, mind on the other side—
Who, of them, can between the two decide?
Save mind? And can you name a greater fool
Than one who, made to judge or bade to rule,
Would yield his chair or abdicate his throne
To those he judges—dead matter, earth and stone!

The source behind awareness, thought and will,
Desire, emotion, passion, logical skill,
Behind the world of knowledge, learning, wit,
Gathered with toil through ages, bit by bit,
Which, as supposed, does not exist in books,
But in the searching mind that in them looks,
To catch from man-made symbols what was said
By yet another mind, though long since dead,
Of worlds of past experience, form and name,
As flame is lit up by another flame.

Save mind there is no granary to store
What happens now or what transpired before,
The symbols used none else save it can read,
And like condensed material in a seed
That bears a tree, the invented symbols hold
Vast stores of knowledge but it can unfold.

Where then are our achievements highly praised,
The metropolises built, and mansions raised,
The amazing harvest of the industrial age
That has turned earth into a flood-lit stage?
And where the bloody wars and massacres
Which make us fear that we are growing worse?

Will not this knowledge also of our times,
Our great inventions, learning, wars and crimes,
Become known to our progeny at last
Through relics and the writings of the past?
To ponder often as we ponder now
Upon the achievements of our long since dead
Precursors, their ambition, hate and love
Which now exist nowhere save in our head.

Incredible though it seems, it is a fact
That Prana and pure consciousness react
On one another to produce the myth
Of this stupendous world we battle with.

Still more incredible is the further fact
That with restraint of passions, righteous act,
Devotion, fellow-feeling, mental calm
And thought sublime, which all act like a balm,
Prana in faint degrees works out a change
And, much enhanced in power, brings in its range
Of observation new domains of life,
As different from this world of stress and strife
As sky is from the earth, sunshine from gloom,
Or as from winter is the spring in bloom.

Then consciousness a wondrous aspect wears,
So lofty and sublime that all our fears
And doubts about ourselves dissolve at once,
As if illumined by a hundred suns
Of knowledge to be assured the Vision seen
Is That which will be, is and e’er has been;
The Source Eternal of all that is known—
The world—of that too by which it is shown—
The mind—and process by which this is done:
The whole scheme of creation in but One.

In this amazing, radiant Presence all
The staggering worlds, which awe us and enthrall,
Become a ghostly shadow seen at night;
A far-off melting cloud in sunshine bright,
While mind, with ego vastly whittled down,
In mute astonishment sees itself drown
Into one all-enfolding Life sublime,
Only pure consciousness, devoid of time
And space, One all-embracing world of love
And joy not found on earth or heaven above.

Let not the thought that millions, all like you,
Reflect the light of mind, as drops of dew
In countless mini-forms reflect the sun,
And of this multitude you are but one:
Let also not the thought that countless dead,
Since man arose on earth, when once the thread
Of life was broken, ne’er again returned
To visit former scenes, where they had burned
With love and hate, again to ignite the fire
Which ne’er rekindles once it does expire,
Depress or pain you, for you ne’er e’en once
Were born or died, nor had a sire nor sons.
Unborn, eternal, your Self is the cream
Of all creation, now lost in a dream.

Let not the thought that you are not endowed
With beauty, strength or wit, that make one proud,
Nor are pre-eminent nor have wealth nor name,
Nor gift nor knowledge nor can light the flame
Of love, disturb your mind for there is naught
On earth which you lack now or e’er had not.
You are the Spring-head, though you know not it,
Of all the riches, talent, charm and wit.

[Excerpt taken from The Riddle of Consciousness]