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Our body is an aggregate of matter and energy, and it does not have the power and potential to know, think, or decide. Our thinkers realized that rituals, prayers and hymns could not give them the answers they were seeking and therefore they took to contemplation and enquiry with the mind and intelligence. This enquiry led them to question whether there was anything imperishable in the changeful world.

There is a factor within, which is different from matter and energy and that is the Consciousness or Sentience. Consciousness is that presence, that prevalence or that expression which makes one conscious of other factors as well as oneself. As we have our sense organs to perceive the external, this is our inner presence which makes us conscious of other things as well as of itself. It’s the only third factor in creation, and this can be felt in a human body as one’s own self, ‘I’.

We know everything else because of the merit of this Consciousness which we call ‘I’. This ‘I’ possesses nothing, nothing can ever penetrate the body to become a product of the ‘I’. Just as the air is unattached to anything, this ‘I’ is the subtlest and remains unattached. This consciousness can only be known in one’s own living body and this is the only presence in the body. Not only that, this is the only presence everywhere. As it is all-pervading in the body, it is equally all-pervading wherever existence or appearances are there.

PR 25 Jan 2018