I shared the following post
today (19 Jan 2019) and got a request to explain it further. So here’s my
attempt. Though I have been on my spiritual path from my childhood, I am still
on my path. I don’t claim I know everything, so this answer is coming from my limited
understanding.
We are all souls who have
come to the earth plane to have a human experience. It is quite common to think
the contrary, that we are humans with a soul, and this can totally change the
outlook to life. With this approach, we live a mechanical, materialistic,
highly ambitious and stressful life.
Those persons who have
realised the full potential of a human life and knows what great heights can be
achieved through this human body, keep giving pointers for us to stop and think
and take a deviation from this mad rat race. One common idea instilled into the
minds is the existence of God (and Satan), who is keeping an account of all
your deeds and gives rewards/punishments according to that. This creates fear
and fear is a strong deterrant for misdeeds.
This works good for many
whose understanding is at a certain level. When one goes beyond, the idea of
macrocosm and microcosm can be grasped. During the journey of understanding,
one moves from dwaita (duality) philisophy to advaita (nonduality) philosophy.
Here, there is no ‘other’. There is only ONE energy that exists, which can be
called as higher consciousness. And we are all part of that higher
consciousness.
What is preventing us from
having this knowledge at the experiential level? Because there are layers and
layers of ignorance that we have accumulated over many incarnations, and ego is
one strong last layer. These different layers need to be removed, just like peeling
off layers of onion. When the last layer of onion is removed, there is only
empty space.
With our efforts which are
consistent and persistent, we keep removing the layers of ignorance and comes
to the ego, which when removed (which is not easy, a Guru may help), you are in
touch with your higher consciouness. Now this higher consciousness can help us
to overcome lower ego desires. The ego desires make our life unhappy in the
least, and hell at the worst. Once we overcome them, our life can be a daily
celebration!