Meditation on our true identity beyond the superficial externals – as revealed by the ancient Veda teachings

Unless we know who we really are, we will never know how to act in our best self-interests. Up until now we may be basing our life on a poor fund of knowledge. Without the correct map, we will never attain the goal. This has led me on a lifelong quest for self-realization that took me through the libraries of psychology at university, to the occult books of stores and eventually to the ancient yoga texts of the East. As a result I have come across what I believe to be the most important knowledge for us all, knowledge of who we really are and therefore how to really act, and what to really write or share with the world.

Obviously we are all driven to survive by the demands of the body and mind. There is a part of our brain, the reptilian, that is hard-wired to survive. It runs the “fight, flight or freeze” response that automatically kicks in when our lives are in danger. We don’t have to think about it as it works by itself. It is pre-programmed.

However, a problem can arise when, due to lack of information or self-awareness, we take this to be the be all and end all of life. Without knowledge many are living on automatic pilot, simply following the instinct of survival and never rising above that base level of existence. Keeping body and soul together, so to speak, is a good foundation, but there are higher levels of actualization, as the twentieth century psychologist Abraham Maslow described in his “hierarchy of needs”.

At the base of the pyramid is the bodily survival, analogous to the base chakra (symbolically red in color) in the yoga tradition. If we are only focused on this level of existence, then we are still no more than polished animals, driven by our biological programming to focus on eating, sleeping, mating and defending. With knowledge from personal experience, insight and realization, we may aspire to higher needs to more fully express ourselves. There may be the need for social interaction, emotions like love and friendship, along with the need for creative or artistic expression. Art in and of itself, has little value other than to bring pleasure for its own sake, whether that art is visual, written, performed or other.

A desire to be of service to humanity or something higher than our ego may also be there on the journey of self-actualization, and it inspires many to take to humanitarian or philanthropic work. The natural compassion for the other arises in some and it brings a feeling of joy or meaning or more importantly value in life when one can be of service, or uplift those less fortunate. These are all noble sentiments and contribute to the quality of life for a person who either has all they need to survive yet still feels the need for more or who wishes to add depth to an otherwise shallow existence of sense gratification. At some point a self-reflective soul finds the life of chewing the chewed to be unsatisfactory, even when the chewed is champagne and caviar. You can certainly add self-worth and meaning to a depressing life by reaching out and helping to uplift those less fortunate than yourself.

Yet, even higher up the ladder of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs or the yoga chakras, is the upper blue and indigo region of the rainbow, so to speak, where real insight and ultimately transcendence arises. It’s not guaranteed that we all reach this level of awareness though. Many stay stuck on the lower levels of survival all their lives, due to habit, conditioning or simply lack of education. Sometimes the pursuit of sense gratification – more possessions, bigger house, more coin, even more offspring, takes over our attention and becomes the goal, causing us to forget the higher levels of attainment or expression or realization awaiting us.

There are numerous pastimes of legends in the ancient Vedas of India that tell of kings who had everything – the palace, wives, the name and fame from adoring subjects – only to leave it all behind in their maturity to pursue the ultimate goal of life, self-realization and transcendence. And by their example we can learn the best way to mold our lives as well. In ancient times the kings were advised by priests who were enlightened and not corrupted or ignorant. Yogis with real awakened consciousness were protected by the government of the day so that they could uplift the entire vibration of society with their experience and wisdom. You still find them in India, but they have retreated more to the mountains and forests so as to avoid the degrading mundane influence of modern society.

This is because the symptoms of a yogi who has attained enlightenment are mentioned in the yoga texts like Bhagavad Gita. One can tell the level of insight by the behavior of the person. By gaining knowledge of the self as transcendent, it is natural for one to become detached from the trappings of materialism. In fact one may find the opulence of city life to be a distraction from the real treasure of enlightenment. When you realize who you are, you begin to act according to that realization. You are no longer concerned about bodily survival because you discover that it is really easy to survive. The yogi learns how to find sustenance from the all-pervading life force (aka prana or chi) that is abundant everywhere. Even food and water are less important when you are tapped in to the force, a by-product of yogic development and practice.

There is truly so much more going on than we realize. There is so much more to reality, energy, matter, time and space, the laws of nature and our real identity than we can even imagine from our limited perspective of the physical senses. To begin with the very first chapters of Bhagavad Gita begin with the foundational premise that we are not the body or brain that we currently find ourselves inhabiting. One verse says:

देहिनोऽस्मिन्यथा देहे कौमारं यौवनं जरा ।
तथा देहान्तरप्राप्तिर्धीरस्तत्र न मुह्यति ॥ १३ ॥

dehino ’smin yathā dehe
kaumāraṁ yauvanaṁ jarā
tathā dehāntara-prāptir
dhīras tatra na muhyati

“As the embodied soul continuously passes, in this body, from childhood to youth to old age, the soul similarly passes into another body at death. A sober person is not bewildered by such a change.”

Bhagavad Gita as it is ch 2:13 translated by Swami A. C.Bhaktivedanta

When you realize this, you obviously redirect the attention from the bodily demands, which are merely the reptilian part of the brain in action, and you begin to see your self in the light of eternity. With this knowledge and realization of your identity as eternal, your consciousness is drawn upward, as the knots of attachment to the temporary body and material trappings are cut by the sword of knowledge.

It’s all a matter of perspective or insight or realization as to how the world looks or what reality is. Modern civilization has been taken over by gross materialists who have an agenda to train you from birth to be trapped in the bodily concept of life as a consumer in order to fuel the wheels of commerce. Religion has been systematically destroyed so even the shallow understanding of consciousness presented by the western doctrines of theology are dismissed. At best we have a watered down attempt at metaphysics or worse still a fundamentalist doctrine akin more to nationalism and bodily identification than true transcendence, where the other is seen as alien or different from the self simply due to cultural or language differences. This is a truly mundane and naive understanding compared to the ancient yoga texts of India.

Not that nationalism is absent form India. The land of “dharma” and transcendence herself has become a bed of mundane sense gratification, and misplaced nationalist identity with the body, yet still the last vestiges of the yoga traditions remain in the hidden areas of the sub-continent. What I’m referring to by the yoga teachings is not an Indian concept. It is pre-Indian, or Vedic. It existed before India and it applies to all life, not just Indian bodies. All human beings are the same in spiritual potential and all house an eternal spark of consciousness that originates beyond the current temporary vehicle, regardless of race or nationalism.

With this knowledge, based on ancient teachings from realized souls, we can get a clearer picture of who we are, where we wish to be and how to act in the light of that knowledge. And this wisdom is not by any means anybody’s mental speculation, or original idea or pipe dream. This is information from yogis who have practiced the yoga techniques, itself a science, and had first-hand experience in the nature of the eternal self and its relation to the “super-self”, the source. And we all already know this. We already are eternal and have this full awareness of ourselves. It’s just covered by bad education and forgetfulness over lifetimes. But it can be revived by the practice of yoga and meditation, or for the sensitive and receptive few, just by hearing. So I wish us all progress on the path toward the goal of life, wherever we are, for at the destination we will all meet again to celebrate in ecstasy, as we are eternally destined to.