Why Don’t We Know We’re God?

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFuMYMNoCOs]

The Supreme

If you say I am God intellectually, it is ego. Actually, it’s an experience. You experience the God element in you, and at that time you call yourself enlightened. However, before that if you call yourself God, it means you are trying to become egoistic, you are trying to portray what you are not. You have not understood. Somebody says you are God, so you say I am God, but what is God? God is the substratum. Everything is formed out of him, and everything will dissolve back into Him. That is what Krishna says in the Bhagavat Gita, “You can offer even a leaf or a flower to me, but understand that it belongs to me anyway! Please offer, there is no problem, but eventually it is all mine!” Who is that mine? The Supreme God, the “Para Brahman”, not a finite form which we call Krishna. He is talking in the terms of The Supreme “Para Brahman”. Likewise Krishna also says you can make an offering to any deity you like, your “Ishta Devata”- a deity that you like, you can offer them anything, it all comes to me. So who is this Me? The Supreme “Para Brahman”, from where all forms arose, all forms came out, and eventually into which all will dissolve back. So this is the process of existence. We come out of somewhere, we shed the body and dissolve back somewhere.

Why is it that we have to come back to earth again?

Because the shopping list is not fulfilled and we keep adding to it too! We keep adding desires. Usual desires which are weak might not create another birth, however the deep impressions or the deep desires which have to be fulfilled, whether they are positive or negative, definitely create another birth. There are subtle desires also which we can avoid, and which are not of much seriousness.

Why do we not know that we are God?

So who is God? You are God. But why do we not understand this? Have you ever thought about that? Why do we not know that we are God? It is a question worth asking. Do you know why? It’s because we always search outside of us. We are always looking for God outside. We go to temples, we do Poojas, thinking that God is sitting outside. There was a great saint called Avvaiyyar in Tamilnadu. She was sitting in the temple with her back towards the deity and eating something. Two Brahmins came and said what are you doing? Your back is towards God. She said, “Really? So God is there, I never knew.” We think God sits in the idol, but God is everywhere. We need an idol so that we can focus, so that we can relate to it. Idols are usually created based on certain characteristics of ours, which is why we have 33 crore Gods. Since each person is unique, everyone cannot connect to every God, everyone cannot connect to every Guru. So, we need to have different Gurus, different Gods, different religions, different paths, so that each person can identify themselves with one of them. However, it is all one, it is all the same. You can choose a Guru you like, you can choose a religion you like, you can choose a path or a God you like and that is how it must be. Only then will there be progress, and once you choose a God or a Guru, go all the way till the end of the road. It’s all inside. First of all, you have to feel connected inside and when you know that you are connected, make the effort to go all the way, till you realize that you and I are one. So what is realization? The understanding that there is nothing apart from us, that it is all a part of us.
During the Kumbh Mela, I met an Avadhoota who lives in a tree.

He does not have voting rights, nor does he pay taxes. He doesn’t have an ATM card or a bank account, a very liberated being. A saint who was with us told us that this person is very evolved and enlightened. So we searched for him. We had about 30 French people with us and we searched, but could not find him. Finally we saw him inside a forest, sitting under a tree. There were a few people around him and he was talking. He asked those around him a question, “Can you hear the birds chirping?” It was a forest, so of course, the birds were chirping. He asked, “Where are the birds? Are they outside of you, or inside you?” If they are outside of us, we have something to do. We have to bring them inside. That means we have to expand our consciousness so that we become all encompassing. When we merge our consciousness with the consciousness of the Universe, we become God, we feel what God is. If the birds are outside of you, you are a unit, and you have a lot of work to do. The main work to do is shedding, annihilating the limited ego, the limited identifications, such as my name is Mohan, and I look like this. All these identifications bind you to an image, to a certain identification. Each night, we shed it.

Shedding during deep sleep

During our deep sleep state, we do not know whether we are man or woman, we do not know the time or space, and we do not know our qualifications. We know nothing. When we wake up we bring everything back. So, we have a stage, which teaches us that there is an element of nullification. This is also like a death state, where you have no identification.

Experiencing and expressing in dreams

The dream state is equal to the waking state because the dream state also spends a lot of energy. It takes energy and is another state just like the waking state. The only difference is that you have a different canvas to work on, you have a different frame to exercise and probably your identities are not blocking you in exercising and experiencing. The reason you are here on earth is to experience the world outside with whatever it is, and to express your constitution to the world. You are doing these two activities in dreams also. The images which you capture in your waking state are not available in the dream state, but you have a different frame to work on, which is much better sometimes. Also you do not carry forward or remember some of them in your waking state, because you don’t need to remember. If you were to remember, that could become a trauma. In an Astral experience your body is in a deep sleep state. Please understand the deep sleep state is always replenishment time. It replenishes you, it charges you back up like a battery charger, like your mobile charger. That is when you are completely replenished. So the deep sleep state is a state where you are fine, where your body is in a suspended state, and the waking mind does not exist. Thus you are able to travel and you can actually go out and come back. The astral world is where we usually go after our death and it is very familiar to us because we have gone there many times. Maybe you don’t know the roads here, but you definitely know the roads there, because you have been there many times. On Earth you can take birth in any location as per your karmas, as per your desires. However in the astral plane you already know the road map and the roads, and experiences such as, when we meet people, talk to them, and share experiences are brought forth by you into this physical world, i.e. the conscious world. You will remember because you need to remember. These are messages conveyed in a particular plane for exercising in the waking state. You will remember them though you may not remember dreams. So please understand the difference between astral experiences and dreams.

Transcribed by Vidya Rajagopalan
Edited by Caroline Moscato