Swami Rama
Swami Rama Quotes about Consciousness
To be on a spiritual path with a guru is not an easy thing. It is not pleasant. The guru tests the disciples, puts them in the most difficult situations, and creates obstacles for them. All the tests, difficulties, and obstacles are meant to train and expand the consciousness of the disciple.
Meditation is actually not a part of any religion. It is exploring yourself, exploring the deeper aspects of your being, and finally leading you to the center of consciousness within.
Happiness is within and the source is the center of consciousness, love, and wisdom.
What Jesus meant was that whoever is attached to the worldly life and this earthly body will lose them in death. But whoever lets go of attachments to this worldly life and this earthly body and identifies with the permanence or God-consciousness that Jesus represented, will never die.
When the senses are well-controlled and withdrawn from contact with the objects of the world, then sense perceptions no longer create images in the mind. The mind is then trained in one-pointedness. When the mind no longer recalls thought-patterns from the unconscious, a balanced state of mind leads to a higher state of consciousness. A perfect state of serenity established in sattva is the highest state of enlightenment. The practice of meditation and non-attachment are the two keynotes. A very firm conviction is essential for establishing a definite philosophy of life.
Only one who is well established in the stage of nirvikalpa samadhi is an illumined yogi, and only such a yogi can truly guide other aspirants. Such a yogi is beyond the bondage of space, time and causation, and he is ever free, for it is possible for him to remain dissolved in brahman and yet return to normal consciousness.
It is impossible to understand what exists through reasoning or intellectual debates. Absolute truth cannot be scientifically proven because it cannot be observed, verified, or demonstrated through sensory perceptions. (...) This is why scientists cannot come to any objective conclusion about the immortality of the soul and the afterlife, and in any case, nothing could convince them. (...) The objective world is only half of the universe. What we perceive through our senses is not the world in its entirety. The other half, which includes the mind, thoughts, and emotions, cannot be explained by sensory perceptions of external objects. (...) The soul has not been created. It is essentially consciousness and is perfect. After the dissolution of the gross body, everything remains latent. The soul survives.
Once you turn your focus inward, the process of transformation will begin; then you will become aware of the many levels of consciousness.
It is He who manifests as both matter and consciousness. There is no place where God is not. In every atom, in every living being He alone is present.
If you learn to go beyond the jabbering of your mind, and can go to the deeper aspects of your consciousness, then body, breath, and mind will not come in your way.
A person who does not meditate does not know how to expand his consciousness. He has narrow vision as if he is looking through a window, but when he learns to expand his consciousness, it is like going through a door. It is exactly as if one were looking through a small window in a house. From the window, his view is very limited, but when he goes out of the house, he has a much wider view. When he goes to the roof, he can see even more clearly. As one’s consciousness expands, his vision becomes clearer, and he understands things as they are.