The Real You

Who, or what, is the real you? When we look in the mirror we see our physical bodies. But this physical form is but the tip of the iceberg. This body is only maybe one percent of who we really are – or perhaps even less than that. And we spend just about all our time here looking after this tiny one percent. But what about the other 99 percent?

In The Path of the Masters Dr Julian Johnson writes that not only does man possess a physical body – inside that is one much finer, called the astral body, which appears to be made of light. And then, inside that is yet another body which is finer still, called the causal body, because in it is stored the cause or seed of all that is to happen in an individual’s lifetime. This causal body stores all our karmas. It holds a perfect record of every experience of the soul and its companion mind, running through all of the countless ages of their existence. Out of all of these experiences character is formed, and from that character all actions flow.

It is through the causal body that the soul contacts all the lower levels of life, working through the lower bodies, as mentioned above. Both the astral and the causal bodies belong to and are derived from universal mind – and must eventually return to universal mind. Both are of extremely high vibration and are full of light and endowed with great power. That power comes from the soul.

The physical, astral and causal bodies cannot operate without the mind. So long as we are in the physical, astral or causal regions we must retain the mind. When the soul descended from the higher regions, it picked up the mind as its equipment for use on the lower planes. The mind, however, is simply a machine, powered by spirit. All its intelligence, light and power come from the soul, just as a light bulb draws power from an electric current to allow it to shine.

Our mind can be our greatest friend or worst enemy. All too often satsangis let their mind imprint on them negative attitudes regarding their own spiritual progress. And unfortunately, what one believes affects a person’s attitude towards life. So when we tell ourselves: “I can’t meditate for two and a half hours; I can’t still the mind”. Or: “I don’t deserve initiation; I’m not good enough,” then those beliefs will form our attitude. The Masters tell us, though, that the only thing we can control is our attitude, so let us try to change those negative thoughts to: “I can easily meditate for two and a half hours or more; my Master knew that I deserved initiation, therefore, I am good enough for my Master.”

Let us be aware of this trick of the mind and get our attitude right. We need to do a mental house cleaning. It is time to toss out all those old limiting, self-defeating beliefs, and replace them with positivity. And let us try to focus our attention more on the soul.

We are told that the soul is like a droplet of the divine ocean that is God. It is something that cannot be destroyed. All else – the physical, astral, causal planes – can, and one day will, all be destroyed. What will remain then is our soul – our true self, now striving to return to what it once was.

In The Science of the Soul Maharaj Jagat Singh describes the descent of the soul from its source in Sat Nam:

The souls of the entire universe descended into the domain of the mind.… Treading the path of mind, it[the soul] strayed further and further away from the path of Nam till, at last, all its light and glory got totally masked. It even forgot that it was ‘soul’ – immortal and everlasting – and began to identify itself with its various coverings, with which it had enveloped itself during its descent. It began to call itself “body”.

First it took on the causal body, after descending to the Causal Region. When it came down to the Astral Region, which is the world of potent illusion, it was covered with the astral body. And when it dropped down to the phenomenal world, it was covered with the physical body, in addition to all the previous coverings. The lower the soul sank, the dimmer grew its light.

So now we identify with our physical bodies. On an intellectual level we all know that these will die some day. But the author of Living Meditation asks: “Is it not strange then, that even though we know we will not be in the world permanently, we act as if we were to be here forever?” He points out:

When we stay at a hotel, we don’t try to fix the problems we face. This is because we are guests at the hotel, not attached to it, and we know we will soon be on our way.

He reminds us of something Soami Ji said: that we are so attached to the creation and love it so much that we have forgotten the Lord. We have forgotten our true home, and even forgotten who we really are. We are trapped in this world of illusion and take everything that we see to be real.

We also read in Living Meditation:

Science tells us that at the subatomic or quantum level, nothing of the material world is left intact. There are only energy fields with no solidity at all, nothing for the senses to see or touch.… All the suns, stars and galaxies in the whole cosmos are a quantum mirage, winking in and out of existence millions of times per second. The whole universe is like a blinking light.

We need to wake up, because to indulge in this spiritual lethargy is what brings us back here, life after life. Through meditation, as taught by a living Master, we can wake up from the dream-like existence that characterizes lower planes of consciousness.

We do need the physical body, however, because it is a key to obtaining God-realization. Even gods and other spiritual beings envy humans, because it is only while in the human form that we can get initiated by a perfect Master and learn from him how to meditate and allow our souls to return to our original home. Meditation is the only way that we can ever realize the hidden potential of our divine spirit. It is only during meditation that we can get to experience our real selves.

We often hear that we are spiritual beings having a human experience, but we do not really appreciate what that means. We could say that we are physical bodies and technically we would be right. But after realizing that we are much more than just the physical body, we would immediately see how much more there is to us. Isn’t it about time that we started listening to the Masters -the spiritual experts – when they tell us that we have an astral, causal and spiritual body as well? Isn’t it about time that we started paying more attention to our real selves – that hidden, unexplored greater part of us that is eternal?