The Higher Mind or Manas is the part of the fundamental nature or representative of Mahat or the Universal Mind. From this Higher Mind comes the feeling of liberty, freewill - the knowledge that we can rule ourselves. Once our consciousness identifies with this Higher Mind instead of the Lower Desire mind, the "I" of the lower nature becomes the animal we bestride; now we can bring the plunging steed onto our leash and tame it with our will.

In our upward ascension on the wings of evolution we reach a point where the intellect fails us; language may not exactly utter that which the Spirit senses in those higher realms. That is why the Seers spoke to us in symbols, parables, or codified language. At best they kept quiet; their silence could by itself spread the fragrance.

From below, the intellect is bound, is constantly struggling and fighting for mastery. The tempest made up of desires, cravings and our appetites keeps howling around it, the waves of emotion and passion tosses it to and fro and thus the Lower Mind is clearly at pains to hear the voice of the Higher Mind. Through the intellect the Lower Mind cannot reach the Higher Mind.

It is this lower nature that needs to be crucified, typified by the crucifixion of the flesh, so that the Ego can cross the frontiers of corporeal death and "rise again" as the triumphant conqueror over sin and death. In this supreme, highest, absolute moment, he becomes one with the glorious presence, the Christ in him. Thenceforth, he may live in the body; but now the body has become his obedient instrument, his compliant slave and he exerts his full powers as an immortal spiritual intelligence. He is now an Adept or Master.

Only thus does the long, arduous pilgrimage of suffering of the Manas come to an end. All along the ray is ever-struggling to return to its source, the Lower Mind ever aspiring to become one with the higher. It is this continual yearning which clothes itself as prayer, as inspiration, as ‘seeking after God,' as longing for union with the divine.

Thus, in the Adept or Master, the Christ has risen triumphant, victorious, lord of himself and of all nature. This Adept has a fully developed self-consciousness, which is the vehicle of all knowledge of the past and present, and the future. He is an Adept or Immortal Entity because he now moves in the realms of the Unconditional Will, absolutely free; but whose freedom is in complete harmony with the Law and thus voluntarily acts as the channel of the Universal Will - in perfect liberty and perfect obedience.

The Upanishads have a way of describing the Divine Manifestation that is the Universe. The external world is but an expression of Lord Shiva resplendent in His Cosmic Dance. This is the Nataraja Shiva in full sway. Lord Shiva dances his dance of creation and yet veils his glory, his splendor, his magnificence from it. The outer world is nothing but the opening out to this glory of the Divine Dance and his creation is never detached from him. The apparent detachment is because of the play of Cosmic Illusion or Maya and by this God wants to give his creation the sheer pleasure of discovering his God Consciousness.

God screens himself from his creation to give himself the unalloyed delight of creation discovering God. Thus, God is both Creator and the Created, the Inventor and his Invention, the Designer and his Designs. The Uncreated God and The Created God are One, yet the creation is attached to the imposing delusion of separateness. Whenever God's creation discovers God, God discovers himself all over again. God delights in this Divine Lila or play of hiding and discovering his glory. He is truly the One and Only.

In his Infinite Creativity, God then becomes the Teacher and the Taught!! As the Buddha, he teaches to himself (you and me, his creations) that to become One with the Absolute Cosmic Awareness you need to free yourself from all attachments. By renouncing attachment to this world you return to your true source, your true foundation. You can then restore yourself to The Uncreated, Unmanifested God and this is what is known as Nirvana or The Bliss. You attain to this Blissful Oneness through the practice of contemplation or meditative observation. The way of the Buddha allows one to achieve this Oneness through meditative observation.

Yet in another instance, he brings to you (and me and to everyone) the path of Christ that requires you to repent for your sins and acknowledge the sacrifice of Christ. Christ as God in the Flesh died for you, so you can attain to eternal life regardless of your life in the past. Christ created on the seventh day the Sabbath to make it easier to achieve union with God. He made it simple for you so that you need renounce the world and commune with God once every seven days. Therefore, this path also teaches that we can be resurrected into the Kingdom of God.

Thus, all paths are same and they all lead to the highest in you. Glory be to God and His Divine Lila, the Cosmic Dance!!

There is only one way to live this life: through love and sacrifice. To love and love absolutely, and lead a life of sacrifice is the only true way on Earth. But the way we cling to our possessions, our beliefs, and above all our severe conditionings, it is really difficult to break away from our mould.

You (you and me and everyone included) need to throw everything away - there is no need to fear to throw away even life. Only when you give everything you have, everything you know, everything you think of as ‘mine', and in the denial of all that is not the Self, then only the One shall arise within you, and you shall know that ‘I am He'. Below the surface consciousness we are all One; our point of origin is One. So by giving to ‘others', we actually give to ‘ourselves'.

There is only the One and you cannot find yourself, or the absence of yourself. You are yourself, but you do not know what you are, and whatever you know about yourself is just a guess or someone else's guess and your's or the other's guess is wrong!! You are staring into a void and this void is actually void of voidness! It should make no difference whether we dispose of ‘me' or the ‘other', for the disposal of either eliminates both. The method is to ‘cease or terminate your thinking' as from a self (please note the difference between self (me, my ego) and Self (the One); there is no other way to differentiate).

Who is this You? You - whoever you may be - are just an error of perception or observation, or a misinterpretation of facts - a delusion, a false impression. Once we can look squarely into this fact we get to understand that that which is self is other; that which is other is self, and this which I AM is neither self nor other. Each ‘other' becomes (or is) a ‘self' to itself, and each ‘self' becomes (or is) an ‘other' to another ‘self'.

It is also true that you cannot throw away the Self; the Self within you never ceases to live. This is the true philosophy of life. Yet this concept will remain, for the majority of us for the majority of time, within the domains of philosophy; not yet ready to be put into practice unless we realize this truth this very ‘moment'.

Self-Realization is your birthright; it is not be attained, it is yours (yours means you and me included).

Why am I writing all these? Because it is better that we all should speak out the truth that we see - howsoever partial rather than complete it maybe. At the same time there is no need to silence the truth of others; others may also have caught a glimpse of something that we do not possess. So let us speak out our truths and yet not engage in the denunciation of the truth of others.

There should be an absolute liberty of thought and speech; where we are wrong, time will correct us; where we are mistaken, truths will gradually burn up our errors. But if one silences another then one letter of the complete truth may slip out of sight, and be lost from the life of the world, a letter which should have had its place in the whole.

Let us all be led along the path of imagination and discovery; so that each one of us becomes an observer, a recipient of truth, a dealer in possibilities. We all have our own individual roles to play - all important to the original scheme of things.