Indescribable but Revealable God
Everything that exists is God, the innermost essence of everything, so what word will describe it? However, you can get a wonderful understanding of your God nature if you contemplate these two metaphors.
Space
Space is one. There are not two or more spaces, although sometimes we talk about inner space and outer space or the space an elephant or mouse occupies. Space isn’t God but it is “like” God. It is indivisible. The God “you” is indivisible. The body “you” is divisible. It is made up of parts that are assembled by God. The only way you can multiply space is by dividing it. But you can’t divide it. Any multiples of space…one half, one fourth, one eighth, etc… would not create any new space. Same old space all the way down to billions, trillions of imaginary spaces and beyond. There is only one of you. The Vedanta word for yourself is advaitam, which means “not two.” Reality is only one, not two. Tremendous practical benefits come from knowing this.
In Vedanta we figuratively talk about the “birth” of pot-space when a potter makes a pot out of clay. And, in keeping with the metaphor we say the pot space “dies” when the pot falls off a table and brakes into small bits. But any movement or change in the pot space is an apparent, a seeming movement. Nothing to do with space moves or changes in any way. Similarly, nothing in you moves or changes at all, although it seems as if it does when you look at yourself through changing instruments, your body or mind, for instance. You are division-less, changeless, and motionless. How cool is that!
However, it is easy to be fooled; it looks like your emotional and mental bodies enclose spacelike consciousness. In Vedanta we call enclosed consciousness…consciousness with “clothing”…the individual self (jivatman). The consciousness that clothes the body and mind is called the transcendental, all-pervading consciousness (paramatman). But the sages who gifted us with Vedanta say there is only one undivided consciousness (ekātma). And the magical principle that make one look like two or more is called Maya, beautiful intelligent ignorance! It is a great wonder. We are always amazed and delighted when we look at reality in this way.
Dream
When you are dreaming, a dream world is born out of your own mind. But, like the pot-space, it is seemingly, not actually created. When a dream lion is eating you, you are comfortably asleep in your own cozy bed. The dream is real for the dreamer but not for the waker. If you wake up in a dream you will think that you are really awake when you are fast asleep. Which is true? Neither. You can confirm this fact because you know very well there is only one of you. And how did this come about? Not by your grace, but by virtue of the same wonderful Maya power. Think about these two metaphors until you “get it.” From that point on you won’t be deluded into thinking that there are two “things” in reality: a “me” self and a “your” self, a higher self and a lower self, an inner self and an outer self, etc. When the false conclusion that reality is a duality is destroyed by this realization, you experience the unborn undying bliss of the one true non-dual self.
