YOUR CONSCIOUSNESS IS LIKE A RIVER

[Ms Tercy Lonan]

YOUR CONSCIOUSNESS IS LIKE A RIVER
December 28, 1985

- Swami Chidananda

Your consciousness, your awareness of existing as a person, is like a river. The Supreme
Being is your be-all and end-all, your wealth of wealths, your greatest, richest treasure beside which
there is no other treasure, the fulfillment of all your desires, longings, and aspirations, your total
satisfaction and your greatest good. That Supreme Being is the reason for your existence, is your
beginning, middle, and end, light of lights, beauty of beauties, sweeter than the sweetest, nearer
than the near, dearer than anything we may think of as being dear, to Whom you belong and Who is
verily your very own. That Supreme Being, Who is Bliss Absolute, Peace Absolute, Wisdom
Consciousness Absolute, is like unto the ocean.
When the river flows as a river it is led, confined and bound between two banks, therefore,
necessarily it is limited in space. It has its other limitations, too, of depth and width. Many times it is
curved, stopped and dammed, diverted and channelized and lifted and put to work. It can dry up if
anything happens to its source. It can be polluted also. Therefore it is qualified. It has limitations.
But in spite of all these limitations, the wonderful thing about the river is that its very existence
means the steady, ceaseless onward flow towards the ocean. A river is a river because it is a thing
that flows towards the ocean. Even as it has a source, it has an apex where it meets and enters into
the ocean and finds its fulfillment. It is its entry into the ocean that puts an end to its limitations. No
more is it bound by banks on either side, no more is it limited in its depth, no more is it restricted by
any other factors. It attains vastness, it attains an unfathomable and immeasurable depth and
grandeur. That ceaseless flow now becomes a Being. It leaves its “riverness” and puts an end to its
limitations and enters into the vastness and immeasurability of its being. It has no more the
necessity of flowing. It just has to BE in all its grandeur, its depth, in its limitless boundlessness.
Your consciousness, therefore, is meant to reach that vast boundless, immeasurable, grand
Consciousness: the ocean that is the Reality, that is supreme, luminous, illumined Consciousness,
the ocean that is bliss absolute, the ocean that is peace profound. That is life.
That you may not miss your direction and forget the great consummation and fulfillment
that awaits your life, that the flow of the stream of your life may not get bound up by any
obstruction, dam or confinement nor get lost and dried up in some desert of illusion or delusion, of
craving or of self-forgetfulness, but that the stream of your life may steadily pursue its destined
course and firmly adhere to its right direction so that every day that passes sees you nearing that
great and grand and glorious ocean of Satchidananda, that supreme cosmic source and origin of
your being, the ancient men of wisdom, out of their infinite love and compassion for all beings, laid
down the need to each day set the direction of the stream of your individual consciousness towards
this goal supreme. They wisely set down means and methods so that your life-stream ever may
move towards the ocean, towards fulfillment, consummation, and the glorious attainment of the
supreme aim and objective of your existence.
These means and methods overall, in a general term, are referred to as “worship”. Worship
is turning our vision towards that Supreme Being, the great Reality: God, Brahman, the Tao, Ahura
Mazda, Yahweh, the Father in Heaven, Allah, Eka Omkar. It is turning our vision towards that
Supreme Being in Whose direction the sages would have us face and move, towards that one
non-dual Being, the One and Only Great Reality referred to by various terms and given various
names. Turning towards that Great Reality and initiating amovement towards It is the main purpose
of worship. Suited to the stage of evolution and state of spiritual awakening of different individual
souls, the ancients formulated varied techniques, all aimed at this one purpose only; that of turning
your thoughts to the eternal and permanent, to the all-perfect, all-full Reality, and of initiating a
movement towards that Great Reality. Because individual seeking souls are in different stages of
spiritual awakening and evolution, a single method would be inadequate to meet the needs of one
and all. But it was necessary that there should be a suitable method for each and every being.
Therefore, wisely the ancient sages created this diversity which contained within itself a
fundamental unity. Allmethods have but one purpose. Though the process may outwardly vary, the
inner objective is identical: to direct our consciousness towards the Supreme Reality.
Formal worship includes the lighting of candles, waving of incense, offering of flowers,
genuflection before God, kneeling and kissing the ground, glorifying Him with psalms and hymns
of praise, praying, saying the rosary, repeating His divine Name, reading divine texts that describe
and glorify Him and tell you of your relationship to Him, and finally, of entering into the inner
silence, gathering up all the divine strands of thought and feeling, purifying them and focusing them
upon the Great Reality within through contemplation, interior recollection, and prayer. This
initiating of a steady, unbroken stream of God-thought within the depths of your inner being and
gathering the sentiments, thoughts and intellect and dwelling only upon that Supreme Being is
meditation. Even as there may be many methods according to context and background, even so all
the varied processes ultimately are to lead to meditation. They constitute meditation in different
forms and in different degrees of intensity, but the objective and the aim is identical. That is to direct
your consciousness towards the eternal Reality, which is the goal of your existence, and to initiate a
purposeful, loving movement of your consciousness towards that Great Being.
Meditation is this movement fully internalized, this movement taken from the outside into
the inside, having no more outer movement. It becomes a process that is supraphysical, that is
totally lifted up to the level of the mind and intellect so that it attains a degree of subtlety that goes
beyond external ritual, formal ceremonial, and outer manifestation and becomes completely
interior; silent, wordless. But essentially it is that same movement which is inwardly present even in
the most preliminary of methods which constitute overall the process of worship. When manmoves
towards his divine source and destiny, he is worshiping that Great Reality. Meditation is the
ultimate supreme process where the seeking soul leaves the body aside and does not involve it in
any movement or process and goes into the interior, higher region of the mind. When thinking
comes within, is intensified and made subtle, even the mind is transcended and meditation becomes
the attainment of a state of consciousness where you are aware only of the Divine Reality and you
hold onto that subtle state of inner awareness and perception.
You are fortunate that you are gathered here during the last remaining days of the
concluding old year to collectively come together day after day, morning after morning, to initiate
this movement towards Divine Consciousness, and to experience this movement towards
transcending all limitations, of liberating yourselves from all bondage and of entering into a state of
illimitable freedom; of Divine Awareness. You are fortunate. It would not be at all out of the way to
regard this retreat as a continuing initiation into a state of consciousness that should characterize
your interior in all the days to come. You are setting your sights as it were towards the vision of the
Supreme Being. You are giving the interior of your mind a new direction. You are giving a
different, undivided, truth-filled direction to the stream of your thoughts. Let, therefore, this
morning meditation mean to you not merely an item in the program of this retreat for the time being,
to conclude upon the first of January. But, on the contrary, let this morning meditation be for you
the commencement of the purposeful movement of your consciousness, the commencement of a
determined, ceaseless, persevering flow of the river of your consciousness towards that great ocean
of Satchidananda. That alone is the one thing worth doing in life. That alone IS real life. Meditation
is the central purpose of your existence. Meditation is the true meaning of life in the correct sense of
the term. It is the flow of your finite life into infinite, eternal life in the Atman. Thus grasp the right
significance and implication of meditation and what it means to you. It is not merely a practice or a
picnic or a process, but rather it is the essence of your being. IT IS LIFE ITSELF. When you rightly
meditate and when you rightly grasp the implication of meditation, then your entire life is a
meditation. When you make your life an earnest, continuous flow towards God-consciousness and
higher God-experience, then as you do, life itself becomes a continuous process of meditation.
Meditation becomes inseparable from your life. As it is true that when you meditate then alone you
live, and otherwise you merely exist, it is equally true that when you rightly live, verily you are
meditating. Life and meditation to the spiritually perceptive cannot be separated. To one with right
spiritual perception and understanding of life, these two are inseparable.
Let us meditate. Remember that you are a river of consciousness going towards the ocean of
infinite Divine Consciousness. This flow through life, when rightly understood and properly
grasped, is meditation.
Peace. Peace. Peace be unto all beings in this universe. Peace be unto you all, and the joy of
moving towards the Supreme Reality, the joy of moving towards Satchidananda and the joy of ever
flowing onward to the ocean of Infinite Divine Bliss. Peace and joy to you, and peace and joy to all
in and through you. May that be your life.
God has given you a nice day to meditate and to remember Him, to think about Him, to give
thanks to Him, to praise and glorify Him, and to live for Him.
OM OM OM OM OM OM OM