The body is our general medium for having a world. —Maurice Merleau-Ponty

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Do you know who God is?

God is not Vishnu, Shiva or Brahma; not the wind, the sun or the moon; not the brahmana or the king, nor I nor you; not Lakshmi nor the mind (intellect). God is without form and undivided; that splendor (devanam) which is not made and which has neither beginning nor end is known as God (Deva) or Lord Shiva which is Pure Consciousness.

I asked the Lord: Pray tell me how this world is transmuted into Pure Consciousness and also how that Pure Consciousness appears as the jiva and other things. 

The Lord continued: Indeed only that cid-akasha (the Infinite Space of Consciousness), which alone exists even after the cosmic dissolution, exists even now, utterly devoid of objectivity.

Even as the duality experienced in dream is illusory, the duality implied in the creation of the world is illusory. 

Even as the objects seem to exist and function in the inner world of Consciousness in a Dream, objects seem to exist and function in the outer world of Consciousness during the Wakeful state. 

Nothing really happens in both these states.

Even as Consciousness alone is the Reality in the Dream state, Consciousness alone is the Substance in the Wakeful state too. 

That is the Lord, 

That is the Supreme Truth, 

That You Are, 

That I Am and

That is All.

—Swami Venkatesananda

Vasistha's Yoga, exerpts

know-the-self

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