‘I am a teacher’…‘I am aggressive’… ‘He is an Indian’… ‘She is so rich’ … ‘My colleague is lazy’.
From the moment we are born, we are taught to label people by appearance, name, gender, role, relationship, qualification, nationality, religion and so on. We use these labels to answer: ‘Who am I?’ or ‘Who are they?’ This is ego. Ego is attachment to a wrong image of myself.
When we say ‘I’, we visualise what we see in the mirror. The body is the first thing we acquire and make it our identity. But we call it ‘my body’. Our body, relationships, position, religion, nationality everything for which we said ‘I’, truth is it is ‘my’. They are all mine, but they are not I. Then, who am I?
I am the energy that thinks, decides, comes into words and action through my body to create my relationships and achieve my goals. It is I who does it all. I the energy, a pure conscient being, we can call it consciousness, light, power, spirit, or the soul. I the soul am the actor playing different roles and the physical body is my costume.
What is the true nature of the soul? Every soul is originally an embodiment of seven qualities: Purity, peace, love, happiness, power, wisdom and bliss. These attributes are ever present in us.
Understanding the truth of our identity, of being a Soul, changes how we perceive ourselves, and the world around us. A little awareness enables us to experience soul consciousness in every scene.
When we are ego-conscious, we believe our self to be a body, role, position, and a relationship and then we look for peace, happiness, love, and power in them. We want to achieve or buy happiness, seek love from people, power in positions and peace in places.
When we live in the awareness of being a pure, peaceful, ‘loveful’ and happy soul, we experience these feelings while playing our roles. We then become givers of peace, love, and happiness to the world. These feelings convey who we are, not what we want.
Visualise a scene at the office. Within 10 minutes you meet four people — security guard at the gate, receptionist at the desk, colleagues at the workstations, CEO in his cabin. If your behaviour changed four times in 10 mins, then you were a role connecting to their roles. Enter the same office as a pure soul, your courtesies will be according to their roles, but your respect will be the same for all, because you are a soul connecting to another soul. Not superior or inferior to anyone.
The shift from ego consciousness to soul consciousness can certainly be considered as a healing process — spiritual, mental, and emotional — with proven benefits to physical well-being too.
For daily practice of soul consciousness, repeat the following thoughts gently to yourself every morning and night, visualising and allowing them to take root deeply in your mind: ‘I bring all my attention up through my body to a point in the middle of my forehead…I see myself…I the energy…I am a point of light… I am a pure soul…I am a powerful soul…I radiate love and happiness to all…I am a giver…I am contented…I make every scene beautiful.’
The Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual University (BKWSU) is an international non-governmental organisation, which intends to help individuals re-discover and strengthen their inherent worth by encouraging and facilitating a process of spiritual awakening.