Our Layers Of Existence

OUR LAYERS OF EXISTENCE-------- Sri Sri Ravishankar

If you are thinking only of the ground reality then no creativity will come and if you are only on imagination, then too there is no creativity. A balance is needed. See, life is also like that — a balance between our intellect and our heart, or feeling, or intuition. Listening to our gut feeling, developing that intuitive ability within us is another aspect of creativity. So, when such blocks come into us, there is a way to eliminate them. How? By studying our own seven layers of our existence. I call science as a study of “what is this” and spirituality as a study of “who am I?”. They are not at loggerheads at all, they go hand in hand. So study about yourself, your seven layers of existence. What are they?

1. The Body.

2. The Breath — are you all breathing now? See, many times we are not even aware that we are breathing. That something, which keeps our body alive, we don’t care to look into it. Our breath has great secrets to offer.

3. Then comes the Mind. Mind is perception, observation and expression.

4. Then is the Intellect — the judgement, the arguments, the agreement or disagreement that happens within us is all part of our intellect.

5. The Memory — if you observe the memory, it stores the memory of unpleasant things much more than the pleasant. We take the insults and preserve it in our memory much more than the pleasant events. This is the nature of memory.

6. Then comes the Ego — the more we study, the more learned we become; we become so stiff. We lose our smile, we lose our innocence, we lose our friendliness. Learned people get a sort of an ego — that I am much better than the other, more learned, I know better than them — this ego of “I know better” takes away certain beautiful things from your life. One should have a sense of belongingness with everybody, naturalness. Ego dampens one’s personality. Today, what we lack is really good examples of personality. Knowledge is there in all the libraries — but what the books cannot transmit is the personal charisma, the vibration a person emits. The friendly and warm atmosphere a person carries along with him/her.

7. The seventh layer is the Self. Self is that something that is the reference point of all changes in life. We notice that everything is changing in our life — our body, our mind, our thought, our environment, and our behaviour. If everything is changing then how do we know the change? Because there is a reference point, something that doesn’t change, we are able to notice the change. And this reference point, the non-changing something that is in every one of us, I would call the Self.

The scriptures would call it atman.A little bit of knowledge about these seven layers of existence makes a big, big difference in our lives. It brings cheer, freshness, and we become so alive and childlike. If you are cheerful, you will be creative.

Otherwise you are so dull.

Jai Gurudev !