Kumu Obi: Simplified explanation: life forms are some intelligences. Do they have individual consciousness? Not necessarily. Consciousness can be at the level of a group or a higher system.
An example is grass, each individual blade of grass in a meadow, meadows on a hill, hills on what we call a continental mass, and so on.
At every level we can talk about intelligence, and a blade of grass is intelligent, it knows how to exist, how to grow. Is it conscious? A group of blades of grass, i.e. a meadow, too.
Is a blade of grass alive? It is intelligent and exchanges energy, it knows what form it should have and what to do to exist. It is alive.
Is a meadow alive? Yes. A hill? Yes. A continent? Yes. A planet? Yes.
An excellent example is a colony of ants. Contemplate the existence of ants and an anthill. If you have a problem with an ant infestation in your house, are you having a problem with one ant or with some higher intelligence? And what does the life of an individual ant look like?
And then think about the colony of candida bacteria in your intestines. Why do you feel the need for sweets, the hunger for sugar? Because the entire colony, the collection of individual bacteria needs energy. And then you, i.e. your ego, the idea of 'I', and actually your mind, concludes that you want to eat chocolate.
Where is consciousness there? Intelligence simply executes what today in the age of information technology we call a program. Here we are not yet talking about consciousness, about awareness, about conscious existence.
And all this applies to the humans. Bio robots. Humanoid forms of existence without consciousness.
Everyone knows something they want and everyone does something, they exchange energy. Everyone needs something, they have some needs. My people say: "u se, na se, poda se" (in self, on self, under self). It's hard to translate that into these newly invented languages, but roughly: consume, collect, fu*k.
And where is the consciousness there?
And every time you want or need something - either there is a program in your mind or there is some subordinate form of life in the energy system that you call your physical body.
And where is the consciousness there?
So I ask you: who are you? What are you? Then you get confused... and offended.
Meditate on Shiva.
I repeat: don't fantasize about a blue muscular guy, who passionately wants only you, exactly you, because you are special.
Stop personalizing. Do you really think your rather undereducated but utilitarian brain can visualize what created the entire Universe?
Meditate on cosmic consciousness.
And you will also understand wholeness, unity, the true meaning of the term Yoga.
You will also understand how wrong, diabolical and godless any separation from the whole, any elitist exclusivity and idea of superiority, any form of destruction and violence is. All these mental constructions are, by definition, diabolical. Because they are mental constructions. They are not consciousness, they are not life.
Spiritual development begins with questions like "what am I?", "where did I come from?", "who created all this?", "what holds all this together?".
But...
Spirituality is not intellectualization. Spirituality is a higher level than the intellectual mind, the level of the spirit. The spirit can be conscious, not the mind. Consciousness is at the level of the spirit.
I cannot give you the answers. No one can. You must become conscious of the answers yourself.
Answers to spiritual questions cannot be verbalized. We use words to communicate on a mental level. We have enormous problems trying to verbalize experiences from the so-called astral world and dreams, let alone spiritual experiences. There are no words, no terminology, no templates for comparisons, metaphors...
Spirituality is an experience.
I can help you only to the extent that I will show you how to prepare, purify and initiate your viveka.
A guru cannot give you the answers. A guru can show you the way from darkness to light, but you must walk that path yourself.
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