And if you go further, you realize that you are connected with and in fact are everything. That’s what we call universal consciousness. You are the universe. The whole universe is the Logos, the Word. The universe is a beautiful harmony of everything as one being in constant transformation, one being in a constant state of resurrection. Even further, you realize that you are the mystery from which all of that comes. You can perceive the whole show, not just your personal show but the whole cosmic show, as something emerging and happening now. Not only do you emerge and transform, but the whole universe emerges and transforms. That state of transformation and change includes life and death and everything in between. All of this wonder is revealed through knowing who you are.

To see consciousness in its purity is to experience what is called universal consciousness (Ed: ie, cosmic consciousness), to experience the mind as pure consciousness. When you experience the mind as consciousness, it is also knowingness, the very element of knowing. Either the individual consciousness has to go through the ego dying and then be reborn as universal consciousness as we have described, or individual consciousness must expand to become universal consciousness. It is as if space experiences space, rather than someone experiencing space, and it is limitless. It is difficult to describe what universal consciousness or what the mind as consciousness means, because there are no thoughts in it. The moment there are thoughts, the content separates you from the consciousness.

It is not possible to understand what universal consciousness is without experiencing it, because it eliminates the ordinary level of understanding. The understanding of universal consciousness is exactly the elimination of separateness, of any division in perception, including thoughts about consciousness. There is no consciousness of anything in particular. This is a foreign experience for most of us, because we know consciousness only in terms of consciousness of something. In the pure experience of consciousness there is no experience of body or thoughts; there is no experience, no experiencer, no self. Hence springs the Buddhist notion of no self. The Buddhists say that ultimately there is no self because in that aspect, universal consciousness, you cannot experience a self. Any entity-ness stops you from experiencing this vastness which is the elimination of separateness, the elimination of discrimination. There is complete non-differentiation. There is no separation, no two, and no thought that there is one.