The right consciousness will help us transcend all negative feelings, says AJIT KUMAR BISHNOI

We as souls have three intrinsic qualities. These are: Sat, chit and anand. Sat refers to the eternity of the soul, chit means consciousness, and anand is bliss. Taking up the sat quality first, as intelligent species we must identify ourselves correctly. We cannot go on assuming ourselves to be gross material bodies, which we are not. We have these material bodies, which are like vehicles given to us to be used and discarded when they become old and useless. Subsequently, we get new bodies. This process goes on till we are liberated. The awareness about being souls comes from the chit part. To be thus aware, our consciousness must be spiritual as opposed to it being material, which is mostly the case.

Jumping to the anand part next, we, souls, should be naturally blissful, which most of us are not. WhyIJ Because we get entangled in material problems and forget that no matter what happens to our bodies, families, jobs, etc, we should never be downcast, depressed, fearful, anxious, etc. Such should be our consciousness. The right consciousness will help us transcend all negative feelings and take us to the blissful state, which should be our goal.

Now let us go into the details of the chit quality of the soul. This quality is vital for our well-being. Whether it is the sat quality or the anand quality, if our consciousness is not proper, we will never come close to realising the eternity of our existence or reach the blissful state. How do we make our consciousness that effectiveIJ The answer is: Make it spiritual and expand it. Both are difficult. Normally, we have material consciousness only. To change the nature of our consciousness requires that we accept spirituality as a fact and pursue it sincerely. Similar is the requirement for expanding our consciousness; we must get a lot of spiritual realisations.

All this may sound very difficult to accomplish. Yes, it is. Because we are not tapping soul’s natural affinity towards God, being parts of God. Misidentifying ourselves as material bodies makes us distant from God and our consciousness gets sullied and is unable to perform its role. A good connection with God helps us realise our true identity; our consciousness becomes pure and far-reaching; and we come to the blissful state. A good bond with God helps us see the big picture; we can see everything in its true perspective. For example, any problem faced by us is important but not all-important. Only God is all-important. Everything else is significant to a lesser degree only. With better consciousness, we will learn to assign importance or value to different things in an intelligent way such that no problem or suffering can overpower us to the point that we turn negative.

Such expanded and pure (spiritual) consciousness is the key to the success of our lives. It will propel us to do our duties no matter what the circumstances are and still allow us to enjoy life. Can we achieve what has been suggestedIJ Yes, we can if we are determined and persevering. The process is slow and there is step-by-step progress only. However, anyone making such an attempt gets God’s help, who wants us to do so. God is much pleased if we are following his instructions in this regard. It may take several lives to achieve perfection, but we can begin to reap its benefits from now onwards. I welcome your comments.

Bishnoi is a spiritual writer and can be reached at spiritual@ajitbishnoi.com