Ishwar Puri: “Consciousness that makes our bodies alive, that makes our sensory systems work, that makes our mind think is the powerhouse that makes all these things move. That is our real Self. But we mistake our covers upon our self as our Self.
We think this body is our Self. The body is merely a cover, a very short-term cover. We think our senses, by which we perceive the whole world, is our reality. And that is how we exist by perception. These sense perceptions are also only a cover upon ourselves.
And then, the worst mistake we make is: we think, [and] because we think, therefore we are the mind, that we are the thinking machine. It takes quite a bit of knowledge of your own self to know that the mind is not your Self at all. It’s just a machine. It’s just an accessory added to the Self so that we can use it for thinking, speaking, communicating, rationalizing, putting sense perceptions together, making sense of things… It’s just a machine. It’s like a computer. It’s a very smart computer and works very well, but it’s no more than a computer—it’s not our Self.
If we have been given an internal computer called the human mind, and we start mistaking the computer to be our Self, and allow it to work randomly, we lead ourselves into very big difficulty in life. Most of our problems in life, if you look back on them, are all created by our own mind.
Even so-called bodily illnesses are very often created by our own mind. Mental problems, the despair, anguish, anxiety, depression—they are all created by our mind, and we think we are anxious, we are in desperation, we are in despair, because we think we are the mind. Just by misidentification with the mind, we suffer so much, which we need not suffer at all.
How do we get out of the suffering? How do we get out of this ignorance? Discovering who we are. All the mystics, all the great philosophers, have told us: “Discover yourself.” Socrates said, “Know thyself and you will know God.”
“Know thyself” was a big motto for all mystics. They said, “We don’t know who we are, and if we can know who we are, very soon after that you can also know who our creator is.” Because between the creator and our Self there is no difference, except we are individuated consciousness, the creator is Totality of Consciousness. So it’s just one step more.
But the steps toward discovering who we are, are many. There are many steps, because we have so many covers upon ourselves.”
Ishwar’s quote is an excerpt from “Soul/Mind/Religions/Astral Body/Organized Religions/Love/Master”
Ishwar Puri explains difference between mind and Soul, Love, astral body, organized religions and importance of having Perfect Living Master – Living Satguru.