The Four Universal Truths of Spiritual Life

• Who am I?
• Why am I?
• Why am I here?
• Where am I going?

These four questions arise within the individual when he has come to the point where he can take charge of and direct his life consciously. Naturally this supposes a marked degree of innate intelligence. And the fact that he asks these questions without any external prompting, but as a spontaneous expression of intelligent intuition as to his presence in this world having a purpose and a goal, indicates that he is capable of learning, comprehending and applying their answers. And start moving onward.

Otherwise his very existence has no meaning.

But before he can comprehend this he has to both intuit and know the answers to two cosmic questions:

What is the universe? Why does the universe exist?

The universe is a vast field of intelligent energy–not just power or force, but intelligence manifesting in a dynamic manner in countless modes and configurations. And the more fundamental fact is that the universe is the Absolute, Parabrahman Itself in manifestation. It is the Infinite appearing as finite, the Unchanging as ever-changing, Consciousness as insentient matter. The universe is a thought held in the Cosmic Mind, a dream of the Infinite Being that is basically an act of Cosmic Will.

And what I have just said is also the truth about each sentient being within the universe. A sentient being is a spark of consciousness within Infinite Consciousness. And therefore an essential element that is one with the universe, a building-block of the Thought, Dream and Will of the Infinite.

This being true, the poet-novelist Emily Bronte wrote when she was nearing the change we call “death”:

No coward soul is mine,
No trembler in the world’s storm-troubled sphere:
I see Heaven’s glories shine,
And Faith shines equal, arming me from Fear.

O God within my breast,
Almighty, ever-present Deity!
Life, that in me has rest,
As I, undying Life, have power in Thee!

Vain are the thousand creeds
That move men’s hearts: unutterably vain;
Worthless as withered weeds,
Or idlest froth amid the boundless main,

To waken doubt in one
Holding so fast by Thy infinity,
So surely anchored on
The steadfast rock of Immortality.

With wide-embracing love
Thy Spirit animates eternal years,
Pervades and broods above,
Changes, sustains, dissolves, creates, and rears.

Though earth and moon were gone,
And suns and universes ceased to be,
And Thou wert left alone,
Every existence would exist in Thee.

There is not room for Death,
Nor atom that his might could render void:
Thou–thou art Being and Breath,
And what thou art may never be destroyed.

Therefore the secret of the Infinite Consciousness is also the secret of the finite consciousness: the secret of Self-knowing is self-expansion of the individual’s scope of consciousness. And this expansion is what we mean by evolution.

Each individual being–known to the sages of India as the Atman, the Self, is a growing and developing entity, an evolving entity.

Intelligent Evolution

The purpose of conscious life is evolution, and the fundamental trait of evolution is intelligence, which involves perception and intellectual penetration or insight both external and internal, objective and subjective. Being (existence) in time becomes Knowing.

Evolution of consciousness is the purpose of our coming into relative existence, and perfection of consciousness results in the knowing of ourselves–our Selfs–as That Which Has Always Been. It is an awakening beyond time, space and relative existence into what each one has been eternally. It is not just attainment, it is essentially a Knowing. Simply put, it is perfect Self-knowing which includes Self-knowledge as an element, but entails much more than that.

Transcending ordinary being, it transcends the modes of ordinary knowing. And that transcendence is known as Self-realization and Moksha: total and perfect liberation into Infinity, which is best understood as Satchidananda: Reality, Consciousness and Bliss.

What is real humanity?

Human beings are not just intelligent beings, they are thinking, imagining and aspiring beings. It is the innate character of the human mind to expand and arise, however many human beings may choose to ignore or stifle that character and the inner urge toward it.

Humanity is not a matter of mere embodiment, it is a matter of continual expansion, as I have said. And there are four principles, universal truths which are necessary for us to know and live and think in accordance with and in their context: principles of “since these things are so….” They are:

1) Reincarnation:

The continual rebirth (in Sanskrit: punarjanma) of the individual person (soul or spirit) until perfection of all its potentials are achieved and manifested.
All sentient beings are on this path, however unaware they may be of that on the conscious level. Actually, sentience itself is the culmination of a long process of births into successively more evolved and elaborated body-vehicles which reflect that consciousness and enable it to function in an objective manner. The individual spirit-self begins its embodiment in/as a single atom of hydrogen, and continues onward, evolving from life to life. This process is reincarnation. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., the father of the famed American jurist and Supreme Court justice, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., wrote a poem on the subject: The Chambered Nautilus. The final verse sums the process of rebirth and its purpose in this way:

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,
As the swift seasons roll!
Leave thy low-vaulted past!
Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
Till thou at length art free,
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life’s unresting sea!

This impulse to higher and higher modes and vehicles of consciousness manifests precisely through the universal law of Karma which produces reincarnation.

2) Karma:

The law of cause and effect, the law of action and reaction, the metaphysical equivalent of Newton’s Law: For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Saint Paul put it this way: “Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap” (Galatians 6:7). If we steal, we shall be stolen from, if we help others, we shall be helped by others in time. That is why earlier Jesus had said, “All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them” (Matthew 7: 12).

So we create our future by our present thoughts, deeds and will. Karma is a form of objectified echo: all that we do will come back to us in the future. This is the universal law or principle. And the purpose of that law is the evolution of our consciousness.

3) Evolution of Consciousness

This is the primary purpose of our coming into this world: to strengthen, develop, deepen and expand our consciousness–which is our essential being, our Self, which is called the Atman in Sanskrit. This consciousness is intelligence. The more a life form is evolved, the deeper and wider in scope is its intelligence. The human consciousness is capable of evolving to higher and higher forms until it is a perfect finite reflection of the infinite Divine Consciousness.

Jesus said, “I and my Father are One” (John 10:30). He spoke as an incarnate intelligence that had attained divinity, and reminded his hearers: “Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods?” (John 10:34, Psalms 82:6). So this state of being is meant for all to attain in time through a series of reincarnations.

Saint John the Beloved Disciple of Jesus wrote: “Beloved, now are we the sons (teknon: children) of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure” (I John 3:2-3).

The real goal of religion

This is real religion: the way to become gods within God. And that real religion includes yoga sadhana. Jesus was a Hindu yogi (see The Christ of India), so only a yogi is a follower of Jesus, who was a Hindu missionary to the Western world.

The various levels of evolution and consciousness need corresponding environments to stimulate and accommodate these many stages of development, therefore there are:

4) Many Worlds to accommodate the unfolding states of evolving consciousness.

The material, astral and causal levels of relative existence are a ladder up which the individual consciousnesses climb until they transcend all need for such worlds and enter back into the depths of the Infinite from which they emerged to make that arduous but ultimately glorious journey. The prayer of all on that ladder is the universal Sanskrit prayer:

Asato ma sad gamaya.
Tamaso ma jyotir gamaya.
Mrityor m’amritam gamaya.

Lead me from the unreal to the Real.
Lead me from darkness to the Light.
Lead me from death to Immortality.

Although these are fundamental, absolute and universal truths, they can only be realized and acted upon when the individual spirit-self has evolved to the level where he can learn, understand and act upon them, aspiring to the ultimate state of re-entry into the Infinite with full consciousness of–and identity with–that Consciousness. Only the yogi is such a person.

To him alone is the path of self-evolution–yoga sadhana–opened for his self-liberation. That is why all the universal teachings and principles of the Bhagavad Gita lead to one principle and commandment: 

“Therefore be a yogi” (Bhagavad Gita 6:46).

Grow your spiritual Library:

Read Living the Yoga Life: Perspectives on Yoga from Amazon.com.