It is said that Brahman can be meditated on as the Light in the eyes. What a beautiful idea. The Person that is seen in the eye is this Self. He is the Beautiful One, He is the Shining One. The consciousness, the light that we see in all beings, is He. He is that and He is more than that. As we meditate on these ideas our minds become more and more pointed and subtle. We are more and more able to see beyond these external names and forms and perceive the Essence behind them all.
It is said that five elements are present in everything – sat-chit-ananda and nama-rupa, being-consciousness-bliss, and name and form. If we begin to see everything in this light, to see the names and forms as apparent only, we can really begin to discriminate between the Real and the unreal, between the Self and the not-Self – to separate the milk from the water, as it were. This is one of the basic practices for every student of Vedanta.
In everything we see or do, our consciousness is involved. There is one practice called the atma jnana method. Here we try to see the whole universe as part of our own self our own existence. We can never really say, ‘This object exists.’ We have to say, ‘I perceive that this object exists’. Whatever we perceive is perceived in consciousness, in our own Atman, or Self. The teachers tell us, ‘Consciousness is not contained within the body; the body is contained within consciousness.’ Think about this statement. What does it mean for us? We are trying to see what is behind our false reading of reality. Even the thought, ‘I have a body’, is contained in my own consciousness. If we are able to step back in our own minds even this much, it gives tremendous freedom.
In this practice too we have to give up before we can see the Reality as it is. What do we need to give up? We have to give up our little ideas of ourselves, our superficial reading of reality. Our bodies are subject to birth, disease, old age and death. This cannot be the only truth about ourselves, or for that matter, about anyone else. What is the truth about myself? If I am in reality Spirit, then that is the truth about every one, and about everything else also. We see variety, but behind it there is unity, the divine Spirit, manifesting everywhere. In fact the divine Spirit, or Consciousness, simply is. The knower of God sees this sameness everywhere.