Each person has an individual consciousness that comes from the universal consciousness. And like masters, prophets, saints and sages, have all mentioned in their own unique expression. by each individual has an individual consciousness that comes from the universal consciousness. Prophet Mohammed said, we all come from God. And eventually, all of us return to God. Great enlightened master Krishna mentions in the Gita that Atma eventually must merge with the per magma, meaning individual soul eventually merges with the universal soul.

Jesus Christ says the kingdom of Heaven is within you. The only way we can become aware of this kingdom of heaven is to go to a higher level of consciousness. Then there is the story of Buddha. All kinds of people used to go to Buddha and ask him all kinds of questions. They used to ask him, What are you? Are you a god?

He would say no. Are you an angel? He would say no, are you a spirit? He would say no. And then he would answer I am simply awakened. So, the word Buddha means the awakened one or the enlightened one.

So, while the rest of the world is in the sleep full state, here is Buddha in an awakened state. So, the ultimate goal for each individual is to To that point, where the Inner Awakening takes place, the great mystic Rumi claimed, I was once in the form of a stone. I then came into the kingdom of vegetation after I evolved to the animal kingdom. Now I have come as a human, Where will I go next, I will rise and become an angel. After that, I will go through many different forms, but ultimately I will reach the essence, my original home. Now, if you can just for a moment, imagine yourself standing by an ocean.

This ocean is full of clear, pure water. Now, imagine taking an empty cup and filling it up from the water of the ocean. Now if we were to analyze the water that's in the cup, compared to the water that's in the ocean, they will be very similar. The cup represents our body. The water that's in the cup represents our soul. So in the purest form, where the soul comes from its origin, it's in a very pure state.

Each individual has four layers of consciousness, physical consciousness, emotional consciousness, mental consciousness, and spiritual consciousness. The physical consciousness is made up of the physical body, which we are aware of the feet, the hands, the legs, the mouth, we use the five senses, whatever we need to make whatever we need to survive on a day to day basis. The necessary functions in life to provide for yourself, for your family and to survive in this world. We use the physical body, the physical consciousness. Next, there is the emotional consciousness. Within this consciousness, you have many positive emotions like love, compassion, humility, forgiveness, kind, fullness, tolerance, and so on.

You can have many negative emotions within this consciousness as well. anger, fear, jealousy, control, manipulation, so on and so forth. Then you have the mental consciousness. Within this consciousness, you have your intellect, your cognition, your ability to rationalize your logic, your memory, whatever you need. To survive in this world and to move on. Within this consciousness, you can also have many negative thoughts and negative attitude towards yourself a negative attitude towards your family towards life, despondency, hopelessness, just a very negative outlook in your life.

And then there is your spiritual consciousness. This is the part of you that comes from the universal ocean, the one that has the highest vibration, the highest frequency. You are your goal, your ultimate goal is to become aware of this spiritual consciousness. And the way that you can achieve that is to detach yourself from the world. Because in reality, you are not your physical body. You are not your emotions, you are not your thoughts, but what you truly art is that spiritual consciousness to achieve this, you need to practice some form of silence.

You could call it meditation. You can call it witnessing. You can call it mindfulness. You can call it reflection. Before a few minutes a day you need to detach yourself, from the world, from the mind, from the thoughts and from your emotions so that you can become so that your consciousness can become one with a spiritual consciousness, you can raise your frequency to the highest level. Now, going back to that cup of water, let's assume there is pure clean water in that cup.

What if we were to take a few dirty drops of water and add it to that clean water? What would it happen? What would happen is the purity of that water would get diluted, it would become dirty. In the same way, emotions are very powerful. There are negative emotions inside of us. For example, let's assume there's anger inside of us.

You could be smiling all day, but deep inside of you there's anger. This is like putting dirty poisonous drops into your soul. This dilutes the purity of your soul. In the same way, fear, jealousy, control, resentment. These are all dirty poisonous drops that we add to our soul. So it dilutes the purity of the soul.

In the same way negative thoughts hopelessness, despondency, a negative attitude towards life, a negative attitude towards your family. These are very poisonous drugs that further dilute the purity of your soul. So negative emotions produce negative energy positive emotions produce positive energy negative thoughts produce negative energy which affects your soul and negative thoughts. Positive thoughts produce positive energy negative thoughts produce negative energy. So the water inside of the cup has become dirty. The water inside of the cup representing our soul has become dirty.

And ultimately we want to go back to that universal ocean of light. The Universal ocean of light has that pure water of the ocean. So if our water is dirty, the water inside of my cup is dirty I cannot merge with the universal ocean. My purity has to be compatible with the universal ocean. Only then can we come close to that pure, beautiful, universal light. So once the water becomes dirty, what's the solution?

Is there a solution? Yes, there is. We have to filter the water. We have to purify the water Now, some filtration systems are better than others, you can use a cheap filtration system or you can use a much more powerful filtration system it depends what you want to what level Do you want to purify yourself. So, we have to purify our individual consciousness, we have to filter our individual consciousness, how can we achieve this ultimate goal? We can achieve this goal by using two very powerful and essential methods.

One is called the universal law of karma. The second one is called meditation. Karma is a Sanskrit word, which basically means actions. It can also mean the choices or decisions that you make on a day to day basis. In the Christian tradition, this is known as what Sol Sol shall you reap. Every action has an equal reaction.

There are many different levels to karma. Karma doesn't just happen with physical actions. You are creating karma on an emotional level and you're creating karma on a mental level. positive emotions create positive karma. negative emotions create negative karma. Positive thoughts, create positive energy and negative thoughts create negative energy or negative karma.

So there are many different levels. There is a wonderful book that helps us to understand the law of karma. It's called journey of souls by Michael Newton. He's a psychotherapist. He explains in his book, that when the soul is in the spirit form and it's getting ready To come down on Earth. So the soul is about to come down on earth go into the womb of the mother and actually take birth as a child.

But before that happens, it's in the spirit world. While it's in the spirit world, it's given a chance by the divine, for that soul. To choose certain parents, you got to make that choice, it's given a choice to decide which city and which country is going to be born in. It's given a choice to decide where the brothers and sisters are going to be given a chance to decide who their colleagues are going to be. You can actually decide this when you're in the spirit world before you take birth. But this choice can only be made if there's a past karmic bond between you and the other soul.

If there's a past karmic account, between you and this other soul, so for example, when you're trying to choose who your parents are gonna be, you can only choose those parents if you have a past karmic bond with them. You can only Choose a certain brother and sister if there's a past karmic bond, if you are people living in a certain city, if you have a past karmic bond, or a past karmic account, then you can choose that city. So this karmic account is based on learning lessons, we come to earth to learn lessons, but we have to give and take from each other. So there's a personal record of your karma inside of your soul, inside of everyone's soul. So think of it. inside of your soul.

There's a personal computer that is recorded all the transactions of your past life. And then there's a mainframe, a universal computer outside God's computer, which also records all your actions. So it's not that God is forcing us to take birth in a certain city, good or bad, with a certain family good or bad. It's our own karma that decides that. So who will come into contact in our life depends on our past karma. is where the concept of predestination and free will comes in.

How is it predestined? Well, it's predestined, you can say in the way or in the sense that whoever you have a past karmic balance with, those are the people that you're going to choose. So the people that you're going to meet in this life are predestined according to your karma from the past. Where does free will come in? Well, after you take birth as a child, from the moment you take birth, and you're going up day by day, you're completely using your free will. So you chose a certain set of parents based on your past karma.

But how you choose to conduct your karma, your actions, your behaviors with your parents in this life, completely depends on your freewill. Do you want to positively finish your karma with your parents and grow spiritually? That depends on your freewill. Do you want to extend your karma and make things worse? That depends on your freewill. Okay, so spiritual growth is a combination of both predestination and freewill.

And if you want to grow, we have to pay attention to both these concepts. Now in your life today, if you were to look at your life today, let's say you had a relationship, you got married to someone to your partner, let's say it was a successful relationship. You have to accept it, you have to acknowledge it, you have to be thankful that it was successful. But let's assume for a moment, it wasn't successful. Say it ended up in a separation or a divorce, you still have to accept it. You still have to acknowledge it, but you have to go a couple of steps further.

You have to forgive the other person. When whether you had good times or bad times, you have to forgive them. And you have to let go. And then you have to move on. So your relationship with your partner, your parents, your kids, your colleagues, it may have been good, it may have been bad, but they're there for a reason. Chances are there was a previous karmic connection with them but You want to rectify the karma, you want to learn you want to grow from it, you don't want to make it worse.

If I was to inflict harm on someone today, and if I was to pass away that karmic action that I did to be unfair to the other person, I carry that in my soul, and I take it up with me in the spirit world, then I'm given a chance to come back into this world and to make it right. God gives you many chances to make it right. We can't just do it the first time. Look around, look around you in this world. Look at all the problems that we have today. religious conflicts, political conflicts, people killing each other in the name of religion, family conflicts, relationship conflicts, we can't possibly get it right in one lifetime.

So the soul is eternal. If I was to do something back today, and if I was to pass away, my soul is still going to live, it's eternal. If you do good things, you take all those good actions up with you. So whether you're a good person or a bad person, the point is that your soul is eternal. If you do bad things in this life, and if you move on, then the universe in its infinite compassion is you another chance to get it right. And then if you don't get it right, again, I'll give you another chance.

So whether you're a good person or a bad person, your soul is eternal. But the point is that you get more chances to get it right. If you misuse your free will in one lifetime, the lessons you'll have to learn in the next lifetime, which we will be much more difficult, because we failed it before. So you may have more challenges. It could be physical challenges, health challenges, it could be emotional challenges, you could be born in a certain part of the country, or a certain part of the world, which is not a very good country, but you're the reason we're going there is to learn. So coming to earth is an opportunity for you to learn and grow.

It's not an easy place to be. It's easier said than done. There's all kinds of difficulties that take place on Earth, but on the other hand, it's stuck I can help you to achieve the most amount of karmic growth, the most amount of spiritual growth. So the law of karma is a universal system of God that applies to all of us. So if we can learn to use it the right way, if we come and take birth on Earth from the time we're born up to the point that we pass away, if you can rectify your karma with the people around you rectify your karma with your family and your friends. Then, by doing this, you're purifying the water inside, you're filtering the water inside, you're making your soul much more pure.

So, in order for you to go back to that ocean of light, you need to first karmically purify your soul, pay off what you all get rid of the schemes that are in your soul, all the things that you did not do right before make it right. This is the universal law of karma. So the people around you today, your family family, your friends, your parents, chances are very high that you had a karmic connection from the past. Is it possible for you to start a new relationship in this life with your free will? with someone you didn't know in the past? Yes, it is.

In that case, you're using your free will to start a new relationship. So you're you're starting a relationship with a new person. But in my opinion, there are many lives. It's not just one or two, there's many, many, many lives and in each life, we use our karma and our freewill the right way sometimes, and we use it the wrong way. So in one lifetime, you have a combination of both, but in each lifetime, you want to increase your level of consciousness. So the second essential and fundamental method that you can use to purify your soul and to come closer to God or to enlightenment is to make use of some form of meditation.

You could call it sitting in silence. You can call it the art of witnessing, you can call it mind fullness, you can call it reflection. It doesn't matter what you call it. You need to sit a few minutes a day in silence and detach yourself from the world. detach yourself from your physical body. detach yourself from your emotional body, detach yourself from your thoughts.

Because in reality, you are none of these things in reality, you're that soul, a cup of water that comes from the universal ocean. And the only way you can become aware of this part of you is if you detach yourself from all the other layers of consciousness, detach yourself from the physical, emotional and mental consciousness, focus only on your spiritual consciousness. This is the way to do it. Today there's a lot of talk about meditation. Some people when they hear the word meditation, they credit associated with religion. There's a lot of religion.

There's a lot of religions out there where the basis is spirituality when they use meditation, whether you look at Islam and Sufi ism Whether you look at the Kabbalah in Judaism, or whether you look at Hinduism, the concept of meditation is there, you can look at the Christian traditions. And they also had monks that used to meditate. If you go back thousands of years, when Krishna was the enlightened master, if you look in the Vedas, meditation was very prevailing. If you look at either, the concept of ru VEDA came down to meditation. So meditation is a universal concept. It doesn't have necessarily to do with religion.

Anyone can meditate, whether you're an atheist, or you belong to a religion or don't belong to a religion, or you're a little kid or you're an older person, anyone can meditate and they should. It's very essential for our spiritual growth. I know today, in high school curriculums, they're introducing a method called Mindfulness, becoming aware of the present moment. So this is for the younger generation, the kids that are going in school. They're actually introducing In North America, and I'm very happy to hear that, because I think we should be doing more of these things. meditation can help you on all levels.

It can help you physiologically there are scientific studies that have been done on that. It can help your health. It can give you more creativity. There's a lot of successful companies out there that let their individuals especially those people who have high level executive positions, they encourage them to sit in silence for a few minutes a day because they're more productive, they're more creative, it's better for the company, they become more prosperous. meditation can help you to release stress. Tension, keeps you alive, keeps you more in touch with the essence.

So meditation has benefits on all levels, material, physical, emotional, mental, and ultimately, this is the ultimate goal. It gives you spiritual consciousness. It allows you to have access to that part of you, that comes from The Universal light. And it's something that I would encourage for every person to do. And meditation is very simple. You basically basically want to sit in silence and just let go of your thoughts.

Let go of your emotions, forget about the physical body. And then meditation. If you can let go of your thoughts, meditation happens on its own, because the universal light is all around us in every atom in every molecule. It's all inside of us. It's just that we're distracted with the emotional and the mental layers. That's why we could not feel the light of God.

So if you separate yourself from the emotional and mental layers, it happens on its own, suddenly you become conscious of the light, because the light is already there. You don't have to go looking for it. It's resonating all around us. It's resonating all inside of us. It's just that we can't focus on it, because we're distracted with some something else. So meditation is very essential.

So once again, just to wrap things up, if the cup in the water, the individual water in the cup if it wants a wave make its way back to the universal ocean. It has to be in a very, very pure state. And the way to purify your soul is by positively using the universal law of karma. And by engaging in some form some form of silence in some form of meditation. So this brings us to the end of our discussion for now, take care and wishing you all the best