Self-Knowledge and Self-Realization

When you go deep enough into consciousness, a relatively early understanding comes that the elemental consciousness, the seed consciousness, is universal. 


That is, that awareness that manifests in your so called body is exactly the same as that that manifested in Robert's body, in the bodies of cats, dogs, mice, insects and even bacteria. The actual subjective manifest experience will differ because the media differs. Some bodies have more acute sense organs, too many brains, too few brains, four legs, eight legs, two eyes, a thousand eyes, warm blooded, cold blooded, etc.


But at the deeper levels, we are the same.


With that comes an appreciation of your connection with all living beings, and soon after that, you feel as protective of those beings as you do of your own self, children or parents. You stop eating meat. You stop spraying ants and spiders with poison. You make sure your cats stay inside where they are protected from dogs, traffic and disease. You become a shepherd of all life.


When this happens, fear leaves. You realize you are in all and all are in you. Just one consciousness.


Then, much later you realize that manifest is not you, that consciousness is not you, yet the love for it remains, and the need to protect all sentient beings remains. The fragrance of the saint still follows the Jnani for a long, long times before he or she leaves the world.


Robert cared about all life and consciousness long after he had transcended it. He told devotees to ignore the world, but he gave the shoes off his feet to a homeless man who had no shoes, and urged me to take care of animals because someone needed to do it even though he, himself, was finished with the world. Though he denied it, Robert was also a saint and not just a Jnani.