By Gurudevi Nirmalananda 

One-liners, that’s what we need.  Something we can grab in an eye-blink, a sound bite…   

Meditation is for Self-discovery, revealing the deeper dimensions within. 

It’s not just our modern times that demand clear and concise info.  The ancient sages of India wrote sutras, short pithy sayings that were easy to remember.  But they’re tricky!  Easy to remember, but not easy to understand — they have layers to them. 

Chaitanyam atma. – Shiva Sutras 1.1 

Your own Self is Consciousness-Itself.  

Uplifting, inspiring, encouraging, reassuring, all at the same time.  And it goes way beyond what you understand in your first reading.  I’ve been studying and contemplating this sutra for over 40 years and I am still learning from it.  And it’s only two words long:  Chaitanyam – Consciousness; Atma – Self. 

Know your own Self, honor your own Self, meditate on your own Self. 

This was my Guru’s sutra for our modern world, a teaching he shared hundreds of times when he taught in America through the 1970s and into the 1980s.  As a hippie-turned-mom, I appreciated the focus on finding myself, this deeper dimension he called “own Self.”  But what was it, really?  He added a line: 

God dwells within you as you. 

I wanted God to dwell within me, so I was comforted by this teaching.  But what did he mean by, “as me”?  I didn’t understand.  I wondered and pondered for decades. 

All the while, my Baba was giving me the inner experience of my own Self being God’s own Self.  But my puny little mind didn’t get it.  So I say it this way, 

There’s only one of us here.  The One Divine Reality is being you, being me, and being all that is.  Meditation is finding that One — inside. 

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