– A prisoner fleeing a salt mine is easily blinded if he is suddenly set free and comes out into the light of day. Sudden enlightenment would blind you too – said the master calmly, but his words did nothing at all to calm his disciple.
– Then what should I do? I no longer want to live in darkness, I long for your teachings…
– Well, let us begin with … which way, now, are you looking?
– Well, just now I am trying to turn all my intellect towards you, I am paying attention to you.
– Just so, that is, you are looking out before you. The scriptures declare that the Self pierced the openings of the senses outward, and so man looks out before him, not into himself. And yet I would teach you how to close your eyes outward, so that at the same time your sight may open inward… But the sage who seeks immortality is awake within, and for this reason, by looking inward, he sees the Almighty face to face in his heart.
– I would like to see Him too! – said the disciple, resolute.
– Very well, then receive the first teaching! In the beginning was existence, all was only being, and it knew itself as a living soul. Learn this first: I am soul (aham brahmasmi)! You are a little body as well, at least for as long as you believe yourself to be your body, but far more are you soul, and your first task is to know yourself as soul. If you awaken to this, you will see your imperishability over against the perishable body, and you will no longer be matter, but soul. You truly exist, just as the universe does, and not as an illusion, like a mirage.
– I am soul, I truly exist… – he tried to fix it in his mind.
– Good, and with what faculty do you think?
– Well, with thinking, perhaps, is it not? But I have heard that the truly important things are not known with the mind, but far rather felt with the heart, the heart-intellect…
– Do not leap so far ahead! Let us stay with awareness… Intelligence, wisdom, knowledge directed towards something, in a word, the intellect. Whatever exists, sprouts from seed, hatches from an egg or is born of a mother, whatever breathes, moves, flies or is bound to one place – all of it, indeed the whole world, is guided by the intellect. The intellect truly exists, the intellect is the living soul (prajnanam brahma). It is through this existing awareness that you can understand anything at all.
– Awareness is a living existent, awareness is the soul… – this teaching seemed more enigmatic to him, but he tried to fix this one in his mind too.
– Do you understand? Is the intellect at work in you? Can you rely on this higher intelligence? Become aware within yourself that whatever you experience, understand, see and hear, you owe to this divine intellect, alive and existent. Knowing is the true existent, and the living soul is of the nature of consciousness.
– Yes… – the disciple nodded, though he had already lost the thread. He had got stuck on the point that the intellect exists, and that it is not material, so it is not perishable, and therefore it is spiritual in nature. And that knowing is what knows anything at all.
– Well then, receive the third teaching. If you are soul, and if, moreover, the source of existence, the background of all that exists, is conscious in nature, then you too are necessarily of that nature!
– Yes, I hope I am too! – he said it with a light heart, full of hope.
– When a man lies dying, you can watch his body slowly retire from service. His speech falters, he no longer speaks, but he still thinks. Then thought ceases too, but he still breathes. When the breath flies away, the soul flies away too, and the vapour of the body's warmth returns to the universe's warmth, which is the supreme Godhead's own. This subtle substance is the essence of the whole universe, this is reality, this is the soul. And you are not a body kneaded from matter, not speech, thought or the vapour of warmth, but you were taken from this same subtle substance! You too are that (tat tvam asi).
– Yes, I too am that subtle substance!