Reader Q&A

‘Sat-Chit-Ananda’ (Soul-Consciousness-Love) Underlies All Reality

Also known as 1-Intelligence/Essence, 2-Awareness, and 3-Happiness/Energy — by any name, they are in everything.

QUESTION FROM A READER: I know that All is One, all are infinite manifestations of Consciousness. I also know that only Love is real. What is the relationship/connection between Consciousness and Love? The same? Just semantics?

ANSWER FROM ME & MY ENERGY GROUP-HIGHER SELF: Thanks for your interesting question. This is my perspective, or I should say “our perspective”, as this is a collaboration between my physical self and my higher self Energy Group.

Keep in mind that others might see things differently and that does not mean that they or we are wrong. It is simply different perspectives reflecting different vibrations of consciousness. What resonates with you at this point in time is what is most important.

To understand the relationship between Consciousness and Love, we also have to consider the Soul. Essentially, Consciousness, Love and the Soul are the three ways that Source (God/Brahman/All That Is) has a presence in manifest reality. In fact, each of these three essential aspects is present in everything that exists, both physical and non-physical.

Each of these aspects also exists at all levels of reality, meaning there is an individual “Self” Consciousness, Love and Soul, as well as a “Universal” Consciousness, Love and Soul. There are also intermediary collective grouping of these between the individual and the universal, although we will not discuss these much here.

To better understand this, we will discuss each of these aspects separately, and then bring them together in the end.

(1) Consciousness

Consciousness is simply that: consciousness. It contains no thoughts, just Pure Awareness. I have seen it called Pure Consciousness, Transcendental Consciousness, Cosmic Consciousness, and Source Consciousness. It is the Chit in Sat-Chit-Ananda (more on that below).

And it can feel like being pure spaciousness, unboundedness, and alertness. We can think if it as what Source/God/Brahman is before it manifested itself into physical and non-physical forms. It is what the divine masculine god of Shiva symbolizes in Hinduism.

Consciousness exists in everything in the universe. This is because everything originated from Source (also known as “All That Is”) and nothing exists outside of Source. Everything, therefore, is a part of Source, and contains a form of Source Consciousness. (Philosophy of the mind scholars refer to this as “panpsychism”. But they also dispute the validity of panpsychism.)

The opposite of Pure Consciousness is an individualized Ego Consciousness or Ego Awareness, which dominates most of our “unawakened” lives. Ego Consciousness has different definitions. The one used here is the Monkey Mind that is often on autopilot, influencing what we think and do without significant conscious awareness on our part. We associate it more with “brain-based memories”, and less with the deeper and more reflective “mind”.

Yes, we are awake (not sleeping) and aware of our surroundings, but most of our thoughts, emotions and actions are automatic conditioned responses that are embedded in our memories. This is not bad. It is part of our physical reality survival mechanism, and it shows that we are living fully in our 3rd Dimensional (3D) experience. That is one of the main reasons we came into this incarnation to begin with.

There is no clear dividing line between the Ego Consciousness of an individual and the pure consciousness of Source. Most entities, including humans, have some self-awareness (which varies in type among different entities), but we only get occasional glimpses of our true Source awareness (our connection to Source Consciousness).

In general, the more Pure Consciousness, and less Ego Consciousness that we hold, the more spiritually “awakened” we are.

Elsewhere, I discuss how we need to align our “outer ego” and “inner ego” (or inner soul/self):

Some people have experienced Pure (or Source) Consciousness in a deep state of meditation, in which is it also referred to as “transcendental consciousness” (transcending manifest reality, also known as samadhi). Those who have had such an “experience” say that it is difficult to describe because it contains no thoughts and no experiences. How do you describe no experience?

It is likely that many others have entered a transcendental state of mind (or being) in their meditations, but they do not remember them because most of the time there is “nothing” to remember. In fact, as soon as you become aware you are in Pure Consciousness, you are no longer there because you have returned to the duality of manifest reality (there is “me” and there is “the experience”).

It is said that you can “be” pure consciousness/being, but you cannot experience pure consciousness/being.

See below for more on awakening through Sat-Chit-Ananda.

(2) Love

Love is an energy, vibration, or force. You can feel the energy of Pure Love in your spiritual heart (center of your chest). It has warmth (energy), it has texture (softness), and it expands out from you (as a force). It is also your Heart Energy and Creative Energy.

Love is the Ananda in Sat-Chit-Ananda (more on that below). It is what the divine feminine goddess of Shakti symbolizes in Hinduism. Love is the energy that enlivens or awakens consciousness (Shiva) out of its pure state of being.

Pure Love is often called Unconditional Love, meaning it exists as an energetic feeling toward yourself, all other beings, and everything in the universe without conditions, exceptions, or qualifications. It is very different from an emotion, which is usually directed at one thing and not at others. However, it often feels like an emotion, which can cause confusion (and gets some spiritual teachers in a lot of trouble).

We use the term “Pure Love” to distinguish it as a universal energy, which is the opposite of our individualized “Ego Love”. Ego love includes desires, passions, infatuations, and lust. These outer ego emotions increase separation (between “me” and an “object”). Pure Love increases “oneness” and our connections to the same Source Consciousness).

However, “Ego Love” is not necessarily bad, because underlying it is the desire for union, connection and a return to the oneness of Source. Our emotions are in a constant state of change, which is a foundational characteristic of manifest reality and an infinite universe — everything is always changing. Learning that the emotional Ego Love is impermanent is one way of opening a door to the Pure Love of Source.

Most people say that Pure Love is the fundamental energy that drives or underlies all manifest creation. It is the initial “desire” of Source Consciousness to experience itself, which then created the universe. It is the “Big Bang” that put creation into existence.

Pure Love, therefore, is present in everyone and everything, including ourselves. It is like Pure Consciousness (perhaps it is another form of panpsychism?). Like Pure Consciousness, it is hard to see from our ego brain perspective. It is more a state of being than a direct experience.

The more spiritually “awakened” we are, the more Pure Love we are, and the less Ego Love influences us.

“The universe actively loves itself and all of its parts. The world loves itself and all of its parts. It is not true that energy is neutral or indifferent. Energy is active, positive, propelled by what can almost be called an instantaneous pleasure with itself and its characteristics.

Despite all concepts to the contrary, energy is indeed, at its basis, love. It is also composed of highly charged consciousness that operates almost in a leapfrog fashion, with great bursts of exuberance and vitality. The great, the greatest, creative force (that force that is the origin for all physical life) did not suddenly appear once in some distant past, sparking the birth of your reality, endowing it with an energy that could only then run down or dissipate. Instead, ever-new virgin energy, so to speak, is created constantly and appears at every conceivable point within your universal system.”

— Seth/Jane Roberts, The Way Toward Health, chapter 3, session on March 20, 1984

(3) The Soul (or Reality)

We have discussed how Pure Consciousness (God/Source) is unmanifested. It does not exist in any form (physical or non-physical), but it is present in all forms simply as a self-awareness that they exist.

Pure Love is the energy that enlivens Pure Consciousness, awakening it to create everything (all forms, physical and non-physical) in manifest creation. It is the energy behind everything, giving each its unique vibration or frequency of energy, which we can directly feel if we are sensitive enough.

To manifest something out of pure energy is to give it structure, also known as intelligence. We can also think of structure/intelligence as the story that makes something seem real. It is the essence of something.

Many spiritual teachings emphasize that reality (the story) is an illusion or dream. What we call reality is the dream of God/Source (or Shiva and Shakti), which is the ultimate essence of everything. But even if it is a dream, knowing the story or intelligence behind that dream reality gives us a sense of knowledge and wisdom.

The Soul is the first manifested form (or object) created by Source (Pure Consciousness) using its desire (Pure Love energy) to experience something. In this way, Source Consciousness creates the Soul and supports or maintains it by Pure Love. The Soul contains Pure Consciousness and Unconditional Love.

Like Consciousness (the awareness of being) and Love (the creative energy of being), the Soul (the form of being) exists both as a Universal Soul (with Universal Consciousness and Universal Love), and as an Individual Soul (sometimes called the Inner Ego and Internal or Inner Self). In Hinduism, the Universal Soul is Brahman and the Individual Soul is Atman, and both are eternal (existing forever).

In our 3rd Dimensional (3D) physical reality, we also have a physical form and an “Ego Self”, often referred to as our “thoughts, body and emotions”, that are associated with our physical brain. These exist only in the physical realm and are not eternal. They exist, but do not influence our identity when we leave the 3D physical incarnation.

The Ego Self (sometimes called the Outer Ego and the External Self) exists fully within whatever dimension an entity is experiencing. It is the bridge between the Inner Ego (Individual Soul) and Outer Ego (Ego Self) within the confines of that incarnation.

However, many beings get engrossed in the dimension they are experiencing and forget about their Individual Soul, thinking that their Ego Self is their true identity (who they really are) in that incarnation. For most humans, this all takes place in the 3rd Dimension, so our Ego Self is basically our “3D Self”.

For more on the spiritual dimensions, see:

Everything also has an individualized “Soul Self”. (Note that some religions believe that only humans have souls; we are not addressing that argument here.) The “Soul Self’’ is an individualized portion of the Universal Soul. We know it by quite a few different terms, including the Individual Soul, the Inner Self, the Inner Ego, the Higher Self, Atman (in Hinduism), and even as the Mind (in its broadest terms) and Consciousness, depending on how we define these terms.

Not everyone knows they have both an Ego Self and a Soul Self. Their life incarnations are mostly in their Ego Self/Outer Ego identity. They mostly forget their Soul Self identity, and their connection to a Universal Soul identity. They intentionally do this to create a more intense 3rd Dimensional experience.

The Soul Self is where the individual's intelligence resides. Every entity knows how to structure and maintain itself. For humans, this intelligence is partly in the autonomic nervous systems that unconsciously regulates the body’s functions. Every entity has a similar autonomic structure, which based in it Soul Self’s intelligence. That is why connecting with one’s Higher Self, for example, can result it considerable insight for the Ego Self.

For all intents and purposes, when you connect to your individual Soul Self, you are also connecting to the Universal Soul (or perhaps Universal Self). The difference between the two can be difficult to discern and probably does not really matter. It is through this “Soul Self — Universal Soul” connection that one can enter Pure Consciousness in a meditative state.

Another definition of awakening is to know the true you is your Soul identity.

Some people say they communicate with, or channel, Consciousness or God or Source. By their definition of these terms, they may be correct. However, we define Source as something you can “become”, but which you cannot “experience” and describe in human words. In our terms, what these people are actually communicating with is a version of the “Universal Soul”, which is very close to Source, but not the same thing.

As briefly mentioned in the beginning, there are also “Soul Collectives”, in between the Ego and the Universal, such as a “Soul Family”. These have Collective Consciousness, Collective Love, and a Collective Soul (sometimes called an “Oversoul”).

For more on the Soul see:

Sat-Chit-Ananda — Bringing It All Together

Hinduism has the concept of Sat-Chit-Ananda, which describes the three characteristics of ultimate, universal reality and all existence (Wikipedia). Sat, Chit, and Ananda underlie all manifest reality and are present in all objects and things in reality, both physical and nonphysical. Nothing can exist without Sat-Chit-Ananda.

These three Sanskrit words also describe the fundamental nature of the Soul, Consciousness, and Love:

• Sat — The Soul (traditionally, Truth, Essence, the Absolute, True Reality, and That Which Never Changes) — the Intelligence of Source that we see in the structure of all of its creations; it operates through the Soul, which is our deepest reality. — Note that people interpret Sat differently. I like to call it the Soul, meaning our deepest essence and connection to Source / God / the Absolute. We often describe our Soul as eternal. But others consider Sat to be Source itself. That is only a problem if you consider our Soul as separate from Source. In Hinduism, they say that “Atman (our Soul) is Brahman (Source)”.
• Chit — Consciousness — the Awareness of that something exists — We are conscious, but we never experience consciousness. It is the mirror upon which manifest reality reflects. If manifest reality were to disappear, the mirror would still be there by itself. Everything in existence shares this awareness, although it can be difficult for us to see in nonliving objects. Source is aware of itself through the mirror/consciousness/awareness.
• Ananda — Love (traditionally, Bliss, Happiness) — the impulse or wave of Energy (of Source) that enlivens consciousness (Chit) to create that we can experience in our universe. It is the vibration (Ananda) that consciousness (Chit) gives intelligence/structure (Sat) to turn the silent void of into an infinite diversity of forms that we call our universe. — Thus, all forms have all three characteristics of Intelligence/Structure/Soul (Sat), Awareness (Chit), and Energy (Ananda). — For more on the universal energy of the universe, see: Waves, Energy, & Vibration — A Spiritual “Theory of Everything” in The World (by Alan Lew, on Medium)

The Universal Soul, Pure Consciousness, and Pure Love are essentially three different aspects (form, consciousness & love; or intelligence, awareness & energy, respectively) of the same thing: Source / God / Brahman / All That Is.

They (Sat-Chit-Ananda) are how Source is everywhere at all times, holding the manifest universe together in an essential oneness. From the perspective of manifest reality, none of them exists without the other two.

From the perspective of the unmanifested (pre-creation), however, Consciousness (Chit) slightly supersedes Love (Ananda), which slightly superseded the Soul (Sat). This is because Consciousness uses Love to create the Soul, after which we are then aware of manifest creation.

This is how Source experiences the diversity of manifest creation, by being the form/intelligence, consciousness/awareness, and energy/love that enlivens everything in existence.

This table shows how the key concepts discussed here relate to one another.

Sat-Chit-Ananda, therefore, gives you three ways to know your true self, and to expand from your Ego Self to your Universal Self: (1) through your Soul, (2) through your Consciousness, and (3) through your Love. (In Hinduism, these are the paths of Knowledge, Meditation, and Devotion, respectively.)

The techniques for each may be very different, and what resonates best will vary from one person to the next. But they all lead to the same place: Oneness with the Universal Being that we all are.

Sat-Chit-Ananda Awakening

Lincoln Gergar (Channel for Higher Self), teaches that there are three aspects to spiritual awakening, which correspond to Sat, Chit, and Ananda:

1. Intelligence (Sat): truth, being or existence, the soul, the Absolute. It is that which exists and has knowledge of all existence. It is the “I Am” awareness. It can be seen physically in the autonomic nervous system, which subconsciously oversees all human bodily functions.
2. Awareness (Chit): pure consciousness, perception, and comprehension. One example is feeling a powerful sense of oneness with everything that is beyond thought and words.
3. Creative Energy (Ananda): the energy of love, bliss, happiness, joy, and sensual and emotional pleasure. It is the energy of Source to create the universe and is present in every form, both physical and non-physical. A commonly cited example is feeling unconditional love for everyone and for one’s self.

Ideally, all three grow simultaneously with awakening, keeping us spiritually balanced. Thus, — an expanded and more intense emotional experience (Ananda) is accompanied by — an expanded awareness and consciousness of our greater reality (Chit) and is more fully understood by — an expanded and higher perspective knowing and intelligence (Sat).

However, depending on the teachings, practices, and beliefs that we hold, it is more common for these 3 aspects to emerge at different times, in different forms, and possibly in different combinations with each other. This is a major reason awakenings are often unique for each individual.

For more on Awakening see:

Taoism

I once heard a Chinese medicine healer talk about the concepts of Shen, Jing, and Qi. These are the foundation of Taoism and Chinese Medicine where they are called the Three Treasures (“San Bao” in Mandarin).

The San Bao are the foundation of Tai-Chi, Qigong, and Neidan (also known as Neigong). Like many spiritual concepts, different teachers interpret the three treasures in different ways.

In the context of this article, we can consider these as:

• Shen 神 — traditionally: spirit, soul, god, deity, supernatural being — This is the “Soul” in this article — Sat, Intelligence
• Jing 精 — traditionally: essence, matter, body, seed — This is the “Consciousness” in this article—Chit, Mind, Awareness
• Qi 氣 — traditionally: vitality, energy, force, air, vapor, breath — This is the energy of “Love” in this article — Ananda, Heart

Related

• ⬇️ Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (teacher of Transcendental Meditation and guru to the Beatles and many others) gives a clear explanation of Sat-Chit-Ananda in this lecture recorded August 26, 1970.

• To see a collection of my Interactions with Readers & Others articles, see:

• Note that the articles in this collection are behind the Medium paywall. For paywall-free access to my articles, go to www.AlanLew.com, linked below.

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