Consciousness minus conceptualization is the eternal Brahman the absolute; consciousness plus conceptualization is thought.

— Yoga Vasishtha

(Picture: Eskimo Nebula, courtesy: NASA)

What is the truth?

‘I have nothing to do with sorrow, with actions, with delusion or desire. I am at peace, free from sorrow. I am Brahman’ — such is truth.

‘I am free from all defects, I am the all, I do not seek anything nor do I abandon anything, I am Brahman’ — such is the truth.

‘I am blood, I am flesh, I am bone, I am body, I am consciousness, I am the mind also, I am Brahman’ — such is the truth.

‘I am the firmament, I am space, I am the sun and the entire space, I am all things here, I am Brahman’ — such is the truth.

‘I am a blade of grass, I am the earth, I am a tree-stump, I am the forest, I am the mountain and the oceans, I am the non-dual Brahman’ — such is the truth.

‘I am the consciousness in which all things are strung and through whose power all beings engage themselves in all their activities; I am the essence of all things’ — such is the truth.

This is certain: all things exist in Brahman, all things flow from it, all things are Brahman; it is omnipresent, it is the one self, it is the truth.

(Yoga Vāsiṣṭha (tr. by Swami Venkatesananda, p.233)