by Dr. Ekkirala Krishnamacharya Book Presentation Overview Wisdom

Today I have been asked to speak about “The Evolution of Consciousness and the path of the Soul” or “The Soul Development”.

Before entering into the topic, I should say that the soul has no development at all at any point of time, because when we are fully developed, we will be in the soul and the goal is the soul consciousness. So, we are supposed to develop towards the soul. The soul has nothing to develop. In fact, what we call Soul is the highest degree of illumination of consciousness. Can we say that the Sun has to develop more light? We cannot say because the highest concept of light for the beings on this earth is the Sun. Similarly, the highest concept of consciousness that we can have, is what we call Soul. Soul is that plane of consciousness after reaching which we have 'all consciousness' or we begin to live in every atom of existence. What is to be developed is the illumination of self-consciousness.

Let us distinguish between the soul and the self. Imagine a bottle and a lid made up of ice with some water inside and outside of the bottle. You will notice some difference in shapes and states. Similarly, imagine that you have layers in yourself, the layers of the physical body, energy, mind and some other finer layers. All put together form one capsule that is yourself. But the real 'You' is there somewhere inside linking the two centres, the Brain and the Heart Centre through which you are shining and all the other layers are made up of yourself. It is similar to the bottle of ice which is made up of the same water which the bottle contains of the same water in which the bottle is floating and the bottle made up of ice is also the same water that is in the river. So, place yourself in such a position and imagine yourself having so many layers made up of yourself, but in different states of yourself. The whole put together is called yourself. Perceive some substance that is common in ice, water and the steam that is being passed through a tube into the bottle. You will notice that the steam, water and ice are the three different states of existence made up of the same substance, however you cannot call it only water or ice or steam. Therefore, let us call it 'X', the common background of the three. From this 'X' all the three come out. This is the common content of the three, because whenever they are made into some forms, the forms contain the same thing and they disappear also into the same thing.

Disappearance is only transformation from one state to another state.

If ice disappears, it transforms into water. If water disappears it transforms into steam and the same thing happens in the reverse process also. Each state has its own transformation and disappearance into its next state, while all the time the 'X' is there as the common content and the background. Imagine yourself and everything yourself like this then you will know the science of all sciences, the science from which the science of atoms, molecules and the various substances existing on this earth is discovered. It is because the atoms, molecules and the various substances are like the steam, the water and the ice produced from X.

Each of these states is grosser than the previous ones in its descent. That is water is grosser than steam, while ice is grosser than water. Thus ice is the grossest of the existences. When it is taking this direction of journey we call it the descent, the descent of steam into water and the descent of water into ice. Again when you apply heat, the journey takes the ascent. That is, ice becomes a subtler matter to water and water becomes steam. Thus, you find a path of descent and a path of ascent.