[music]
[music]
What makes us human? The great Sufi poet Rumi
suggested that consciousness sleeps in minerals,
dreams in vegetables, wakes up in animals,
and starts to become self aware in humans.
Self awareness gives us the ability to realize
that our minds are conditioned by experience,
and by cultural, religious, and historical
circumstances.  
This awareness itself gives us the ability
to break out of the conditioned mind. Being
human means having the ability to find the
true self, beyond our personality and to experientially
know and feel that the self of the individual
is the self of the universe.
As we gradually peel away the layers of conditioning,
we return to a pure or unconditioned mind,
which is the original mind and the field of
infinite possibilities.  
Seers and sages throughout the ages have perfected
modalities for achieving this state of un-conditioning.
 These include: self awareness which is awareness
of body, mental space, relationships and the
five senses, self reflection which is asking
questions like “Who am I?  What is my purpose?”,
transcendence which is going beyond the subject/object
split, and conscious choice making.
We are, in our essential state, pure consciousness.
Pure consciousness is pure potentiality. It
is the field of all possibilities and infinite
creativity.  This pure essence is distinct
from ego and personality. Experiencing pure
potential is the exhilarating transformation
of consciousness, or enlightenment, in which
we feel with complete and utter conviction,
that we are the total energy of the universe
playing itself out as this body and this mind.
So let me ask you something, are you a human
being? Or are you being human?
