Baba says, ‘you came bodiless, you have to return bodiless‘. This is the great practice of this path.

For half a cycle, I identified myself incorrectly as the body rather than as a soul. Baba comes and reminds me of who I am – a pure soul with divine qualities, His child. You now have to return to that consciousness, He says.

When I am in the consciousness of the soul, I am in the essence. I am aware of myself as a point of light in the center of the forehead. I don’t have a gender, a nationality, a social status, a bank balance or any other expansion associated with the body. The body is the costume I take on as an actor in this unlimited Drama being played out on this unlimited world stage.

‘Practice being bodiless’, He says. That’s who you are, a soul, a point of light.

Many hear this and think there is something wrong with the body, that it is a bad thing. Actually, the body is just matter, it is neutral. It is my attachment with the body and all its expansion that is the problem, not the body itself. I am thankful for this body. Without it, I the soul could not express myself or play my part. I could not get to know God, listen to Him, remember Him or experience Him.

What we are doing here is simply switching the consciousness to be that of a soul.

Most times, I am under the influence of the ego- which is simply a false image of the self. Sometimes, I am the arrogant self where I think what I see is reality, my understanding is right etc. This makes me feel isolated as I end of finding something wrong with everyone and everything. Nothing measures up, I don’t feel adequately valued, it seems no one really gets me. Then, there is the disheartened or inferior self where I feel less than, nothing I do is right, I feel like a failure. Even when someone genuinely compliments me, I don’t believe them. I am convinced they are either mocking me or pitying me.

I go through life looking through these lenses, often oscillating between the two states. They are both false. Now, Baba wants me to return home- to the true self.

Here, I am firmly situated in the knowledge of being a soul, not the ego. I am a child of the Highest on High, God Himself. I don’t measure myself by accomplishments, I don’t compare or compete, I don’t care about ‘winning’, I don’t spend time arguing or debating…in short, I don’t waste my thoughts, words or actions on the petty, mundane old word things. As a soul, I realize, I already have everything I need. I feel full and content. I feel peaceful and happy- I finally know who I am, I know Whom I belong to and I am serving alongside God to transform this world from hell to heaven.

That realization comes from practice, not through simply hearing the knowledge, or from attending lectures or workshops. It comes from practice.

Sometimes we think, practice refers to the 30 or 45mins I might spend each morning in meditation. That is not true. If we reflect on our own experience, we know that the quality of those 30-45mins depends on the quality of the 16 hours of the day before. What was my consciousness then? Was I oscillating between the two false states or was I aware of who I am? If I wasn’t then chances are my thoughts, words and actions were wasted- I got caught up in the scenes of the day. So when I sit to meditate and I just want to experience that bodiless stage, I can’t because there is a flood of thoughts and emotions.

Being bodiless is a practice, is an attitude where I am de-tached from the body and seated in my consciousness as a soul. It is something I am aware of at every thought- is this thought elevated or is this wasteful?, at every action and interaction. As my practice grows, the consciousness becomes more natural. Baba says, ‘after half a cycle of identifying as a body, that consciousness has become natural. Now, you have to make the true consciousness natural again’.

He is my reference point since He is always in realization, in soul consciousness. The more time I spend with Him, the more I remember myself. Couple that with a little attention through the day and closer to home I get.

It’s time to return home, He says. You came bodiless, you have to return bodiless.