I was asked the following question:

My son, who is 16, and I were discussing some of your articles about The Big Bang and levels of consciousness. He said to me, “I understand that God is pure consciousness, pure energy, but where did that “energy come from? How was God created?” How would you respond to that question?

To which I respond:

Firstly, IS-NESS = CONSCIOUSNESS. That is something to reflect on… for many years actually.

Because it is the nature of consciousness to be conscious, it becomes in the beginning conscious of the only thing that is… namely itself. Perceiving itself, then, as ‘other’, duality is born and cascades out like a crystal of self interaction to create the full range of multiplicity.

Secondly, there is, strictly speaking, no such thing as energy. However, the structures created in consciousness are fascinating… appealing, alluring…. by their very nature. That compels consciousness to move, so to speak, or at least appear to move. This is called the force of maya. Maya means illusion. Energy (Shakti, the feminine principle) is a quality of illusion, like the movement in a dream is really just part of the dream. The dream is really only happening within consciousness (Shiva). This is why it is said that without Shakti, Shiva is powerless. It is all just the play of consciousness. Yet the power of the illusion is a vast source of infinite energy.

The world is a dream. People become so overwhelmed by the allure of the dream that they forget their true nature. They are lost in the dream. But to free yourself from the dream, you must work through the dream. The dragon of the dream cannot be slain with a real sword. It requires the sword of the dream. To intellectually know this is an illusion is not to see past the illusion. It is a good first step to intellectual know about.

All too often, when people know all about spirituality, they believe they ‘get it.’ I call that the ‘I get it syndrome.’ I work with people to move them through and out of the ‘I get it syndrome’. There are a great deal of levels of clinging to ones current level of identity with the illusion all along the way. Every level along the way is a new level of consciousness… infinite in number.

Knowledge is structured in consciousness. People think of facts as knowledge. But the same fact has an infinite number of levels of understanding depending upon the individual’s level of consciousness.

Sometimes people feel dejected to think that this world is maya… illusion. But that is not correct thinking. This world is grand. It is beautiful. It is pregnant with meaning. It is to be loved. The trick is to “have the boat in the water, but no water in the boat.” Live in the illusion, but do not lose your Self to it. You are one with the source of all that is. Your domain is the universe.