Thoughts and Consciousness
by Atman Nityananda
Not every thought arises uninvited or drifts in on its own. Many are summoned, shaped, and sustained by an act of conscious will—they are not mere visitors but chosen guests. The mind is not only a receiver but an instrument of intention, capable of focused and purposeful creation. This capacity to consciously engage the mind, rather than merely observe it, is one of the most potent tools available to the sincere seeker.
It is not true that there is no individual self. To deny the self entirely is to miss half the truth. I exist as a real and distinct center of consciousness—not as the ego, nor as a fixed and separate thing, but as a living point of awareness through which the Absolute knows and expresses itself uniquely.
I consciously choose which thoughts to nourish and which to release. This discernment is itself a spiritual act—the quiet, steady exercise of inner sovereignty over the landscape of my own awareness.
I am not the ego, nor the body, mind, or intellect—yet I can work through each of them with clarity and intention. They are my instruments, not my identity; my vehicles, not my home.
I am a living, conscious being, rooted in pure awareness and endowed with the capacity for genuine choice. I am neither a passive witness nor a helpless reactor, but a center of conscious presence capable of deliberate participation in life.
Although undeveloped regions of my psyche still give rise to spontaneous thoughts, emotions, impulses, desires, and fantasies, I recognise them for what they are. I do not suppress them, nor am I swept away by them—I meet them with awareness, and either release them gently or eliminate their energy through the power of consciousness, discernment, prayer, and mantra.
My infinite, formless, and timeless nature—pure, undivided awareness—does not contradict my existence as an individual consciousness functioning through refined instruments: the thinking mind, the emotional mind, the intellect, intuition, vital energy, and the body. The universal and the personal are not opposed; they interpenetrate, the individual serving as a living vessel through which the universal knows and manifests itself.
The true aim of spirituality is not merely to realise the universal, static awareness, but to be fully and thoroughly transformed at every level of one’s being—so that the dynamic wisdom, boundless love, and sovereign power of the Absolute may be lived, expressed, and offered through us into the world.
🌺 Peace, Love, Harmony
#atmansubstack
MY BOOKS IN ENGLISH
- Liberation with the Power of Mantra – (ORDER ON AMAZON)
- DIE TO LIVE – (ORDER ON AMAZON)
- Living Non-duality in Practice
The ‘secret’ to a plentiful life, a life of harmony, happiness and contentment is to have a sattvic mind free from desires and ego and to live in every moment in conscious contact with our true Self (Consciousness).
🌺 Peace, Love, Harmony
atmannityanada 