tell you. In our schools, we emphasize giving children a chance to find out from their own experience. This is the way to begin with seeking God, too. You cannot know whether there is an infinite consciousness, but you can know whether something makes you happier in yourself. And this is a good start. Rahasya: Yes, I like what Aristotle was talking about, morality and everything and he said, “Just as a matter of fact, I like to be around people that like me. So it only makes sense that I treat them well.” It can be as basic as that. Swami Kriyananda: Yes, sure it can. And I think we need to begin with basics. One question, and it is a basic one. How do you know that you exist? Descartes solved it, according to him, by saying, “I think, therefore I am.” But that doesn’t prove anything, because when you are really aware, you don’t think. Rahasya: Yes. Swami Kriyananda: And the more you think, the less aware you really are. So that doesn’t do it. You can’t know by reason whether you exist or don’t exist. It’s an intuition. And this intuition that I exist is the beginning of human awareness. And the beginning of human seeking. I know that I exist, I know that I am conscious. How can I become more happily aware of this stage? How can I become more conscious? This is the beginning of all seeking. Not whether the right teacher is Jesus Christ or Buddha or anyone else, but whether what they taught will help you become what you want to be. Everybody wants to be happy and nobody wants to be unhappy; everybody wants to be calm, and nobody likes to be agitated. It always comes down to what expands your self-awareness or what limits it. Rahasya: For about the past 80 years or so, we have been finding Sumerian clay tablets that were from Mesopotamia and to even older civilizations. And on these clay tablets, there are about 30,000 of them, one of them is the Epic of Creation, which is almost a direct translation on the story of Genesis in the Bible. Since it predates the Biblical account by centuries, perhaps even millennia, it’s become 278
RAHASYA POE