In the town where we live, if someone asks us, ‘Where are you from?’ we would give the street name, house number, something like that.
But if we go out of the town and someone asks us, ‘Where are you from?’ we would give the name of the town. Then when we go out of the county or state we will give the name of the country or state. If you leave the country we will say, ‘I am from this country’, we won’t be mentioning the small street or home number.
So like that our consciousness is expanding from the small home, small street – now we belong to a big country. All countrymen are like our brothers and sisters. Then if we get a chance to go out to another planet, when we meet somebody else also from Earth, ‘Oh I am from planet Earth, you are also from planet Earth!’ We would feel that oneness, ‘Oh, we are one family from the same planet, Earth.’
In this way, our consciousness, our awareness has expanded to fill a bigger space.
This is what happens as we meditate regularly. As we cleanse the mind of its mental habits, it becomes less narrow-minded, and is able to think of a larger cause always. Not just how I or my group is affected, but the whole society, whole world. We would think, ‘If I want to be happy, then someone else would also want that same happiness’. In that way we can consider others more and see that oneness. We would value peace – we would not like to go into conflict.
If we can gain peace for ourselves in meditation then our awareness automatically expands.