Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami gives his weekly upadesha in Kadavul Temple at Kauai’s Hindu Monastery in Hawaii. It is part of a series of talks elaborating on the inspired teachings of Satguru Śivaya Subramuniyaswami as found in his book Merging With Śiva.

"See awareness as a lotus flower. The lotus flower goes through many, many experiences. A few weeks ago in Bangkok, on Innersearch, we drove out into the Thai countryside and we saw many, many lotus flowers growing wild. They’re just beautiful. See awareness as a lotus flower. First awareness is a seed, and it’s breaking out of the instinctive elements, the hard shell of the seed. But it’s living right within the seed. It is dynamic life at that very time, tuned in with the central source of energy. Then it breaks out and it becomes roots, and then awareness becomes a stem, becomes conscious of water all around it. Finally, the stem emerges above the water, and awareness has leaves and a bud. It’s still limited awareness, because it’s not in its fullness. But as that awareness expands, it opens up into a beautiful lotus flower, then creates more seeds for more flowers. This is the path of awareness. Become acquainted with the awareness, that one beautiful, pure element of the soul, your super­con­scious body, which is easily found and easily discovered by simply closing your eyes and opening them and saying “I’m aware,” not necessarily of what you are aware of. Close your eyes. Say, “I am aware.” Awareness is closely identified to the realms of sight—hearing, of course, too, but more predominantly sight. As awareness expands and as awareness contracts, we find that we have power over awareness. It merely becomes a tool. The underlying power of awareness is the blissful state of the spiritual body of man, pure consciousness, the central source of all energies, in its blissful, calm state. Meditate on awareness being like a lotus flower."