In the first step there is Consciousness only. God is conscious but He does not know, "What am I?  Where am I? What is my work?" Then by activity Consciousness becomes sound. Here before me there is nothing, but if I wave my hand, vibrations and a sound come. This shows that all comes from activity. As the activity increases light comes. Then God thinks that He is sound and light. Because He has no body He recognizes Himself as that of which He is conscious.

Every cause is the effect of some cause. All causes come from one cause. Call it the First Cause, if you will not call it God. Every soul is a ray of the Consciousness. All activities are made by one activity. Just as in a watch all the wheels are made to go by one wheel, so all our activities are made to go by one, by the breath. The breath makes all go, and when that ceases, all the activities cease.

Whatever we do, whether we live as a saint, whether we make a sacrifice, it is for our own happiness that we do it. If someone wishes only for peace, it is because his happiness lies in peace. The world was made for the happiness of the Creator. He felt the power to manifest, and where there is the power to do a thing, there is happiness in doing it.

It is as if someone had made a bazar, and then people came to him and said, "There is no shade in my shop" - another, "I have made a contract and they have not given me the total of my contract, they have given me only a part" - and another, "Thieves have come in the night and have taken everything" - and another, "My husband quarrels with me" - and another, "My wife is very bad. It is the wife you have given me". He who had made the bazar had become so wrapped up in all this that he did not know what to do, and he began to think, "What am I? What have I been? What shall I be? I am not this bazar that I have made".

This is what cannot be spoken before the uninitiated, because it goes against the religions. He Himself became so involved in this existence that He forgets what He is.

Man sees this physical world and he thinks, "I am this". It seems so solid, so real. What is the matter with him is only that he is deluded. His unreal life has become real to him. Then he seeks to clear himself from all these vibrations that he has gathered around him. This is Sufism; this is initiation. Then he places himself in the other swing. This is rebirth. It is said, "He is a Brahman who knows Brahma", and also one says "Brahman dwija". Dwija means reborn. Christ also said, "Except a man be born again he cannot enter the Kingdom of God”. Then he passes from this self to that self. When he attains to the Consciousness, when he reaches the goal, this life becomes unreal to him and that becomes his real life, his true life as it is.