Divinity means pure consciousness. You will first have to go from the world of objects to the world of thoughts, and then you will have to take another step – you will have to drop thinking, let thoughts disappear, let there be nothingness. In that nothingness the turning happens. You cannot do it. You can do only two things: you can close your eyes to the world and you can close your consciousness to the constant traffic of thoughts. That is all you have to do. Then the third thing happens on its own. Suddenly you are aware that you are a god. Awareness is what “God” is.

But when you are aware, in a sense you have disappeared, you are no longer there. The old ego is no longer there. You cannot even say “I” – because the I depends on things and thoughts, the I is constituted of things and thoughts. When all the bricks of things and thoughts have disappeared, the building of the I also disappears. There is pure emptiness. That’s what Buddha calls anatta, no-selfness. At the very core of the self, at the innermost shrine, you will not find yourself – and that’s how one finds oneself. When the self is lost, the self is found.

That’s why at this point all great masters become contradictory and paradoxical. Jesus says, “If you want to find yourself, lose yourself. If you want to lose yourself, then go on clinging to yourself.” It is very paradoxical. Those who cling will lose and those who are ready to lose will attain.

You ask me, “Why do we forget our divinity?” No, you have not forgotten, one never forgets – you have not known it at all in the first place. Once known, it is known forever. But I am not saying that you are not divine. You are divine.

When we say that one has forgotten, the word forgotten is used metaphorically. It is not very true, factual. Nobody can forget. A buddha can never become anything else but a buddha. He cannot forget. He knows. He knows even while he is asleep. There is no way to forget it. Once known, it is known eternally. But we have never known it – and we have been it always and always. From the very beginning we have been it. But we have not allowed our energy to turn upon itself.

You must have seen old symbols – there is an Egyptian symbol – of a snake turning upon itself, a circle of a snake. The snake has its own tail in its mouth – that’s what knowing is. The snake has its own tail in his mouth, it is a complete circle, the two ends meet.

When you turn upon yourself the circle is complete. That’s why in many mystery traditions the circle is the symbol of ultimate attainment. Right now you are not a circle, you are a line. You go from yourself, but you never come to yourself. The ray of your consciousness goes on and on, it is linear, one dimensional. This is what the sansara is – the world, the linear consciousness. Your consciousness goes on and on moving in a line; it has been moving that way for millions of years.

When it starts becoming a circle, starts moving backwards, starts moving back home and one day suddenly strikes itself, falls upon itself, then there is knowing. And that knowing is never forgotten.

You are gods, but you have not recognized the fact. The recognition is missing, it is not that you have forgotten it.