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If one goes deep in matter, then there is no matter but energy. But that too is not yet enough, because beyond energy consciousness exists.
So when you ask, "Who are you?" I say, "I am consciousness." And this answer is all inclusive -- everything is consciousness. I answer only as a representative of all. You may not have heard that you are consciousness, you may not have known that you are consciousness, but I am answering even for you. Consciousness exists, and when I say something exists, it carries for me a particular, definite meaning. When I say something exists, it means it will never be in nonexistence. If something can go into nonexistence, it would mean that it never really existed. It was only phenomenal, it just appeared to exist.
So all that changes is phenomenal; it is not really existential. All that changes is only the surface. The innermost, the ultimate core, never changes. It is and is always in the present. You can never say it was, you can never say it will be. Whenever it is, it is. Only the present is applicable to it.
There is no past and no future, because the past and future become relevant only when something changes. When something is, then there is no past and future, but only the present. Of course, the meaning of present will be different, quite different. For us, present means something which exists between the past and the future. But if there is no past and no future, then the present will be something very different. It is not something in between the past and future. The present is just a moment -- a moment between two nonexistentials: the past that has gone and is no more and the future that has not yet come. Between these two nonexistentials, one present moment exists. That is impossible. Between two nonexistentials there can be no existence. It only appears so.
When I say consciousness exists, I do not mean something of the past and future, but something eternal -- not everlasting, because the word 'everlasting' carries the sense of time. When I say it always exists in the present, I mean it is nontemporal; existence means it is nontemporal. It is beyond time and, simultaneously, beyond space, because
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