Reality must always be real. It is not with forms and names - that which underlies these is the reality. It underlies limitations: being itself limitless. It is not bound. It underlies unrealities - itself being real. Reality is that which is. It is as it is. It transcends speech. It is beyond the expressions: existence, non-existence and so on.
The reality which is the mere consciousness which remains when ignorance is destroyed, along with the knowledge of objects, alone is The Self. In that real form of Brahman, which is abundant self-awareness, there is not the least ignorance.
The reality which shines fully, without misery and without a body, not only when the world is known, but also when the world is not known, is your real form. The radiance of consciousness-bliss, in the form of one-awareness, shining equally within and without, is the supreme and blissful primal reality. Its form is silence, and it is declared by the jnanis to be the final and obstructable state of true knowledge.
Know that jnana alone is non-attachment. Jnana alone is purity. Jnana is the attainment of God. Jnana, which is devoid of forgetfulness of Self, alone is immortality. Jnana alone is everything.
You are awareness. Awareness is another name for you. Since you are awareness, there is no need to attain or cultivate it. All that you have to do is to give up being aware of other things, that is, of the Not Self. If one gives up being aware of them, then pure awareness alone remains, and that is The Self.
There is no duality. Your present knowledge is due to the ego and is only relative. Relative knowledge requires a subject and an object. Whereas the awareness of The Self is absolute and requires no object.
Remembrance also is similarly relative. Requiring an object to be remembered, and a subject to remember. When there is no duality, who is to remember whom?
The Self is ever-present. Each one wants to know The Self. What kind of help does one require to know one’s self? People want to see The Self as something new, but it is eternal and remains the same all along. They desire to see it as a blazing light: how can it be so? It is not light, not darkness, it is only as it is. It cannot be defined. The best definition is: I Am That I Am.
The scriptures speak of The Self as being the size of one’s thumb, the tip of the hair, an electric spark, vast, subtler than the subtlest. They have no foundation in fact. It is only being: but different from the real and the unreal. It is knowledge: but different from knowledge and ignorance. How can it be defined at all? It is simply Being.
There is no seeing when The Self is realized: seeing is only Being. The state of self-realization, as we call it, is not attaining something new, or reaching some goal which is far away: but simply being that which you always are, and which you always have been. All that is needed is that you give up your realization of the not true as true. All of us are regarding as real that which is not real. We have only to give up this practice on our part. Then we shall realize The Self as The Self. In other words, be The Self.
At one stage, you will laugh at yourself for trying to discover The Self which is so evident. That stage transcends the seer and the seen. There is no seer there to see anything. The seer, who is seeing all this now, ceases to exist, and The Self alone remains.
If we talk of knowing The Self, there must be two selves. One a knowing self, another The Self which is known. And the process of knowing.
The state we call realization is simply being oneself, not knowing anything or becoming anything. If one is realized, one is that which alone is, and which alone has always been. One cannot describe that state, one can only be that. Of course we usually talk of self-realization for want of a better term. How to realize, or make real, that which alone is real?
The Self is silence. For those who live in Self as the beauty devoid of thought, there is nothing which should be thought of. That which should be adhered to is only the experience of silence, because in that supreme state nothing exists to be attained other than one’s Self. That state which transcends speech and thought is Mona, silence. That which is, is Mona. How can Mona be explained in words?
Sages say that the state in which the thought I, the ego, does not rise, even in the least, alone, is Self, which is silence. That silent Self alone is God. The Self alone is the Jiva. The Self alone is this ancient world. All other knowledge are only petty and trivial knowledge. The experience of silence alone is the real and perfect knowledge.
Know that the many objective differences are not real, but are mere superimpositions on the Self, which is the form of true knowledge.
If the idea “I am the body” is accepted, the selves are multiple. The state in which this idea vanishes is The Self, since in that state there are no other objects. It is for this reason that The Self is regarded as One only. Since the body itself does not exist in the natural outlook of the real self, but only in the extroverted outlook of the mind which is deluded in the power of illusion. To call Self, the space of consciousness, the possessor of the body, is wrong.
The world does not exist without the body. The body never exists without the mind. The mind never exists without consciousness. And consciousness never exists without the reality.
For the wise one, who has known the self by divining within themself, there is nothing other than self to be known. Why? Because since the ego, which identifies the form of a body as “I”, has perished, the wise-one is the formless existence Consciousness. The jnani knows they are The Self, and that nothing, neither their body, nor anything else, exists but The Self. To such a one, what difference could the presence or absence of a body make?
It is false to speak of realization. What is there to realize? The real is as it is always. We are not creating anything new or achieving something which we did not have before.
Liberation is our very nature. We are that. The very fact that we wish for liberation shows that freedom from all bondage is our real nature. It is not to be freshly acquired.
All that is necessary is to get rid of the false notion that we are bound. When we achieve that, there will be no desire or thought of any sort. So long as one desires liberation, so long you may take it one is in bondage.
In saying, “I had a dream. I was in deep sleep. I am awake.” You must admit that you were there in all the three states. That makes it clear that you were there all the time. If you remain as you are now, you are in the wakeful state. This becomes hidden in the dream state. And the dream state disappears when you are in deep sleep. You were there then. You were there now. And you were there at all times. The three states come and go, but you are always there. It is like a cinema. The screen is always there, but several types of pictures appear on the screen, and then disappear. Nothing sticks to the screen - it remains a screen. Similarly, you remain in your own self in all the three states. If you know that, the three states will not trouble you. Just as the pictures which appear on the screen do not stick to it.
On the screen you sometimes see a huge ocean with endless waves… that disappears. Another time you see fire spreading all around… that too disappears. But the screen is there on both occasions. Did the screen get wet with water? Or did it get burned by the fire? Nothing affected the screen. In the same way: the things that happen during the wakeful, dream and sleep states do not affect you at all - you remain your own self. All these states come and go. The Self is not bothered. It has only one state.
The jnani will be in this world merely as a witness. The example is like the light that is kept on the stage of a theater. When a drama is being played, the light is there, which illuminates without any distinction all the actors, whether they be kings or servants or dancers. And also all the audience. That light will be there before the drama begins, during the performance and also after the performance is over. In the same way, the light within - that is, The Self - gives light to the ego, the intellect, the memory and the mind, without itself being subject to processes of growth and decay.
Although during deep sleep and other states, there is no feeling of the ego. That Self remains attributeless and continues to shine of Itself. Actually the idea of The Self being the witness is only in the mind — it is not the absolute truth of The Self. Witnessing is relative to objects witnessed. Both the witness and their object are mental creations.
There is only one state, that of consciousness, or awareness, or existence. The three states of waking, dream and sleep cannot be real - they simply come and go. The real will always exist. The ‘I’ or existence that alone persists in all the three states is real. The other three are not real. And so it is not possible to say that they have such and such a degree of reality.
We may roughly put it like this: existence, or consciousness, is the only reality. Consciousness plus waking we call waking. Consciousness plus sleep we call sleep. Consciousness plus dream we call dream. Consciousness is the screen on which all the pictures come and go. The screen is real. The pictures are mere shadows on it.
Because by long habit we have been regarding these three states as real, we call the state of mere awareness or consciousness, The Fourth. There is however no fourth state, but only one state. There is no difference between dream and the waking state, except that the dream is short and the waking long. Both are the result of the mind. Because the waking state is long, we imagine that it is our real state. But as a matter of fact our real state is Turiya, or The Fourth State, which is always as it is, and knows nothing of the three states of waking, dream or sleep.
Because we call these three ‘states’ we call the fourth state also ‘Turiya’ - but it is not a state, but the real and natural state of The Self. When this is realized, we know it is not a ‘Turiya’ or fourth state, for a fourth state is only relative, but rather it is the transcendent state.
The Self does not say these states come and go. It is the seer who says these come and go. The seer and the seen together constitute the mind. See if there is such thing as the mind. Then the mind merges in The Self, and there is neither the seer nor the seen. So the real answer is: they neither come nor go. The Self alone remains as it ever is.
The three states owe their existence to non-inquiry. And inquiry puts an end to them.
However much one may explain the fact will not become clear until one attains self-realization — and wonders how one was blind to the self-evident and only existence so long. There is no difference between the mind and The Self. The mind turned inwards is The Self. Turned outwards it becomes the ego and all the world. Cotton made into various clothes we call by various names. Gold made into various ornaments we call by various names. But all the clothes are cotton, and all the ornaments are gold. The One is real. The many are mere names and forms. But the mind does not exist apart from The Self. That is: it has no independent existence. The Self exists without the mind; never the mind without The Self.
Brahman is Sat-Cit-Ananda. That which is, is only Sat - that is called Brahman. The luster of Sat is Cit - and its nature is Ananda. These are not different from Sat. All the three together are known as Satcitananda: Being-Consciousness-Bliss.
Although The Self is real, as it compromises everything, it does not give room for questions involving duality involving its reality or unreality. Therefore it is said to be different from the real and the unreal. Similarly, even though it is consciousness, since there is nothing for it to know, or to make itself known to, it is said to be different from the sentient and the insentient.
Perfect bliss is Brahman. Perfect peace is all The Self. That alone exists and is consciousness. That which is called happiness is only the nature of self. Self is not other than perfect happiness. That which is called happiness alone exists. Knowing that fact and abiding in the state of The Self, enjoy bliss eternally.
If a person thinks that their happiness is due to external causes and their posessions, it is reasonable to conclude that their happiness must increase with the increase of posessions, and diminish in proportion to their diminision. Therefore if they are devoid of posessions, their happiness should be nil. What is the real experience: does it conform to this view?
In deep sleep, one is devoid of posessions - including their own body. Instead of being unhappy, they are quite happy. Everyone desires to sleep soundly. The conclusion is that happiness is inherent in humans, and is not due to external causes. One must realize The Self in order to open the store of unalloyed happiness.
Call it by any name: God, Self, The Heart, or the seat of Consciousness, it is all the same. The point to be grasped is this: that heart means the very core of one’s being - the center, without which there is nothing whatsoever. The heart is not physical, it is spiritual. It is the center. It is that from which thoughts arise, on which they subsist, and where they are resolved. The thoughts are the content of the mind, and they shape the universe. The Heart is the center of all. That from which beings come into existence is said to be Brahman in the The Upanishads. That is The Heart, Brahman is The Heart. How to realize The Heart? There is noone who for even for a moment fails to experience The Self. But no one admits that they ever stand apart from The Self. They are The Self. The self is The Heart. The Heart is the center from which everything springs.
Because you see the world, the body and so on, it is said that there is a center for these, which is called the heart. But when you are in The Heart, the heart is known to be neither the center, nor the circumference: there is nothing else apart from it. The consciousness which is the real existence and which does not go out to know those things which are other than Self, alone is The Heart.
Since the truth of Self is known only to that consciousness, which is devoid of activity, that consciousness which always remains attending to Self alone, is the shining of clear knowledge.