It is false to speak of realization. What is there to realize? The real is as it is - ever.
How to realize it? All that is required is this: we have realized the unreal; regarded as real what is unreal. We have to give up this attitude: that is all that is required for us to attain jnana. We are not creating anything new, or achieving something we did not have before.
Effortless and choiceless awareness is our real state. If we can attain it, or be in it, it is all right. But one cannot reach it without effort. The effort of deliberate meditation.
All the agelong vasanas, or latent tendencies, carry the mind outwards and turn it to external objects. All such thoughts have to be given up, and the mind turned inward. For most people, effort is necessary.
Be quiet, or still. But it is not easy. That is why all this effort is necessary.
Even if you find one who has effortlessly achieved the Mona, or silence, supreme state, you may take it that the effort necessary has already been completed in a previous life. Such effortless and choiceless awareness is reached only after deliberate meditation.
We are always the real. And what is there for one to attain after that?
What is changing, what appears and disappears, what is not real, we regard as real. We are always, and nothing can be more directly present than We.
We say we have to attain realization after all these sadhanas, or practices. Nothing can be more strange than this. The Self is not attained by doing anything other than remaining still and being as we are.
We say that what we see with the eyes alone is directly present. There must be first a seer before anything can be seen. You are yourself the eye that sees. The infinite eye.
People are afraid that when the ego or the mind is killed, the result may be a mere blank, and not happiness. What really happens is that the thinker, or the objective thought, and thinking, all merge into the One Source — which is consciousness, and bliss itself; and thus that state is neither inert nor blank.
I do not understand why people should be afraid of that state in which all thoughts cease to exist and the mind is killed. Every day they experience that state in sleep. There is no mind or thought in sleep, yet when one rises from sleep, one says “I slept happily.” Sleep is so dear to everyone that no one, prince or beggar, can do without it.
What happens when you make a serious quest for The Self — is that the ‘I’ thought, as a thought, disappears. Something else, through the depths, takes hold of you… and that is not the I which commenced the quest. That is the real Self, the import of I. It is not the ego, or the mind. It is the Supreme Being itself.
The very fact that you are posessed of the quest for The Self, is a manifestation of the Divine Grace. It is the effulgent in the heart, the inner being, the real Self. It draws you from within. You have to attempt to get in from without. Your attempt is earnest quest. The deep inner movement is grace. That is why I say there is no real inquiry without grace. Nor is there grace active for one who is without inquiry — both unnecessary.
The ego self is the jiva, it is different from The Lord of All, The Absolute. When through this intense devotion the individual self approaches The Lord, it graciously assumes name and form, and takes the self into Itself. Therefore they say the guru is none other than The Lord. They are a human embodiment of the Divine Grace. The real guru is God in human form.
Knowing Oneself is only being Oneself, as there is no second existence — this is self-realization. You may go on reading any number of books on Vedanta. They can only tell you to realize The Self. The Self cannot be found in books: you have to find it for yourself, in yourself.
The Quest for The Self I speak of is a direct method: indeed, superior to the other meditations. For the moment you get into a movement of a quest for The Self and go deeper and deeper: the real Self is waiting there to take you in. And then whatever is done is done by something else, and you have no hand in it. In this process, all doubts and discussions are automatically given up — just as one who sleeps forgets for the time being all their cares.
The Lord whose home is the interior of the heart lotus, and who shines there as ‘I’, is extolled as The Lord of The Cave — if, by force of practice, the feeling, “I am That. I am The Lord of The Cave.” becomes firmly established. You stand forth as The Lord of The Cave. The illusion that you are the perishable body will vanish like the rising sun.
If we regard ourselves as the doers of action, we shall also be the enjoyers of the fruits of such action. If by inquiring, “Who does these actions?” one realizes one’s Self — the sense that one is the doer vanishes, and with it, all the three kinds of karma. This is the state of eternal Mukti.
Our real nature is Mukti. But we imagine that we are bound, and are making strenuous attempts to become free — while we are all the time free. This will only be understood when we reach that stage. We’ll be surprised that we were frantically trying to attain something which we have always been.
The dyads are the pairs of opposites — such as pleasure and pain — and the triads — with such differences as the knower, the known, and the process of knowing — depend on one thing, the ego. When one seeks for that thing in the heart, and finds out its real nature, they will vanish.
Those alone who have found out the real nature of the ego, have seen the reality. They will have no more doubts or anxieties. The thought: “I am the body” is ignorance. “The body is not apart from The Self”, is knowledge. The body is a mental projection: the mind is the ego — and the ego rises from The Self. The body thought is distracting and strays away from The Self. For whom is the body or birth? Not for The Self, the spirit. It is for the non-self, which imagines itself separate from The Self.
So long as there is the sense of separation, there will be afflicting thoughts. If the original source is regained, and the sense of separation ends, there is peace.
The waters of the sea, evaporating and rising into the skies as clouds, find no rest — until they come back as rain, and finally rush back to the sea. The ego can have peace only when it merges back into its Source, The Self.
The jnani appreciates all distinctions. They always perceive and experience the One Reality in all of them. That is why they have no preferences. Where the One moves about or talks or acts — it is all the One Reality, in which they act or move or talk. The jnani sees nothing apart from The One Supreme Truth.
The transcendental awareness I speak of is the natural state: sahaja samadhi. Here you are naturally poised. You remain calm and composed, even while you are active. You realize that you are moved by the deeper, real Self, within. You have no worries, no anxieties, no cares. Here, you realize there is nothing belonging to you: everything is done by something with which you get into conscious union.
A natural being or a natural abidance itself is without concepts. For, in this state, the mind is free from doubts. It has no need to swing between alternatives or possibilities and probabilities. It has no active predispositions of any kind. It is sure of the truth.
The Self makes itself felt in the pure mind, so that even when you are in the midst of thoughts, you feel the presence, you realize the truth that you are one with the deeper Self. And that the thought waves are there only on the surface.
The Heart is the one supreme center of The Self. You need have no doubt about it. The real Self is there, in the heart — behind the ego self. Self cannot be known with your mind. You cannot realize it by imagination. The only direct way to realize it is to cease all fancy and try to just be your Self. Then you realize, or you automatically feel, that the center is there. This is the center: the heart of Being. Spoken of in the scriptures as the cavity of the heart.
When you go deeper within yourself, you lose yourself… in the abysmal depths, then the Reality takes hold of you. It is an incessant flash or current of ‘I’-consciousness. You can be aware of it, feel it, hear it, sense it. This is what I call: “Self manifestation.”
In direct knowing you can feel yourself one with the One that exists. The whole body becomes a mere power, a force current. Your life becomes a needle, and you are drawn to a huge, massive magnet. And as you go deeper and deeper, you become a mere center. And then, not even that…
For you become a mere consciousness. There are no thoughts or cares any longer. They were shattered at the threshold. It is an inundation. You are a mere straw. You are swallowed alive. But is very delightful. For you become the very thing that swallows you. This is the union of the individual with The Absolute.