Understanding Self Realization

Consciousness is all-pervading, all are instinct with consciousness. Is it not then be possible to become aware of it anywhere and realize it’s innate divinity?

Indeed, it is, but the nature of things it is easiest for man to realize the divinity in himself; for it is something he can feel and breath directly, immediately.

This center of divinity is within, but he is not normally conscious of it. For the doors o our perception are turned outward, he has to turn his gaze inward in its profound. He must have the faith that the divine is there at the center of the his being, seated in the cave of the heart -‘Hridaye Guhyam’. He must also be seized with an intense drive to arrive at it; he must aspire for it.

It is not enough to have faith, to have aspiration; he cannot allow movements that ditract, lead away from this central quest. He must reject all that is opposed to his aspiration. All that belongs to the lower self, the ignorant nature and holds back must be steadily eschewed. The code of Patanjali’s Yama and Niyama is specifically relevant at this stage.

Human effort is found inadequate, though it is essential. The seeker invokes the help, the Grace of the All-Ruler. He surrenders to the Divine. But not all can be satisfied with or be sure of communion with the Unseen. So it is prescribed that he should take refuge in the Teacher, The Guru , who represents the Divine to him.

The Guru is one who has realized the Divine that is the object of the quest or is on the way to that fulfillment, and he is able to transmit the dynamics of this realization to the disciple. This basing himself on faith, aspiring to realize the Divinity at his core, rejecting all that detracts from that aim and surrendering himself to the Divine-  directly, or in the person of the  Guru – he forges his way.

By determined practice, the active consciousness, the purusha, seperates itself from nature, prakrit. Quieting the restless mind, bringing its thoughts under control and effective in direction, purifying the emotions and impulses of their grosser elements, and turning them God-ward and retaining the active will and the physical body to consecrate themselves to the Divine in all works, in the spirit of the Gita, the seeker builds his path inward. Meditation concentration, Japa adoration – these are some of the tried meas for gathering himself in his consciousness and plunging inwards towards the source of his being.

These practices,m however are only peak periods of Sadhana. The seeker has to extend the spirit of these sessions to other hours and learn to convert the whole of the day and night into an un-interrupted movement of  Sadhana. The attitude and poise that he maintains during the sitting  for dhanya, puja etc. must be normalized. His entire life must be cast in the mold of the inner quest.

He does not turn his back upon life. Instead, he turned his every-day life into a field for the testing of the results of the sadhana, for practicing his idea, for articulating the deeper and still deeper consciousness that he arrives at Karma, Bhakti, Jnana – all join as tributaries of the developing stream of the realization of the Inner Divine. The level of life is elevated. Nothing is allowed to take place of that offense the sanctity of the Presence which begins to make itself as the sadhana proceeds. Slowly the ego, hitherto masquerading as the SELF is displaced by the TRUE PERSON within  who takes more and more life under his charge and assumed his rightful role as the charioteer.

But man doesn’t not live alone. He lives in collective set-up, in a world, that presses on him from all sides. He finds that it is not enough that he finds his true, spiritual center and develops his personal consciousness to its optimum. He needs to have the right relation with others. He has to find the right place, the proper fulcrum to regulate his outer life which shares the life universal. This too is a part of his total development.

Author: Sorcerer

Image Courtesy: Path of Wholing