In the heart of all realization is discovery. When one is face to face with the divine self – one’s very own heart – a door is opened to a realm hitherto unknown. We look upon the divine self, seemingly for the very first time. I would like to say more about the divine self and share my experience of how one may realize it.
Your own efforts
A pre-requisite to realization, is a desire to know who you really are, what you always have been and what you will always be. When this desire is so strong that realization becomes tantamount to life, and ignorance feels like death, as an aspirant you will try your utmost to awaken yourself through spiritual means. Efforts may commonly be channeled through meditation, chanting mantras, reciting prayers or reading religious scriptures or spiritual books. It may be there is no lack of dedication on your part, yet something is still missing. Perhaps you feel you are going round and round in circles, without an end in sight. At this point, which comes sooner or later, you will either carry on with the journey or discontinue. If you have read between the lines, or considered your meditative experiences deeply, you will become aware of a third option – a most valuable one – to seek a Spiritual Teacher.
The Spiritual Inquiry
As a spiritual aspirant, you will have many questions about the path ahead. Firstly, where does the path start? Where does the path end? Are you on a path, or is your journey yet to begin? Is there really someone who can help you discover your true self – if so, who and where can this person be found? How will you separate the authentic Guru, from a charlatan? Is it really true to believe ‘I am God’ and so is every living being? Will you always be thinking of these questions, or will they culminate into realization? What will this realization feel like? How will you know when you have attained it? Having persevered in your spiritual practice, reading and meditation some insight will certainly have been achieved, because all of these endeavors bear fruit of one kind or another. You may have had glimpses of ‘Samadhi’, but fall short of this becoming a lasting experience. Some answers will have arrived, and many more questions will have arisen. Progress beyond this state is always liable to stall until you ‘see’ the reality of yourself. This mirror in which you must eventually look, is that of the Spiritual Teacher, or Satguru. He or she will not appear before you, until you are ready for a higher learning. Whatever else you have done has been preparation for this encounter – it has swelled your appetite, but the hunger to know remains great. The tipping point, is when the hunger becomes too much to contain.
The Satguru
To recognise Satguru, you must know the characteristics by which this he or she is identified. Satguru is the embodiment of timeless wisdom. Indeed, Satguru is a pure mirror for the spiritual aspirant. In the beginning, Satguru shows you the subtle ego – that aspect of yourself, which you thought you had got rid of. Then, Satguru shows you very directly that you are Formless, and all that exists, is part of the Formless whole. In this forthright teaching, your subtle ego may cling to what it already knows and resist the reality that is becoming manifest. However, if you address your questions to Satguru, the answers will be found. It all depends on how quickly you can empty yourself of egoic concepts. If you are stuck in the ego-mind, it will lead you away from the present moment, and you may never really understand Satguru’s guidance. If, however, in Satguru’s presence, you begin the inquiry with an open-mind, with a single focus towards the Truth, then answers will emerge naturally. It is in these moments of discovery that the acceleration towards spiritual liberation – i.e. enlightenment – speeds up.
Satguru will help you find your own answers. He or she will ask that you serve others, listen to enlightened discourses within the company of the realized, and redirect your meditations to the Formless reality which has been shared with you. In this process the ego-mind reduces, wisdom begins to flourish and a state of perpetual Samadhi becomes established. Where progress became stunted before, you will feel the path moving you forwards, like a river that is drawn towards its source.
Discovering the Self within
Once your conceptual questions and search for answers is satiated, you will enter a moment of clear seeing. In this purity, you will rest completely in the present moment. You will feel totally in oneness, centered on your own presence. You will witness the divine spirit around you, and more importantly, within you. You will look at the trees that you passed by yesterday with ‘new’ eyes. You will see them not in the perception of yesterday, but in the perception of now – with your senses duly cleansed. Looking at yourself and the world at large with newfound discovery, you will fully appreciate everything. Not only that, but you will connect with everything as if it were an extension of your own being. You will discover the aliveness within everything and feel rejuvenated by it. This is what I refer to as Satguru’s grace in action.
Awakening
The beginning of this whole spiritual journey, which led eventually to the door of Satguru, is attributed to the fact that you had some sort of awakening. It may have been a momentary experience of oneness, inter-connectivity with all, connection with the higher-being, or dropping of the body-mind association. But with the world being so alluring, your awakening, your awareness, will necessarily have broken down again. What happens through Satguru’s revelation, and the path that he provides, is a longevity to the bliss, gratitude, and love in your life. The awakening is no longer fleeting, or an experience you once touched. It becomes an enduring insight, which cannot be shaken. It becomes unwavering awareness.
Once here, you will feel compelled to share this joy with others. If you can maintain the nobility of who you are, having moved from awakening to enlightenment, you are in for a great and wondrous expedition with your true self. Life begins anew.
Enlightenment
When you allow Satguru’s grace to consume your spiritual aspiration and allow the timeless wisdom to find space in your heart, your very nature will be filled with spiritual virtues like compassion, love, acceptance, gratitude, trust and forgiveness. You will not need to cultivate these virtues, because you are literally flowing in the Formless – the source of all. You will no longer feel separate from your essence, as you will know deeply that you are it – “That Thou Art” or “Tat Twam Asi” as the sacred Upanishads tell us. Infact, only the Formless is.
It is in this happening that the ego dissolves and with it any concepts that no longer serve you. The Satguru that you perceive as the embodiment of wisdom also dissolves away, but the timeless wisdom remains – whether you are physically in proximity to Satguru, or not. You feel the Formless, everwhere. Bliss, equanimity and contentment is now the state of your being, at all times. This is the discovery, for which you needed to devote your every last biological cell, in the desire to be enlightened. For, it is only when you are willing to lose everything, that Satguru’s grace finds you.
-Rahul Singh, Atlanta, USA
