Another thing that it is important to talk about is Self‐Realization. Your ideas about this will shape your practice.
During my years studying Buddhism I read much about Enlightenment, without ever finding out exactly what they meant. It sounded like a wonderful state, whatever it was.
Then I was taken to see Nome in Santa Cruz, CA. I could kind of get what he was saying, but he was using language very differently from what I had heard in my Buddhist years. And he explained things, like Attachments, which we talked about last week, in a way where I really understood what he was saying, and could take it into my own immediate experience. Nome was teaching in the Advaita Vedanta tradition, the ancient Indian Teaching of Nonduality.
Another thing he taught about was the Hindu term, Self‐Realization. Self‐Realization is their equivalent to enlightenment in Buddhism.
Self‐Realization turns out to have a very specific meaning. Self‐ Realization is where you see your ego was just an illusion, and your identity as a limited separate being ‘dissolves.’ Then you know that instead you are the boundless consciousness, which is without limit, is everything and everyone, and without beginning or end. Self‐realization is the recognition of this within yourself.
Self‐Realization is not a state; states come and go. Rather Self‐ Realization is who you are. Who you are does not come or go. When you see this, you also see that it was this way all the time, you just didn’t notice. So nothing is changed and the way you understand and relate to everything has a very different basis.
There are four profound statements from the Vedas ad Upanidshads that express the core ideas of Advaita Vedanta: .
Prajñānam Brahman ‐ " Consciousness is Brahman.” Or” Supreme knowledge is Brahmam.” Brahman means “The vast Absolute,” beyond any conception of God, the substratum of the universe.
Ayam Ātmā Brahmam‐ "This Self is Brahman" Your very being is Brahman.
Tat Tvam Asi ‐ “Thou art That” or "That essence are you"
Aham Brahmāsmi ‐ "I am Brahman"
One way I have heard this said is that you – the seeming individual – are never Self‐Realized; rather you have realized that you are not the individual ‐ and never have been. Self‐realization is not freeing the individual; rather it is freeing you from the individual.
What would your life be like with this realization?
VIDEO: SWAMI SARVAPRIYANANDA – THE ULTIMATE TRUTH
This is advanced teaching, so listen, reflect and mediate deeply on what you hear.