Realization of the Truth
“You can't discover the Truth.
You have to Realize it with your 'Real-Eyes'.”
This is the biggest step on the Ladder to Heaven. If we reach this step, then there are chances that we will achieve our Ultimate Goal. This step is called Realization of the Truth. Let us take stock of the Ladder that we have been climbing so far. A majority of mankind can climb the first part of the Ladder – belief, prayer, faith, hope, trust, enthusiasm. These 6 steps are not difficult. Then, comes the true devotee of the Lord. Such a person loves God and seeks God. This is the 7th step. After crossing the 7 steps, most people stop. They live and they die, and the cycle goes on. This is because they don't go on a quest and don't find a Guru. Thus they do not overcome ignorance. They don't go beyond their Karma and they don't spend time in silence and in Divine Union with God.
Steps 8 to 12 are difficult steps and a very rare minority climbs these steps. Probably, less than 1% of humanity goes on a genuine quest to find the true purpose of life and realize God. Out of the 1% that goes on a quest, only 0.1% realizes the truth. This makes it a very tiny number of people.
What is this realization of truth that becomes the biggest step, the 13th step on the Ladder to Heaven? Knowledge is not Realization. People who are climbing steps 8 to 12 may overcome ignorance and understand several truths about life, but still, they don't realize the truth. Realization happens when we open our real eyes. Then we understand the truth about self and God. Realization starts with self- realization and ends with God-realization.
What is self-realization? It is realizing Neti Neti, Not This, Not This. I am not the body; I am not the mind. It is going further to realize Tat Tvam Asi, Thou Art That – the power that gives life. We are the Divine Soul! Those who realize this truth, realize that this body is made up of earth, water, air, fire, and space. In the end, it returns to dust. We are not this body. They also realize that we are not the mind. We can see our eyes, our nose, and our skin. We can also see an X-ray of our heart or brain, just as we can cut through our flesh, muscle and see the blood flow out and see the bone. If we break the bone, we will find bone marrow. But there is nothing else.
We are said to have a subtle body made up of the mind, memory, intellect and ego. All along, we believe that we are this subtle body. This is because we do not realize the truth. Therefore, the subtle body, let us call it ME – Mind and Ego, is born again and again based on our Karma. If we overcome our ignorance, then we experience a profound realization. We realize that not only we are not the body, we are also not ME – the Mind and Ego. We are the Divine Soul. The moment we realize this truth, we can be liberated from the cycle of death and rebirth because we are liberated from all Karma. Karma belongs to the illusory ME – the Mind and Ego, which doesn't exist. All along, it is our ignorance that makes us believe we are ME – the Mind and Ego. The moment we realize the truth, we are free. This is called self- realization.
Today, even science, which was up to now at loggerheads with Spirituality, agrees that we human beings are not the physical body that we appear to be, but rather energy. Our physical body is made up of over 30 trillion cells. But if we examine each cell, not just the atom or molecule, but the smallest part, called a quark, we will find that it is nothing but energy, as scientists have discovered, and which they call Wave-Particle Duality.
Self-realization is not easy. Therefore, there is no crowd on the 13th step of the Ladder to Heaven. A rare minority who loves God and seeks God is blessed to reach here. This minority realizes that we are like the wave in the ocean. We come from the ocean and go back into it. God is the ocean. We are nothing. He is everything.
There are several methods that will help in the realization of the truth. One popular method is known as the Law of Causation. It has 3 tenets:
This can be explained with the help of an example. A gold ring, a gold bracelet, and a gold chain are effects. Gold is their cause. They are nothing but gold in different forms. If you remove the gold, nothing remains. There will be no ring, no bracelet, and no chain. We human beings too are effects. The Divine is the cause. As long as the Divine is within, we have breath, but the moment the cause leaves us, we return to dust. This is because we are just the effects of the cause. The Divine is the cause. All this is realization of the truth and unless we realize the truth, we cannot climb the last 3 steps that take us to the gate of heaven.
What stops us from the realization of the truth? It is our own mind. The mind is a rascal. It dumps us with thoughts and fills our life with ignorance. It stops us from realization because such a realization will destroy the very existence of the mind. We see somebody wearing a T-shirt. The mind tells us it is a T-shirt, but the one who realizes the truth realizes that it may look like a T-shirt, but in reality, it is actually made up of threads. The mind stops us from seeing deeper to realize the truth. Can't we see that everything beautiful that is alive in this world, is beautiful because there is Divine life in it? It may be a beautiful butterfly or a bird or for that matter, a beautiful human being. All this beauty lasts only till the life inside remains. The moment there is no breath, there is death, all the beauty starts to disappear. It is the Divinity in all of us that creates beauty, but we are unable to realize the truth. This is because of Maya, the universal illusion. It stops us from climbing the Ladder to Heaven. We need the grace of God and the guidance of the Guru to overcome ignorance and realize the truth.
How often do you find somebody saying, “I am Jennifer?” This is not the truth, though. She is not Jennifer! Only her name is Jennifer. When she was born, she was not Jennifer. Somehow, we identify ourselves with this body and our name which we are not. At death, the body will die, but we who are alive in the body move on. We must realize this truth if we want to climb the Ladder to Heaven.
What stops a person from the realization of the Truth? Although we may have the knowledge of who we are, and what our purpose is, although we may have a Guru who helps us overcome ignorance, although we may spend time in silence as we go on a quest, why is it that we still don't realize the truth? It is because there is a war within, a war that stops us from realization despite having all the knowledge. Our own Mind and Ego, ME along with the 5 senses of the body make every effort possible to stop such a realization. How, then, can we climb the next step and win the war that rages within?
Realization of the Truth
TAKEAWAYS