I started reading extensively. First, I read whatever books I had in my library, and then I scanned through a few thousand books that I picked from every possible source. It covered every known religion. I sourced books from ashrams and also searched for all the known philosophers, masters, gurus and saints. This was not a joke! The exercise kept me engrossed for hours, days, and weeks, doing nothing else except reading, thinking, and analyzing “What is the ultimate truth?”
I first took my own religion and my “own” God to start the study. I reached a dead end. I prayed, I begged, and I cried to God for his grace! I was inspired to seek further, to go deeper. So I went into the specifics of each and every possible religion to get answers.
All religions talk about God. They accept the truth that there is a God. But unfortunately, they all talk of their own God. It confused me. Can there be so many Gods? I looked up into the sky and asked God, only to receive a smile in return. There is only one God. Different religions and different people refer to God by different names and different forms.
In India, water is called pani; in France, it is called aqua; and in UK, it is just called water, but it does not mean they are different. It is the same water.
Most of us may have heard the classic story of the six blind men, which goes like this:
Six blind men were asked to describe an elephant. One caught its ear and said that the elephant is like a fan. One touched a leg and said that the elephant is like a pillar. One felt the tusks and said that the elephant is like a pipe, and the one who touched the tail said that the elephant is like a rope. Another who touched the belly said that the elephant was a wall, while the sixth blind man who felt the trunk said that the elephant was like a thick branch of tree.
Actually, we are like the blind men thinking differently about one God!
God made me realize that the entire humanity describes God, but they are truly blind because no one has seen God. Trying to describe God to me was like trying to take a picture of the whole universe with my digital camera. Trying to explain God was like trying to see with the ears or smell with the eyes. I realized that God is a power beyond description. God is the Creator of the universe, and the human mind is incapable of comprehending God.
I even took up science and scientific theory as part of my study. I read about the Big Bang theory and about the Darwin’s Theory of Evolution. I started filing the observations and conclusions of my research for further study.
My search, my Talaash, made me scan through hundreds of books, but not all the books triggered the knowledge and wisdom I needed to find answers to the questions I had. A few books that provoked me to think further became the source of my overall understanding. Every book seemed to have some essence that needed to be picked up.
I even visited Tiruvannamalai to study about Ramana Maharshi in Arunachala. I visited Kanyakumari to know more about Vivekananda and the Ramakrishna Mission. I went to Rishikesh in the Himalayas, to Varanasi, and to Rameshwaram to find the wisdom of the ancient sages. I also followed Adi Shankaracharya and the Shankar Mutts for the spiritual wisdom he left behind.
I then went into a retreat, into the mountains, in solitude – reading, introspecting in silence, carrying books of Swami Sivananda, Radha Saomi, and Swami Chinmayananda, the Bhagavad Gita, the Bible, the Quran, and many more. I put together all the most interesting and relevant information to help me complete the picture.
As I read, which I wil be sharing in the next few pages, I could not believe it to be true. Still, I decided to read with an open mind. I did not doubt anything, just as I did not accept it as truth. I was searching for answers.
Before the entire picture could be clear to me, I had to contemplate on these learnings.
WE ARE THE ATMAN, THE SOUL, THE SPIRIT
Not this, not this – we are not this body–mind–intellect complex. The ultimate goal is to realize the truth that we are something else. We are That, not This!
We are essentially the Atman – the pure self – which is neither born nor dies. But we claim to be the form we look like, forgetting the truth of what we actually are. How can we be this body that is constantly changing? Every minute we are being reborn as our cells die. Are we the tiny baby that was born or this adult?
IGNORANCE VEILS THE TRUTH FROM US
We are not aware of our real nature that we are the Atman, the Soul or the Spirit, because of ignorance.
The ego says “I am I”, just like a wave in the ocean would say –“I am a wave”. If one looks closely, the wave is nothing but the ocean itself. It emerges from the ocean and goes back into the ocean. Similarly, the Supreme Creator manifests in different objects. But we are unable to see this truth because of our ego.
We are ignorant, and we continue to live with ignorance because our body and mind are agitated with thoughts and desires. The mind thinks about 50 thoughts a minute! One needs knowledge to destroy this ignorance. And unless the mind is calmed and desires are weakened, we cannot acquire the knowledge needed to discover the truth.
The entire world that we perceive is just a mental 3- dimensional projection. The world is actually like a dream, but we are unable to