By now, it had been nearly 2 years since I started my search, and about 1 year since I had made my Quest, my Talaash my life priority.
I prayed. I begged God to shower His grace on me and I was inspired to go away, to the mountains for 2 weeks, alone with all my books and my notes. In the mountains, in freezing temperatures, I spent hours together without desire or pleasure, determined to find what I was looking for.
I came across few analogies that helped me reflect and understand the learning so far.
The Wave and the Ocean
The wave is not a wave. It is a part of the ocean. But because it thinks, ‘I am the wave’, it exists as the wave. Eventually, it is a fact that the wave merges with the waters of the ocean.
Similarly, we are not ‘Me’ and ‘I’. We seem to be individuals in the ocean of this world. But like the wave merges with the ocean, we too came from and eventually merge with the ocean of life.
This body, made of five elements, is not permanent. It is created by the ego that thinks it is a human body. Just like a wave we think we have a separate existence.
Finally, at death, the five elements disappear into Nature and the Soul or the Atman merges with the Supreme Soul or the Paramatman like the wave merges with the ocean.
Just as the wave becomes the ocean, the Soul becomes a part of the Creator.
Therefore, the realization comes that believing in a separate God different from the God within does not seem to be as true as the belief that God inside is nothing but a part of the Creator. Just like the wave that thinks that thinks of itself to be separate from the ocean, comes from the ocean and goes into the ocean, we too are created from God and eventually go back to God. Although it looks like a wave, the fact is that it is the ocean itself. Although we look like individual bodies with a Soul, we are ultimately one energy.
We must realize this truth and accept it!
Air in a Pot when it Breaks
Some people question, “How can you say that God is within me and God is within you or God is everywhere?”
The best way to understand this is as follows:
Imagine a pot that is empty. The pot thinks that the pot is different from the universe. It thinks that surely there is a universe but “I am a pot”. It thinks that the air inside the pot belongs to it. There is air outside and air inside. When the pot breaks, the air outside mixes with the air inside.
Just as this pot thinks of itself as different from the world, we too think that the life inside us and God are different. This is the cause for duality to come into place. One thinks that the Soul is different from God. Because of the ego, we think we are the Soul and God is something else, an unknown power. At the end of the journey, when the physical body drops dead, it only then that one realizes - the physical body is dead, but where does the Soul go?
The Soul is a part of the Creator just like the air inside the pot becomes one with the air outside the pot. The air inside the pot merges with consciousness of the entire atmosphere, the universal consciousness, the universal air.
Clay Elephant or Clay Mouse
An elephant made of clay thinks “I am an Elephant”. A Mouse made of clay also thinks “I am a Mouse”.
But when both are put in water, they dissolve to become clay!
It is only our perception that we see them as a clay elephant and a clay mouse.
Whatever be our outer appearance, the inner reality is the Soul. The Soul merges with the Creator. We are That, not This. We must not consider ourselves to be what we seem to be. Rather we must realize the truth of what we truly are.
When we realize the truth of the self then we can see the Soul in all, we can see the Creator in all and this is the key to Liberation.
The Moon and the Finger
Zen Buddhist teachings talk of Nirvana, of Liberation, and of escape from the cycle of death and rebirth. They talk about how one should seek Enlightenment. Of the various methods the Zen Buddhists teach, one simple method is talking of the moon of Enlightenment. They refer to Enlightenment being the blissful, peaceful moon, and the Zen Buddhist teachings are just like the finger that is pointing to the moon urging us to seek the moon, to go towards the moon, to try to contemplate on, introspect on,