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 will 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 see the truth. In a dream, everything looks so real. One does not even imagine that this could be an artificial projection of the mind. One cannot believe that one is asleep and the mind is playing tricks to project what is called the dream. In a dream, we can actually see, we can hear, we can feel, and we can experience what happens. But still it is just a dream. As long as we are dreaming, we believe in whatever we dream. There is no doubt about what is happening in the dream. And until we actually wake up, the dream is nothing less than reality. We think, the dream is not a dream, but it is the truth. Just like in a dream, we think everything is real till we wake up, similarly a true seeker will ultimately wake up to realize the truth that this world, which appears to be so real, is actually just an illusion.
When we are dreaming, only the dream looks real. We forget the truth of our waking state. When we wake up, we realize that the dream was only a dream, and what we are while we are awake is true. However, just as when the dream is over, when we wake up from the waking state, when the waking state comes to a final end, we will realize that it was just an illusion.
THE CREATION IS A MANIFESTATION OF GOD
Just like bubbles in water that arise and disappear, the world appears from God and disappears back into God.
Nothing is created. Everything is a manifestation of God. The entire world of things and beings is only a mental projection. God appears as the entire universe, and thus it is God that exists in everything.
Just as electricity comes from one source but gives light to the bulb and power to the air conditioner and other gadgets, we don’t realize that the source of power that makes every animate thing function is one. Without that power, none of these things would work or exist. We forget that the entire creation is pervaded by a single power that makes the whole of creation exist the way it is.
The mind is unable to see all these as one; for instance, it sees 500 rooms on a land and identifies each room as a unit. It doesn’t see the land as one. On breaking down all the 500 units and clearing the land, the mind realizes that it is one land. Earlier, it looked like there were 500 spaces – one in each room, but on pulling down the walls, there remains just one space. So it is with the ego. We think that we are individuals. We don’t realize that we are powered by one source, one Atman, one Soul, one Energy.
If a gold bangle could talk and it was asked what it was, it would say, “I am a bangle”. A ring or a chain would claim to be a ring or a chain; that would be its identity. But what are they made of? Gold! If all the three are eventually melted, the forms and the shape of the bangle, ring and chain would disappear. What would be left is just gold. So also we are all the Soul that appears to be what we see in the mirror. Eventually, we are not the mirror image. We are the intrinsic energy that’s within.
GROSS, SUBTLE AND CASUAL BODY
Our physical self is made up of three bodies: The gross body, the subtle body, and the causal body. The gross body is composed of five elements – space, air, fire, water, and earth.
We, as a gross body, go through several modifications – to be born, to grow, to mature, to decay, and to die. At death, this body disintegrates into the five elements. The fire or heat passes out and the body becomes icy cold. The air escapes, the water evaporates, and on disintegration, the space shrinks, and what is left is just a little earth.
The gross body gets life from the subtle body. Made up of 17 components, the subtle body consists of the five sense organs, the five organs of action, the five life forces, the mind, and the intellect. Together, the subtle body is like the driver of the gross body, and it makes the gross body move.
The five organs of perception are the ears, the skin, the eyes, the tongue, and the nose. It is through these that we perceive the entire world.
There are five organs of action – speech, hands, legs, anus, and genitals. It is with these that we are able to speak, to grasp, to move, to excrete, and to procreate. The body responds to external stimuli through them. They are prompted by the mind into action.
The five life forces are Respiration, Circulation, Digestion, Excretion and Reverse Action.
To a common man, our body is just what we think it to be. We see it to be flesh and bones, more of the physical aspect. But on analysis, the body is clearly made up of the gross body and the subtle body. Nobody will deny the fact that the body is not the gross element of earth, water, air, fire and space, but it also includes the mind and the intellect. It includes the sense organs, the organs of action, the life forces – the Pranas, and therefore with even the slightest of introspection one will admit that the body is both – the gross body and the subtle body. What is difficult to accept is that there is a third aspect to the body called the casual body, the actual cause of the subtle and gross body; because this cannot be seen, it requires deep introspection to understand. The casual body arises out of ignorance and until one has knowledge one will never be able to realize that we are also comprised of not only the gross or the subtle body but also the casual body.
The five life forces that run the five systems of the body along with the mind, intellect and the five sense organs and five action organs together as the subtle body drives the body into action.
The subtle body and the gross body are caused by the causal body, the subtlest of three.
The causal body cannot be explained or described. As long as truth is not known, this body exists. The ignorance itself is called causal body because it is the cause of the subtle body and gross body. It is not possible for one who has not acquired the knowledge and wisdom properly to understand and realize this.
It is strange that although the causal body does not physically exist, the ignorance in it creates the subtle body and the gross body, and thus gives it prime importance. The ignorance can be destroyed by knowledge. Therefore, the causal body is not eternal like the Soul or the true self.
Just like the wave that thinks it exists, but in reality, is actually the ocean; just like the 500 rooms that seem to have their own identity until the walls are brought down, and just like the bangle, the chain, and the ring that are proud of their identities till they are melted to gold, our ignorance continues to live as the ego till knowledge replaces ignorance.
Seekers find it difficult to describe ignorance. Imagine a little boy asking his grandfather about why he was not allowed to witness the marriage of his father and mother, how would the old man be able to explain this to the young boy? It is the innocent ignorance of the kid that provoked such a question. Such ignorance is difficult to describe. The only way to overcome it is through knowledge because trying to search for ignorance is like trying to search for darkness with a torch. The more we try to understand or know ignorance, the more it moves away until we realize the truth.
FIVE LAYERS OF THE BODY
We appear to be what we are because our Soul is covered by five layers, sheaths or coverings. Instead