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, and desire the blissful state of the Enlightenment, which is like the moon. And what do we do?
Instead of looking at the moon, our gaze gets stuck at the finger that is pointing to the moon. The teachings are just like the finger not the moon itself. The teachings show us ways to the goal. There is no one single right method to realize the truth, but there are several teachings. Each teaching must be understood and implemented in the right manner so as to reach the enlightened moon. Unfortunately, we often take the teachings literally and do not understand their true relevance. We get stuck to the finger that point to the moon, and we forget the moon itself. We go literally by what is taught instead of understanding the principle, the logic, and the purpose.We get stuck by the teaching itself. We wrongly misunderstand what is really meant and go round and round in circles. Instead of reaching Enlightenment, we are stuck on Earth, going from death to rebirth again and again. We must seek the moon of Enlightenment and not get stuck at the finger that denotes rites, rituals, or superstitions that we often get stuck to.
Go Beyond Religion!
A sage once explained that some books and religions have a lot of knowledge that can help us realize the truth. But unless we get the wisdom from the words written, it is of no use.
“Take a book and squeeze it. Not a drop of water comes out of the book; until the water comes out, it is all book”.
So also until your religion makes you realize God, it is useless. One who only studies books is like the donkey that carries a heavy load of sugar on its back but does not know the sweetness of it! The religions of today focus on three things: symbols, names, Godmen. All seem to be fighting with each other. This is not the true purpose of religion. True religions are meant to help followers develop a deep seeking, longing, and yearning for God that ultimately helps them realize God!
Realizing that it is only a Dream!
Suppose you woke up one morning from a dream. In the dream, your neighbor borrowed Rs.10,000 from you saying that his father is not keeping well. Later, in the dream, you get to know from other people that the neighbor plays tricks with everybody for money. He has fooled other people similarly and borrowed money by saying the story about his father’s illness, though his father is in good health.
Suddenly, you wake up! Will you go and ask your neighbor to return the amount that you gave him in the dream. Of course not! It was just a dream. On waking, you immediately realize it. Unfortunately, so is life. But we do not realize it till death. Very few are fortunate to realize the truth.
Who are You – the Station Master or the Train?
Once there was a station master who was a seeker. He went to a saint and asked him the question, “How do I know that I am the Atman? How do I understand that I am not one of the three states of consciousness: the Waker, the Dreamer, or the Sleeper, but I am the fourth state of consciousness, which is the Watcher?”
The saint smiled at him and asked, “Who are you? Are you the station master or are the train?”
The station master exclaimed in surprise, “What a silly question! Of course, I am the station master!” The saint asked him to explain what he does at the train station.
The station master replied, “Every day, three trains pass by the station. The first train is the Daily Express, which comes to the railway station and goes. The second train is the Intercity Express. Finally, the third train that passes by is the Night Express. He continued, “While these are the trains that come and go, I do not confuse myself with these trains. I know that I am the station master. I watch these three trains as they pass by”.
The saint patiently listened to him and asked, “While you are very clear that you are the station master, what about your life? Just like the three trains, your first state of consciousness comes when you wake up. Your second state of consciousness comes in dreams, and as you sleep, your body is asleep but your mind hallucinates into a dream. You dream all kinds of dreams till you wake up. Then, the dream is over. The third state of consciousness is deep sleep. In this state, both the body and mind are fast asleep. You are blissfully unaware of everything. This state also comes and goes; you fall asleep till you wake up. Eventually, your sleep ends, and then you are back to the first state of being awake. Unfortunately, you don’t think that you are “watching” these three states of consciousness that come and go. You start believing that you are the one who is awake, the one who is dreaming, or the one who is sleeping. You forget to realize that you are the watcher because you identify yourself as being the dreamer, the sleeper, or the waker. When you forget that you are the watcher, it is just like forgetting that you are the station master and that you are not the trains that pass by the station. Therefore, you are the watcher who is in the fourth state of consciousness, which is beyond the first three states”.
The learning from this analogy is that we must realize and distance ourselves from the three states that keep coming and going. We are not the three states that come and go. We are something else. We are the fourth state of consciousness – the state that watches the other three states! In short, we are the consciousness that exists in all the four states.
We are not this, we are that
What is this? This is my hand.
And what is this? This is my leg.
What about this? This is my nose. And above it is my head.
Who is this that is saying it is my hand, my leg, my nose, my head? There is somebody who is saying. Who is that? Who is that who is saying that it is mine? Imagine tomorrow we start detaching each part of our body. We detach our hands, our legs, our sense organs, is it not still our body. So, what finally makes the body? It is that Energy, the Spirit, the Atman within that we do not realize. The moment the Atman leaves the body, we cannot say it is my body because we are dead. It clearly shows that we are the Consciousness, the Spirit, the Atman, the Soul which when it leaves the body, we die. We are That…which we do not realize.
What do you see?
You pass by a beautiful statue of a tiger in a wild life sanctuary carved out of stone. What do you see? You see that it is a tiger that is carved out of stone. You don’t think it is a tiger. You see it as the statue of a tiger that is carved out of stone. Imagine you see it from a distant, far away. What do you see? You don’t see the stone, you just see the tiger. And you imagine it to be a tiger. <