Self Realization and the real goal of serving the Lord - Part 2

Therefore, any greatest item in a specific category can be called as Brahman. There is another path of psychological treatment of the teacher. It is to encourage the student by attaching the highest goal to every step he climbs. To make the student climb one more step, the teacher says that if he climbs one more step the final roof is achieved. In this way the encouragement is given to the devotee by saying that the super self is achieved if the self is achieved. In fact the achievement of self is necessary to achieve the super self. If one attains his own self, he attains perfect peace. If he identifies himself to be the soul, which is the pure awareness, he is detached from the gross body and the inner subtle body. By such detachment all the worldly bonds disappear and all the mental worries vanish. By this one attains the peace. Peace is a pre-requisite for attaining the super self. Thus attainment of self is very important, which is the middle station of the journey. When you are mental worried and dragged by these worldly bonds, how can you concentrate and develop the single bond on God? Therefore, self-realization is the basis for reaching the super self. But one should not stop at the self-realization because attainment of self is not attainment of super self. One is traveling from Vijayawada to Mumbai. The middle station is Hyderabad. One should reach Hyderabad before reaching Mumbai. But one should not get down at Hyderabad thinking that it is Mumbai. Therefore, to attain the self and thereby to attain the peace as a pre-requisite qualification for attaining the super self, both the study of scriptures as well as meditation are important. To know the truth the scripture must be studied. But only the Sadguru must explain the scripture. 'Veda, the scripture has to be studied from a Guru only and should not be read directly from book'. Even this statement is misunderstood. People misinterpret that the recitation of Veda should be done only with the help of the Guru or Preacher. For recitation no teacher is required. Any student can by-heart any book by self-reading and no teacher is required for that. The correct interpretation of this statement is that Veda should be explained through a Sadguru (True Preacher) only. The teacher is required for the explanation and interpretation and not for the recitation. Thus, the study of the scripture must be done only with the help of Sadguru and not the Guru who is an ordinary human being only. Then meditation means memorizing the concept that you are the self or soul or casual body and detaching yourself from the gross and subtle bodies. Both are required to fix you in the soul permanently. Pooja is the worship of a model only, which is related to the preliminary low cadre devotees as said "Pratimaahyalpa Buddhinaam". Thus both the study of Scripture with the help of Sadguru and meditation are important to attain the middle station. Both these are also the indirect means to attain the super self because unless the peace is attained by self-realization, one cannot travel further to attain and please the super self or the Lord. People are clinging to the fruit of the path of Sankara due to over ambition, which can be obtained by spending a little time and energy in study of the scripture. It is just like the recent computer scam given by the Abidjan city. They ask you to spend a little to release the box and offer crores of rupees as the fruit of your little effort. Several innocent people were trapped and even flew to Abidjan to collect the box. But there is no trace of the box. Even Swami (Myself) played with one scam and made a long correspondence trying to change their attitude. Atheists, who believe only the gross materialistic world, surrounded Sankara. He tried to lead them from gross state to subtle state by introducing the subtle soul. The journey from gross state to subtle state can be a pre-rehearsal for the journey from imaginable creation to unimaginable God. He stressed on the detachment from the body and attachment to the self. This gives a training to detach from the imaginable world and to attach to the unimaginable God. In fact the super self or God is unimaginable whereas the self or pure awareness is imaginable. Therefore, even awareness cannot be the common point in super self and self. How can you say the unimaginable God to possess the awareness? The awareness or life energy is imaginable item of the creation. The Scholars have misunderstood that God has awareness because God wished to create this universe. Since God wished God must be awareness. This logic applies only to the items of creation and not to the Creator who is beyond creation. The unimaginable God can wish even without being the awareness. He is above the laws of Creation. Veda says 'Apanipaado Javano Graheeta…), which means that He can run without legs and He can catch without hands. Since God runs you say that God must have legs based on the natural laws. But the super natural God does not require legs to run. Similarly He can wish to create the world without Himself being the awareness. If this is understood the super self is just beyond your imagination. The super self enters into one of the items of the creation to give its experience to you. If the medium is human form, it will be most convenient for the super self to preach you and receive your love and service directly. The super-self present in the human form is Sadguru who will lead you from the gross body and subtle body to the self and then finally to the super self, which is none-else than Himself. Therefore, identifying and catching the feet of Sadguru is most important than all these things mentioned by you. The reason for Brahman to be stated, as awareness is that, Brahman enters only a living being and not an inert object. Of course, the inert objects can be worshipped as models of Brahman by the lower cadre. Such worship is called as Pooja. If you see the incarnations, all of them were living beings only like fish, tortoise, pig etc. The living being can only do certain action independently. For the sake of human beings Brahman enters the human body because preaching and clarification of doubts is impossible if it is not a human body. Even the energetic bodies of Brahman contain innermost soul and inner subtle body. The energetic body is only the outer gross body. The subtle body is made of qualities. If it is Brahma it is of Rajas quality, if it is Vishnu it is of Sattvam quality, if it is Siva it is of Tamas quality and if it is Datta it is of three qualities. When Brahman appeared as Yaksha to angles, it was Datta who tested them and talked to them. The inert item is not independent and is always controlled by life. Therefore, Brahman never enters any inert body, which is not self-controller. If Brahman is identified with any inert object, Brahman has to be controlled by another living being. This is impossible because Brahman is the controller of all the inert and living beings. Therefore, Veda says that Brahman can never exist in a statute or a photo (Na tasya Pratima ….). But the inert object can be kept as a representative of model of Brahman and can be worshipped. But such worship is very much limited to cleaning and decorating the statute etc., only and should not be extended to offering food, Dakshina (Money) etc. The priests and the managers of temples are taking that food and Dakshina keeping the statue in front of you. The priests and managers are not of the level of the Sadguru. Either they are enjoying or spending the money improperly. Therefore, the worship of statue is not liked by realized souls. But it should be respected because there is no other alternative except this for the beginners. Therefore, whenever a soul or self (Atman) is referred, Atman means a human being. In Sanskrit Atman means the human body. In fact even the soul is called as casual body, which is the inner, most component of the human body. The human body consists of the outer most gross body, the inner subtle body and the inner most casual body or soul. Therefore, whenever the word Atman comes in the sense of the Lord, it means the human body (Human being), which is charged and pervaded all over by the Lord. Only such self is the super self or Brahman or the Lord. This should not be extrapolated to every self or every human being. Every human being is only the human body, which is composite of the three bodies. Veda says that the Lord is controller of all the selves (Atmeswaram….). If every self is Lord Himself, how can He be controller of the self? It means He controls Himself. Therefore, the self-realization and attainment of self in the first of half of the spiritual journey means realizing and attaining your own self and finally fixing you in the self. But the word self in the second half of the journey means the human incarnation or Sadguru and here the self-realization means the recognition of Sadguru and the self-attainment here means catching hold of the feet of Sadguru. You should not sit at the end of first half of the journey thinking that yourself is Sadguru. Therefore, it is better to catch the Sadguru in the beginning itself so that you are well aware of the whole of journey in the beginning itself. Of course, you can go to the middle station by your self with the help of scripture and meditation. But there is a danger of your stagnation in the middle station thinking that, that is the final station. Once you are caught up by this Abidjan scam in the middle station, you will never go further, because the scam is so sweet. The Advaita scholars are caught up by this scam even the beginning of the journey itself. Therefore, nobody can save them. At the Lotus Feet of His Holiness, Sri Dattaswami