You exist even in the absence of time and space.
Were it true that you realize it later it means that you are not realized now. Absence of realization in the present moment may be repeated at any moment in the future, for time is infinite.
So too, such realization is impermanent. But that is not true. It is wrong to consider realization to be impermanent. It is the true eternal state which cannot change.
Q: Yes, I shall understand it in course of time.
A: You are already that. Time and space cannot affect the Self. They are in you. So also all that you see around you is in you. There is a story to illustrate this point. A lady had a precious necklace round her neck. Once in her excitement she forgot it and thought that the necklace was lost. She became anxious and looked for it in her home but could not find it. She asked her friends and neighbours if they knew anything about the necklace. They did not. At last a kind friend of hers told her to feel the necklace round her neck. She found that it had all along been round her neck and she was happy. When others asked her later if she had found the necklace which was lost, she said, ‘Yes, I have found it.’
She still felt that she had recovered a lost jewel.
Now did she lose it at all? It was all along round her neck. But judge her feelings. She was as happy as if she had recovered a lost jewel. Similarly with us, we imagine that we will realize that Self some time, whereas we are never anything but the Self.
Q: There must be something that I can do to reach this state.
A: The conception that there is a goal and a path to it is wrong. We are the goal or peace always. To get rid of the notion that we are not peace is all that is required.
Q: All books say that the guidance of a Guru is necessary.
A: The Guru will say only what I am saying now. He will not give you anything you have not already got. It is impossible for anyone to get what he has not got already. Even if he gets any such thing, it will go as it came. What comes will also go. What always is will alone remain. The Guru cannot give you anything new, which you don’t have already. Removal of the notion that we have not realized the Self is all that is required. We are always the Self only we don’t realize it.
We go round and round in search of atma [Self] saying, ‘Where is atma? Where is it?’ till at last the dawn of jnana drishti [vision of knowledge] is reached, and we say, ‘This is atma this is me.’ We should acquire that vision. When once that vision is reached, there will be no attachments even if one mixes with the world and moves about in it.
When once you put on shoes your feet do not feel the pain of walking on any number of stones or thorns on the way.
You walk about without fear or care, even if there are mountains on the way. In the same way, everything will be natural to those who have attained jnana drishti. What is there apart from one’s own Self?
Q: The natural state can be known only after all this worldly vision subsides. But how is it to subside?
A: If the mind subsides, the whole world subsides. Mind is the cause of all this. If that subsides, the natural state presents itself.
The Self proclaims itself at all times as ‘I, I’. It is self-luminous. It is here. All this is that. We are in that only. Being in it, why search for it? The ancients say: ‘Making the vision absorbed in jnana one sees the world as Brahman.’’
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SOURCE:
Self-Enquiry 