Chapter 1 - The Steps towards Perfection

The realization of God is described in Vedanta as the highest ideal of the earthly existence as well as the final goal of all religions, which means the perfection. A Christian, a Mohammedan, a Jew, a Buddhist, or a Hindu equally aims to become someday conscious of the divine Spirit, which is the Lord of the universe, and which is the Soul of our souls. The followers of all the sects and the creeds hold this ideal, although they march along their chosen paths, and fix their mind upon this one destination, the knowledge of God or the realization of the eternal Truth. Their paths may vary, but their goal is one and the same. A Christian, for instance, may follow the path, laid down by Jesus of Nazerath and by His votaries. He may hold the Christ on the cross as the highest ideal. He may repeat His holy name reverentially, and bow down to Him, expecting His divine grace and to be saved from the eternal perdition. He may think that his sins will be washed off by the blood of the Only-Begotten Son of the Heavenly Father, and eventually to enter into the celestial abode, where he hopes to come in direct touch or presence of the almighty Spirit and where he hopes to feel the Divinity within the soul and outside of it. A Mohammedan, on the contrary, may not believe in the worship of Jesus the Christ. He may not care for the path of salvation laid down by the Christians, but still he aspires to know God by following the path of Mohammad, the only prophet of his Lord who is called Allah. A Jew may not worship Christ, and may follow the teachings of Moses, but yet he expects to realize Jahveh in the end. A Buddhist may not believe in any personal God, and may not care to go to Heaven, but he tries to realize the ideal which was realized by Buddha and other saviours. The word ‘Buddha’ means ‘the Enlightened’, as he attained to perfection, or communed with the eternal Truth or eternal knowledge. In this manner, we can show that all the religioins of the world hold the ideal of realization above all other ideals. Although the paths, described in these religions, may vary, but the goal is one and the same. The same ideal may be expressed in different terms. Some may call it ‘salvation’, others may call it ‘perfection’, the Buddhists may call it ‘Buddhahood’ or ‘Nirvana’, the Christians may call it ‘Christhood’ or the state of the ‘Divine Communion’; but all these names show that their true meaning is the realization of God or the attainment of the God-consciousness.^[1]

This ideal has been held before the masses of people in India by all the great sages, saints, prophets, and philosophers as the highest of all other ideals. In order to attain to this realization of God, kings and princes have renounced their thrones, men and women have sacrificed their wealth, comforts and pleasures, and without a moment’s hesitation they have gone through the most severe trials and tribulations, struggles and hardships, so as to satisfy their intense longing for the soul. The materialists and the agnostics, who do not believe in the existence of God, may think it foolish to sacrifice presents to God. They may think that it is waste of time and energy to search after that Being. They may devote their energy to fulfil their worldly desires and ambitions, and they may chase the phantoms of hope with the idea that the attainment of success in business and earthly prosperity is the highest aim of life; but the time is sure to come, when they will wake up from their sleep of self-delusion and will begin to see or realize things as they are in reality.

No soul has ever found peace and absolute happiness by following the path of the changing world. Because earthly prosperity, or success in business may bring momentary comforts in life and may help us in lessening for the time being the burden of the struggle for existence, but they will not help us to permanently solve the problems of life. They will neither be able to solve the problems which disturb the peace of our mind, nor that of the mystery of death. They will not also help us in unfolding our spiritual nature, or will not make us realize who we are in reality, from whence we have come, why we are here, who forced us to be here, where we are going, what is the aim of our life, what will happen to us after a few years beyond the grave, what relation we bear to the universe, and whether there is anything permanent in the midst of all these changes. These questions arise in almost all minds which have experienced the transitory and ephemeral character of this phenomenal world, but the true solution comes; only to those who have attained to spiritual realization. Spiritual realization brings us the solution of all these problems; Scientists can never solve them, and philosophers who have not reached the highest goal, cannot answer to these questions. Each individual soul must solve these problems for himself or herself. In that state of spiritual realization the light, of the supreme Being will descend. In that light all darkness will vanish, and then, through the light of the divine wisdom, we will be able to see things as they are in reality, and not as they appear to our senses. Those who have not reached that state of spiritual realization or that light of Divine wisdom, are groping in the darkness of ignorance. Because they are asleep, they do not know what they are doing and are dreaming the dreams of material objects. All these ambitions and earthly desires are like the dreams and the nightmares of the soul, and they are going through them not knowing that the soul-life is eternal. They do not know that they existed before this present mundane life, and that they will continue to exist even when this body is dead and gone. They do not understand what will enrich, the soul and what will make it poor. They think that material prosperity and earthly riches will enrich the soul. What matters it to the soul whether we possess earthly riches or go without possessions. The soul is never poor. Did you ever ask whether by material riches, wealth and prosperity your soul will be enriched? Will that soul go beyond the material body, or beyond the grave? No, if you ask that, and if you search after the immortal Atman, you would not run after the impermanent wealth and riches.

The accumulation of wealth is the result of a disease of the brain. The millionaires and multimillionaires are suffering from that disease. But they do not know it, for their souls are not awakened. Who can help them unless they help themselves? What gain or loss will it be to the soul, if the whole world praises you, or blames you, or passes unjust opinion upon you? The soul is always unaffected by the praise or censure of people. It is beyond all the material possessions and riches. The wealthiest multimillionaire who owns the riches of a whole nation or half of the world, does not think for a moment that he will be unable to carry even a pin in the grave. He must be a fool who thinks that by mere possession of all these earthly objects he is superior to his fellow-beings, or that he will be able to carry with him a particle of these objects which do not, in reality, belong to him. What will he carry with him? He will only carry with him his character or nature. How important it is then to build our character and to mould it in the cast of the divine Ideal, so that in future we will be better and not worse than what we are today.

The divine Ideal is free from all limitations. Wherever there is limitation, there is the imperfect manifestation of the Divinity. Therefore, if we wish to harmonize our character with the divine Ideal, we must remember that Divinity is free from all limitations, while we are crippled by the conditions under which we are living, and our attempt should be to rise above all the limitations which prevent the manifestation of the divine power, so as to realize the emancipation of the soul. Holding that ideal before the mind, we must match onward towards the divine goal.

Each individual soul, being a spark of the huge bonfire of the Divinity, is of a similar nature. If you go to your innermost being, there you will find the shining spark within you. Behind the ego there is a spark, and that spark is immortal and divine. But it is covered up or veiled by your mental conditions like desires, ambition, earthly limitations, physical limitations, sense powers etc. Every individual soul may, therefore, be called potentially divine, and each is struggling to make that potential divinity manifest itself on the plane of the consciousness and to make it an actual reality. We are all struggling to be conscious of our divine nature and so long as there is that struggle to become perfect, there cannot be peace, and there cannot come real happiness. But knowingly or unknowingly, each individual soul is striving hard to become perfect and to reach that state where absolute contentment, happiness, peace and blissfulness reign supreme. For that reason we find that men and women of the world are now not contented. They are not happy, and are running after something, but they do not know what that thing is. They are trying to be perfect, but they do not know what will make them perfect. The absolute peace, contentment, happiness, and wisdom are the conditions of the spiritual realization. As the splendour or the most glorious colouring of the dawn heralds the immediate rising of the sun above the horizon, so all these saintly qualities like purity, contentment, chastity, tranquillity, disinterested love for all, non-attachment to material things, and perfect wisdom are the signs which herald the rising of the divine sun upon the horizon, of the individual soul. Then, in that light of the divine sun, the darkness of night is dispelled. In that divine light, the past and the future will be like the eternal present. In fact, there is no past and future for the soul. If you rise on the soul-plane, then the past and the future will entirely vanish. Then everything that has happened and will happen to you, will be revealed to you. This day and night, and month and year, which we are counting today, do not affect the soul. The moment you close your eyes, all this calculation of time will vanish, and all these space relations will not exist.

In that highest state, there is no sorrow, no pain and no sufferings of birth or death, but absolute peace and happiness remain in the soul. In that state of realization, all knots of the manifold desires are torn asunder, all desires are fulfilled, all doubts cease forever, all the questionings of the mind are answered, all crookedness of the heart is straightened; and the individual soul, transcending all limitations, soars high in the infinite space, and everlastingly enjoys the absolute freedom and bliss. The souls which have reached the spiritual realization, are conscious of God the Absolute, and lose the sense of ‘I, me and mine’. That to which we cling now, this sense of ‘I’ as an individual, son or daughter of Mr. So and so, will not exist. It will die, but by the death of this limited ‘I’ or petty self we shall lose our identity or consciousness. Because, this is only a false consciousness of the soul. It is like the state of an actor. When the actor is on the stage and thinks of himself as impersonating some other being, he holds that idea of ‘I, me and mine’. For the time being that may be true so long as he is on the stage; but outside of that stage, he is no longer the same being. So we are impersonating ourselves as somebody, but we are not so. In reality, this sense of ‘I, me and mine’ does not affect us, i.e. this sense of I, me and mine does affect the innermost immortal Atman. We may now claim that these things belong to us and these relations are ours. But who are our relations? In reality, we are the children of God, and they are also the children of God. Therefore, why should we claim them as ours? But we claim them simply on account of some earthly relation, or blood relation. But blood relation or any kind of relation does not produce any effect upon the soul, as all the souls are the children of God, the immortal Bliss.

In that state of God-realization, the individual soul, tracing the source of the individual will to the divine will, resigns itself and lets the divine will work through the individual will, making of it God’s instrument. Self-resignation comes to the soul who has realized the eternal Truth. And in that self-realization he does not lose anything but gains infinite power. Then he is infinitely stronger in his will than he was before. In that state of revelation the divine inspiration comes to the soul. The knowledge of the higher truths then comes. This state is called by different names, as some call it communion of the individual soul with the heavenly Father. The Christian mystics of the middle ages and the Mohammedan Sufis of Arabia and Persia describe it as a state of ecstacy, while the Buddhists call it Nirvana, or the attainment of the perfect emancipation, or the freedom of the soul and the cessation of all sorrow, misery, and suffering, which come from birth and death. In the science of Yoga, it is called samadhi or the God-consciousness, or the superconsciousness. Now the names may vary, but the meaning is the same, and the ideal or realization of God is the same.

Now, the question arises, can this realization be attained? And if it be attained, then what are the steps of attaining that state? In answering the first question, Vedanta says that realization can be attained in perfect silence. That may ordinarily sound strange, but it is the most difficult thing to accomplish. It is not merely the external silence, but the silence or the tranquil state of the mind. It is that state in which the inner nature is not disturbed by any of the passions, desires, or by ambitions like anger, hatred, jealousy, envy, and attachment to material things. In that state perfect realization of the Absolute will dawn. Eckert, the great German Christian mystic, said: “There must be perfect stillness in the soul before God whispers His word into it; before the light of God-consciousness enters the soul and transforms it into God. When all passions are stilled and when all earthly desires are silenced, then the voice of the Lord can be heard in the soul.” So how can we expect to commune with the Lord, when our minds are busy with a thousand and one things of this world? The secret chamber of the soul of a man or a woman of the world is packed up from the floor to the ceiling with worldly thoughts and ideas, with worldly desires and passions of the flesh, and there is not an inch of space left vacant. And still we wonder why God does not come to us and why do we not commune with the Lord? How can we expect to invite the Divine guest in that crowded room, where there is no inch of space to receive Him? Even if God the Beloved comes into such a crowded room, He would not find a place, and would be turned away.

Really there is no room for God in us. We never think for a moment, where shall we receive Him if He comes to us. Have we cleansed our inner chamber and made it vacant to receive Him? But we do not think of that. Our eyes are closed and so we cannot see things and cannot understand the Conditions. A seeker of the highest truth or divine realization should, therefore, first of all cleanse the sacred chamber of his soul, and should remove all those things that have taken possession of the space. He should cleanse the floor by his tears of repentance for the wrongs committed during ignorance. He should purify the atmosphere by introducing the vibrations of the holy thoughts and the pure ideas, and should employ the guard of the right discrimination to keep a constant watch, and prevent the impure thoughts and the unholy ideas from crossing the threshold of that sacred chamber.

He should next practise dispassion. He should not allow his mind to be attracted by the enchanting pleasures of senses i.e. by the attractions of the deceitful world; and with childlike simplicity he should send the prayers of invitation to the Lord, asking Him to come and occupy the empty space of the inner chamber of the soul. Nature abhors a vacuum. If the inner chamber of our soul be freed from all worldly thoughts and desires, it will be taken possession ‘of by the divine Spirit. The divine Spirit will come then, but it cannot come when there is no space left for Him to occupy. Sending the prayers of invitation to the Lord, we should wait in silence concentrating our minds upon Him, and expecting to see Him at every moment, with a longing as strong as it is in the heart of a lover who expects to see his beloved and who has been away from him for a long time. With that intense longing, we must wait and expect to receive Him, whenever He comes. As the tremendous longing of a lover makes him impatient and forces all the energy of his mind and heart to flow through one channel towards his beloved, so a true lover of God must have his mind and energy concentrated and one-pointed, and then let it flow towards the divine Ideal.

With that intense longing the soul will transcend all limitations, and will be able to commune with the Lord. The stronger the longing, the quicker is the realization. We must have intense longing first, but that longing will not come to the soul which has not been awakened. The awakening of the soul is the first step in the path of realization. The soul must be awakened from the sleep of self-delusion. We arc now sleeping the sleep of self-delusion. So we must wake up, and see things as they are not, or as they appear to be. This awakening of the soul is called in Sanskrit pratibha which is the first step in the path of realization. But when the soul is awakened, it begins to see how far the animal nature leads us, and what is the next step, where we are going, what we are doing, and what this all means. Then the soul tries to live a moral, ethical, and righteous life. Then it tries to correct its faults and errors, and purify its inner nature.

The purification of the heart is the next step. It is called in Sanskrit shodhana, or the state of a neophyte. The awakened soul becomes a neophyte when he purifies his heart. The purification of the heart (chittasuddhi) is possible when we have controlled our animal propensities and when we keep them down, rise above them, and conquer them.

Some steps are absolutely necessary to attain to the purification of the heart. The practice of self-control means the control of the mind. The mind must be brought under control. We are the ruler of the mind; the mind is not our ruler, but we have allowed it to become our ruler and to enslave us. We must turn the tide and make it stay where it belongs. We are the master, but we have lost our mastery over our mind and senses. We have weakened ourselves. So, how can we expect to have that realization when we are so weak? We cannot control our own mind and senses. But we should remember that they are our slaves, and we are the masters. So, if we control our mind first, then the senses will be controlled automatically.

Then comes the practice of truthfulness, because the eternal Truth cannot be attained by falsehood. We must be true to ourselves first, then shall be true to our neighbours, true to all humanity, and true to God. Are we true to ourselves? No. Are we true to our real nature? No. So we must be true to ourselves first, and then truth is the second thing.

Disinterested love for humanity is another unselfish work. Why should we remain selfish and what for? This petty self is not much, the higher self is above it. So sacrifice it upon the altar of the humanity and be Christ-like. And that is the ideal. If we can practise these four things during lifetime, we can purify ourselves, and make ourselves ready to receive the highest truths.

The right discrimination is the fourth step in the path of realization. The right discrimination between the spirit and the matter, between the eternal and the non-eternal, is essential. We generally mistake the real for the unreal, the spirit for the matter and the matter for the spirit. We do not know the difference between the two. But right discrimination will make us see the difference that exists between the real and the unreal. How far extends the realm of matter and where is the realm of the spirit, everything is mixed up now. The right discrimination will make all these things straight; and then that which does not belong to us will not produce any bondage in us.

The dispassion of the will is the fifth step. Everything that does not belong to us, must not affect us. If the matter is not our being, it ought not affect us. If the senses are not parts of our true being, they must not produce any change in us. If we are the parts of the Divinity and if we are unborn children of the immortal Bliss, then why should we allow ourselves to be dragged on the sense-plane by these limitations and little attractions? Be godly, and think that God is never attracted by these little sense-desires. We should remember that we are the children of God, and so why should we he attracted by these little sense attraction, and limitation? “We must be worthy of our heavenly Father. We must not allow ourselves to be overcome by any kind of attraction. The attachment to earthly things cannot exist in the soul. So, we transcend them and be divine.

Then comes the sixth step, the step of the spiritual enlightenment. In that state the light of the divine sun begins to shine upon the soul. Then we understand that we are not of this world, or this phenomenal world is not our real home. The earthly relations belong to the earth. So, we should be above and beyond this earth. This earthly body does not even belong to us. This body is only a shell or a garment of the soul. We shall be able to throw it aside and shall rise above it. We shall be freed from it, and shall go out of it by our will-power. Then we shall know that the soul existed long before this material body was born. Then we shall be able to say: “Before Abraham was, I am”. This is the expression of the eternal Truth; and when we will be able to realize that, we will know that death cannot attack us and birth cannot touch us, but we are free from birth and death.

The next step is the spiritual illumination, and that is the seventh step in the path of divine realization. In this state, the highest nature of our being runs with tremendous force like a mighty river running towards the ocean of the Absolute. Nothing can restrain its course. It flows towards the Absolute, and communes with the Absolute. All earthly fetters fall away and desires of this world no longer rise at that time. Peace and omniscience begin to shine within the soul. Nothing remains at that time unknown, as the past, the present and the future and everything are clear like bright daylight. Then we will be able to say where all those departed souls belong, what they are doing, and where they are going. We will see many heavens and transcend them all. We will be able to enter those heavenly regions, but then the pleasures of heaven will not attract us. We will see how transitory they are. We will not care for them. God is not attracted by heavenly pleasures. But the mortals who are craving for pleasures, are rather addicted to them. But, rising above all the celestial pleasures, we will be divine. That is the last step. Then we will be conscious of our divine nature. Then all divine qualities will flow through us. That state is called the eighth step, or the state of the super-consciousness or the God-consciousness.

The God-consciousness can be attained in this life, and not after the grave. Our body will remain silent for the time being. We shall rise above all these conditions, and will be able to come back after attaining the realization. Then we will be entirely a different being. Our whole nature will be changed at that time. We will be able to say to our friends and relatives that they are not our real friends and relatives, just as Christ said to His mother: “Who is my mother? Who is my brother? These are all my mothers and brothers”, but they are our earthly friends, and relatives, having blood relation and the relation of the society. Then we will be able to say the same, because then we will not see the blood relation but the spiritual relation. We will see that each soul is a child of God, and our whole being will be a blessing to the humanity. He who has reached that state, is a blessing to the humanity. The world would not exist if such blessings would not come to us often. Such souls do exist even now. Even in this age of materialism and commercialism, there are the souls who have reached such a state of realization. When that state of realization is reached, nothing is left unaccomplished. All desires are fulfilled, all ambition is satisfied, the aspirations of the soul are completed. The soul becomes divine and it remains divine forever and ever it is the real state of perfection.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

This idea has been elaborately discussed in the Swami’s ‘Path of Realization’.