Questioner:
Is mukti (liberation) the same as realization?
Sri Bhagavan:
Mukti (or liberation) is our nature. It is another name for
us. Our wanting liberation (mukti) is a very funny thing. It
is like a man who is in the shade, voluntarily leaving the shade, going
into the sun, feeling the severity of the heat there, making great efforts
to get back into the shade and then rejoicing, “How sweet is the
shade! I have reached the shade at last!” We are all doing exactly
the same. We are not different from the reality. We imagine we are different,
that is, we create the feeling of difference and then undergo great
spiritual practices (sadhana) to get rid of the feeling of
difference and realize the oneness. Why imagine or create the feeling
of difference and then struggle to destroy it?
Sri Bhagavan:
The Self is always realized. It is not necessary to seek to realize
what is already and always realized; for you cannot deny your own existence.
That existence is consciousness, the Self.
Unless you exist you cannot
ask questions. So you must admit your own existence. That existence
is the Self. It is already realized. Therefore, the effort to realize
results only in your realizing your present mistake – that you
have not (already) realized your (present) Self. There is no fresh realization.
The Self (simply) becomes revealed.
Questioner:
That will take some years.
Sri Bhagavan:
Why years? The idea of time is only in your mind. It is not in the Self.
There is no time for the Self. Time arises as an idea (only) after the
ego arises. But you are the Self beyond time and space. 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.
Questioner:
Yes, I shall understand it in course of time.
Sri Bhagavan:
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.
(Pages 30-31,
Arkana Edition 1985)
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