The Enlightened Master may be seen externally engrossed in worldly activities like managing business, material pleasures, but internally, there is constant, effortless abidance in the blissful eternal Self. He does not have to forcibly bring His focus to the Self. Due to His effortlessness of self-abidance, His awareness remains ever divorced from the thoughts of likes – dislikes, and He experiences Himself as their witness. The awareness risen from the realisation of the eternal self, neither shakes nor wavers, nor changes its direction to the non-self even when subjected to physical ordeals.

Sublime Nourishment

From the Enlightened One, you will get pure knowledge, unsullied by desires or attachment. Just as from one devoted to celibacy you will get material only to nourish celibacy, not your desires for sense-pleasures or toxic tendencies, in the same way, from the Enlightened Master, who has distinctly realised the separation of consciousness and passions, and is anointed with the colour of consciousness, you can get material for nourishment of dispassion and discriminative knowledge alone. He does not have material to strengthen passions. He teaches that the nature of consciousness is completely distinct from passions. And so, recognising consciousness and passions as separate, turn towards consciousness and dis-identify from passions. Get interested in consciousness and give up the liking for passions.

Together, Yet Separate

The One who has realised His pure being does not get identified with passions. Unlike clay that is one with the pot, the Master is not one with passions. His state is overflowing with bliss of the soul. How can dirt of passions ever enter the pristine palace of consciousness? Remaining distinct from passions, the Master revels in His pure state. With the help of discriminative wisdom, He has completely separated passions from consciousness.

Just as matter is other than the spirit, passions are different from consciousness. Two people living next to each other do not consider their neighbour’s house as their own. Without realising the separateness of consciousness from passions, how would you determine what to identify with and what to witness? Only by the strength of conviction about the knowledge of their separateness can the seeker’s effort towards consciousness begin. He then does not become the doer of any modifications other than that of consciousness. Seeing them different from consciousness, He remains as their knower alone.

Mark of the Enlightened One

The Master is the doer of knowingness alone. This doership is the hallmark of the Enlightened One. Like a king has a sign on his flag, and that insignia becomes a mark of his identification, the insignia of the Enlightened One, the king of kings, is ‘non-doership’ of passions and ‘doership’ of knowingness.

His identification mark is in consciousness, and not a physical one. You cannot identify Him as an Enlightened One seeing any of the physical activities. Only He is Enlightened, who does not associate consciousness with passions. Knowing them separate, He does not become the doer of passions but stays only as their knower.

Knowing One’s Self by Knowing the Master

Recognising the Enlightened One as pure consciousness, you too will start appreciating the separateness of consciousness and passions within you. You will realise your self as pure consciousness. The purpose of correctly comprehending the Master is to recognise one’s true self. Like a person who forgets his umbrella in a shop, sees another man with an umbrella, is reminded of his own and starts searching for it; seeing the one who has known the separation of consciousness and passions, recognising Him, you too seek to realise that separation in you. One who recognises the Enlightened One in this way shall surely attain discrimination. Having realised this separateness, he becomes non-doer of all the passions, and shines as a witness. Doership of the passions destroys your beauty.

Thus, the one who recognises the Enlightened Master in this way inevitably becomes enlightened. Only he has come near to the Master. He has manifested the state of the Master within him. As regards the state of being, he has got oneness with the Master. You may live in the same geographical space, but if you have not recognised the Master with respect to consciousness and have not manifested the same state in you, then you aren’t really near the Master. You are far away from His being.

To understand the wondrous effortless state of the Master, one needs deep yearning for liberation, and subtle inner vision. Only those who are going to be liberated in the near future, the worthiest amongst the aspirants can understand the profound secret of the Master’s physical, verbal and mental activities along with His wondrous inner state.

With the Grace of the Master

A man thought, ‘So many people get gifts but I have never received any.’ So to experience the joy of receiving gifts, he thought of sending gifts to himself. He went around the market and bought choicest gifts, wrapped them well, decorated the parcel, and stuck a card on it. He wrote the same name and address in the sender and receiver details. He went to the post-office for the necessary procedure and sent the parcel by registered mail. He returned home and desperately started waiting for the parcel. At some auspicious moment, he received the parcel and there was no end to his happiness.

The one who is tired of transmigration studies the life of the bygone Great Masters, reflects upon Their supremely dispassionate countenance, and wonders at how supremely peaceful, blissful, pure, unperturbed and fulfilled They are! ‘How wondrous is the bliss that effortlessly emerges upon receiving the gift of Self-realisation! I too want to experience it.’ He moves around with the sole aim of seeking an Enlightened Master, surrendering all his feelings completely at His Lotus Feet, and living in accordance to His command. His wish gets fulfilled. He meets with a Sadguru, an embodiment of wisdom and bliss and his search ends. He consecrates the supremely peaceful countenance of the Master in his heart and turns his every thought and activity towards Him and beautifies his whole life. He sticks on his being the card of – faith in the words of the Master, unprecedented importance of following his Master’s command, and devotion for the Master bereft of self-will. In the sender’s detail he writes ‘self’ and in the receiver’s, he writes ‘Pure Self’! With the instructions of the Sadguru, being in sadhana with total attention, staying single-pointedly focussed and revelling in it, he creates a registered parcel of clear and correct conviction about consciousness. With immense earnestness he patiently waits and at a supremely auspicious moment, by the great grace of Sadguru, he receives a gift! Sadguru destroys the darkness of ignorance and applies the collyrium of wisdom. Due to the wondrous strength of the Sadguru, he attains Self-realisation, and experiences the nectar of infinite bliss of the Soul.