Experiencing God in Real Life

 

Photo Credit: WBUR

Experiencing God in Real Life

This question has arisen in probably everyone’s mind – what or who is God? Swamiji has told us the story of Sant Dnyaneshwar who had said that one stands at the door of God for just a moment and you will be liberated. The common man understood this to be the physical temple, whereas Sant Dnyaneshwar meant the temple within – if you stand there for a moment you will be liberated.

Our body is the temple which houses the soul – the spiritual journey is from soul to supreme soul. The problem is most of us do not have any understanding of the soul. We are all so caught up in our day-to-day lives that we do not even give a thought to our soul. We remember God only in times of problems, and we approach God as beggars – always asking for something, never saying that we have come to give!

To get realisation of the soul, one needs to be in touch with a self-realised spiritual Master who can plant the seed of awakening within us. Just as a small child needs a teacher to teach him the alphabet, we need a Self-Realised person to attain Self-Realisation. Such a person, who is an enlightened being himself, and can enlighten others as well, is a Realised Master or Satguru. With the grace of such a realised person, we too can realise our Soul. And this is the easiest way to attain Self-Realisation; the easiest way to experiencing God and feeling the presence of God.

All along, we have always believed ‘I am the body, I am the name.’ However, when the living Satguru bestows upon us the knowledge of the Self, we realise that “I am a Pure Soul.” We realise that the Pure Soul is the real Self; and the body, the name, everything that we consider as our self, is actually the non-self. And just as the goldsmith has the technical expertise to recognise and separate pure gold from other metals, the Satguru has the divine spiritual expertise to separate our Pure Soul from the non-self.

Swamiji planted the seed of realisation in me in February 2009 while I was watching a video discourse during a meditation, when he made me realise that ‘I am a Pure Soul’ (Self-Realisation). With this awakening of the Soul, inner spiritual changes began and I embarked on the inner journey to know the Self. After Self-Realisation, our mind, intellect, ego, our karmas continue to exist, but they now remain surrendered to the Satguru.

Once we are internally linked with the Satguru, we notice that we have totally surrendered, with absolute humility towards the Master. Under the shelter and guidance of the Master, our awareness of the nature of our Self increases as we progress towards liberation.