Recognise the Self

The yogi after a long period of contemplation about the self becomes a clear seer of the truth. He knows that there is only one life principle in all living beings. All objects that move or are still in this whole wide world are that one life alone. A yogi is a person whose thinking has become one-pointed from an erratic multi-pointed perception of situations, objects and people.

The Atma Bodha is exclusive in its elucidation of the presence of one truth in all. This is something we can find only in the Agama Pramana or a book that speaks this truth. It is not something about our own self that we can find before our eyes, just by looking into a mirror. 

The scriptural texts point this out to us.
To get to this state of supreme realisation of the self without a doubt, the yogi puts in many years of practice—first listening to the truth from a realised master or one who has studied the scriptures well, then meditating on it and bringing it in his own life through the practice of meditation.What we praise, we get more of it in our life. Where we pay our attention, especially in terms of glorification and praise, the object of our attention and praise is experienced by us. In the case of the self, the more we seek it, the more we experience it everywhere. 

The self is like air, fire, space or water in the atmosphere. It is present everywhere and is present within us too. When we see people, we do not recognise these four elements. We only interact with the name and form of the person. The actual presence before us is these elements. 

In the same way, the core of all beings is consciousness. It is that consciousness which lends its reality to all of us. However, in our daily interactions, we forget to see this consciousness within and in others and get caught up in the rigmarole of jealousies, fights, debates, arguments, anger, hatred, fear and other jarring emotions. With constant practice of understanding this presence of consciousness, the yogi gets to see it or rather realise it through the eye of knowledge. 

What is it that he gets to see? The consciousness, self, life is all one. It is not just one, but also exists as one in everyone, everything and every being that we see around us. How does it manifest in our day-to-day experience? Just imagine a scene where we are angry with someone. In a split second if the realisation happens that the life in me is the same life in the other, then that sense of unity dissolves all hatred in that moment.