How to Realize Your True Self While Being Active in the World?
The Direct Way to Spiritual Awakening..
Spiritual awakening is - Resting in Being.
We will see and learn how to access our being permanently, even while being active in the world.
Spiritual awakening is not a special feeling, state, or experience. It is not a goal or destination to attain in the future. As the Buddha told us, it is not a superhuman achievement or attainment. Spiritual awakening is your natural state of continuous awareness of inner Being and abiding in that state of "feeling-realization" of Being. - Aby Vohra
When you experience the Joy of Being or life itself, finding purpose and meaning in the outer realm is finding the light of a candle when you already are Sun!
The nature of your Being is Sat-chit-Ananda.
Sat is Being ( Sat means "Truth" too)
Chit is Consciousness or Awareness
Ananda is Bliss
So, the Being is conscious and Blissful all the time. Whenever you rest in your Being, your nature is conscious and blissful.
Once you turn your mind inward and rest it in your Being, your mind transforms into being itself. When your mind goes outward, it becomes the Ego and a thousand things of the world.
What Is The Ultimate Desire of The Ego?
The ultimate desire of the Ego is the disguised desire to realize God-that is ultimate satisfaction and fulfillment. The Ego is the unconscious and unobserved mind that identifies with thought forms and material forms and tries to find God in thoughts and worldly things. The Ego wants to realize the Source of all life that is being, but it goes outward to realize it. Once it turns inward, it finds it's beloved and merges with the Being. Then, the mind rests into Being and realizes God.
You are not a person with a mind-body. You are the awareness that occupies that mind-body for a relatively very short period of time. Since you are awareness, there is no need to attain or cultivate it. All you have to do is to give up being aware of other things that are not Being. If one gives up awareness of them, then pure awareness alone remains, which is the Being.
How does The Mind turn Into Ego And The World?
We know now that our inherent nature is Sat-chit-Ananda.
When the mind goes outward, it turns into the Ego and a thousand things of the world.
Sat, which is being, turns into non-being by identifying with thoughts, emotions, and worldly objects.
Chit, which is consciousness, turns into unconsciousness, that is, forgetfulness of being in the form of anxiety and fear.
Ananda, which is bliss, turns into suffering as we get lost in the world, reacting to people, events, and circumstances.
So you see, our true nature, Being-Consciousness-Bliss, turns into NonBeing-Ignorance-Suffering once the mind turns outward and gets lost in the world.
Now you ask. But how can we rest in our being while engaged in our day-to-day interactions?
Resting in Being Practice While Engaged In The World
Let your mind rest in God while doing worldly duties with open eyes. We will see how you can connect with your being while engaged in the world.
Whenever you are engaged in the world, whether its your work, family or social interactions always keep some attention within you. Be intensely aware. Keep a minimum of half of your attention anchored within your inner chest and give half of your attention outside to your work. In this way you will always be rooted in your Being, that is God itself. You can increase your inward attention more and more with practice. As long as you stay in contact with your inner body that is your full chest while interacting with the world, you will be like a tree deeply rooted in the earth or a ship anchored in the seabed so the storm will not destroy it.
What Mind will Tell You When You Rest In Being?
Your mind will create noise that, without full attention to the outside world you will not be able to perform on an optimal level. But the opposite is true. By keeping your mind in God (in your Being), God will be the doer of all your worldly activities and not your mind. Non-doership is the greatest spiritual practice and its only possible once you realize your being. Because if you are operating from unconscious mind. Ego can't surrender the doership. When your Ego understands that you are a doer and an experiencer, then karma will act on you. But once you fully realize that you are not a doer or experiencer by realizing Being that is always conscious and blissful, you are free of the karmic cycle.
You can be a “non-doer” by keeping eighty percent attention within yourself while engaged with the world. The best way to keep the attention within is to continuously feel the aliveness of the inner body, preferably in your chest area. Some people keep some attention on their breath too.
The Spiritual Heart - The Center of Being
One of the greatest sages, Ramana Maharishi, and ancient scriptures said that our spiritual heart is slightly on the right side of the chest and it's the "center of our being". The spiritual heart differs from the physical heart and is the seat of spiritual experience. This spiritual heart pervades both inside and outside the body. The Spiritual Heart is not an organ you locate physically, it is the inherent Source itself, and one can only be aware of its real nature by being it. It cannot be reached by concentration.
The spiritual heart is Being or God or Atma, whatever you call it. It's the essence of the whole universe. (You DON'T need to focus your mind on the right side of your chest to realize your spiritual heart. The spiritual heart is beingness, awareness and it’s everywhere)
Keeping your minimum fifty percent of attention in your inner body, on your inner chest, while engaged in the world will ground you and connect you to your inner divinity. With this practice, your mind will not be successful in making you identify with thousands of things of the world, and you will not get lost in the world.
Feeling Fearlessness and Oneness With The World
Once you rest in your Being and realize you are pure awareness, by which the whole universe exists and shines, the world will also become ONE with you, losing its false, frightening dualities. You will have freedom from the world's fear and anxiety as you feel the same ONENESS of your Being with the world. You will see the whole world as yourself. Your life will be totally transformed if you understand this wisdom. Again keep at least fifty percent of attention within yourself while you are engaged in the world. Just feel your deep I AM without I am this or that.
The Greatest Question to Ask Yourself After Spiritual Awakening during Trials and Tribulations!
If you are going through spiritual awakening process, then this is the most significant event that can happen to any human being. And it has already happened within you. The whole world is waiting for it but you are blessed with the awakening now: The separation process of thinking and awareness. After the spiritual awakening the universe want to act through you and fulfill its divine purpose through you. But as your awakening is still not complete. So universe will give you trials and tribulations to deepen your awakening in the form of “Fierce Grace”. Your Ego will resist this Fierce Grace and will make you suffer because it is dying and it is not resonating with trials and tribulations of universe. Your psyche is in the process of cleansing through this fierce grace.
Be intensely aware: If you meet your trials and tribulations with your own deepest realization, you will be purified of your egoic conditioning and your divine being will shine through your human form. You need to act from the depth of your being. If you act with your egoic mind, you will again and again get identify with egoic thought and emotional patterns. You will halt your awakening process and in some cases, reverse it. And you will suffer.
So the greatest question to ask during spiritual awakening is "Am I responding these trials and tribulations from Being or Mind? From Presence or From Unconsciousness?
The divine weapon you have against unconsciousness is your alert awareness. After the Dark Night of the Soul, your Being will shine like a sun, and deep down, you will start to feel its presence. While a spiritual awakening is the process of rebirth of everything you are! The Dark Night of the soul is the process of dying of everything you are not!
How To Attain Grace To Realize Spiritual Awakening?
Awakening spiritually requires grace, and grace is always available to us as our Being. But because our mind is making too much noise we never realize that grace. To Access that inherent grace, we need to understand the Knowledge of Being (Jnana Yoga) and Surrender To Being with devotion and love (Bhakti Yoga). These are the same principles.
Let me explain
The constant "knowledge of Being" in the form of our awareness that we need to abide in being and rest in Being is the only grace we require.
And then Surrender To Being with utmost love and devotion. This require understanding that God- That is Being- alone is all loving and the Source of creation of the whole universe. Except by surrendering myself (my mind) entirely to it, there are no other means of liberation for me. The bible verse "Be still and know that I am God" points to the same truth. It's a verse that tells us to surrender to our inner stillness, and once surrender is complete, we realize that we are God itself.
Three Types of Devotions that will Transform Your Life
Surrender to Being is simply devotion to Being with intense love.
Surrender To Being has three devotional qualities.
It must be
Exclusive Devotion
Continuous Devotion
Selfless Devotion
Exclusive Devotion: Here the mind is devoted and surrendered exclusively to Being and Nowhere else in the world. We must live in the world but let not the world live in us. Just as a boat is in the water, but the water is not in the boat. As jesus said, To Be in the World but Not of the world
In the Bhagavad Gita, it is said, for those who always think of Me with exclusive devotion and surrender, I am easily attainable because of their constant absorption in me.
Continuous Devotion: Here, the mind abides and rests in being all the time. It feels the presence of God all the time. Our remembrance of Being must be continuous for divine grace to manifest. Hence the bhagavad gita repeatedly stresses continuous remembrance. While going about our worldly duties, we must have a feeling-realization of our Being all the time. Thus our consciousness will remain connected to him. We can do our work for his Joy, as an offering to the divine.
Selfless Devotion: Our surrender to our Being must not be motivated by self-seeking. True love is when we are willing to give our everything and seek nothing in return. If we surrender to Being and, in return, ask for worldly gains, then it does not remain love, it becomes a form of business transaction. Its like, "O God, I will love you, but You must Give Me This". Why does love fade so quickly in the world? Why do people act for their selfish reason first? The reason is that the Ego is selfish. Both parties are focused on their happiness first.
Divine love is selfless. The goal of divine love is the Joy of the beloved. And who is beloved? The God itself.
Purifying The Mind and Integrating Being and Doing
Surrender To Being with exclusive, continuous and selfless devotion qualities purifies our mind, and then the mind can easily abide in Being. Now it can rest within and lose the desire to go out in the world and find God in thousands of things. At the same time, all your worldly doings will be transformed into awakened doing now. Your outer business and worldly affairs are taken care of with much more ease. And every doing exudes quality and enjoyment. Because of this practice, your enjoyment of doing something, transforms into enthusiasm. Enthusiasm literally means "possessed by God".
Your Being and doing integrate once you rest in your Being. This is called feeling-realisation of your being all the time. And that is Spiritual Awakening
Can an enlightened teacher or Guru manifest spiritual awakening in you?
Some people say you require an enlightened teacher or Guru to awaken yourself. The idea is that you will be a recipient of his grace and guidance once you associate with him.
The Guru is both external and internal. Once you are ready to receive grace, Guru can come in the form of a person, suffering, book, events, etc. These external gurus can push the mind to turn inwards and rest in Being.
Internally, The greatest Guru is Being. There is no difference between God, Guru, and the Being. Due to grace, once you realize your Being, it pulls the mind internally and helps quiet the mind.
The truth is you need to be in Sat-sang of the Guru.
Sat is Being, and the only Truth.
Sang is Association.
Sat-sang means association with Being.
You are in association with Being all the time. And once you realize Being, you have realized God and Guru.
The issue with most people is they can't feel Being as their mind is making too much noise, and they are lost in thoughts. Those people need to realize being through inner body . Let's learn the inner body meditation.
Resting in Being Practice as Meditation
Sit in a comfortable position or you can lie flat on your back. Close your eyes. Choose different parts of your body to focus your attention. Start with your head, hands, feet in the top to bottom order and then bottom to top. Scan the whole body that way. Be with each part for five to ten seconds. Feel the life energy inside those parts as intensely as you can.
Run your attention through the body like a wave a few times, from feet to head and back again. It will take couple of minutes
After that, feel the inner body as a single field of energy in its totality. Abide in that feeling. Be intensely present in the moment with every cell of your body. You might feel a void, emptiness or nothingness. And that is beautiful. In that state, there is no future or past; hence, there is no human. The intense presence is Being itself. Don't get distracted by wandering thoughts, even if they occasionally take you out of your body. Once you notice that happening, simply return your attention to inner body.
You can do this meditation for a total of fifteen minutes. Above meditation is not a substitute for the moment-to-moment practice of resting in being while engaged in the world.
Resting in Being while active in the world is the most significant spiritual practice, and once you deeply understand this, no spiritual practice, scripture, or Guru is required, as while resting in Being, you are ONE with God all the time.
I Concentrate on my breath all the time but will try to use your way successfully. Thanks for sharing it.
thanks for this mail