The Self is the most important thing in everybody’s life. Without Him and His Power, the limited individuals and the rest of the universe would not have come to exist ever. If one is not properly conscious of the Self, he will be always in trouble despite the circumstances, time, place and such.
Limited individuals are of two categories, broadly speaking:
- Ordinary people: By “ordinary” I do not mean rude people with bad manners. NO. I mean people who are not interested at all in the Self, i.e. they think they are completely free and that life is always like this, that they will finally die someday, and those who are happy due to the presence of others around, etc. This kind of people may be very intelligent regarding “objects”, but they fail miserably when it comes to the Subject or Self. It is in this respect they are ignorant despite having a university degree or even the most impressive award given by the most prestigious academy in the world, etc. Many of them are very useful in keeping this world up and running, of course, but they are anyway of no use when the subject known as “spiritual enlightenment” is to be deal with. The vast majority of people in this humankind are in this category, unfortunately. Hence it is no surprise that this world performs so poorly from a spiritual viewpoint
- Spiritual aspirants: These are limited individuals that are just fed up with being in the prison of their own minds and bodies. They know for sure they are not free at all. They desire to find a way out of their misery. Some of them are more advanced, obviously, but all of them are in search of the Self, whether they call Him God, real “I”, Peace, Redemption, Brahma, etc. As there is no word that is able to fully describe what the Self is, they are of little importance in the end as far as the Self is concerned.
Now, let us concentrate our attention on the spiritual aspirants (a real minority). There are many ways to classify them under a number of categories in order to deal with them properly. I will use the following method which is given in the scriptures. As it is obvious, I will customize it in my own way in order for readers to fully understand me. This is why I am “adapting the ancient teachings to the modern times”, you know, hehe:
- Unawakened: Ordinary people are unawakened, obviously. And as this type of spiritual aspirant is still in the rookie stage, they are “almost” like the rest of ordinary people. Nonetheless, they are searching for sense of life, liberation, God, etc. They have a vague idea of their search’s goal, and they are not fully satisfied with “life as it naturally is”. They understand that there must be something more for them. And yes, there is, be sure!
- Awakened: These are spiritual aspirants that have knowledge about the Self but they still haven’t had a strong experience of Him. However, they have solidly planted their feet on the spiritual path, figuratively speaking. They have a good idea of where they go to, but lack more Self-experience. Every time they get in touch with His Power, they become unconscious. Therefore, their trances are full of unconsciousness in the form of void. Some of them stop here their efforts, considering that the Self is a Void and consequently they are fully enlightened. Anyway, they are not fully enlightened but fully wrong.
- Well-awakened: These are very advanced spiritual aspirants who are marked by the experience of the Self at the beginning and the end of wakefulness, dreaming and deep sleep. They become Free like the Self for brief instants every day: when they wake up, when they are falling asleep, etc. They are almost ready to attain the next and last category.
- Perfectly-awakened: These are the Great Sages. Though this category is related to spiritual aspirants, they are no more “aspirants” but fully enlightened people. They are Inconceivable and Free like the Self Himself. They are like the well-awakened ones, but their Self-experience lasts forever. Of course, the passage from well-awakened to perfectly-awakened is gradual, but in the end a perfectly-awakened person has the experience of the Self constantly. This cannot be attained by any human efforts but it is just His gift to the brave aspirant who strived so hard for his own freedom. The existence of these Great Sages justifies the existence of humankind on earth.
While all the beings are inherently divine because the Self dwells inside them, as it were, only the perfectly-awakened one is absolutely “holy”. All the spiritual teachings, instructions and so on come always from the Self Himself or from these Great Sages who are the Self incarnate. They know the “how to” in spirituality and therefore they are absolutely fit for teaching spiritual aspirants. Anyway, not all of them will teach. Only some of them will become Guru-s (spiritual preceptors). The experiment called “this humankind” is worth the effort while the production of these holy beings is active. If the entire humankind were like the ordinary people, it would be doomed to be terminated instantly. When the manifestation and dissolution of the entire universe is a trifle to the Power of the Self, how difficult could the dissolution of the humankind be to this Power then?
A mere rock 10 km in diameter is more than enough to eliminate it along with animals, plants, human pride, superpowers and all their weapons, etc. It is hilarious the little thing that is necessary to finish humankind. Even life as a whole would be in serious danger if the rock were a little bigger. This fact shows how insignificant humankind is from a material viewpoint (the physical bodies). In turn, it shows how colossal the Self and His Power are. They are so compassionate!
Even after two devastating world wars taking place some decades ago (not eons ago), I have noticed that many human beings still think that humankind is the most impressive creation of God. There is no limit to vanity, be sure. Anyway, it is only the presence of His Great Sages and Holy Real Human Beings that still makes the existence of humankind possible. This is why a spiritual aspirant should strive for his freedom at all costs; by doing so he will be saving himself as well as the rest of people. If you want to help humankind as a whole, help yourself. Every time one person takes a step forward on the spiritual path, the entire humankind gets benefit from that step, and I am completely sure of that.
I will keep speaking about this topic in my next post.