Attainment is the direct apprehension of Truth or the Union with God. It is an intuitive and immediate experience central to one's being; it is beyond perceptual or intellectual apprehension. Attainment implies a complete unity between the self and the Universe; all differentiations disappear, all boundaries merge, and the self is no longer experienced as a separate object.
Once attainment occurs, the old ways of perception, cognition, and intellectual apprehension of external phenomena pass away. The perception of everything is altered: there is a new calm and nectar-like sweet cast everywhere on everything. Everything appears vibrant with God's presence. One is struck by the glories of God; overwhelmed by His glories, one cannot help but sing His praises. Divine Glory is seen in everything. Man transcends duality and remains in an state of eternal peace and bliss. Then, even though in body, man never suffers.
The mind is the root cause of all problems. Man's mind always chatters. It wanders all over. One moment it is here, the next moment it is there. It travels millions of miles in microseconds. Its speed is infinitely faster than the speed of light.
Man's mind keeps jumping from past to future, and from future to past. It never rests in the present. During the day, it indulges in imagining fanciful and fearful things. During the night it translates its thinking and imagining into dreams fanciful and scary. Thus, man's mind constantly keeps thinking; the flow of thoughts never stops.
The stream of thoughts creates a curtain between the mind and the soul. As a result, the Soul, man's Real Self is not seen. Man remains engaged in thoughts. Unless his thoughts can be eliminated, effaced, controlled, or transcended, it is not possible for him to have an immediate and intuitive experience of the soul.
Controlling the mind means controlling desires and hopes. How can desires be controlled? They can be controlled by understanding the nature of things. All the desires and hopes of man are for the achievement of some goals and objectives of this world. If man understands that the nature of things of this world is fleeting and alluring, and that pursuing them eventually brings suffering, his desires will appear meaningless to him. Through understanding the alluring nature of this world, the mind no longer runs after the things of this world, nor does it care for the opinion of people. Thus, man transcends the desires for pleasure as well as for ego recognition. As a consequence of this realization, he is in peace and harmony.
The path to Self Realization is an untreaded path. The Self is a mystery. Only those who have Realized the Self can show this path to others. Gurus and enlightened souls showed to mankind the path of attainment. Their utterances make a seeker aware of the illusory nature of the things of this world; they develop in the seeker the understanding and awareness of Truth, thus bringing awakening.
As a result of awakening, a seeker's ego-oriented pulls for the worldly possessions, powers, and pleasures are contained and gradually effaced. Seeing the wonder of God's creation, the seeker's heart is filled with God's glories; his heart is pulled towards God.
As Enlightenment implies a journey from the outer circles of existence to the very centre of existence (nij ghar), a seeker spends a minimal amount of energy for meeting the requirements of the outer circles of existence. For example, the outermost circle of man's existence is his body. To maintain the body in a healthy condition, one needs to eat certain amounts of nourishing food and wear clothing to protect the body. If one gets entangled in eating various kinds of tasty food or wearing clothing and other types of accouterment in the belief that certain types of garbs makes one enlightened, then one has gone astray. There is no particular way of cooking and eating, and there is no particular garb or article of dress, wearing which one can get Enlightenment. If a seeker was to get entangled in such beliefs, he would get stuck at the outer circle of body and will not be able to continue his journey towards the centre. Similarly, if a seeker was to get stuck in religious rituals, ceremonies, and identify himself/herself with certain religions, he would not be able to get to his centre; he would be held by the outer circle of his mind.
Your body is a circle, around your centre,
Your mind too is a circle, around your centre
There are many circles around your centre
Identify yourself, not with the outer circles
You are their centre; remain at the centre.
Remaining at the centre, move the circles
Move not yourself
Move the circles from the centre
Watch them moving: from the centre.
Be a spectator; not a spectacle
Be a witness, not a participant
You are the centre
Be at the centre.
To be able to understand this Holy Message, one has to become aware, reflective, and introspective. But, the ordinary man is asleep in his ego-oriented pursuits. One may keep reading scriptures required by their religious code, but unless one understands its import, and abides by the injunctions therein, progress in the journey towards the centre does not occur. In order to raise his/her level of awareness, the seeker needs to meditate on his actions and thoughts.
As alluded to earlier, man's mind is always chattering: it is either thinking of the future, or of the past. But it is never in the present. The chattering of mind never allows man to live a life free of worries. In the company of the mind, man lives a poor life. The constant chattering of the mind robs man of the joy of life.
Meditation is witnessing. To meditate means to become a witness, to become aware. Meditation means awareness. Whatever you do with awareness is meditation. A deeper meditation is to realize the watcher who is witnessing your actions and thoughts. Just watching your actions can be meditation if you remain watchful.
Watch your actions, watch your thoughts, watch your feelings, emotions, and moods. In the beginning you will notice that your body does actions without your being aware of them; your mind continually keeps thinking without your being aware of those thoughts; your emotions and your moods are all out of your control, they arise without your being aware of them. With awareness meditation, you slowly become aware of your actions, thoughts, feelings, and emotions. Gradually you develop power to control them. A time comes when thoughts slow down, a gap is seen between them. It is during these gaps that you slowly become aware of yourself; you become aware of your being. Slowly and slowly the gaps between your thoughts keep increasing. Then comes a time when the thoughts one is watching disappear; only the watcher is left. Finally, the watcher turns into Pure Awareness - this is the fourth or the Ultimate State (turiyaa pad). In this awakening, one transcends all duality; there is eternal Bliss.
Written by Dr. Santokh Singh
An upcoming article by Dr. Santokh Singh:
Nature of Reality and Delusion
How do thoughts create delusion on the thought-free reality background? How is delusion created by the sounds and symphonies on the sound-free reality background? How are movements seen on the motionless reality background? How are objects perceived and recognized on phenomena-free consciousness reality background? What factor is common in creation of the illusion? How can the illusion, woven out of the strands of thoughts, sounds, movements, and objects, appear so real but for the fact that the potential for its genesis lies in the Ultimate Reality itself.
- written by Dr. Santokh Singh, Ph.D. - edited by Bhupinder Singh - printed with permission from the author
An incident of death observed in early childhood started the inquiry into the phenomenon of consciousness. Having received the gift of spiritual orientation from his father, a highly evolved soul, the author studied Sri Guru Granth Saaheb while still young. Academically self-educated, he received his Bachelor of Arts from Punjab University, and joined Indian Military Academy in 1956, serving as an officer in the Indian Army till 1982. He received his Master of Arts in Philosophy and Psychology and was later conferred the Doctorate in Philosophy by Poona University in 1978. He came to Canada in 1986 and has since been directing the activities of Gurmat Get-Togethers and Self-Awareness and Awakening Sessions held at the Institute of Spiritual Studies, where hundreds of youth born and brought up in North America have learnt Guru Nanak's message of Divine Love and unity of mankind.
The author's views on the process and path of attainment is that the masses are seldom right in their pursuits; their major pursuits are materialism, self-love, and intellectualism. Only a few understand the deceptiveness of these pursuits and they are the ones who take their first step into the spiritual world and settle down to fight their egoism. We are all in a sort of optical illusion in which we continuously operate as functional consciousness; we function more as a body-mind machine acting under the external forces of attraction and repulsion; we have no will of our own nor the capacity to do anything in the real sense. A few among us realize this predicament and work hard to remain self-aware and witness their consciousness identifying with the functioning of their body- mind machine. In other words, it is the Real within us that normally refers to objects without being aware that it so refers. When it becomes aware of itself so referring, then it can dissociate itself from the body-mind system and can thus become conscious of consciousness itself. Rare are the ones who ceaselessly remain aware and realize their Real Self, thus attaining to the fruit of human life. Realizing the Real Self implies attaining to a state of non-duality: by constantly remaining self-aware, consciousness becomes conscious of itself. It is the Real within us which self-consciously dissociates itself from the natural body and mind. This self dissociating entity is nothing but consciousness-in-itself -- consciousness conscious of itself.
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