Results of Self Realization
Author: Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami
Description: If the Self is nothing, how do you know you have realized it? One way you know is the sense that you have stepped out of time, form and space. And when you return to the consciousness of time, form and space, your perspective is changed. You now see the transcendent reality, the Self, you have experienced as Reality, and understand the consciousness in time, form and space to be unreality. Another result of realizing the Self, Parasiva, is that jnana, wisdom, develops. As the Self is regularly realized, you develop an encyclopedia of inner wisdom.
Transcription:
Well, if it is nothing, how do you know that you have realized it? That is a good question, right?
You cannot experience it because it is nothing there to experience. So how do you know that something happened? This is a good question. "Did I realize the Self? I sat down and meditated, did I realize the Self?"
There are ways of knowing and one of them is the sense that you have stepped out of time, form and space. You just stepped out of the universe of time, form and space and now you are back in. Further more, when you stepped out of it, that was the reality and now you are back in the unreality.
What would an analogy be? An analogy would be like a movie, some action movie. Action movies can really get you absorbed in the movie. You forget you are sitting in a seat, forget you are in a theatre. You are watching the movie and you are really, really wrapped up in it. So, it is like sitting there watching the movie, really, really wrapped up in it and going outside for a minute and coming back.
That is an analogy of realizing the Self. When you come back, you are not looking at it quite the same way because you stepped out for a minute, you have a different perspective on it. You are not quite as emotionally involved. You are saying, "Oh, those are actors up there." Then maybe after ten minutes you start to get back into it and in another five or ten you are totally wrapped up in it again. You forgot you stepped outside.
But at the moment you came back inside the movie from stepping outside, you were aware you stepped outside. You had a different perspective on the movie, you were not so attached to it. The movie was going along, which is the fulfillment of karma but you have a different perspective on it.
The idea is, when you stepped out that is your real nature and this a seeming. That is the perspective of Parasiva. That it is the reality and there is no time, there is no form, there is no space, there is no cause. It is just there for you to claim.
As Gurudeva points out in his writings that the ability to realize Parasiva or shall we be more precise, "The regular realization of Parasiva is what brings jnana, brings wisdom."
Where does wisdom come from? Does it come from simply worshipping Parameshvara? No, that is where devotion comes from, not wisdom. Devotion is needed as a prerequisite to wisdom. Does wisdom come from sitting in the bliss of Satchidananda? No, it is blissful. It is much nicer than not being blissful but it does not produce wisdom.
Wisdom comes as the aftermath of the realization of Parasiva. So you do that enough times, you build up a little encyclopedia of inner wisdom. Each time you come out of Parasiva, it is like you have one more page in your encyclopedia of inner wisdom.