Swami Sri Atmananda

Omm Namo Bhagavate

[The following is an excerpt from Swamiji’s 18 October morning Interaction at Satyachetana Ashram in Tiruvannamalai.]

Enlightenment is something that many people speak of so eloquently without truly knowing what is enlightenment. Enlightenment is just the state of light, wisdom. Enlightenment comes from the word light: enlightened.   

Light symbolizes knowledge. Light is knowledge, and knowledge is of two types: one dimension of knowledge is the knowledge of matter, and the other dimension is the knowledge of the spirit. Knowledge of matter is necessary for the Jivatma because the Jiva has entered into this material world, and this world has its own laws and guidelines. The Jiva is Brahma and the Brahma is basically nirguna, having no attributes. Whereas this prakriti, this matter, is attributes only. When prakriti becomes no attributes, prakriti becomes Brahma. But Brahma never becomes prakriti. This is very, very clear.

Brahma never becomes prakriti. It’s like the milk. If you boil milk and collect the cream, and again you boil the cream and prepare the ghee, from that ghee you cannot again make milk. Although it came from the milk, the ghee will never become milk again. But the milk will always become ghee.

When Prakriti has no attributes, Prakriti is Brahma. Many people ask, how can Prakriti have no attributes? Prakriti has no attributes in the origin, in the beginning. What we call Mulaprakriti, it’s an absolute state, when Prakriti is having no attributes. All the attributes are completely merged like the seed. The seed has no branch, no leaf. Only when the seed expands itself, the branches become visible, leaves are visible, fruits and flowers are visible. In the same way, when Prakriti the seed expands herself, then comes the gunas. The first guna is sattwa, next is rajas and the last is tamas. These are the three dimensions of the prakriti that is in the manifestation mode. But when the prakriti is not in the manifestation mode, and is in its natural state, that we call the Mulaprakriti. In 13th chapter of Gita, Lord Krishna referred to this, Prakritim purushamchaiva viddhyanädï ubhävapi [Verse 508; 13.19]. This Prakriti and this Purusha, both are beginningless. Know that at the original state both Prakriti and Purusha are one.

Enlightenment is nothing but to come to this realization that, “I am the unmanifest, all-pervading, and I am also the manifest and ever in motion, ever-expanding, ever-ascending and ever-clinging.” This is to be experienced while you are still inside the frame called the body. You are ever-expanding horizontally, you are ever-ascending and you are ever-clinging. If you are able to know this experientially, not intellectually, you are knowing this and also you are not getting identified with what you know. Simply it is happening. You are able to maintain you, the awareness. But if the awareness is not one hundred percent, it will not be possible to know that you are constantly expanding, you are constantly ascending, you are constantly clinging. Because of this inability to know, you get identified with this process. But it’s a natural process. You are not doing it.

Now you see when I’m talking, my hand is moving. I’m not intentionally moving. The moment I’m aware of my hand moving, I’m just putting the arm down. Automatically everything in this manifest world happens automatically. It is in its autopilot mode. When you get angry is it in autopilot mode? You will say, “No, I got angry.” Someone who has not reached a hundred percent light will say he or she got angry. But one who is one hundred percent in light, who is able to maintain one hundred percent his awareness, he will not say that he got angry. He will simply see that it is an autopilot mechanism that is manifesting as anger, irritation, repulsion, attraction, infatuation. This is the state called enlightenment.

How will it be possible? This was a big mystery to me. Even at the final state of savikalpa samadhi it was sometimes creating confusion, but ultimately I realized it is absolutely possible. If only the jivatma will not get consciously involved in this autopilot ascension, autopilot expansion, autopilot clinging.  

You all are Self-realized actually. Each one of you who is connected with me, be one hundred percent sure, I’m telling to the whole world, each one of you is Self-realized. Self-realization means what? I am the Self. And the Self is free from all this identification with the coating. Getting coated is neither good nor bad. But getting identified with the coating, that’s the problem. For example, if somebody tells you that you are a bad person, and you are not getting identified with what you heard or what you saw, you are enlightened.

The problem comes because you are getting identified. Why are you getting identified? Because your awareness, that is, your light, is not one hundred percent for you. For me, you are one hundred percent light, zero percent darkness. For every enlightened being this is the truth.

Even when Arjuna was arguing and differing and criticizing Krishna, look at how Krishna was addressing Arjuna as the best among the men and the most evolved. Why? Because Krishna was always saying that this Arjuna is no other than diti Krishna, he’s another Krishna. Every enlightened guru, he always is able to see that as I am in this form, I’m also in that form, I’m also in that form. Then why all the sadhana and guidance and all this? It is because they respond. If I will tell I am your child, you are bound to respond to me as the mother.

If I’m really feeling what I am telling, you cannot respond any other way. That’s the law of physics. If I truly say what I feel, that is Truth-consciousness. It will always work.Enlightenment is not a myth; it is a reality. All these half-baked masters and seers, they have made it a myth, as if it will take several hundreds of births. No, scriptures are not being revealed in the right spirit and context.

Sense control, mind control, pranayam, understanding, reading the scriptures, doing satsang, performing yajna—we are doing all these only to come to this stage that, “I am the unmanifest, all-pervading awareness and I am also the source of all manifestation.” I am the source of all manifestation. I am not a manifestation.

God is omnipotent, omniscient: the all-pervading awareness and all-encompassing experience. Delink yourself from the process. Process is experience, product is the impact of this process, but you are not the process and never the product. You are the origin of this whole mechanism called process and product.