Many beings come to me and say, ‘Life is flowing very beautifully now. I am in a state of peace. My intuitive powers are opening up. Life is a sweet flow. I see sensations and thoughts coming and going but I am unchanging.'
They feel they are enjoying the complete state of Self-realization.
But then unexpectedly, this state is suddenly changing. Many thoughts are coming now and they are not nice ones.
Before, there was a shield of protection but now all ugly things are coming through. The awakening honeymoon seems to be over.
Now please pay attention. Listen well.
This is a form of Grace actually. This phase has come and signals that you must mature further in order to attain complete realization of the Self.
I sometimes say, 'You want to taste the honey, you don't want to be the honey'. What is this honey? It is the satchitananda state — the perfume of the Self experienced as existence, consciousness and bliss. All beings enjoy this state and wish to prolong it, believing it to be the ultimate state.
Through these intense satsangs, ego is thinning away and you are beginning to experience an expansion within your being.
You are enjoying. You are tasting the honey. Why not? Very nice. Best honey. But then somehow you get a bee sting and the tongue hurts. The honey is gone or feels polluted.
What happened? Your beautiful spiritual world has changed. Your spontaneity has gone.
Don't panic. You haven't done anything wrong.
What is important now is that you recognize that you are still totally here as pure quality-less awareness.
Grace says, 'You must experience only awareness without the taste of the honey.' But this is not acceptable to the 'experiencer' self. It wants the tasting to continue uninterrupted. It wants nothing more.
Where is the taste?
There is only the tasteless awareness.
This 'experiencer' self is a mix of presence and ego and must be transcended before Self-realization is complete.
Remember, just as the flower is not attached to its smell, awareness is not addicted to any state.
Now you must be the Self beyond quality.
Don't rely on the fragrance.
The initial fragrance is still the subtlest part of phenomenality, but it can and will disappear.
But the Self cannot disappear.
It cannot even appear for it is infinite and timeless.
As soon as you, the true Self, recognize and start marinating in your own emptiness, the attachment to fragrances weaken.
Before arriving to this stage, there was no attraction for the ultimate Self, only for its dynamic aspect as presence.
Now, as a result of listening to and following these direct pointings you come to find the Supreme joy — the immutable Self.
Here is the unfading peace that cannot be described.
You are not merely tasting peace.
You are peace itself.
You are not feeling happy.
You are happiness itself.
You are beyond the play of interrelated opposites. Beyond the spell of duality.
This Realization few have attained.
Here in satsang today, you may discover and be one of them.