Introduction to Enlightenment

I was passing through a critical phase in my life. My wife was hospitalized. I was shuttling from home to workplace to hospital daily. Doctors were proposing some life-threatening disease that I didn’t want to hear, pending diagnostics. She was taken in stretcher to the scan centre of the hospital for taking a scan. I was anxiously waiting in a chair outside the MRI scan centre of the hospital.

By now I had fully realized the contribution of my wife to my life and our family. We realize the value of a person only when we are going to lose her. God has given me an angel but what have I done to her? I remembered most of the instances in our married life when I had behaved inhumanly towards her, when I had ill-treated her and when I had insulted her before her near and dear. As I remembered more and more, I began to hate myself. Tears began to roll down my cheeks. I wept making sobbing sounds oblivious of where I was sitting. Suddenly I was physically shaken by somebody.

My wife was sitting on the bed beside me looking at me with her characteristic charming smile. I looked at the wall clock of our bed room that showed 5 AM. I sighed with relief. So, I was having a dream.

Even after I was woken up, I could remember each and every part of the dream. On thinking twice on that terrible dream, I found something weird. It was not a usual dream. There were two me’s. In all the scenes of the dream, I was playing the part of the husband of my wife. I was also playing the part of observer of all scenes. I was travelling from my workplace to the hospital. Another me was simply watching that I was travelling. I was remembering about how I behaved inhumanly towards my wife. And another me was observing the me who was remembering. I hated myself. And I observed I hated myself.

Have you ever seen a dream in which you played double roles? One you playing a character of a scene and another you observing it - have you had such a dream? Or can you imagine a theatre where you alone are seeing a movie in which you have acted in a role?

In that dream I described above, which me will be worried most that she should recover soon? Husband me or observing me?

The nature of our soul is Peace-Love-Joy. It doesn’t require peaceful circumstances to be at peace. It doesn’t require deserving persons to express its love. It doesn’t require happy events to be happy. Your soul can be at peace even when your mind is boiling with anger. It can be at love even when your heart is broken by your sweetheart. It can be happy even when your body is sick and dull.

Our soul has taken this birth to experience its unconditional Peace-Love-Joy in various circumstances and various events of our life. That is the whole purpose of our life. For this purpose it uses our body, mind and heart as its tools - more technically, gross body, subtle body and causal body. It is okay for our body, mind and heart to get carried away by the circumstances and events of our life. That is because our body, mind and heart live in explicit and implicit fear - unconditional Peace-Love-Joy cannot exist where there is fear. But it is not the case with our soul.

I have seen some in the audience especially ladies who would identify themselves with a sobbing heroine of the movie and weep with her. That is what our soul is doing now. It identifies itself with our body, mind and heart, and so it also gets carried away when our tools are carried away by the circumstances and events of our life.

Why? Why does our soul get carried away by our tools? Our soul is buried deep in our body, mind and heart. So, it identifies itself with our tools. It behaves as if it were body, mind or heart. It is doing, it is thinking and it is desiring. Instead of observing what our body is doing, what our mind is thinking and what our heart is desiring, it is doing along with our body, it is thinking along with our mind and it is desiring along with our heart.

So, what should we do? Dig out our soul from its tools, one by one and separate it from its tools permanently. Then it will know who it is and what it is supposed to do. A lion cub was reared by a deer trio right from its childhood. So, it was fearing for life all the time. A lion passing by, taking pity on this cub, took it to a well. On seeing its reflection on the well water, the cub came to know who it is and shed the fear imparted by the deer trio.

Once our soul knows itself to be entirely different from its tools, it starts experiencing its characteristic unconditional Peace-Love-Joy. This will dramatically improve the quality of our life experience.

Enlightenment is, therefore, essentially the process of permanently separating your soul from your body-mind-heart to permanently experience its Peace-Love-Joy even as your body-mind-heart might live in implicit and explicit fear. All spiritually enlightened persons have done it. You can also do it. Do it now - for the benefit of your own soul and other souls you are related to in your family, social and professional transactions.

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~ umasreedasan

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