Q: How easy or how difficult is realization?
Let me tell you a story. There was once a king called Janaka Raja. He invited various scholars and realized people to his palace to get a view on Self- realization. He wanted to know about Self-realization.
One day, a person called Ashtavakra, walked into Janaka Raja’s palace. Ashtavakra means that his body is deformed at eight places. He looked very odd. Looking at him, all the people in the court of the King started laughing. Ashtavakra also started laughing. The King asked, “Why are you laughing?”
Ashtavakra said, “Oh King Janaka! I thought your court is full of wise men. That’s why, you have invited people to speak about Self-realization. Looks like you have all shoemakers sitting here, in the court, cobblers”. Everybody gets angry and starts shouting, “How dare, you call us cobblers?”. Janaka Raja asked Ashtavakra, to please explain him.
Ashtavakra says, “A cobbler is expert in looking at skins. So, the people who are sitting here, in your court, are looking at only my skin and body. They are nothing but cobblers. They don’t see the Atma, the soul inside. How can you have such idiots here?” Suddenly, King Janaka realizes that this person was a Jnani. He bows down to him, and says, “You are a Jnani. Can you please give me the wisdom of Self-realization, so that I may also realize? I have heard that Self-realization can happen in a split-second. But I have not got the wisdom from anybody so far. Can you help me?”
Ashtavakra laughs at him and says, “See Janaka, I can give you the wisdom. But I want Guru Dakshina first itself. Whatever offering you want to give, give me now itself”. Janaka Raja said, “Whatever you want, I will give you. This whole kingdom is yours. Please take it, and give me Atma Jnana, Self-realization.”
Ashtavakra starts laughing again and said “Oh King! You are offering the kingdom, which doesn’t belong to you. Kingdom belongs to your people. So, how can you offer something to me, which doesn’t belong to you?”
Then, Janaka Raja suddenly feels ashamed. “Oh! Sorry! I offer myself, I will become you servant”. Ashtavakra again starts laughing. “You call yourself as this body and mind? This body belongs to Prakriti, nature. After you are dead, it just goes back to nature. When you are born, it is given by nature. It grows on the food. How can you offer yourself? This belongs to nature. Tell me whether you have something which you can give it to me”.
Then, Janaka Raja realizes. He says, “Oh Master! I realize now. Only foolishness belongs to me. The foolishness of thinking that, the kingdom belonged to me, body and mind belonged to me. I am offering that foolishness to you. I am offering the ego to you”. The moment he says that Janaka gets enlightened.
Enlightenment is just realizing that I am not the body, I am not the mind, I am not the intellect. How easy or how difficult is it? And the realization will happen in a split-second. But to get to the split-second, you need to do a lot of things, a lot of sadhana. To go to that split-second, you need to do struggle. But, when you come to that split of a second, realization is instantaneous.
It is as simple as that. Now, to go to that stage, it is different. I give the example of a dark room, to tell my students. See, there is a dark room. You don’t know what is there in that dark room. Ignorance is like that. You don’t know. If you ask whether a chair exists in this dark room, you say you don’t know. Does a table exist in this dark room? You don’t know. That’s what, dark room is about.
Then, to find out what is there inside, what you have to do? You have to switch on the light. The moment you switch on, light is there, you can see everything. Self-realization is also like that, switching on the light. The moment light is there, you can see everything. Before that, darkness was there. In the darkness, you can’t see anything. All that you have to do is, switch on.
So, my student said, “sir, I can’t find the switch itself”. So, please understand Atma Jnana is instantaneous just like switching on the light. To find the right switch, or to locate the switch, the searching goes on. That is called sadhana. If you hit the right switch, the light is there. But, to find out which is the right switch, among many switches, is the challenge.
So, this is the challenge of spiritual sadhana. You don’t know where to go because of darkness. But, if you hit the right button, the light is there. It is instantaneous. This is the crux of Self-realization. Now, let me ask you, did you have a headache, at any point of time, in your life? Did you take headache tablet? What tablet do you take for headache?
You take some analgesic tablet. How much do you pay for that? One rupee may be. Just pay one rupee, and headache is gone. In one rupee, headache is gone. But, do you know, how much effort is gone into, making that one-rupee tablet? Billions of dollars have been spent to research that formula. Thousands of doctors have worked and thousands of scientists have worked.
That thousands of scientists’ and doctors’ work is available to you at one rupee, which removes your problem. Similarly, for Atma Jnana, thousands of Rishis, thousands of Sadgurus have worked, their lifetimes. The Jnana they have given is in the form of clear wisdom. ‘Tat tvam asi’, ‘You are that’, Atma and Brahma are same. All wisdom is given, their effort, they are giving it to you, free of cost. Not even one rupee.
So, the information is available to you. To activate the switch, in the dark room, you need to know, where the switch is. So, somebody who has found the switch, can show to you where the switch is. You don’t need to struggle. Your sadhana time comes down. The person, who has found the switch, and can show the location of the switch is called Sadguru.
You don’t have to go through the struggle which those people have gone through. You don’t have to go through the struggle which Sadguru has gone through. That’s why he is called Sadguru. He is exactly, at pinpoint, show you the location of that point, where you have to work on.
Your challenge in spiritual sadhana is to locate such Sadguru. Again, that is in darkness. The whole of spiritual sadhana, my dear, is to get a Realized Master. To get to the Realized Master is the sadhana. Once you get to the Realized Master, sadhana doesn’t begin. It is the end of the sadhana. He shows exactly where to work on.
So, this is the essence of spiritual sadhana and realization. That’s why, it is said, meeting of the Sadguru, is not the beginning of spiritual journey. Meeting Sadguru, is the end of spiritual journey. Because the crux of spiritual sadhana comes to you. You don’t have to go through lot of struggle in locating that. Learning will be passed on to you in a simple way. This is the essence. This is the role of Sadguru in life.
Pranams
Prabhuji
REFERENCES:
Self Knowledge – Talk 5_Is Self Realization Easy?_04Apr2016