Sharanagati

What is the path of perfection; because we all agreed that perfection exists, right? What is that perfection? Perfection is when you don’t use your energy independently of the supreme source. Harmony. Spiritual culture means to be in harmony with the universe.

Yet perfection is different according to people’s understanding. For a drunkard perfection is to obtain the alcohol. For a lover perfection is to meet his beloved. For a greedy person perfection is to obtain more money. But we see that this is all superficial. What is the ultimate perfection, give me some ideas. Have you ever thought of that: what is the ultimate perfection? This is the time.

Somebody: Self-realization.

Swami Tirtha: Ah! Very good!

Others: Reaching harmony. The connection with God. To rise beyond all individual perfections.

Swami Tirtha: Very nice! So, we are focusing around the essence now. Supreme perfection is when you realize your three basic qualities. We can say that this is real self-realization when we understand that we are, first of all, not the body. The body will perish, but you feel about yourself that you are something more. What is the composition of the body? Let’s say seventy percent water, right? And then some little calcium in the bones and some little iron in the blood… So, if we make an equation it makes like hundred lev – all the ingredients. Still you feel a little bit more precious thаn hundred lev, right? We are not this perishable body, but we are something more! And this is what we have to search.

So, first we have to understand that we are eternal souls, we are not the perishable material body, but we are eternal souls. Does it help you to tolerate the difficulties of life? You might say: ‘Hey, wait a minute! If eternally it will go on – no! Stop it! I thought that suffering is limited to my perishable body. If it is permanent – ah…!’ But as limited material life is only a distorted reflection of the original, eternal one, we should understand that the eternal life is not so miserable as the material one.

So the first very important point is that we should understand we are not the limited bodies, but we are eternal souls, made of stardust. The second is that you are a conscious entity. Is that true? Can we always act as conscious entities? Ah, so many times we act and react very superficially, we lose control – although yoga means control, right – still sometimes you shout and quarrel, losing peace of mind. So, we should use our consciousness properly. And in that sense consciousness is not only a theoretical game, it’s not a mind game. But this is like a chance to overcome all the limitations. We should use all our brain to approach something that is beyond our brain capacity. Right, we all search for mystic experience of divine enlightenment. That means you have to use one capacity – your brain, your mind, your consciousness – in order to achieve something higher, beyond.

And consciousness also means life-force. Of course now I am not talking about prana, but about chetana. In that respect without consciousness there is no use of existence. Because as last time we agreed, such type of existence is like cucumber. So, raise your level a little bit. If we give a little more consciousness to our existence, then we can go beyond this level.

And the ultimate feature that we all share, don’t forget, this is our anandam, our bliss, happiness of the soul. The inner bliss that you can experience when you are in trance.

So, these three steps we have to accomplish in our path to self-realization. To understand that we are not the perishable body, but we are eternal souls; that we have a consciousness that is God-given for some very good reason – and this good reason is to find a way out of this material existence. When coming here we were passing by a big building. Huge letters: LABIRINTH. I don’t want to make publicity here now, but then I inquired ‘What is this?’ What is that?

Kripadham: They sell furniture there.

Swami Tirtha: I thought that this is a shopping centre, where you can lose your path, so it symbolizes the material existence, the labyrinth. But even a mouse can find the way out of the labyrinth. Use your brain! Find the way out from this labyrinth of material existence! And if we are intelligent enough, then we shall understand what real happiness is. Real happiness is not derived from possessing things. People think that life is about possessing things and misusing humans. But it is not. It is about being independent of all circumstances that we have and serving the fellow human beings and the other living entities, with the concept that they are also our divine brothers and sisters, made of stardust.