You don't have a soul. You are a soul.

You don't have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body. 

This one sentence says it all.

Most people attribute these words to C. S. Lewis the author of the series  The Chronicles of Narnia 

And he was Enlightened..Nirvana Shatakam..Atma shatakam in story form.

What is the state of enlightenment?
I do not know;
I do not wish to understand it; 
I want to experience it.

I know one thing for sure that the path to this state comes from within.

No shri shri guruji or shri shri multiply by 108 or shri shri multiply by 1008 can bring us to this state; it is the journey of the soul, and the soul is the self.

I write this story inspired by Nirvana Shatakam; The eternal words of Adi Shankaracharya. And dedicate this article to all those souls who have little to do with the world and who strive for the progress of the soul.

The journey which begins with the prayer to the universe to lead us from darkness to light; till the day the soul comes out of all dualities to realize that without darkness light would have no meaning.

He grew up hearing stories of one enlightened soul known as the Mahavatar and he had a wish to meet him. He also heard a lot of stories about different baba’s; some known to have walked on water, some known to have travelled in thin air, stories of some giving up their bodies willfully.

In reality nor he nor his fore fathers had come across such people but there were stories and more stories.

He heard some beautiful words “….And no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dream…” and he decided to follow his dream, even though he did not know what enlightenment was; he desired to be enlightened.

Maybe this was the call of his soul. And he needed to experience it rather than understand it.

The spiritual super market had a lot to offer, because there was a huge demand, there was a huge supply.

He joined cults, and met Guru’s, followed rituals and took part in ceremonies.

After years he realized that the pious agony of the Gurus took him nowhere.

All of religion, all the cults, all the guru’s wanted to bond him, he was entrapped. These person themselves bound in their theories and believes, how they could liberate any one.

Everyone wanted to take charge of him, they wanted him to follow something, and no Guru set him free to experience the world, as they themselves were bound in their fancy dress and their titles.

He left them for good and started studying philosophies, tried to understand quantum physics, read the scriptures till the day he came across two lines of a saint.

पोथी पढी पढी जग मुआ पंडित भया ना कोय
ढाई आखर प्रेम का पढे सो पंडित होय

Pothi padhi padhi jag mua,
pandit bhaya na koi
Dhai aakhar prem ka,
padhe so pandit hoye

meaning:


Reading Books and Scriptures everyone died, No one became wise
whoever understands the small word ‘Love’, he truly becomes wise.

Still he kept on wandering from one temple to other, one river bank to other, he noticed that no one was interested in the onetime great Sindhu—The Indus river but people were attracted to the Ganga in the hope of washing their sins, and one day when the Ganga will dry up people will change their loyalty to some other source of water.

Now he was not well-seasoned in tradition, nor a part of the pomp of ceremonies, nor bound by theories, Nor corrupted by beliefs, not held in the bondage of religions or entrapped by philosophies.

He was finally free.

The mind which had entrapped him once; today that same mind became the cause of his freedom; his big step on the spiritual journey.

He no longer performed the difficult task of becoming someone’s student, nor did he perform the easy task of becoming a Guru himself.

He had neither merit nor demerit, he had neither virtues nor vices, nor was he high or low, neither was he pure or impure. He was neither liberated nor captivated.

He desired no one’s attention. He had no friends or enemies.

Neither was he interested in performing good deeds or bad deeds.

He did not have any chants or a mantra or a holy place not even was he interested in any pilgrimage or Vedic fire ceremonies.

He got up one day where he had no hatred or dislike, no desires.

Not even the desire to have no desires.

And he experienced eternal bliss.

Having opened his higher chakras to the universe and also his lower chakras to accept love, though he had no desire for the same, at the same time he had no reservations nor did he undertake spiritual practices or vows.

Slowly he did not associate his self with his body or the elements that made it or the five senses or the mind, ego or the intellect.

And that final state when the five coverings (pancha-kosha) that covered his soul were of no meaning to him, the big I had vanished, the I, the ego which bound his soul to these five coverings had disappeared and with that everything covering his soul vanished.

Today he was without any attributes and without any form.

He had no wishes for anything because his soul was everything.

He was himself Bliss and eternal consciousness.

He had no desire to fly or walk on water he had learned to walk on earth without that I which had held so many coverings on his soul; and whatever he had learned, he unlearned.

Then the Enlightened one whom he sought from ages to ages was in front of him----face to face-----When he saw his own shadow in the waters of the river.

And the Shiva in him danced the Ananda Tandava;

The dance of eternal joy.

The ex-dacoit wrote the Ramayana-We too can rise from the ashes of our life.

A part of infinity is also infinite.

When infinite is taken out of the infinite; what remains is also infinite.

When that infinite merges back to infinite; the resultant is again infinite.

Simple logic; isn’t it.

The Upanishads tell us this; not to explain mathematics but the philosophy of our existence, our soul.

Our soul has evolved from the infinite; after creating our soul that infinite remained as infinite, nothing changed.

Our soul being a part of the infinite is also infinite. {Having the same attributes}.

When it will merge back with the infinite; the infinite will remain infinite.

"Om purna madah purna midam
Purnat purna mudachyate
Purnasya purna madaya
Purna meva vasishyate
Om shanti shanti shantih"

this can also be explained as:

From Fullness comes that Fullness....

From the Whole, the Whole arises...

From completeness, completeness comes forth....

A perfect born out of the perfect....

Then why do we limit ourselves?

I have written this article because most people think that the path to light and enlightenment is a different path which can only be practiced by staying away from the world.

The term meditating in a cave in the Himalayas is often used.

More important than abandoning the world is to abandon what holds us to the material world.

One does not have to go to the Himalayas to realize that love is more profound than lust.

The Himalayas are 50 million years old and as far as I know the soul in us is ageless.

The person who seeks wealth; gets rich.

The one who desires love; that soul is one day capable of giving and receiving love.

The soul which seeks the light; will experience the light.

The light that enlightens, the light of God.

The only thing is that; that light will be the light of our own soul, that what we sought outside will emerge from inside and the world will experience one more enlightened soul.

If the ex-dacoit wrote the Ramayana and became the great Sage Valmiki; we too can rise from the ashes of our life; like the phoenix; the mythical sacred fire bird which has the ability to be reborn from its own ashes.

What is due to the soul; the soul gets.

I love one particular incident from the Ramayana and that is the birth of the twin sons of Rama in Valmiki's ashram.

Sita gave birth to her twin sons Lav and Kush in sage Valmiki’s ashram in the forest.

The sage felt deeply hurt that the descendants of the Sun Dynasty       

{ suryavanshi} were born in a hut in the forest they deserved to be born in a palace among grandeur.

Just then a pupil called valmiki out to show him that their entire ashram was circled by the army of Ayodhya.
It has so happened that Rama had sent his brother Shatrughna to fight the evil asur {demon} Lavanasur; and on the way the army came across Valmiki’s ashram and wanted to halt there for the night.

Valmiki could not believe his eyes, where ever he saw; he could see the flags and symbols of the Sun dynasty, the army commanders and the horses. 

As if the entire army of Ayodhya was standing to welcome the two just born princes of the Sun Dynasty.

When Shatrughna was informed about the birth of the two babies he presented them with gold ornaments he was wearing which had the seal of the royal family.

Valmiki had tears in his eyes on seeing this divine arrangement; such welcome was due to the just born and they got what their soul deserved.

There was no point to worry; and Valmiki writes.

 होइ है  वही  जो  राम रचि  राखा
को  करे  तरफ़  बढ़ाए  साखा

Hoi Hai Wahi Jo Ram Rachi Raakhaa

Ko Kare Tarak Badhaye Saakha

What is destined will happen; there is no point in getting worried.