Then this question comes up spontaneously from the heart, “What is Real.” Since times immemorial in the dim twilight of civilization, this has been the question among individuals as well as races, “What is Real?”
Our consciousness, awareness is only just on the surface. It is surrounded on both sides by sub-consciousness and super-consciousness. Besides, our consciousness undergoes three kinds of changes. There is the waking consciousness, there is the dreaming consciousness and then there is deep sleep consciousness. The consciousness in the wakeful state indicates that the world is solid, rigid, set in its laws and rules. The verdict of consciousness in the dreaming condition is quite different. But the dreaming and sleeping conditions are just as strong as the waking conditions.
Then there is deep sleep condition of consciousness in which you forget yourself completely. You say, “I slept so sound that I dreamt nothing at all.” In the deep sleep condition, there is something in you, which keeps awake all the same, which does not sleep. That is your real self. To know that and to realize that we have to dive deep into ourselves through Meditation and open the inner windows which are closed due to ignorance.
In a very touching and truthful Bhajan, Gurudev Shri Ji recites that Time is fleeting fast and is awakening everyone at every moment but only one out of millions values the precious time and strives to remove the veils of darkness to know the Real Self.
That which persists is Real. That which remains the same today, yesterday and ever is Real. This is the criterion of Truth. This awareness takes three different forms from the subjective standpoint. The dreaming subject is not the same as waking subject and the subject in sound sleep is quite different from that one in other states.
In the wakeful state this consciousness identifies itself with the body. It assumes quite a different state in the dreaming condition and yet an entirely different state in sound sleeps. So the question remains, “What is Real?” Various answers have been given. At the same time attempts have been made to suppress it to put a stop to the unrest of the mind, which asks, “What is Real?” “Eat, drink and be merry” is the watchword of many. But as long as death stalks on earth, all these attempts of suppression will prove to be unsuccessful. We may talk about “Eating, drinking and enjoying” and keep all our hopes and aspirations confined to the present moment and struggle hard to take this evanescent world as our permanent abode. Yet as long as there is death, the question must come again and again, “What is Real?” Is death the end of all things to which we are clinging, as if they were the most real of all realities, the most substantial of all substantiality.
The world vanishes in a moment and is gone forever. The hopes of a life- time built little by little with all the energies of the mind vanish in a second. Are they Real? The question must be answered. Running away from the situation is not the solution of the situation. Closed windows of thick darkness of ego and ignorance must be opened through regular and persistent Vishvas Meditation, which is an easy, simple spontaneous process of taking an Inner Journey towards your own Real Self.
Through meditation, we get to the state of thoughtlessness, which eventually takes us to the state of super-consciousness. In that state, we get an inspiration, “Be not in despair. You and your Father are one. You are divine. Divinity is your nature. Human soul is potentially pure and perfect.”
Somehow or other misery has come but it is not our true nature. All the misery we have, is of our own choosing. The old Chinaman, who, having been kept in prison for sixty years, was released on the coronation of a new emperor, exclaimed when he came out in light and freedom that he would not live. He must go to the horrible dungeon among the rats & mice. So he asked them to kill him or send him back to the prison and he was sent back.
Exactly similar is our condition. We are free as freedom is the nature of the soul and freedom is our birthright. We forge our own chains and then cry out that we are bound. We run headlong after pleasure and before we reach it, we find it is gone. It has slipped through our fingers. Still we do not cease from our mad pursuit of attaining fleeting pleasures of the world forgetting completely that pleasures and pains are two sides of the same coin. We should rather have the intense desire to attain Bliss and Freedom through meditation.