Let's do a self-exploration meditation on I Am That,
Chapter 22.
The meditation is called The Realized Man.
Let's close our eyes and let's bring to our memory any sage that we know as the Realized One,
The Enlightened One,
The One who has attained the Supreme Truth.
Speak to your own ego in the following words.
Please repeat aloud after me.
Dear Ego,
Today we will attempt to understand the difference between the sage and me.
So please keep it real.
Please keep it truthful.
Let's refrain from self-deception and self-forgery.
Let's resort to the truth and nothing but the truth.
Now the ego is on your side.
Relax and dive within.
Ask yourself the following questions and let the answer emerge from within.
Ask yourself this first question.
The sage sees clearly that he is the ground of all knowledge.
Do I see the same?
Do I see that the beloved and the unbeloved do not really exist but are simply pieces of knowledge?
The knower,
Knowing and the known are all me,
Says the sage.
Can I say the same confidently?
Do I see in my own direct experience that all that is perceived as sight,
Sound,
Smell,
Taste,
Touch,
Thought,
Feeling is all me?
The sage sees clearly that I am the perennial awareness of all that happens to the senses and the mind.
Do I see the same?
Do I see that I am the ground for all the good,
The bad,
The ugly that happen to the senses and to the body-mind complex?
Can I see that everything is simply a projection out of me,
By me,
For me?
In other words,
Am I able to acknowledge and accept that I am the only cause of it all?
The sage is constantly aware that I am the witness only,
Not the doer.
Not the experiencer.
Like the sage,
Am I constantly aware of the same?
The sage's eye of wisdom has opened as he has gone beyond all illusion.
Am I allowing myself to go beyond all illusory ideas?
Am I courageously addressing false as false?
The sage's eye of wisdom has opened as his heart is free of all desires.
Am I still carrying desires concealed by excuses?
Or have I become free?
Am I allowing myself to see that desire is me and the desirer is also me and the desired object is also me?
Am I allowing myself to become free of desire?
The sage's eye of wisdom has opened as his heart is free of fear.
Am I still fearful about what will happen to me,
My body,
My world?
Or am I allowing myself to see that fear is only a thought?
Am I allowing myself to see that this fear-thought is only an excuse that I make to prevent myself from seeing that I am deathless?
Fearless.
Fearless.
Fearless.
Fearless.
Am I able to constantly take the correct stand of the background consciousness on which the body appears and disappears?
Or am I still entangled in the belief of being the body?
The sage's eye of wisdom has opened fully.
He sees what others merely hear.
He knows what others don't experience but simply intellectualize.
Am I able to see this truth in my direct experience or am I simply intellectualizing?
Do my actions betray my bondage?
The sage thinks,
Feels and acts integrally and in unity with all that lives.
Like the sage,
Do I see that I am the world and the world is mine?
Do I have integrity with all that lives?
The sage does not feel the need to change anything about himself or the world.
Like the sage,
Do I see that nothing is wrong with anything?
Do I see that nothing needs to be changed?
Am I content like the sage?
The sage is not bound by appearances and does not identify himself with name,
Form and memory.
Like the sage,
Am I beyond name and form?
Do I use memory or do I let memory use me?
The knowledge of reality is not memorized by the sage but is seen moment to moment as his own true inherent nature.
Do I see the reality like the sage or have I memorized it?
The sage knows that all opposites are contained in me but I am not in the play of opposites.
Like the sage,
Do I see the same?
The sage knows that I am when man is no more.
I am when God is no more.
I am when consciousness is no more.
Like the sage,
Do I recognize myself as beyond consciousness?
Then only is the sage called the realized man when he goes beyond consciousness.
Have I transcended consciousness yet?
Am I close to sagehood yet?
Am I beyond both consciousness and unconsciousness?
Have I transcended the opposites?
Can I claim to be the realized one yet?
