What are the symptoms of a self-realized soul? What is the perspective of the mystic yogi? The ancient wisdom reveal these details for us. Not only does such a soul realize that they are not the body and mind, but even more than that they realize that they do not even possess a body. This is because they know that the body, mind and everything is not theirs to enjoy but actually belongs to the original source, to the original creator.
It’s not ours to own. We reside in this body but ultimately we live like a servant in the palace of the king. All the facility is around us, but none of it is ours. It’s all for the pleasure and service of the king and queen. Similarly all the facilities with which we find ourselves – strong body, sharp mind and intelligence, fluent speech, it all belongs to the creator from where these elements arose.
Likewise all the material energy available on this planet is also the property of the creator. Most souls within the body become identified with it and all its idiosyncrasies. We feel the mind to be our self, not realizing that this is just the shell we inhabit for this one particular lifetime. Some have a sports model and others have a bus. And we fully feel this to be our true identity. We know nothing else.
Only the yogi, after deep study, analysis, meditation, self-reflection and introspection will discover the truth of our real identity as someone who exists as separate from the temporary body and mind. And that our eternal position is as servant of the source, of the creator.
And like the servant in the palace of the king, the self-realized mystic knows that the best use of all the opulences of the palace, is for the pleasure of the king. We don’t walk away and disengage because it’s not ours or it’s not us. That would be dereliction of duty. That would not be the proper use of the facility.
The king would be more pleased if we engaged in his pleasure and that of his queen by serving his demands, by using all and every facility available in the palace and all around in the kingdom to fulfil the requests of the royal couple.
In that way the old adage is fulfilled, that the servant of the king enjoys as good as the king. The servant also lives in the finest of opulent palaces, experiences all the beauty and pleasure of the facilities, but never directly, only as a secondary byproduct of fulfilling the king’s wishes.
Any high ranking representative of the government or rich corporation understands this. They oversee huge budgets, have massive expense accounts, travel in the fastest jets to all the finest hotels in the world, but all of this is simply to carry out the orders of the original owner of all the facility, or the leader whom they serve.
They may find the luxury pleasurable, the experience may seem beautiful, but that is not the goal, that is merely the byproduct. The main goal is the pleasure and satisfaction of the original owner and their stated goals.
And even if the facility is not there, or they have to endure abstinence or scarcity in the line of duty, if it pleases the king and queen, then that is their greatest pleasure.
This is the realization of the truly realized soul, the mystic yogi who has mastered their existence. Yoga, after all, means union. The yogi becomes one with the source not by merging into non-existence but by service, just as the ambassador or agent is one with the king.
The ambassador has agency, is the right hand of the king. What you do to the ambassador, you do to the king. In this way they are one with the king. The yogi is one with the creator and source – in service.
They are linked up in yoga, not annihilated by merging. And that is the crucial difference that few understand. When the servant, regardless of how high ranking, starts to try to enjoy the facilities for themselves, then they are lost. When the ambassador starts thinking that they are as good as the king they represent, that is the beginning of their end and their downfall.
That’s what triggered our original fall from grace. We, the eternal living entities, misused our independence and desired to become the enjoyer instead of the enjoyed. We desired to enjoy independently of the original source, the creator. And our desires were fulfilled. We were given this material world in which to try to be the enjoyer, the “prusha” instead of the “prakriti”, the enjoyed.
In separation consciousness we think we are the master and enjoyer of all that we survey, while via yoga – the Sanskrit word for union or linking up – the yogi returns to the consciousness of service to the original enjoyer and links up in union via that mood of service. The yogi never desires to become the creator, the source or the enjoyer but realizes that they are in quality non-different spirit substance, but in quantity very small fragments compared to the original person.
In this mood the aspirant is cleansed or purified of the contaminating consciousness of trying to be the enjoyer, of thinking they are this body and mind, of imagining that this body and all the material energy is there’s to enjoy. All that illusion falls away and they remember who they really are, the lover, friend or servant of the most beloved, the reservoir of all pleasure.
Bhagavad Gita ch5:11
कायेन मनसा बुद्ध्या केवलैरिन्द्रियैरपि ।
योगिन: कर्म कुर्वन्ति सङ्गं त्यक्त्वात्मशुद्धये ॥ ११ ॥
kāyena manasā buddhyā
kevalair indriyair api
yoginaḥ karma kurvanti
saṅgaṁ tyaktvātma-śuddhaye
SYNONYMS
kāyena—with the body; manasā—with the mind; buddhyā—with the intelligence; kevalaiḥ—purified; indriyaiḥ—with the senses; api—even with; yoginaḥ—the Kṛṣṇa conscious persons; karma—actions; kurvanti—they act; saṅgam—attachment; tyaktvā—giving up; ātma—self; śuddhaye—for the purpose of purification.
TRANSLATION
The yogīs, abandoning attachment, act with body, mind, intelligence, and even with the senses, only for the purpose of purification.
PURPORT
By acting in Kṛṣṇa consciousness for the satisfaction of the senses of Kṛṣṇa, any action, whether of the body, mind, intelligence or even of the senses, is purified of material contamination. There are no material reactions resulting from the activities of a Kṛṣṇa conscious person. Therefore, purified activities, which are generally called sadācāra, can be easily performed by acting in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Śrī Rūpa Gosvāmī in his Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu describes this as follows:
īhā yasya harer dāsye karmaṇā manasā girā
nikhilāsv apy avasthāsu jīvanmuktaḥ sa ucyate
A person acting in Kṛṣṇa consciousness (or, in other words, in the service of Kṛṣṇa) with his body, mind, intelligence and words is a liberated person even within the material world, although he may be engaged in many so-called material activities. He has no false ego, nor does he believe that he is this material body, nor that he possesses the body. He knows that he is not this body and that this body does not belong to him. He himself belongs to Kṛṣṇa, and the body too belongs to Kṛṣṇa. When he applies everything produced of the body, mind, intelligence, words, life, wealth, etc.—whatever he may have within his possession—to Kṛṣṇa's service, he is at once dovetailed with Kṛṣṇa. He is one with Kṛṣṇa and is devoid of the false ego that leads one to believe that he is the body, etc. This is the perfect stage of Kṛṣṇa consciousness.
Reference: Bhagavad Gita As It Is, translation and commentary by Swami A C Bhaktivedanta, original Macmillan 1972 edition.
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