Sometimes, you might wonder “Am I on the right path to enlightenment?”
Well, let’s see:
How does one know that one is on the right path to enlightenment?
What is the even “right path”?
One can never be truly sure of outside things. The blue you see might be different from the blue I see. The sound of a bird singing might evoke different feelings to me than it does to you. Some objects might have a different meaning to you than they have to me. If asked to describe the planet Earth, ten people would probably come up with ten completely different answers.
Everyone seems to see the same world, yet they all see a different world—their own projection. This so-called physical world appears when we wake up and disappears when we go to sleep or fall unconscious.
Although it might seem pretty solid… it is so fragile. Whenever someone sits down, relaxing, that person either gets lost in thoughts/mini-dreams (world starts fading) or starts falling asleep (world starts fading). If you concentrate really hard on something, the peripheral world starts disappearing as well.
It seems like whenever we withdraw our attention from it, it just starts fading! Our awareness of it is not really continuous.
So, we can never be truly sure about any of that. Any path following such external world-dependency just can’t truly be the right path to enlightenment. This is true, not only for people that are highly dependent upon external gurus, but also for those highly reliant on their “spiritual practice,” “meditation,” or whatever “spiritual thing” they do. All those things might be present today, but one day, they will not be.
What then, can we be sure of?
Well, I am not sure of anything, but I am sure I exist. I am sure I am aware. Therefore existing and being aware are synonymous. If I exist, it means I am aware. If I am aware, it means I exist. Check by ourself. Even if you were to acknowledge that you don’t exist, or that you can’t be sure you exist, you would need to exist and be aware for that to even happen, which would instantly kill that argument. Existence and awareness are really the basis and irrefutable. (Obviously, I am not talking about the personality or the body here. They are just adjuncts that have no self-awareness.)
So I can only be truly sure that I exist, that I am aware. I can’t be sure you or the world exist since neither are ever-present for me. We say a dream is not real because it appears and disappears, always needing our awareness to reveal itself. Well, it is my direct experience, and everyone’s, that this world appears in the morning when we wake up and disappears at night when we fall asleep. Whenever we are unaware of this world, it doesn’t exist for us. This is everyone’s direct experience.
Since I can only be sure that I exist and that I am aware, that seems to be the only real thing for me. Focusing on myself, on “I,” on “I exist” or my “awareness” is what the post-state of Kriya, Parvastha, does.
So, whenever you are focusing on yourself, on “I,” on the background of being, of awareness, you are focusing on the only thing that you can be sure that exists, that is aware.
Doing Kriya Yoga is a process we do to still our mind and purify our subtle body enough so that we can go to the Post-state Kriya quickly and abide there. Is your practice taking you to such a peaceful Self-awareness state? Does it lead you to “witness” the witnesser?
If so, and you abide in that “I am-ness” state, then you are on the right track to enlightenment! Because that’s the only thing you can be sure that exists. Rather than abiding by illusions, no matter how subtle they are, we abide as the only thing we are really sure of—Existence-Consciousness itself (Sat-Chit).
Ponder deeply over these words, and let the light of Being fill your heart with joy.
– SantataGamana
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