The Self Realized Soul

TRANSLATION. Because he has achieved his real identity, the perfectly realized soul has no conception of how the material body is moving or acting, just as an intoxicated person cannot understand whether or not he has clothing on his body.

PURPORT. This stage of life is explained by Rupa Gosvami in his Bhakti-rasamrta-sindhu. A person whose mind is completely dovetailed with the desire of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and who engages one hundred percent in the service of the Lord, forgets his material bodily demands.

(S.B. 3.28.37)

Herein the word sva-drstavadbhih is very significant. One who has actually realized his self realizes the transcendental form of one's self. Impersonal realization of self and the Supreme is not complete, because it is just an opposite conception of material personalities. The Personality of Godhead and the personalities of devotees of the Lord are all transcendental; they do not have material bodies.

(S.B. 2.9.9)

In the Brahma-samhita (5.38) it is stated that when one's eyes are smeared with love of Krsna (premanjana-cchurita), he always sees Krsna, outside and inside. This is confirmed here; one should be freed from all other vision, and in that way he is freed from the false egoistic identification and sees himself as the eternal servitor of the Lord. Caksusevarkam: as we can see the sun without a doubt, one who is fully developed in Krsna consciousness sees Krsna and His energy. By this vision one becomes atma-drk, or self-realized. When the false ego of identifying the body with the self is removed, actual vision of life is perceivable. The senses, therefore, also become purified. Real service of the Lord begins when the senses are purified.

(S.B. 3.27.10)

There are five different rasas or humors, in which we are eternally related with the Supreme Lord. And when we are actually in the liberated stage of all knowledge, we can understand that "Our relationship with the Lord is in this way." That is called svarupa-siddhi. That is real self- realization. That is real self-realization. Everyone has an eternal relationship with the Lord, either in the conception of master and servant, or in the conception of friend and friend, or in the conception of parents and the child, or in the conception of husband and wife, or in the conception of paramour and lover, and the beloved. So these relationships are there eternally.

(B.G. Lecture 6.1-4, New York, 2nd September, 1966)

When one engages in the transcendental devotional service of the Lord one becomes aware that his constitutional position, as an individual soul, is to be eternally a servitor of the Supreme Lord, Vasudeva. Self-realization does not mean that because the Supreme Soul and the individual soul are both souls they are equal in every respect. The individual soul is prone to be conditioned, and the Supreme Soul is never conditioned. When the conditioned soul realizes that he is subordinate to the Supreme Soul, his position is called labdhatma, self-realization, or mukta-bandhana, freedom from material contamination. (S.B. 3.24.45)

This is God consciousness, Krsna consciousness, or self-realization. Self-realization means either you see yourself or see the Supreme Lord, either way. But without seeing the Supreme Lord, you cannot see yourself. Just like without seeing the sun in the darkness...Just like it is now night. There is no sun. So I cannot see also. In darkness I cannot see also myself. But when there is sun in the morning, I can see the sun and I can see myself also.

(B.G. Lecture 7.1, 27th April, 1974, Hyderabad)

Pure self-realization, as we have several times discussed, is the pure consciousness of admitting oneself to be the eternal servitor of the Lord. Thus one is reinstated in his original position of transcendental loving service to the Lord, as will be clearly explained in the following verse. This stage of rendering transcendental loving service to the Lord without any hopes of emolument from the Lord, or any other way, can be attained when the material senses are purified and the original pure state of the senses is revived.

(S.B. 2.2.30)

Actual self-realization means becoming a pure devotee of the Lord. The existence of a devotee implies the function of devotion and the object of devotion. Self-realization ultimately means to understand the Personality of Godhead and the living entities; to know the individual self and the reciprocal exchanges of loving service between the Supreme Personality of Godhead and the living entity is real self-realization. This cannot be attained by the impersonalists or other transcendentalists; they cannot understand the science of devotional service. Devotional service is revealed to the pure devotee by the unlimited causeless mercy of the Lord.

(S.B. 3.27-28-29)