God-Realization versus Self-realization

You are not God. No part of you is God, waiting to be discovered, uncovered, or remembered. God's Presence is not in you prior to Grace. You are not a spirit or soul. You are not a spiritual being having a human experience. You are an ego having an egoic experience. You are not God-Realized, Enlightened or Blissful. You are not an illusion. You have not existed before your birth, and you are going nowhere when you die. You are born and you exist, and then you die and do not exist. You are simply an individual, an ego, a separate consciousness, and you are a temporary part of natural creation. You do not have an ego; you are an ego. An ego is that which you are, and you use your mind, self-energy and body to protect and feed you, the ego. An ego is not simply vanity as per the common notion of "ego", but the ego is you, the island of separate consciousness. You can go nowhere where the ego is not, for you are the ego, the separate one, an individual. The ego is the place as and from which you now exist. You cannot get away from you. You cannot leave you behind.

You are indeed an individual, an ego, a separate consciousness, and you are indeed a temporary part of natural creation. However, your mind and body have a Potential that is unlike any other aspect of creation: the Realization and Incarnation of God. Your mind and body can be a Vehicle for All of God in the world of space and form. However, notice that I am not Saying that you have the Potential to Realize and Incarnate God, but the mind and body have that Possibility. To Fully Realize God, and become Identical to That, the you that seeks to Realize God must Dissolve, must Die, and must be completely out of God's way, and not merely moved to one side. Only the mind and body can become Perfectly Integral with, and Perfectly Identical to, the Infinite and Eternal Consciousness and Mind of God. You cannot.

You do not have a Higher Self, lurking off deep in the unconscious. Even though you may feel rather insane at times, you are not two beings: you are not a lowerself, and a Higher Self. You cannot be finite, temporary, and of form, while another part of you is Infinite, Eternal, and Formless. You are you, and only you, an ego, an individual, a temporary and separate consciousness. The truth is, you have no Higher Self: there is you, and there is God, and the two can never become integral or identical. You have no Higher Self. God is not your Higher Self. You are you, and God is God. You are your self, and God is Him Self. The two are completely distinct, completely dissimilar, and in complete opposition. The idea that "somewhere in there" you are God, is a powerful vanity, and is also used to console the throngs of failed, suffering spiritual seekers.

The Way of Freedom is also not about making you a Divine self. You are natural and can never be Divine. Nature is exactly opposite to God and Divinity in everyway, and nature can never become inherently Divine. You are not already God or Divine, and you can never become God or Divine.

If you are seeking self-realization, then know that you are already self-realized, just as the other billions of people on the planet. You are already "realizing" and being yourself. You cannot help but be self-realized,because you are already and only yourself, an ego, an individual, a separate consciousness. You are not God-Realized, but, by simply being born and matured, you are already self-realized. You need not waste any more time seeking self-realization. You have arrived.

God's One Way of Freedom is not about any form of self-realization. And it is not about making you a better self. The Way of Freedom is about Realizing God. And God is not you, and is completely Other-Than you.

However, The Way of Freedom also goes beyond the typical spiritual conception of God-Realization, which is that, "I can Realize God.". You are an ego, a limited,separate, suffering, temporary individual. And, since you are completely other-than God, then, quite literally, you can never Realize God. Therefore, The Way of Freedom is not even about you Realizing God. Many of those on the spiritual circuit who are professing to seek God-Realization, are indeed sincerely seeking to Realize God, but they are seeking the impossible. God's Way is about the Incarnation of God. From your perspective, The Way is about you getting out of the way, but not merely stepping to one side, and allowing God to be Realized by, and Incarnated Through, the mind and body.

True God-Realization is actually the Incarnation of God, and is not you Realizing God, and is not you becoming Enlightened. The you can never Realize God, and can never become Enlightened, because it is you, and your stuff and ways, that must be Removed and out of the way, for God to be Realized by, and Incarnated Through, that mind and body.

The Way of Freedom is also not about making you Free and Blissful. Freedom and Bliss Exist only in the absence of the state, stuff, and ways of self. True and Perfect Freedom and Bliss are not other-than God, and without the state, stuff,and ways of individuality remaining. Freedom and Bliss Exist only in the State of Only God. Yes, Personal Bliss is Realized upon True Incarnation, but no one remains to enjoy or cling to it. Most essentially, The Way of Freedom is about Freedom, and Bliss is simply a Quality inherent within the Formless State of Freedom. But, until you intuitively understand The Way of Freedom, you will want the Bliss, but without the Freedom. Without understanding, you will seek Bliss,and will avoid Freedom. You want to remain intact, and suck-up the Bliss, but you will never achieve that goal, for it is impossible to be a Blissful individual. Instead, seek to Realize Selfless Freedom, and do not seek self-feeding Bliss. Seek Freedom, not personal Bliss. Yet, be not content with the personal suffering of individuality, but let the suffering drive you on to Freedom, as a man thirsting in the desert, and on the verge of death unless he drinks fully of the Living Water. The Bliss is indeed there in Freedom, but with no one left to enjoy or cling to it. Freedom is its own Supreme Destiny, and all else is contained Therein. Sacrifice the constrictive, imploding life of fear,clinging, and self-feeding, including the desire for personal Bliss. Freedom Awaits.

Allow The Incarnation of God (Through Ending The State, Stuff, and Ways of You),versus Clinging, Self-protection, Self-feeding, and Self- improvement - The natural life is only about protecting, feeding, filling, embellishing, and improving the individual; while only The Way of Freedom is about Ending the state, stuff, and ways of self, and only The Way of Freedom is about the Incarnation of God. The natural life is about clinging: clinging to self, and clinging to all that protects and feeds self. The natural life is that which the masses are always doing. The natural life is that of protecting, feeding,filling, embellishing, and improving individuality. The natural life is the life of clinging to self, and to all that protects and feeds self. It matters not whether that which a person is doing in any given moment is considered ordinary,religious, or spiritual, because it is only about clinging, and is only about protecting, feeding, filling, embellishing, or improving individuality, and is,therefore, only the natural life. Only The Way of Freedom is Unnatural, because only The Way of Freedom is about Ending the limitation and suffering of self and its clinging ways, and only The Way is about allowing the Incarnation of God.

All the spiritual teachings, paths, and practices found on the spiritualcircuit, are only about protecting, feeding, filling, embellishing, or improving individuality. They are all about clinging: clinging to self, and clinging to all that protects and feeds self. Therefore, a spiritual life is a natural life. The spiritual circuit is filled with teachings, paths, and practices which promise to make you blissful or at least feel better, or to make you spiritual or enlightened, or to give you some spiritual experience, or to make you or your life better in some other way. Spiritual teachings also commonly promise that there is a way for you to live longer, or for you to at least survive your physical death. However, the profound error of spirituality is that it only strengthens self and its ways, and, therefore, also only increases suffering. But, as the reader discovers as he studies, the ordinary and religious lives do the same as spirituality, because they are all the same natural life of protecting, feeding, filling, embellishing, and improving individuality. They are all about clinging. To live the natural life, to seek the protection, feeding, filling, embellishment, and improvement of individuality, to cling, regardless of the means, is to strengthen the state, stuff, and ways of individuality. And, to live the natural life, to strengthen the state, stuff, and ways of individuality, to cling, only increases the suffering that you are.The natural life only reinforces the state, stuff, and ways of limitation and suffering that you are. Individuality is the state, stuff, and ways of limitation and suffering. You are limitation and suffering; you are individuality; you are an individual.

From Sri Dava Prakasha - a very uncompromising teacher