Enlightenment
Faithfully
traversing the diverse paths and disciplines of Yoga, Lokenath eventually
reached the pinnacle of Realization. He had attained the Self, that state
of being one with the Absolute ground of reality. He was at one with the
Beloved. To whom could Baba speak to of this unique state of mind? Who
would understand His language of the beyond?
There were a number of times when Baba did speak of the enlightened state:
"Words are such poor vehicles to express the inner experience. Any attempt
to reduce it to words only belittles the Ultimate Truth. It is like the
mute trying to express the taste of nectar."
"Everything that exists in the infinite creation exists within Myself.
The whole Universe is within Me. I am existence beyond space, time and
causation. My existence is without beginning or end. I exist in eternal
expansion. These words are not meant to be shared. That is the reason
you see Me spending time with the householders, granting their mundane
demands. Do not think when I am busy with you all in worldly matters,
that I lose touch with that blissful state. No. Whoever achieves that
state can never fall from it. Nothing can ever again be seen in isolation.
Everything is seen as the expression of the One. In variety is the taste
of Unity."
"Because I eat, drink, attend to the call of nature and live like any
one of you, you think of Me as one like you. Your greatest mistake is
to think of Me as a body. How am I to explain who I am? Everyone is so
involved in the fulfillment of small desires, so unconscious, so forgetful
of the true 'I'.
Baba Lokenath's expressions of identification with Ultimate Truth flow
like divine music from the world beyond. They echo the words of Lord Krishna
in the Bhagavad Gita, "Ignorant people seeing Me in human form mistake
Me for an ordinary human. They fail to realize that I am the Paramatman
(God)." (Gita, 9.11)
There is also a Vedic text which explains Baba's state of Yoga: "The One
Divine Being is hidden in all beings; He is omnipresent, the Indwelling
Self of all beings, the witness, the one who imparts consciousness, unconditioned
and without qualities." (Svetasvatara Upanishad. 6.11)
Recalling His time in the Himalayas, Baba Lokenath said, "While in samadhi,
heaps of snow would cover My body and would melt away. In that sublime
state I had no feeling of the existence of My body. I was in that state
of samadhi for a long time. Then, finally the effortless state of the
Ultimate Truth was revealed. In that state of consciousness, there was
no difference between me, the rest of the cosmos and all its manifestations.
The inner and the outer all merged into each other as an expression of
ultimate bliss, absolute joy. There is no state beyond this to be achieved
in human life with total effort and divine grace."
When Baba Lokenath reached this state of Buddhahood by flowering into
divinity, the whole of nature celebrated. For Mother Nature takes a long
time to bring the Divine Seed to bloom. Baba was ninety years old and
His Guru was a grand old man of hundred and fifty years.
