God dwells in you, as you, and you don’t have to “do” anything to be God-realized or Self-realized, it is already your true and natural state. Just drop all seeking, turn your attention inward, and sacrifice your mind to the One Self radiating in the Heart of your very being. For this to be your own presently lived experience, Self-Inquiry is the one direct and immediate way.
As salt is in water, similarly, in the body, in combination with the vital breath, the consciousness appears. It is the consciousness that feels pain or pleasure, not the body or the vital breath. Once you know that you are not the body, all the concepts about pain and pleasure will disappear by themselves. Are you convinced that this is true?
To keep quiet and watch for yourself is called meditation. Remaining in what you have heard here is called spiritual practice.
Rest in a natural way like a small child.
Rest like an ocean without waves.
Rest within clarity like a candle flame.
Rest without self-concerns like a human corpse.
Rest unmoving like a mountain.
One must first create peace in himself if he desires to see peace in the world; for lacking peace within, no effort of his can bring any result.
In order to gain this peace we have to begin with ourselves. There are fights going on within us between spirit and matter. Struggles for our daily bread, and want of peace in our surroundings. We must first get this peace within ourselves before we can talk of peace in the world. Then we must be at peace with our surroundings, and never do or say anything that disturbs that peace. All thoughts, words, and actions that disturb the peace are sin, and all thoughts words, and actions that create peace are virtue.
This Atman, resplendent and pure, whom the sinless sannyasins behold residing within the body, is attained by the unceasing practice of truthfulness, austerity, right knowledge, and continence.
