The Journey to Self Realization

The Augustinian holy monk, Thomas Haemmerlin in his famous book, The Imitation of Christ, said, "Entangle not thy heart to any creature. Thy beloved is of the nature that He will admit no rival. He would like to occupy the heart alone."

If we are devotees of our chosen Lord, the heart must be cleared of all impurities and emptied of attachments to persons. If we want the vision of our beloved goal, then, as Thomas says, He must occupy the throne of our heart alone. He does not admit of any rival. Then naturally a question may be asked, 'We are surrounded by our relatives, mother, husband, wife, children and so many kinds of acquaintances. What are we to do?

Yes, we can love them all but we should try to see our beloved goal, our beloved desire, beloved deity in all. Our whole love should be only for our goal. If we get attached to the body-mind complex, which is not going to last, we shall be forgetting that we are the eternally free spirit. If we get attached to a particular person, i.e., a body, then we are caught in ignorance, and there will be no liberation for us. That is the reason why it has been said, 'Entangle not your heart with any creature.'

We should have the conviction that the love of God alone is abiding, that the love of all others is inconsistent and deceitful, and that we must always have our being in our desired goal. None can hope to reach God or attain perfection unless he or she gets divine grace. And divine grace does not descend on us if we proudly think too much of ourselves. Over estimating ourselves closes the door of divine grace.

There was the great Christian saint, Peter of Damascus, who wrote, 'Nothing is better than to realize one's own weakness and ignorance.' The foundation of every virtue is the realization that 'I; alone cannot do anything unless God comes to my help. We have to realize our nothingness, and with all humility, we should constantly ask for God's help in all our undertakings.

Should we fall in the estimation of others or should we begin to underestimate ourselves or, may, should people entertain a poor opinion of us-then we have to realize that this has happened for our own good. This happens to make us humble and make us pray to the Almighty to give us strength so that we redouble all our efforts again. It is with this purpose and to this end that God allows us to be assailed by different kinds of temptations and weaknesses.

During the course of a day, we indulge in innumerable thoughts; we speak a lot and do a lot of things. If we try to analyze and do a little introspection of a particular day, we may find that most of the words and thoughts were sinful, foolish and wrong. This is just a self analysis of one day. If we are careful enough to contemplate, we shall regret, 'Oh, one day of my valuable human life has gone in vain. I indulged in so much sinful thoughts and deeds.'