SELF-REALISATION
‘To Know the Self as the only Reality and all else as temporal and transient is freedom, peace and joy’ Nisargadatta Maharaj’.
I have been thinking about this. There are two levels of reality, the first is the vyavaharika, that is to say, the experiential level of reality in which the body uses its senses to detect changes in the environment and conducts the necessary tasks to keep the body functioning well. In this relative level of reality the Self is a Truth-expressing inner mechanism of the mind that comes into prominence when the self (lower self) is lost and with it all beliefs, concepts, and other attachments such as aims, plans, missions, objectives, hopes, anticipations, expectations, ego, desires including desire for seeking the truth of what Reality comprises of and therefore there is nothing whatsoever left not even the Self (as Consciousness/God/Paramatman) with increasingly the self just engaging in eating, drinking and doing the body maintenance chores. Beyond this point of realisation one arrives at the level of the Absolute Reality of paramarthika. In this mode of Reality the mind does not exist at all either as it was in the going through the motions of keeping the body alive in vyvaharika reality and in which Sri Krishna God existed lying dormant in the psyche. In the Absolute Reality (paramarthika): the experiential reality of the visible world is an illusion of relative Reality or vyvaharika caused by Maya. So, from vyvaharika to paramarthika is a continuous process of increasing Realisation.
So I live now in the Absolute Reality where there is nothing to be bothered about, There is no I, no Self, no Sri Krishna, no body as anything other than the illusion that what exists has anything meaningful to be made sense out of, so no work to be done as karma or particular dharma or as sanatan dharma. There is no feeling of joy, sadness, no elation from spiritual experience, no spiritual experience at this level of Reality. The entire universe is a non-existent illusion, so I just do nothing and do not exist. This has been talked about as the state of realisation of nothingness encapsulated in the term 'shunyata'. What was the mind is now empty. So I do not exist, my mind does not exist, I am an illusion, the universe is an illusion in Absolute Reality. The terms freedom, peace, ananda, bliss, liberation, moksha, mukti, birth death etc are all meaningless now.
In Vishista-advaita Vedanta, Samadhi is the state that is henceforth defined as the mind's entry into the mode of Absolute Reality and which starts treating the vyvaharika experiential reality as an illusion not to be bothered about at all. So one is an atheist in paramarthika. In Mahasamadhi the illusion also disappears.
It is highly unlikely that until a yogi goes through the exploration of vyvaharika to fully to enter paramarthika that any of this process of Self-realisation will make sense to him. Realisation is a highly personal experience.