Sometimes in the spiritual life it is very good for us to try to apply our common sense to the teachings that we have, which at times can be confusing. Someone once said that a saint has his head in heaven and his feet on the ground. And this could be a description of how our spiritual life goes. Sometimes it is very mundane as we go through our routine spiritual practices. Other times it can be as if we have our head in the skies, and it is very abstract.

Last night our speaker was talking about a devotee seeing everything including himself as a manifestation of God. This can conjure up in our mind very abstract concepts, and it is difficult to bring them down to earth. What is it that we are really seeking? Some people will even suggest a state where the mind stops.

But this is not what we see in the saints. We see something different about the saints, but we see opople whose feet are very much on the ground. They think, they feel, they have memory. In fact, outwardly, except for a degree of charisma, a degree of compassion and something that we feel is different about them, they function exactly the same as we do. But what about inwardly? What is their state inwardly, the state that we are seeking?

Only a saint knows what a saint is. But there are some things that we can observe. They themselves don’t see themselves as a separate person. They see everything as oneness, and so, therefore, rather interestingly, if they are addressed by their name, sometimes, perhaps for a moment, they don’t know who you’re speaking about. At our meeting earlier this year, when someone was referring to Swamiji, he responded: “Where is Swami Chidananda?” One of us should have had the wit to say: “He’s nowhere and everywhere,” but we didn’t catch on to the question that Swamiji was asking.

So, they have no sense of a separate individual. There’s only the sense of oneness everywhere. This is liberation—to be free of a sense of individuality. This is also true humility. If I think I know something more than you know, there’s no humility there. There’s ego and arrogance. But when I see you as exactly the same as me, then who know what? There’s no person who knows anything more than anyone else. And that is true humility.

That also brings with it compassion. When I see you as my own self, then I suffer with you because I am your own self. Compassion means suffer with. You are me, and so spontaneously my heart goes out to you, an I want to help you in any way that I can.

What we must realise is that we’re not seeking something that is up in the air. We are seeking something that is very much here and now. It is not an attainment that we’re going to get from somewhere else. It is to realise right now that there is no separate individual. There’s no other person that we’re speaking to. We are not another person. Nothing needs to change except that recognition. There is no other person. When people speak to me, they are not speaking to a separate person. They’re speaking to their own self.

So, whether everything, including ourselves, is a manifestation of the Lord or everything is just our ownself, it adds up to the same thing. Liberation means being free of a sense of a separate self. It is something that is here and now. It is something that we already are. What we require is the recognition of the present fact.