Question & Answer sessions with HH Sri Datta Vijayananda Teertha Swamiji – 2015
Do Sadhana for realisation
Question :
If all beings emerge from the Supreme Reality itself, would they not be already liberated souls? If so, where is the need to search for Enlightenment? Did Ignorance envelop the beings after Creation? Is that why Sadguru guides them on the path to Liberation? What is the purpose of this Creation?
Answer :
This is a very deep question. That Creation has occurred and Ignorance came afterwards, is itself the greatest delusion. Creation is an illusion. It never occurred. It is imaginary. If we are already liberated, why try for enlightenment?
This is like saying, I think I am a doctor, therefore I am a doctor, and there is no need to study medicine. That is not acceptable.
If you wish to become a doctor, there is a doctor already inside you. But, only if you go through the training, you will be recognized as a physician. You have imagined yourself, projecting into the future thirty years, as wearing a white coat, sporting a stethoscope, treating patients, performing surgeries, receiving praises from the
patients, and winning awards. But this daydreaming does not make you a doctor.
You are ever free. All are liberated since all are the Supreme Reality itself, which is ever free. But the individual must experience that he is liberated. For that, spiritual practices are essential. If you tell yourself that you are liberated, and yet remain drowned in ignorance, you are not liberated.
Telling yourself that you are a doctor, but refusing to attend medical school, won’t make you a doctor. If you wish to become a CA, you have to train for it. The Upanishads gave the knowledge that you are always free. Sadguru teaches that you are a free and blissful soul and are unnecessarily subjecting yourself to torment. But that is hearsay. You have not personally experienced it. You must do Sadhana. Then you will realize that you are indeed a liberated soul and it is your eternal state. That is why spiritual practice is required.
That Creation has occurred, and ignorance entered into Creation afterwards, and Creation has thrown you into delusion, are all wrong perceptions. Creation is one’s own fabrication, is what Advaita Vedanta teaches us.