One must be desirous of knowing the ultimate truth. Pursuit of truth is most difficult. But it is not difficult for those serious seekers who want nothing other than the truth. Receptivity is needed in pursuit of truth. Accumulated knowledge or scriptural mastery or logical conclusions are not yardstick in pursuit of truth.
One cannot imagine the truth and imagination is not truth. Imagination is possible only when there is duality. Duality is false hood. All our individual experiences are part and parcel of the duality. Therefore our individual experiences of birth, life, death and the world are falsehood. To realize it is falsehood one has to realize the fact that, the self is neither the waking entity nor the dream entity but the self is the formless substance and witness of the three states.
Only when one becomes aware of that he is in bondage, when he gets the idea of the soul. He tries to know the soul, which is inner most self. When he becomes aware of the fact that, the inner most self is not the form but it is formless, then only the urge of liberation arises. Once this urge arises then it is impossible to get rid of it. Thus he becomes restless until he becomes aware of the truth he is seeking for.
The soul, which is the innermost self, is in the form of consciousness. The self is prior to all, bondage and liberation, truth and falsehood. Its existence is self-proved, it cannot be doubted, for it is the essential nature of him who doubts it.
It is known in immediate perception, prior to all proof. Self is eternal, immutable and complete. Bondage is its association with the three states through ignorance. The self is neither the waking entity nor the dream entity but it is the formless witness of the waking or dream as the whole. Until one is ignorant he thinks on the base of his waking entity or ego as self and judges on the base of the ego or physical self. This is cause of ignorance and cause of all doubts and confusion. Therefore, his reasoning base has to be rectified from form to formless in order to know what is truth and what is untruth.
Soul is the true self. The true self is in the form of consciousness. Consciousness is something other than the physical existence because it cannot be traced as thing or an object. It pervades in everything and everywhere in the whole physical existence. It is the cause of the physical existence and it itself is uncaused.
Consciousness persists through all three states. One has to mentally negate all the three states in order to realize the fact that the witness is within the three states and it is without the three states. It is within the three states as their formless substance and it is without the three states as their formless witness.
The true existence is consciousness without the form, time and space. Therefore the self is nothing other than the consciousness. However, this consciousness is not the flux of states, a stream of consciousness.
Consciousness is the knower, knowledge, the known. It is infinite, transcendent, the essence of absolute knowledge. And it is also -illumined, free, and real. Thus the consciousness is the knower of all and all else is known other than consciousness. The known is mere illusion created out of the formless knower. Therefore, the knower and the known are one in essence. In reality there is neither the knower nor the known but only oneness.
