Life keeps flowing as existence. However, the mind chooses to move towards a direction. That direction is called a goal. If there is no goal, our existence will be aimless which makes the individual drift about in life.
When it comes to a goal, there are two types. We can strive for what we don’t have right now. That is called Apraptasya Praptih. I do not have the higher position in the office that I like, and so I work towards it. I have only some lakhs of rupees and I want crores. So I work towards that. The one who is not married looks for a life partner and gets it. The one, who is married, wants a divorce and gets it. Moving towards some goal, which we apparently don’t have right now, is the first type of searching.
The second type is Praptasya Praptih. There are the moments when we have worn our spectacles, looked through them and kept searching for them. This is the dilemma of this type of searching of what we already have. We have breath. Yet, we search and strive to experience its calm flow. This is called Veekshana Pranayama where there is no conscious breathing in deeply and exhaling completely. The breath naturally keeps flowing in and we simply observe that movement.
In this category comes the search for our own self. We as an individual are already present. The self in the form of joy and bliss is completely attained here and now. Yet, there is a need to search because of a slight error in understanding that is somewhere other than where we are right now. So the search begins in this or that object, this or that person and this or that situation.
How do I know myself? To know something, there should be the knower, the object of knowledge and the equipment through which I know. To know the contents of a cell slide in the laboratory, for instance, the experimenting student must be there. The cell slide must be there and the means of knowing—microscope should be there. In case of knowing the self or the source of happiness, it is slightly different. The object, that is the self like the cell slide, is the very subject—the knower. The subject and object are one in this case. I, the subject, must know the object of my knowledge.
By what means can this knowledge happen? I, the knower, cannot be seen by the senses, cannot be inferred like we infer fire with the presence of smoke. The third means of knowledge is the scriptural texts revealed to the masters and explained by the Guru. The Guru says: You are That Eternal Truth You Search For. And that’s it, the knowing is over.
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