What is left to do in life after realising the Self? Sri Adi Sankaracharya says in the Vivekachoodamani that the primary responsibility is to know the Self by one’s own experience. This Self is one whole. There are no parts or split pieces in it. Having efficiently realised the Self, the only thing left is to sit face-to-face without being assailed by doubts and fears, in one’s own Self.The concluding message of Vedanta is this—Life and all that is in the world is Brahman alone. Freedom is to realise that this limitless form of the Self is the non-dual reality. The words of the Upanishads are proof of this.
The student who asked many questions about this truth to the Guru in the beginning of the Vivekachoodamani has listened to a really long discourse from the Master. These are not just words spoken by the teacher from his own experience, but are based on the words from the scriptures. The student has his own understanding of the Supreme through his own efforts of contemplation and meditation. Not stopping with listening, contemplating and realising, the student has also mastered his senses and has controlled the mind. His mind has now assumed an immobile and steady presence in the
Self within.
Having led the mind to be established in the Self for a considerable period of time, the student rises from that supremely blissful state and says, “The intellect that distinguishes between me and not me has gone. As a result of the loss of this faculty, all purposeful actions have also dropped. I move on in this course of experiencing the oneness of myself with the one Supreme reality. Now I have no separate consciousness of what is this and what is not this. Having reached the shores of bliss, I do not ask what, where, when or
how much!”
The words of the realised seeker are almost a song and dance of bliss. Getting immersed in the celebration that is Brahman, the seeker is neither able to speak nor think; so much he is immersed in the immortal bliss of the Self. The mind experiences the state of an ice stone falling from a hail storm into the ocean. Even experiencing a wee bit of that immense ocean of joy, the mind is fully dissolved into that bliss of which it only seemed apparently different.
Where has it gone, this world? Who has taken it away from my vision? The world that I just saw before this absorption of mind is completely not there now. These words of the seeker, who has found the Self, are not talking of any physical disappearance of the world, its people and objects. The difference between the individual and everything surrounding it alone has gone. This is a supremely wonderful oceanic experience of merging feelings into the cosmic whole.