The Self is always the same Reality at all times and everywhere. He is totally Free and replete with Bliss. No description of His State can do It justice really, because He is so Awesome that only after realizing Him, one can fully understand His nature. Though He is everywhere, His Abode is Kailāsa in Sahasrāra, in the crown of the head. The person who realizes Him does assume His characteristics too. Such a sage is always beyond the fate of his mind and body, i.e. he does not associate his real "I" or Self with mind and body.
I used the verb "to realize" because the verb "to know" is not the proper one as the Self is the Supreme Knower all the time. He is not an object to be known but the Knower of all. Hence, the acquisition of His State is always connected with an actual recognition or realization of one's own Self, and not with a "knowledge" about the Self. Can you follow me? Good!
Most people do not have their Sahasrāra fully active because it is not at all necessary in their case. Only the spiritually advanced ones are given the gift of a Sahasrāra fully active, at least for a certain period of time. It is His gift for a deserving aspirant who strived for Final Liberation for long. Sahasrāra is used exclusively for Self-realization always. For the rest of actions and processes, the rest of cakra-s is more than enough. It is like a racing car to be only used in circuits and not as a regular car that is used in the city, etc. In the same way, Sahasrāra is only intended for the acquisition of the State of the Self.
When Sahasrāra gets activated in a massive way, the person is forced to abandon his physical body due to the intensity of his Self-realization. This is Liberation coupled with leaving the body. On the other hand, if Sahasrāra gets activated gradually, as it were, at the time of his Liberation, he will probably retain his body. This is Liberation coupled with keeping the physical body. Anyway, from the viewpoint of the liberated one, there is no difference between abandoning or retaining the body because Liberation puts him beyond all those differences. Leaving or keeping the body is only significant for all those people watching how the sage attain Liberation. As the Highest Reality is a compact mass of Absolute Freedom and Bliss, once one realizes this compact mass thoroughly, all is the same to him.
Before becoming an enlightened being, every person had to be a spiritual aspirant first, whether in this life or in a previous one. There is no other way out. I defined three categories of aspirant according to his level of spiritual maturity. Of course, different scriptures have their own way to classify them, but my classification is one that is simpler to understand, in my opinion, since the aspirants are labeled as beginner, middle and advanced instead of, e.g. unawakened, awakened, well-awakened, perfectly well awakened (this description occurs in one of the most important Tantra-s).
The aspirant who is a beginner generally speaks about the Self like this: "I was taught that I am the Self... so, what else is left for me to do here?". In other words, he misunderstands the teaching and starts to act as if he were a fully enlightened person. This is because the main quality of ego is appropriation of that which is not of oneself. The beginner uses to speak like a liberated one without being one. In his case, the teaching appears only as a theory in his intellect and not as an actual realization of the Truth. Yes, he is the Self (as everybody is), but not having realized Him it is as if he was not the Self after all. The Self is svatantra or "dependent on Himself" while the beginner is paratantra or "dependent on another". For example, his happiness is always depending on the external circumstances. He has no autonomous "happiness" but it totally depends on external factors such as body, relatives, work, weather, etc. This is due to his innate impurity (Āṇavamala) bringing about "lack of fullness". I gave the example of a eunuch announcing that his wife is the most beautiful woman, but at the same time, since he is unable to enjoy her, having her as a wife in his case is practically useless. Another example is this:
"I have the fastest car ever"... "Where do you have it?"... "Parked in my garage because I do not know how to drive it".
That example also shows the condition of a beginner that, though he is the Self, not being able to realize Him, is unable to fully enjoy Him. In the example, that person will have to learn how to drive a car, and next he will have to go to a circuit and learn how to drive his awesome car at maximum speed without crashing. Can you follow me? All this process is known as "spiritual path". If the things were so easy as "to be the Self" and that is it, everybody would be quite liberated right now and forever. So, it is about "to realize that one is the Self" always. This is the difference between a beginner and a liberated person. While the former is still with his amazing car parked in the garage due to his incapacity, the latter is driving it at maximum speed. Yes, it is just an example, but very handy in showing how these spiritual processes really work.
The middle aspirant knows that he is the Self, but also knows that that is not enough. He strives for an actual realization of his own Self then. Anyway, he still believes that Self-realization is related to performing actions. So, his spiritual practice is full of actions, e.g. rituals, meditations through various techniques, chanting, etc. He frequently bumps into states of void because he is still not worthy to attain Final Liberation. Hence he experiences the Self who is Light and Bliss as a boring state of void who is only the result of the presence of his own innate impurity or Āṇavamala. Some of them, bewildered by the experience of mere void, start to think that that is Final Liberation. By the way, there are several schools of thought completely based on the state of void. They were founded by these middle aspirants who, in their ignorance, mistook the Self for something else, i.e. the void. In Śivasūtra-s (III, 35), this kind of aspirants are defined as a compact mass of delusion because they are all the time involved in actions. Despite the drawbacks in the form of a middle aspirant possibly being made confused by the experience of void, this stage is a necessary one in order to progress toward the stage of an advanced aspirant. For the most part, the middle aspirant will spend many years performing spiritual practices before getting to the final stage preceding Self-realization. I have also quoted Spandakārikā-s I, 25 and Spandanirṇaya I, 13 in order to make this topic even clearer.
The advanced spiritual aspirant is just fed up with "I", i.e. with ego, and only says: "The Self Is", because after so many years undergoing process after process, he realized his absolute powerlessness when it comes to an actual realization of the Self. The Self can be considered here, as it were, like a "real I" in contrast with "ego" (a false I). While ego is the superstar on the stage of one's life, one is bound to remain in bondage. The key to advance in spirituality is forgetting ego or false I. This is easier said than done, of course. In fact, it cannot be accomplished without the Grace of the very Self. As the advanced aspirant knows that, he puts Him in the first place always even if his ego takes offense at his attitude. People with a high degree of ego cannot advance in spirituality because their ego is the everlasting stone in their shoes. Ego is not only "arrogance", as usually interpreted, but false I-ness. For example: "I am Gabriel" or "I am this body" or "I am from this country" or "I am thin" or "I am not nice", etc. Although the advanced aspirant has to use his ego as a facade in order to work in this world (e.g. he cannot go voting and say "I am the unfathomable Self who has become all the parties here" or meet other people and state "I am all of you at every moment everywhere", because that, though true, would be just off-target and socially pestering), inside (i.e. internally), he puts the Self on the stage as the real superstar to be applauded and praised at all times.
Meanwhile, such an aspirant stays vigilant, with his mind completely empty, for His Revelation. At first, His Revelation or spontaneous Emergence occurs at the beginning and end of the three usual states of consciousness (waking, dreaming and deep sleep). Next, when the Self reveals Himself to him even in the middle of waking, dreaming and deep sleep, he attains the state of suprabuddha or perfectly awakened for the time His Emergence lasts. As the process continues, His Revelations last longer and longer until he is lastly able to experience Self-realization constantly, during the three states of consciousness. This person is a full suprabuddha or liberated while living.
I quoted teachings from Spandanirṇaya I, 17 and from Spandakārikā-s I, 17 to make my point even clearer.
Bestowal of Grace by the Self occurs gradually in general. And it happens exactly as described in Śivasūtra-s I, 5. When the Self emerges that way, spontaneously, His Power who has risen up to the hole of Brahmā (Brahmarandhra) in the crown of the head, after penetrating into the flame there, gets totally dissolved into the State of the Self called Unmanā. Yes, I will explain this subject fully when I write my commentary on the third section, but you can read something about it in the Meditation 6 document.
According to the sage Patañjali, the way to get right knowledge is through direct perception, inference (deduction) and testimony: Pātañjalayogasūtra-s I, 7. As the perfectly awakened one is in such a high state of consciousness, he prefers direct perception over the other two ways to get right knowledge.
In order to fully establish what the state of a liberated one is like, I quoted Spandakārikā-s I, 18. True spirituality is always based on the knowledge of the perfectly awakened one who is Free like the Supreme Self, and never on the knowledge of an atomic self who is dependent on another the whole day and night despite all his airs of supposed independence. For example, a limited individual cannot cope with the simple task to keep his body working constantly for a lifetime. It is always the Self through His Power who is the real Doer and never the atomic self who is an invention of this very Power. This is why the key to Final Liberation is His remembrance and not the usual remembrance of the atomic self that is completely depending on the Self for every thing in his life, and that is always besieged by pleasure and pain. Regarding that, there is no doubt at all.
If someone now thinks: "But the atomic self is really the Self, you know", so he is a beginner in spirituality as it was explained above. Why? Because though true, if there is no actual Self-realization his saying is mere theory and not a constant experience. And if someone has that realization, he will not bring the question that the Self is the atomic self after all, because pointing that out would be just unnecessary and foolish. When I said that the atomic self is always intent on conspiring against the Self I meant to say exactly that, viz. occupied in constant machinations and off-target commentaries on This who is superior and completely Free: "The Self just does not exist... everything came from mere nothingness", "The Self exists and is only mine", "The Self, if He exists, is not fair to humankind at all", "Why is the Self abandoning His sons?", "My group is the only one in contact with Him", etc. Anyway, here a little hurricane comes and all those atomic beings run away in terror for their lives. What is lower cannot judge or take possession of This who is superior in all respects. Besides, when even the mosquitoes are the Self too, what is the use of mere statement in the form of "I am the Self" without any actual realization of this Blissful Self backing it up?
Return to the first part: Categories of Spiritual Aspirants (Part 1)
Source of this scripture: Svātantryasūtravṛtti