As the river merges in the sea and looses its identity completely.

[Guest guest]

A sharp and focussed intellect is needed in the 'inquiry stage' of spirituality. Swami says that two thirds of 'sadhana' is inquiry. We must be clear of our aim in spirituality. What must be the aim?. It is loosing the individuality and merging in the eternal. It is like a river that merges in the sea. Once the merger is effected, the river looses its individual identity and it becomes one with the sea. Prior to that it has a separate contour and shape, the water quality before merger was different. Once the merger takes place, it not only looses its shape and contour and become salty, i.e, one with the ocean. There is bright light above in the sky. A bird starts ascending in the sky. As long as it is within the visibility limit, we can identify the bird to an extent. Let us assume that it ascends nearer to the effulgance of light source, then the bird too becomes one with the light and no separate shape of the bird can be cognized. The second example is from the cover page of Shri Narayana Kasthuri's Autobiography. Those who are fortunate to go through the beautiful cover can understand the theme behind the cover. Like the cover, Shri Kasthuri too had a distinct identity and Swami enabled him to ascend to such heights, that Kasthuri's identity too merged in the effulgance of the Divine. Sairam.