Volume
Vol. 14, The Smiling Forehead
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The Different Stages of Spiritual Development
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The Paramahatma
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Vol. 14, The Smiling Forehead
The Different Stages of Spiritual Development
The Paramahatma
With the Paramatma we come to the third stage of the awakening of the consciousness, and the difference that it makes is this: - an ordinary person, Atma, gives a greater importance to the world and a lesser importance to God;
- the illuminated person, Mahatma, gives a greater importance to God and a lesser importance to the world;
- but the third person, the Paramatma, gives and does not give importance to God or to the world. He is what he is. If you say, "It is all true" he says, "Yes, it is all true." If you say, "All is false and true he says, "Yes, it is all false and true." If you say, "Is it not true?" he says, "Yes, it is not true." If you say, "All is false and not true" he says, "Yes, all is false and not true." His language becomes gibberish, you can only be puzzled by it, for communication in language is better with someone who speaks your language. As soon as the other person's word has a different sense, his language is different; it is a language foreign to what you speak in your everyday life. The Paramatma's "yes" may be " no" his "no" maybe "yes": a word means nothing to him, it is the sense. And it is not that he has got the sense, he is the sense: he becomes that which the other man pursues.
The Buddhistic term Nirvana means the stage where a person arrives at God-consciousness or all-consciousness. It is at this stage that a soul arrives. And why should not man have that privilege? If man has not that privilege, how can God have it? It is through man that God realizes His perfection. As man, God becomes conscious of His Godship, and it is in this gradual progress -- to begin as a soul and to arrive at that realization which makes that soul a divine soul -- that lies the purpose of life. The whole creation is purposed to bring about that realization. It is that realization which is recognized by the name Rasul.
You may ask, "If one soul has arrived at this realization, what is it to us?" But it is not the one: it is one and all at the same time.
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