He who thus sincerely and regularly practices this yoga of contemplation, he who has withdrawn himself from the entire world of perceived objects, he who has won a total victory over all the inner enemies, he who has lifted himself from the six main urges of the body – to him alone I, the Supreme, am directly available in an effortless act of perception.

Sri Rama points out four adjustments necessary for the spiritual seeker:

1. To one who thus regularly practices samadhi, meaning who is regular in his practice of meditation, in him the vasanas get burned up, and consequently his mental agitations become increasingly fewer. To the extent that rajas (misapprehension) gets eliminated at the mental level, to that extent tamas (nonapprehension) also gets lifted at the intellectual level. The mood of the mind-intellect under such a situation of inner peace and alertness is called a sattvic mood. A sattvic mind settles easily into a steady, contemplative mood.
2. The source of disturbance in the mind is its engagement in the world of sense objects. The mind gushes into the fields of objects only when it is whipped up by the desires in the intellect. The desire to possess, embrace, and enjoy sense objects comes out of the foolish values we entertain – the erroneous misconception that an object contains a certain amount of joy-content. Those who examine intelligently the nature of the world of things and beings and realize for themselves that finite entities are impermanent, sorrow-oozing, mind-dissipating, and therefore not desirable, end their unproductive efforts at gaining them.
3. The inner enemies are six in number: desire, anger, and so on. These six are the horrible faces of rajas, and they are the destroyers of the sattvic poise of the contemplative mind. When sattva increases, the rajoguna qualities that prompt one into continuous fields of work and exhausting anxieties naturally clam down and disappear.
4. One who has successfully escaped the six urges of the body – both gross and subtle – discovers an evergrowing intensity in one’s daily contemplation. These six physical and mental urges are exhaustively examined in the Upanisads, and the rishis have declared that hunger and thirst belong to the physiological system (prana), sorrows and passions belongs to the mind, and old age and death belong to the body.

To those who accomplish the above four necessary adjustments, to them Sri Rama declares, “I am directly available for their personal experience” Sri Rama, the supreme Self, explodes into the vision of such a contemplative mind.

Through such steady and continuous contemplation the ‘spiritual-seeker-shall become ever liberated from all bondages. Thereafter, he lives his share of destiny without the sense of “I am the body,” and in the end he merges into Me, the pure Self.

Here the nature and mode of behaviour of a man of realization are being hinted at. A more exhaustive picture of the man of perfection is eleborately painted in the Bhagavad Gita.

A true student and seeker continues to practice contemplation as advised in the previous verse, slowly bringing into his life the fulfillment of all the four conditions. These four cannot be achieved all of a sudden: the seeker has to put forth much conscious effort at self-discipline and learn to ease his way slowly toward the state of pure Self. It is slow, at times exhausting, evolutionary progress.

Once successful, the Self-realized individual remains ever liberated from all bondages. The equipments of experience (body-mind-intellect) and the fields of experience (objects-emotions-thoughts) can no longer condition him. In short, he is no more the little ego (perceiver-feeler-thinker). This egoless state becomes natural to him. In the beginning, such a state can be frighteningly shocking, confusing to those who have no devotion to the Lord. It is a new dimension of experience: no ego – yet, we experience with the “no-experiencer” in us ! One is then no more in the objective world of things and beings, but within a realm where the objective world is not and yet is fully included. Nothing is excluded from the Self.

Such a Self-realized master’s mere existence in this world is in itself a blessing to the people and their whole era.

If the Self-realized one has no identification with his equipment, if he has no vasanas to exhaust – he wants nothing, desires nothing, expects nothing – if he has gained all that is to be gained, why does he live on ? Why shouldn’t his body fall off ? What propels such a master to continue living to vigorously and continuously work for the spiritual upliftment of the people ?

Following the Upanisads’ own assertion, Sri Rama declares that such an individual “lives his share of destiny” (prarabdham-asnan). Everyone of us is living to exhaust our past vasanas, but the master lives without any identification with such happenings – he passes through such events without ego and its selfishness. Success or failure, joy or sorrow, pain or pleasure do not affect him. He does what is to be done as best as he can. He lives on, rejecting nothing, accepting all, reflecting everything, keeping nothing – like a mirror.

At the end of the body’s allotted time, when it falls off to rest in peace, the master merges to be one with Sri Rama, the supreme Self.

Understanding this samsara to be the cause of fear and grief in the beginning (childhood), in the middle (youth), and similarly also in the end (old age), the seeker should give up all identification with the equipments. Renouncing all other sadhanas prescribed in the Vedas, let him learn to contemplate steadily upon the Self in him as the one infinite Self everywhere.

In the earlier days of the spiritual sadhana, in order to learn how to fold up his or her attention from the outer world of dissipation, every student must have diligently followed, for a long period of time, the various yogas recommended by our scriptural textbooks – karma, bhakti, jnana, worship of the Lord through eleborate rituals, and so on. The samskaras (innate tendencies) are so powerful that even after the mind has become single-pointed and quiet, a seeker generally hesitates to leave his old desires and enter into a pure state of contemplation.

Sri Rama unhesitatingly insists that the student should totally give up (hitva samastam) what has been prescribed by our sacred books as something that we must diligently pursue (vidhivat coditam).

With the integrated mind and intellect rendered single-pointed, quiet, alert, and vigilant, let the seeker exclusively turn his entire attention to the Self within (sva-atmanan) and realize that it is Self everywhere (akhila-atmanam bhajet).

In the Brhadaranyaka Upanisad, Yajnavalkya insists that “this Self is to be ‘seen’: you must hear, reflect, and meditate upon it.”

Through such steady practice, when the successful seeker satisfies the four necessary conditions of the mind, he or she glides effortlessly into the higher state of the pure Self, the Rama-state. The individual becomes fully liberated from all the encumbrances of the body-mind-intellect – the equipments of experience – and is forever freed from all shackles of objects-emotions-thoughts–the fields of experience. Never can these conditionings entrap him again, as he has awakened to the state of the Self. He lives blessing the world with his pure holiness, even if he is not “doing” anything: his mere presence is an inspiration to the rest of society.

If he is thus liberated from all equipments, why are the equipments not falling away dead, when their owner, the ego, has been liberated ? The answer is that the force of its prarabdha karma keeps the body alive. The body is the product of our own karma (vasanas), and it is also a product of the karmas of others. One can redeem oneself of all one’s own karmas, but the body still lives and functions, sustained by the karmas of others. This macrocosmic vasana (samasti karma( is the equipment of the Lord (Isvara). Thus, a man of perfection is functioning under the Lord’s will only. Without any sense of “I-do” (ahankara) and any attachment (asakti), he appears to be functioning in the world, himself ever living the experience of the infinite Self, Sri Rama.

Once his share of destiny is exhausted, he merges into Brahman. This state is called videha-mukti. Even earlier, when others were considering him as a member of the community, he was already a liberated person (jivan-mukti).