Gita 5.17

Sadhak: "Guruji, four levels of absorption in That--intellect, self, establishment, devotion. It sounds overwhelming. Must all four be perfect before liberation?"

Guru: "They're not sequential steps you complete one by one but facets of a single transformation. When you truly know your nature, intellect naturally abides there because it's found the ultimate object of inquiry. When intellect abides there, identity shifts because you become what you contemplate. When identity shifts, stability follows because there's nowhere else to go. And devotion? It's not added effort but natural love for what you've recognized as your own deepest self. One recognition, four expressions."

Sadhak: "What does 'tad-ātman'--self is That--actually feel like? How do I know if I'm there?"

Guru: "Right now, what do you take yourself to be? A body? A person with history? A thinker of thoughts? Tad-ātman means none of these is your essential identity. You are That--infinite, aware, unbound. It doesn't 'feel like' anything particular because feelings are objects within awareness, while you ARE awareness. But there's a quality of spaciousness, of being at home everywhere, of no longer defending a small self because you've recognized there's no small self to defend."

Sadhak: "If my sins are 'washed away by knowledge,' does that mean I can do anything without consequences? This sounds dangerous."

Guru: "(Chuckling) This fear reveals the misunderstanding. True knowledge doesn't produce someone who wants to harm--quite the opposite. When you recognize yourself in all beings, harming anyone feels like harming yourself. The one who might want to exploit 'no consequences' is precisely the ego that knowledge dissolves. It's like asking, 'If I wake from a dream, can I do anything in the dream without consequences?' You've missed the point--you're no longer in the dream."

Sadhak: "What is 'apunar-āvṛtti'--no return? Return to what?"

Guru: "Return to ignorance, to the cycle of birth and death, to identification with the small self. Once you truly know you're infinite awareness, you can't un-know it. You can have moments of forgetfulness, yes--old habits arise. But underlying recognition remains. It's like knowing the Earth orbits the sun: you might momentarily think 'the sun is rising,' but you can't genuinely believe the sun circles the Earth anymore. Liberation is this: permanent recognition that cannot be reversed."

Sadhak: "But I've heard of great sages who supposedly fell from realization. If no return is guaranteed, how do we explain such cases?"

Guru: "Several possibilities. Perhaps the sage never had complete realization--only deep experience that faded. Perhaps the 'fall' was apparent, not actual--the sage played a role for teaching purposes. Or perhaps stories are exaggerated or misunderstood. True jñāna is not an experience that comes and goes but recognition of what you are, which cannot be lost. A person might seem to behave unenlightened while remaining liberated internally--we cannot judge from outside. But this much is certain: complete Self-knowledge is irreversible because there's no separate self remaining who could become ignorant again."

Sadhak: "How can sins be washed away when their effects may continue? If I've harmed someone, knowledge doesn't undo the harm."

Guru: "Two levels: prārabdha karma (results already begun) may continue even for the knower--the body must live out its trajectory. But āgami karma (future accumulation) stops because the one who accumulates--the ego--is seen through. And sañcita karma (stored seeds) is burned because it required ignorance as its soil. The knower may still experience consequences of past actions while the body lasts. But internally, there's no suffering because there's no one taking delivery of 'my karma.' The harm you did exists, its effects continue, but the psychological burden--guilt, defensiveness, self-condemnation--dissolves because the 'self' who did it is recognized as a fiction."

Sadhak: "Guruji, this verse inspires me but also intimidates me. Total absorption in That seems so far away."

Guru: "Notice what's intimidated. The mind, imagining a distant goal, feels inadequate. But That which Krishna describes isn't distant--it's your present awareness. Right now, something is aware of intimidation. What is that awareness? Not intimidated, not encouraged--simply present, knowing. THIS is tad. Your intellect can turn toward it now. Your identity can recognize it now. Establishment deepens with repeated recognition. Devotion grows as you taste the freedom. You're not far from That. You ARE That, momentarily forgetting. The journey isn't distance but depth--not reaching somewhere new but recognizing where you always already are."