LIBERATION IS THE ULTIMATE SIMPLICITY

[Ms Tercy Lonan]

102. LIBERATION IS THE ULTIMATE SIMPLICITY
The very heart and essence of the ultimate spiritual process is a unified interior. It is to set
aside all complications and abide in God, abide in the Self. You ultimately reach one simple state
where your heart desires nothing else except God; your mind thinks of nothing else except
God—ekagrata. All the multifariousness is hushed and made to subside, recede and vanish, and
you are left alone with God in simplicity.
Ultimately, the objective is for even yourself to quit and let God alone fill the entire
consciousness. Unified consciousness is simplicity. Non-dual consciousness is God. That is

liberation. You liberate yourself once and for all from yourself—which is the root of your bondage,
which is the source of all your asanti, peacelessness.
As long as the “I, I, I” prevails and persists, our sorrows will never end. When you succeed
in silencing the “I”, bidding farewell to it, asking it to go—no longer do I require it—then the door
of your heart is open and you let God in. In that instant there is peace. There is no more
multifariousness, complication, confusion, distraction, miscellaneous thinking or asanti.
There the Divine alone is. One alone is. There prevails peace, and that peace is God. It is not
an absence of noise or sound, it is a transcendence of everything, an abiding in the One and One
alone, which alone is real—worlds without end, forever and ever. It ever was, ever is and ever shall
be One alone. That is the ultimate simplicity. That is the supreme simplicity where there is no
second to either distract you or fear.
The way to that supreme simplicity, ultimate simplicity that is God, is an entire life
characterised by simplicity: simple living, simple thinking, simple feeling, a simple nature—not
complicated, involved; simplicity in all aspects of your being; simplicity in all levels of your being.
Children are simple. They are carefree. “Suffer little children to come unto Me, for to such belongs
the Kingdom of God.”
Ego is the root and source of all complications. It is the root and source of all clash and
conflict, all disharmony and discord. It is a necessary evil, but it must be kept under full control. Sri
Ramakrishna put it in a simple yet very beautiful way: “Convert it into a sattvic ego, into a harmless
ego. Let it be touched by the philosopher’s stone of devotion to God, of aspiration to realise God.”
Spiritualise it and you take the harm out of it, the danger out of it. It is there because it is not possible
to do away with ego altogether. But, transform it and then it becomes harmless.
It is like a snake charmer who carries a deadly poisonous cobra with him twenty-four hours
a day. He catches it in his hands and shows it to onlookers. This he is able to do because he has
rendered it harmless by removing its poison. It is outwardly intact; it hisses also. But he knows it
cannot harm him because the poison is gone.
Therefore, the entire process of moving towards the ultimate simplicity that is God is to
divest yourself of all the complications of a tamasic or a rajasic ego and remain in the sattvic state.
“I” is there, but it is: “I am a servant of God; I am a servant of the servants of God; I live to serve.
Therefore, I regard all as my masters, as my superiors. I live to give reverence to all beings, respect
to all persons.”
This “I” is not a dire “I”; it is not a malefic “I”. It is not an unspiritual or undivine “I”,
because it has been simplified by being rendered sattvic. A child also says “I”, but its “I” is like a
line drawn on the surface of water. It leaves no trace because it has no ego; it has no arrogance. It is
simple; it is innocent.
It is this simplicity of the inner nature that is the way, and that is dear to God. Therefore the
admonition: “Be like children.” Gurudev has said in one place: “Do not be childish—flippant and
frivolous. But, it is necessary to be childlike. It is the secret to attain grace and blessings.”

Thus, the more we simplify our inner and outer life, the less the distractions; we become
gathered inwardly, concentrated upon God, and our interior becomes unified. This is the central
process of yoga; it is the state needful in the interior. When you do away with all distractions, with
all confused, multifarious thinking in a dozen directions, and move in one single direction
only—through aspiration, through devotion, through concentration—then you come to that point of
simplicity, of abiding in the One, not the many.
May this be part of your sadhana. May this be part of both your spiritual discipline and your
ethical discipline. May this be part of your basic personal philosophy of life, both subjectively and
objectively. Then you will find that all things become possible here and now. Because, ultimately, it
is the simple truth that all things have to be worked out here and now.
Now is the time and this is the place where you have to liberate yourself and enter into a state
of liberated consciousness. If you cannot do it here and now, you will never be able to do it, because
there is no elsewhere. Wherever you are you are in yourself. It is within you that the ultimate
process has to be worked out and the ultimate goal of liberation has to be entered into, experienced.
This is the truth.
May God help us to see clearly this simple truth that is before us. May He give us the
perception, wisdom and strength to perceive the deception and tricks of the mind, which try to take
us away from this sadhana of simplicity by raising various imaginary notions. Beware of the mind
that creates complexities where everything is, in fact, simple. Beware of the mind that tries to make
things involved and thus creates confusion. It is always present. You have to be aware of it. It is not
your friend. It is a trickster trying to put a spoke in your wheel, so to say.
Therefore, we have to be wakeful and alert within and refuse to be drawn away from our
inherent and essential simplicity. With alertness and vigilance we will be able to maintain our
essential simplicity and carry on a simple and direct relationship with the source of our being. Abide
in that source!