View allAll Photos Tagged Realizations
કળિયુગમાં મોક્ષે જવા માટે છેલ્લામાં છેલ્લી કઈ જગ્યા છે? શાશ્વત સુખની પ્રાપ્તિ કેવી રીતે થાય? સાચું જ્ઞાન કોને કહેવાય છે?
To know more please click on:-
English: www.dadabhagwan.org/self-realization/
Gujarati: www.dadabhagwan.in/self-realization/
To live your life by certain rules
Awaken one day to realize
These rules were made by those uncertain
I, disillusioned by them, so mesmerized,
I was so bold as to search for truth
To one day understand all what was known,
Was a misguided path built by those so foiled,
To attain the end of complete control,
To disable the weak, to dominate the world,
I accept the realization that no one alive,
can decide my life, nor attain my pride
Free at last to live, to strive
I realized that the train hit a car while I was doing a night photo shoot of the fair. I heard the screeching breaks of the train as it began to slow and then stop. My heart began racing. I threw my tripod in my car and ran several hundred feet where the train was coming to a stop.
This is the 2nd photo in a series here are the links to the others
#1 www.flickr.com/photos/9640168@N04/2779309401/
This is #2
#3 www.flickr.com/photos/9640168@N04/2780167902/in/photostream/
#4 www.flickr.com/photos/9640168@N04/2779312631/in/photostream/
#5 www.flickr.com/photos/9640168@N04/2780170070/in/photostream/
#6 www.flickr.com/photos/9640168@N04/2780171290/in/photostream/
#7 www.flickr.com/photos/9640168@N04/2779316105/in/photostream/
# 8 www.flickr.com/photos/9640168@N04/2780173622/in/photostream/
Here are the fair shots I was working on when this tragedy began
Fair shot one: www.flickr.com/photos/9640168@N04/2779307317/in/photostream/
Fair shot two: www.flickr.com/photos/9640168@N04/2780164916/in/photostream/
Here is a link to one of the interviews I did on the news regarding the tragic event that happened as I was trying to get a shot of the fair.
www.koin.com/content/mediacenter/default.aspx?videoId=832...
The beautiful, tranquil, and awe-inspiring Self-Realization Fellowship Lake Shrine in Pacific Palisades (Los Angeles), California
The purpose of the investigation of truth through theory, comparitive discussion, logical disputation, analysis and scientific reasoning. Employing the whole in understanding the perception, the coming of realization through experimental life.
The beautiful, tranquil, and awe-inspiring Self-Realization Fellowship Lake Shrine in Pacific Palisades (Los Angeles), California
🌙 The 5 Degrees of the Path (The Hierarchy of Realization)
1 - Sharia – The Discipline of Form (Outer Law)
Sharia is the sacred architecture of the path, the disciplined framework that shapes the seeker’s outer life so the inner life may awaken in purity and stability. In Sufism, Sharia is not a cage of rules but a divine scaffolding, an ordered structure that protects the heart, aligns conduct with higher truth, and prepares the soul for deeper spiritual unveiling.
It teaches that form and essence are not opposites: form is the vessel, essence is the wine. Without the vessel, the wine spills and is lost. Sharia provides this vessel through its clarity, boundaries, and rhythm. Prayer, ethical conduct, honesty, humility, lawful sustenance, compassion, these are the steady pillars that anchor the seeker in integrity.
To the Sufi, Sharia is the discipline that purifies intention, refines action, and guards the heart from chaos. It trains the ego, tempers impulses, and cultivates responsibility. Through it, mundane life becomes a field of spiritual training, where every gesture carries weight, every choice is deliberate, and every moment is a testament to devotion.
But Sharia is not rigidity; it is alignment. Its purpose is not limitation but liberation, creating a life so harmonized with divine order that the inner journey can unfold unhindered. The seeker who walks with Sharia moves with balance, dignity, and clarity, building a foundation strong enough to support the heights of spiritual realization. Through the discipline of form, the heart becomes ready for the mysteries of essence. Sharia is the doorway; the inner path is what lies beyond.
2 - Tariqa – The Path, the Discipline of Practice, and the Companionship That Shapes the Seeker
At its heart, Tariqa is the craft of shaping the soul through discipline. Spiritual exercises, dhikr, meditation, silence, vigilance are not rituals for the surface. They are chisels that sculpt the inner stone. They awaken what sleeps, purify what obscures, and strengthen what trembles. Every repetition is a blow of light against the roughness of the self.
But no path is walked alone. Companionship is part of the alchemy. A true guide, a sincere brother or sister on the journey, reflects your blind spots, steadies your steps, and protects you from the illusions you weave for yourself. You learn from their presence as much as from their words. Their sincerity becomes a mirror in which you cannot lie to yourself.
Tariqa teaches you to move forward even when the night is dense, to endure, and to polish your heart until it becomes a lamp for others. It shows you that the road is not linear but spiral: each lesson returns, deeper, sharper, more demanding. And every stage asks for more truth, more humility, more courage.
Walk this path with discipline but also with tenderness toward yourself. Let the practices sharpen your awareness, let the companionship soften your ego, and let the journey open your future like a horizon after the storm.
3 - Haqiqa – Truth, the Unveiling of the Real
Haqiqa is the moment when the seeker stops dreaming about truth and begins seeing it. It is the unveiling, the lifting of the final curtain that hides the Divine Reality. It is not reached by cleverness nor claimed by pride. It descends when the heart becomes transparent enough to reflect what has always been there. The Real does not change; you change. When the dust settles, the mirror shows what was always shining.
On this stage of the path, the seeker confronts the deepest paradox: everything you believed to be separate melts into unity. The world stops being a collection of scattered forms and becomes a single breath, a single presence. You feel the Divine not as an idea but as the pulse within every atom.
But understand this with clarity and courage: Haqiqa does not comfort the ego, it dissolves it. It does not offer prestige, it demands surrender. It does not reveal itself to the curious, it reveals itself to the sincere.
This unveiling is not sudden for most. It arrives in flashes, in storms, in silent illuminations that change the way you see everything. And once the veil tears even a little, it never fully repairs. You cannot return to blindness without betraying your own soul.
Walk toward Haqiqa with steadiness. Let discipline refine you. Let sincerity protect you. Let longing pull you forward. When your heart becomes clear enough, the Truth appears, not as something distant, but as the essence of who you have always been.
4 - Ma‘rifa – Direct Knowledge, Union Through Consciousness
Ma‘rifa is the knowledge that cannot be studied, memorized, or debated. It is not learned with the mind, it is recognized with the soul. This is the stage where knowing becomes being, where truth is no longer something you pursue but something you embody.
Ma‘rifa is the moment when the seeker stops looking at God from afar and begins to see through the eyes of the Real. It is an inner unveiling where consciousness melts into divine presence, not as a metaphor but as a lived reality. Here, the separation between the knower and the Known dissolves like mist under the sun.
This knowledge is alive. It whispers, it burns, it rearranges the inner world. It is not information; it is transformation. In Ma‘rifa, the heart becomes the true instrument of perception. You begin to taste meanings directly, without intermediaries. A single breath can teach you more than a library. A moment of clarity can contain an entire cosmos. The subtle becomes louder than the visible, and the invisible more real than the physical.
But understand this with lucidity: Ma‘rifa requires courage. It exposes everything false within you, every mask, every illusion, every self-deception. Direct knowledge allows no hiding. It strips the ego of its pretensions, leaving only what is authentic, humble, and luminous. And in that nakedness, the soul recognizes its origin.
Union through consciousness is not an escape from the world; it is waking up within it. Seeing the Divine in every form. Hearing the Divine in every silence. Feeling the Divine in every heartbeat.
Walk toward Ma‘rifa with honesty. Sharpen your awareness. Purify your intention. Let your heart become a mirror polished by truth. When the veils fall, knowledge becomes light, and that light becomes you.
5 - Insan al-Kamil – The Perfect Human, Mirror of God
Insan al-Kamil represents the highest realization of human potential in Sufism, the complete unfolding of the soul into its divine origin. It is not worldly perfection, but spiritual wholeness: the state in which the human being becomes a polished mirror reflecting the attributes of the Divine without distortion.
In this condition, the ego has been purified, desires refined, and consciousness awakened to its true nature. The Perfect Human stands as a bridge between the seen and the unseen, embodying balance, harmony, and inner illumination. Strength is softened by compassion, humility is elevated by wisdom, and every action arises from a deep alignment with the Real.
Insan al-Kamil is the manifestation of full remembrance. It is the human who has realized unity, who perceives God in every form and expresses divine qualities through character, thought, and conduct. Such a person does not withdraw from the world but moves through it with clarity, presence, and purpose, transforming ordinary life into a living expression of truth.
This ideal is not reserved for a few; it is a latent potential within every soul. Through purification, discipline, knowledge, and love, the human being gradually polishes the heart until it becomes transparent to the Light. Insan al-Kamil is the culmination of the path: a consciousness fully awakened, a heart fully purified, and a being fully aligned with divine reality.
Painting by ?
Illustration by Laurent guidali
Work by eDition Etoile
May 7, 2022, 2.48-mile hike from Realization Point in Boulder, Colorado. Trails: Tenderfoot and Chapman Drive.
What happens in the process of spiritual enlightenment and how does it work? Does one need to be physically present to gain enlightenment?
To know more please click on:
English: www.dadabhagwan.org/self-realization/
Gujarati: www.dadabhagwan.in/self-realization/