Self-Realization:
Self-realization ('Atmasakshatkara') , most common term used in the spiritual world, which evolves the truth of one's existence. Self-realization is the landing from the material world to the spiritual world. One acquires the knowledge of their real form of existence in this world. It refers to self-identification. It teaches us to identify ourselves as a soul and not the material body. The material world will always come to an end on one or the other day. The one which is permanent is the truth which will never die or vanish, rest all is a false dream. Soul never dies, it's the material body that is burned or buried which vanishes after some time, i.e. soul is permanent and body is used temporarily by the soul. One who understands this concept, that he is the divine soul and not the material body is said to be self-realized.
Self-realization gives you the direct perception or the experience with the truth of the life. Now-a-days you may see people running behind the materialistic world. The greed for their material gains is increasing which is transforming a human being to a lower level living being. In spite of possessing intense brain, human beings are using only 2-3% of their brain. Ever wondered what power is occupied in the rest unused part of the brain? You will get this answer by self-realization. It helps you to understand the purpose of human life. Who am I? What I want? And Where should I be? After self-realization one starts thinking of one-self i.e. the soul and not the body. He understands self-motive, motive of the soul to meet the supreme soul, God. He starts working on it. Instead of following the materialistic life, one starts living in the spiritual world and experiences the happiness of the truth- 'Sat-chit-Ananda'
Self-realization is achieved through various spiritual practices, viz:-
1. Gyan yoga:
One should have the knowledge of discovering one's self. This can happen through meditation. The best option to gain this knowledge is to catch hold of a Guru who can teach you the practical for self-realization.
2. Karma yoga:
This is one of the difficult yoga to understand. We all know that everything is created by God. We do not create anything. But when we say that 'I am the doer', God doesn't come in the picture. He neglects us. But always keep this in mind that without him we are no one Karma yoga teaches you to surrender yourself to God and continue practicing without any desire.
3. Bhakti yoga:
This practice is related to one's devotion towards God. It is his development of self to get closer and closer to God. It happes with one's love towards God.
Importance of human body:
Our birth is the day we enter in to this material world. When the baby is inside the womb of its mother, it has complete knowledge about purpose of his life. But after its birth, it gets attracted to the material world and forgets his sole purpose of life.
God created all of us. We are soul in the human body. A soul without body or a body without soul has no importance. One of the initial step that is self realization : I am a soul and not the material body helps us to utilize the human body for reaching towards God. God is the supreme soul and our destination too. But as we grow up we forget the main purpose of life. We know that without a soul our body has no importance, our body remains useless without soul. Our body can work, if soul is present in our body. We have got this human body to work for our soul, but we take it vice a versa. We use the soul to work out for our material body.
We all know that a person is said to be expired, if his soul leaves his body. We say that the person expired even if his material body exists. This means that we all accept that person is not his body, but the soul residing inside the body. Entire life we work hard for satisfying our desires related to the Body. We give it whatever it wants - tasty food, sleep, beauty, rest, material enjoyment and so on. God has given us human body to help our soul to achieve its goal. We have to take our soul to the supreme soul-God. We all are separated from our parent and wants to go back to him. He is always there with us. He is within us and we have to reach him. No one is related to us. It's only the karma which ties us with each other temporarily. But there is a permanent connection between us and God. At a point everyone will leave us, but God will never leave us alone. In spite of knowing all the things we neglect him and continue with our materialistic life.
It is only the human body which can help to take us closer to God. None other mammals, insects or other living organisms material body is capable to help us out. Only human body possesses this power of reaching to God, but we don't utilize it. We have become so busy in our life that we don't have time to think about this. None of us get stuck on the question that "What will happen after I die?" Most of us say let's face it afterwards. But after we die, we cannot do anything. We lose the precious chance. We lose the precious human body which could have been utilize to help us to take ourselves to God. We are left with us, our soul until we enter another body. Our soul has to face punishments Ever wondered where I will go after death? Till we get salvation we keep wandering from one body to another. We see living things around us. Even they are souls inside some kind of material body. What if in my next birth I become a dog, a monkey, a snake, insect, grass... It's terrible to even think of it!!
Try inventing truth yourself. Explore yourself. Explore the valuable Human body. It is said that after eighty-Four lakh different types of birth your soul is granted with human body. So just don't let it go. Utilize it to the fullest. Practice makes man perfect. We all know that earlier generations were very close to God. They could also speak with God. They were humans like us but did certain different things. Let's try this out. Let's utilize this human body and try to break this cycle of birth and death. Let's take ourselves to God. And once we get into it we will enter the spiritual world, the real world, where lies only happiness. We will remain in our own happiness.
The goal of the soul among all the different sects seems to be the same. There is one idea with all, and that is liberation which can be achieved only through human body.