They are two different ways of experiencing the same ultimate Reality. When we see it from the side of the manifestation then we see the ultimate Reality as ‘other than us’ and call IT God. But when we go beyond the manifestation then we see it as the One Self and myself as That, Sohamasmi, and hence call IT as the Self.
So it depends upon what one has realised for there are different ways of approaching, experiencing and realising the same Truth. The Source, the ultimate Reality has to be One. But when we glimpse IT through a little veil of ignorance we call It God as someone other than we or other than the creation. But when we see beyond the veil then we discover that we too are the same. Then the word used is Self. However there are many sides and aspects of this One Self.
In the experience of Vedanta, Self realisation is essentially the realisation of oneself as God in the deepest essence, that there is but one Self alone. All other separate experiences of myself and yourself merge into the realisation of this One Self, Sohamasmi. The word God, Ishwara, Bhagawan is no more used since one has realised one’s identity with what one called as God but what in truth one oneself always was, is and will be.
But the Self or God though One has different aspects. One can realise the Self as transcending the individual and the cosmos or one can realise the same Self as having become the universe, as the Soul or Self of the world and all its creatures, the Universal Self, the one Self that is not only beyond but within everything as well as holding everything within itself. One can take a step further and realise that the One Self has become everything, that each and every object as the One Self. Just as the gold in different ornaments is the same gold so too everything is the manifestation of the One Self. In other words one sees both the gold and the ornaments as two modes of One Truth, of One Self, as God becoming everything.
There is a God realisation wherein the individual self is not abolished as in Vedanta or in Nihilistic Buddhism. The ego is gone but one discovers that there is indeed a true immortal soul in man, the true individual in us. This soul is a portion of God. One realises the One Self here too but simultaneously also realises that there is a truth of the individual soul as well. So one can merge with the One Self or play at being the eternal child of the Eternal.
There is a static realisation of the Self in which one experiences IT as an eternal Witness, the unchanging Immutable Self that ever was, is and will be. It leaves a gap between the world and God. The gap is filled by creating a dualism between Self or Brahman and World as Maya. Or Self as Purusha and the world as Prakriti. But there is a greater, more complete realisation of Maya as the power of God, Ishwara and His Shakti as one. The Self is experienced both as one and always together, as Ishwara and Shakti. In this highest experience, the lesser realisation of Brahman and Maya, Purusha and Prakriti are included just as the writer and his power of writing are one but the writing itself seems other than the writer. In this highest realisation the writer and his power of writing are one. There is also the truth of the writer independent of his being a writer. The writing and each of the characters though different are yet his, different aspects of his personality and hence also himself. Thus everything finds its right and true place in a single Reality, an unbroken Whole.
Affectionately,
Alok Da
