Question came up during five week challenge group today. Someone asked to know how to know where are we in journey?
Aren’t we on a continuous journey, sometimes we go between points? is it important to know where we are?
SK:
Where am i standing?
Here is the interesting paradox ... On this journey there is infiniti behind me which we passed already and infiniti ahead of me ... if we look back we are at the infiniti .. yet there is infiniti ahead of me !
Quo vadis? Where are we going?
The answer is truly based on what we can perceive, that which is in the offing.. or based on what our consciousness is permitting.
The greatest challenge of this journey is, our head is always facing the past and processing the information that there is an infinite journey to go through. Babuji said just turn your head the goal is achieved. The beginning and end is the same, this is the whole essence of advita. It's not happening because of the vasanas(impressions, trapped consciousness) make us look backwards.
When it comes to observation of the points it only gives an indication that the progress is happening. At each point the thin layer of awareness or consciousness which is trapped between subconsciousness(past impressions) and supra consciousness (divine) is expanding through practice and by *Gurus grace*. Thus one achieves YOGA or Sayujyatha with the higher consciousness gives mastery over this state.
That means we attained Gyana(complete knowledge) up to that state. Here in this context Gyana really means we have become ONE with the supra conscious state at that level. And we gain approach to the next level. In this Sayujyatha we get the glimpse of the ultimate state as well. That creates craving in us to move further.
This aspect is also explained in Bhavagavad Gita Chapter 6 verse 20-23. Many times people read this as a final state but only by understanding this journey from my practical experience i realized that this culmination happens at every state(but it is not the final state). This process of merging with higher consciousness happens at every step in the journey.
To give a short answer to your question: Observing this journey allows us to become aware and become sensitive. In this refined state of sensitivity makes us WITNESS the journey. This is the reason we are recommended to make this observation during our meditation and witness where the work is happening, how its is happening.
Below is the summary of chapter 6 verse 20-23.
https://www.bhagavad-gita.org/Gita/verse-06-18.html
Thus the mind disciplined by executing the science of uniting the individual consciousness with the Ultimate Consciousness becomes spiritually stable and by this, perceiving the inner self by the purified becomes satisfied only in the inner self; thus this being experiences superior, transcendental bliss, which is perceptible by spiritual intelligence and thus situated one never deviates from the truth. By attainment of this state one does not consider any other attainment greater than that and being situated within which one never is distraught by even intense suffering for as soon as suffering commences it is dispelled. *Know that all perfection is the science of uniting the individual consciousness with the Ultimate Consciousness.*