Swami Chidananda

Until the point where you attain Self-realisation, there is still a trace of the human personality—human personality identity consciousness. 

One still feels that I am so and so. Even though he says God, God, God, God—there is also a little bit of I with God. There is 95% divinity and 5% this I. And this I is a myth. 

You are actually a part and parcel of God. You are 100% divine. So this "I" has to go. As long as it is there, that Consciousness is not complete and perfect.

Let me give you an analogy. A river flows, flows, flows, flows. At last, it approaches the sea. And then it enters into the sea. But even after having entered into the sea, till quite some distance, the water still tastes sweet. 

Because the river has not left its river-ness completely. It still retains its river-ness, although its two banks are finished. Bank-less, it is already in the sea. 

That stage when the river is gone, but the vastness of the sea has not yet been attained, that interim period when it is neither the river nor the sea—that is the void.

But after it goes further into the sea, a time comes when the water is no longer sweet. It is the salt water of the sea alone.