Atma is eternal
One who is
born cannot escape death, some time, somewhere. Every moment, many are born and
many die. But one has to discover how to “avoid” death. Now, the Atma, which is
the core of humanity, is not born; since it does not take birth, it does not
meet death. Death happens to the body with which it is associated, with which
it mixes. The delusion that the body is the core, that the body is real, that
verily is the death. When one believes that the changing body is oneself and
starts referring to it as “I”, that “I” dies, but the real “I” is deathless.
As intense
elevating activity and fearless inquiry into one’s truth are practised more and
more, the conscious ness that the “body is oneself” can be overcome and
negated. Consider the fruit of the tamarind tree. When unripe, it is not easy
to separate the rind, the pulp, and the seed. So too, those who have stuck to
sensual desires and to fondling and feeding the body cannot earn the awareness
of the Atma. When the tamarind fruit becomes ripe, the rind can be broken off,
the pulp detached from the seed, and the seed isolated without effort. Inquiry
and unselfish activity ripen the consciousness, and the Atma can be isolated
from the body, clear and pure.
Five encasements of the body
The word
sukshma, which is generally translated as “subtle”, means “small” in Sanskrit.
But it has another meaning: that which expands. Air expands more than water;
space is more expansive than air. Compared with the expanse of the liberated
soul, even space has to be considered “gross”! Steam is more expansive (subtle)
than water. Although a block of ice and a lump of camphor appear “gross”, they
become subtle when heated or lit.
The rule of
the world is that the seen causes the unseen, the manifested explains the
unmanifested. But the rule in the realm of the spirit is different. The latent
Atma causes the patent world. Being is behind becoming, and finally, becoming
merges in being; the patent is absorbed into the latent.
Like milk
from the cow, the power of relativity (maya) flows from the supreme Person as
the five-element constituted cosmos, the patent manifestation. The cosmos is
cognized as a composite, just as milk is a composite of cream, curd, and
butter, which can be got out of it by the action of heat and cold, the addition
of sour drops, and the process of churning thereafter. Churning separates the
butter from the milk. In the same manner, through cosmic processes and
upheavals of heat and cold, the five fundamental elements (earth, water, fire,
air, and space) were separated and Earth, this ball of butter, emerged as the
product of the churning.
Three character traits, five basic elements
If a person
or thing has one of the three character traits (balanced, passionate, dull)
predominant in the make- up, we denote the person as having that trait. So also
the element that is predominant in any created entity gives its name to it.
This is why the world on which we live is called the Earth (bhumi). The realms
in space where the element of water predominates are known as the atmosphere
(bhuvarloka) and the celestial plane (swarloka). The materials therein flow in
currents and streams.
In short,
what appears as the five element-constituted cosmos is only the superimposition
on God of the non- real individual Self and the five elements. God seen in and
through the non-real appears as nature. This is but a distorted picture of
Reality, this ever-changing multiplicity.
When God is
reflected as nature, the reflection becomes illusion (maya). Just as milk
curdles into yogurt, God becomes the world (jagath) of incessant
transformation, the image (maya) of the unchanging Divine. His will causes this
unreal multiplicity on the One that He is; by His will, He can end it. He is
the Master of illusion.
God is
omnipresent, omnipotent. God has no wants or wishes. He is the fullest and
highest attainment.
His words to
Arjuna in the Gita are, “I have no duty to discharge, O Partha, in the three
worlds.” He has created duties only to foster the consciousness of all living
beings. He has no activity and no obligation. He brings about the result of
every activity. Without Him, no activity can yield result! He decides which
result should accrue from which act.
Love.
