Sandeha Nivarini - Post 32

Chapter X. Reflections on Manifesting and Merging

Swami: Well! You look so full of joy today!

Devotee: You yourself said that people are the embodiment of joy, right?

Swami: Then you must always be in this mood; do you remain so? 

Devotee: I am trying as far as possible.

Swami: Why do you say “trying”? Doesn’t sorrow flee the instant Reality is known? 

Devotee: But what is the reality, Swami?

Swami: All that “is” is unreal! The efforts you undertake, the words you utter, are all unreal; when you know this, the reality will be evident. Remove all the unreal ideas, opinions, and acts and the truth that is hidden can be seen. Piling up all this on top, if you ask what Reality is, how can it be seen?

Devotee: How is it possible to take all that is done, spoken, seen, felt, and listened to as unreal?

Swami: First, understand who is experiencing all these. You refer to the body as “I”, don’t you? That is unreal. When the experiencing “I” is itself unreal, how can the experiences be real? All have the same Atma. The person who experienced is not “you”, the person who listened is not “you”. You only witnessed all this.

Devotee: Swami, You said that in everything there is Atma. Is there Atma in a dead man?

Swami: Oh! a good question indeed! Is it more to solve your doubt or the doubt of a dead person?

Devotee: Mine.

Swami: Well it is only when you have awakened from deep sleep (sushupti) that you are aware there is an “I”, right? In the same manner, there is the Atma in the corpse also.

Devotee: Then how can it be called dead, how can death happen, when there is Atma?

Swami: If you discriminate properly, there is no dying and no living. A moving body is called living and a still one dead. In dreams, any number of living bodies and corpses are seen. On waking they do not exist. Similarly, this world, both moving and still, is non-existent. Death means the fading out of the “I” consciousness. Rebirth happens when the “I” consciousness comes again. This is what is called birth and death, my boy! Ego (ahamkara) is born, ego dies, that is all.

Devotee: So, I exist always, right?

Swami: Of course you do! When the “I” consciousness is there, you exist. When it is not there you also exist. You

are only the base for the awareness; you are not the awareness.

Devotee: But they say, “attained liberation (mukthi)”, etc. What is that?

Swami: Understanding the root of death and birth, one must destroy completely the awareness of the separate “I”;

that condition is “liberation (mukthi)”.

Devotee: So, when I die, I and You are One, right?

Swami: Who said “No”? That feeling of One when you are firmly established in it, there is nothing separate at all.

Devotee: Until then, in order to identify the real “I” in the unreal “I”, they say that the support of a guru is wanted. How far is that true, Swami?

Swami: It is only when you have so many “I”s that you need someone’s support, is it not? When all is One, why seek another? Still, until that “I” (aham) fades out, this speaking “I” and this listening “You” have to be there. When that “I” is gone, whom is there to speak to? Who listens? All are one. The reflection of Atma, conditioned by awareness (chit) is God; God conditioned by the inner fourfold instruments (anthah-karana) is the soul (jiva), is it not? 

Adi Shankara