Upadesa Saram - Post 29

Verse 26

आत्मसंस्थितिः स्वात्मदर्शनम् |

आत्मनिर्द्वयादात्मनिष्ठता || २६ ||

ātmasaṁsthitiḥ svātmadarśanam |

ātmanirdvayādātmaniṣṭhatā || 26 ||

Complete abidance as the Self is the revelation of one’s own Self.

Because there are not two of the Self, there is firm Self-Abidance. (26)

Sri Ramana, based on His own personal experience of the Truth, says that abidance in the Self is that very experience of “Vision of the Self”, the ultimate goal, and that there is nothing further than that. Here again, He brings a relief to seekers who may be prone to doubt the state of their spiritual growth. 

Atma-Samsthiti: This is the state of abidance in the Self, which we have described earlier as the state in which a person is directly aware of the Self, having thinned out and ‘destroyed’ his mind of all thoughts and most especially the ‘I-thought’. 

Abidance in SELF may sometimes be construed as if there is a lower SELF or the Jiva, who has to abide in Higher SELF, ATMAN, to be known as a realized seer.

This notion is wrong. How?

Abidance means, settling permanently, eternally in SELF and existing as SELF. So, it has to be clear that there is no lower SELF or higher SELF. There is only SELF.

Upto the point / moment of realizing / discovering ourselves to be this SELF, it is only ignorance of a being that he thinks that he is not SELF, he thinks that God is somewhere in high heavens (incidentally, that is why, when we refer to God in any religion, we look up, raise our hands and indicate the sky, indicating that God is not within us!!!), God is Supreme and he is sinner, so on and so forth.

Once, through intense spiritual sadhana and Guru and Easwara Krupa, the sadhaka realizes / discovers the SELF within, then, there is no more higher or lower SELF. 

So, 

Therefore, 

(Here, the minus of Avidya, the removal of Avidya has to be necessarily for ever, otherwise, the word removal is of no relevance. So, with eternal removal of Avidya, one eternally abides in SELF).

The difficulty being addressed in this verse is that of knowing when we have reached the goal. There may always be the tendency to feel that the SELF has not yet been attained. To remove this doubt, the Maharshi stipulates two conditions that have to be met: 

i) Atma-Nir-Dvayaat: “Non-dual, consistent, unchanging”.  The abidance in the SELF has to be consistent. It cannot keep changing. It has to be the same in nature every time.

ii) Atma-Nishthataa: “Firm, of long duration, all the time or continuous”. The abidance has also got to be firm, ie., for a long period of time or continuous. This is the second condition to be met. 

A seeker should be very clear with the definition of liberation or realization and should know what this really means. Realization is not something to be gained fresh or after leaving the mortal coil on Earth. 

Realization is not something that can be seen because whatever is seen vanishes (is illusory alone like the worldly sense objects). This means realization is not an experience that can be attained in either heaven or during yoga meditation when kundalini power is aroused. 

Realization is what already is. Realization is knowing one’s own nature of God or Brahman. Realization is vision of oneself (as one cannot see oneself, realization means removal of obstructions of ignorance so that the SELF shines forth without any hindrance). Realization is one’s own very nature. (The analogy of Sculptor discovering the enchanting Krishna’s form already there in the rock / wood on removing all that was not Krishna, shared by the author in a common group aligns with what is said now in this post). 

Any object in the world can be experienced. All these are experienced by the experiencer. But the SELF is the experiencer of everything and hence it can never be experienced. Thus, the SELF cannot be an experience of the mind and sense objects as it is beyond all these.

Such a God is not the reality of SELF or Brahman. Thus, such a God is only a perception of the mind and an object of experience. As explained earlier, God cannot be seen because it is the Seer of all objects, the experiencer of all experiences, substratum of all illusions.

Thus, realization is knowing or realizing one’s own real nature of SELF and not attaining some God sitting in heaven. 

Yoga Vasishta says:

Chit chetya kalitha bandhah tanmuktaa muktiruchyathe

Chit achetya kila atmethi sarva Vedanta sangrahah

Consciousness when through ignorance gets mixed with (seems to get mixed with) thoughts is called bondage & liberation from thoughts is freedom or liberation.

Consciousness without thoughts is called ATMAN or SELF - this is the essence of Vedanta.

  

The very scientific theory of inertia plays here also. Wherever, there is a deviation in the form of thoughts and actions, there, anxiety also arises because one is not in his natural state of Bliss. 

Thus, abidance in the natural state is vision of one’s own real nature of SELF, of the nature of Existence, Consciousness and Bliss Absolute. This abidance when not mixed with any thoughts is the vision of the ultimate reality knowing which there remains nothing else to be known.

Constant effort needs to be put to set aside the ignorance that 'I am not the SELF' & always reside in the ultimate reality through contemplation,

AHAM BRAHMA ASMI 

( I am Brahman)

Or

CHIDANANDA ROOPAH SIVOHAM SIVOHAM 

( I am that SELF of the nature of Consciousness and Bliss, I am the SELF – one without a second”)

Love.