Atma Bodha - Post 56

Verse 46

तत्वस्वरूपानुभवादुत्पन्नं ज्ञानमंजसा ।

अहं ममेति चाज्ञानं बाधते दिग्भ्रमादिवत् ॥ ४६॥

TATTVA SWAROOPA ANUBHAVAAT

UTPANNAM JNAANAM ANJASAA

AHAM MAMA ITI CHA AJNAANAM

BAADHATE DIG-BHRAMA-AADI-VAT

[As a result of the experience of the Truth,  Self-knowledge is gained, and instantly  the ignorant notions of “I” and “mine”  are destroyed, just as wrong notions of directions (are destroyed by right information).]

To attain something that is not with us requires three things: knowledge, time and space. We need the (secular) knowledge of when and where to get it, the time to get it and to cover the space that separates us from it.

But the attainment of the Self is not in this category. It is already in us. To get it we need only Self-knowledge – no secular knowledge, no time and no coverage of space.

These two categories are given technical terms in Sanskrit by Indian Philosophers (these are not terms exclusive to Vedanta):

Apraaptasya Praapti: The former belongs to this category, which means “attaining that which we do not possess.” For this category, Action is required. The results of an action always come in the ‘future’ of the actual action, whether that may be just seconds away or centuries away.

With action comes the accompaniment of the whole train consequential to action, namely, the creation of merit or demerit (Punya or Paapa), the time when it will fructify, the actual fructification and the experience of the joy or sorrow. 

This is the cycle of Karma which, when looked at compositely and over the long term, is the same as the cycle of rebirth, of endless repetition.

Praptasya Prapti: This refers to the category of attaining “that which is already with us, but concealed from us.” Self-realization falls in this category. 

Here Karma is not necessary. We do not need to go through an endless cycle of births and deaths to acquire it. We simply need Knowledge to destroy the ignorance that conceals it. No action is required. 

“Digbhramadivat”: Wrong Notions About Directions

An Acharya takes great pains to illustrate why he considered this simile to be of outstanding quality. It is listed out so that the application can be compared to it thereafter. As usual it had its entertaining side:

1.        Patika: There is a traveler, who is journeying at night.

2.   Nagta Andhakara: He gets lost in the dense darkness and cloudy conditions.

3.       Dig Bhrama: He loses his sense of direction completely.

4.      Raja Marga: He loses the main road on which he was.

5.    Yatra-Tatra: He roams or wanders about here and there as a result.

6. Kantaka: He gets hurt by the sharp stones, he hits against trees, thorns, etc.

7.  Duhkham: He experiences great sorrows as a result of these.

8.      Surya Tejo: In the morning, at the coming of the dawn,

9.   Dig Bhrama: He is able to see his way again, and gets the proper directions.

10. Raja Marga: He finds the main road which he had lost.

11.  Anandam: He is ever happy that he has found his way once again.

The application of this simile, stage by stage, as laid out above is as follows:

1.        Jiva: The individual soul is also on a similar journey. 

2.     Avidya: He gets lost in the dense darkness of Avidya or ignorance.

3. Aham-Mama: He loses his true identity and gets identified with “I” and “mine”.

4.  Brahma Marga: He loses his path of going along the road to Brahman.

5.  Janma-Marana: So he gets knocked about and goes through endless rebirths.

6.    Vighna: These cause him to go through many a hardship or obstacle.

7.       Duhkha: He experiences great sorrows as a result.

8.  Jnana Tejo: Then at the right time he comes in touch with the spiritual teaching.

9. Sadhana: He does spiritual practices in earnest according to his Guru’s guidance.

10. Brahma Marga: He gets established on the spiritual path once again.

11. Moksham: He finally attains liberation and enjoys everlasting bliss.

One may view this as follows: Those aspects of the spiritual journey which require action are connected to the aspect of spiritual unfoldment needed to reverse and nullify the Karma accrued from the first category of Action.

In this Shloka, Acharya Sankara says when you experience your own form which is like the divine / Absolute (Tattva), there is knowledge that you are joy. The ignorance of “i” and “mine” is released.

Pay attention to your own experience that your happiness is from the Self. The more we reflect on this, the more we become independent of people’s words, success / failure and stress does not touch us.

With Right thinking (realizing that source of joy is myself), there is experience of joy and the more experience I have the more insight there is to the source of that experience. This can be reversed and understood as  —  with right thinking there is insight and with insight comes experience.

With enough reflection, contemplation becomes natural. “i” and “mine” is wrong thinking. Ignorance such as “i” and “mine” is released with right thinking, experience and insight just like being directionless is rectified when you are given one direction.

When we start to have Vairagya then we start to become independent of “Ahamkara” or ego. Renunciation of ego (“i”), and realizing that there is a deeper, higher “I” makes one free.

Love.

Atma Bodha - Post 55

Verse 45

स्थाणौ पुरुषवद्भ्रान्त्या कृता ब्रह्मणि जीवता ।

जीवस्य तात्त्विके रूपे तस्मिन्दृष्टे निवर्तते ॥ ४५॥

STHAANAU PURUSHA-VAT BHRAANTYAA

KRITAA BRAHMANI JEEVATAA

JEEVASYA TAATTVIKE ROPE

TASMIN DRISHTE NIVARTATE

[Due to delusion, a ghost is seen instead of post. So also, Brahman is seen as the individual Jiva. The real nature of the Jiva, when it is seen as the Self, (then the Jiva) is destroyed.]

Wrong identification, which was the very root of the ‘forgetfulness’ or drifting away from the Self, is only at the level of the mind. It is just a thought, the “I” - thought. The entire problem of spirituality is discovered to have arisen from just this one thought. Does that not make the whole of spiritual life look so trivial!

Volumes of books have been written on this “trivial” problem! If we correct that single, original, stray thought of “I” – meaning the thought which led us astray from the Self – then the error is corrected, and with it the Self discovered.

In trying to make us understand the sheer simplicity of spiritual illumination, Sri Shankaracharya in this verse blesses us again with another one of his unique similes… “Sthanau Purushavat”:

The Post and the Ghost Simile

Here we are teased again about the nature of the delusion that has overcome us, and an Acharya’s fertile imagination was triggered by it.

A man is returning home late at night in the fog. As he approaches his home, he is terrified by the sight of a man with his hands up in the air, as though eerily stalking through his garden. He is gripped by fear at the sight of this ‘ghostly’ figure.

As he slowly recovers  from the shocking sight, he recognizes that it is not a ghost at all, but an old dead tree which was struck by lightning a year ago and whose trunk and a couple of branches still remained as a reminder of its death. In the fog it looked like the ghostly figure of a man and the branches looked like his twisted hands! That is how delusion clouds our vision of the truth, like a ghost in the fog that never existed.

In utter darkness, sometimes, we catch a shadowy glimpse of a tree and mistake it for a human being – especially if we are anticipating a human being to be available there. The darkness creates a delusion in our mind. A police man thinking of chasing a thief may mistake the tree as the thief. On the other hand, the thief trying to escape from a Policeman may mistake the tree for the policeman. Darkness coupled with expectation creates variety of delusions in human mind. Likewise, in such darkness, we can mistake a rope as a snake.

Both darkness and delusion must be removed

How do we remove the delusion? First the darkness must be removed. Next, our expectation which is creating the delusion must also be removed. It is not enough to prove that the distant shadow is not of a human being. In such a case, the mind may create another delusion that it is  a statue or pillar towards which the mind has a leaning or expectation.

The darkness creates the appropriate image in the mind due to this delusion. So, it must be conclusively proved that what is before is the TREE and nothing else. Darkness and delusion should both be removed for the purpose.

Similarly – it is not enough to prove that there is no snake before us on the road. In that case, the mind may assume it to be a long vegetable like snake gourd or a long curved stick. The mind imagines many such things.

The delusion continues until the veil of ignorance is totally removed and the fact is established.

In the same way, we mistake the Paramatma or the SELF in us to be the jeeva we perceive with the five senses and the mind. This is because of the ignorance in us, which creates all sorts of delusions.

What is unreal appears as real and what is real appears as unreal – until the Maya or avidya in us is totally destroyed and it is established beyond a shadow of doubt that the jeeva consciousness in us is in fact the Atma or Paramatma.

Who perceives this? It is I, the Atma; I, the Brahman; I, the SELF who perceives this. The perceived also is “I”. The perception also is ‘I’.

The removal of ignorance is all that is needed for this realization and liberation.

We are what we are seeking. All that we need is guidance to take our eyes from articles, beings and circumstances to look more closely at who we are. Acharya Sankara in this verse explains how delusion causes doubts in mind and how with right knowledge, the true nature of the Self can be understood.

Due to delusion I project that a post is a ghost. We always project one who scares / hurts us. Doubts hold us back. Imagine the doubt that I am not the nature of joy! - How much this will hold us back!

There is a wrong knowledge that instead of "I" being the Self, “i” is the ego. Instead of me being united with the substratum which is “existence-awareness-joy”, all I perceive is the world that grows and dies. I feel finitude in infinity. This is Bhranti (confusion / delusion).

We have to find the fundamentals of this individuality — then the Jiva (individuality) will go away just like when you face your fear, then it fades away.

Swami Tejomayananda shares that “Maya” cannot handle introspection. Like a dream that rolls up into itself when a dreamer wakes up, our true nature can be experienced — of being independently joyous.

Self-realisation or the true Self revealing Itself follows inevitably when ignorance is cleared. The ‘egocentric individuality’ sees the world only as a ghost; the enlightened sage alone sees it as a post, and loses all fear for it.

It has to be known that the intellect has only one function, the function of discrimination.

Thus, the intellect, borrowing consciousness, only does one thing. It points out to our mind, our ignorance and our false belief/ delusion of taking the unreal as real, the ghost as the post or our limited identity of Body and Mind as real and eternal.

Once this is done, it is clearly taught by an Acharya to his student that Intellect does not have any function beyond this and once it proves to our Mind about our mistaking post to be Ghost, our physical existence as real existence, the intellect's function is over and at once, at that instant, Atman shines by itself, as We were and we are ever, the PURE SELF.

It is just similar to how a liquid is used or some powder is used to brush / clean an ornament which is very dull in appearance. Once this cleaning is done, Gold shines by itself, as the gathering of dust over the gold had been obstructing the vision of Gold. This obstruction may temporarily block the vision / sight of Gold but IT DOES NOT MEAN THAT THE GOLD HAS LOST ITS SHINE / GLORY.

Gold is always Gold, Brahman ever exists, We are verily the ATMAN and the whole vedantha, all the upanishads teach us only this ONE, SINGLE TRUTH.

Love.

Atma Bodha - Post 54

Verse 44

आत्मा तु सततं प्राप्तोऽप्यप्राप्तवदविद्यया ।

तन्नाशे प्राप्तवद्भाति स्वकण्ठाभरणं यथा ॥ ४४॥

AATMAA TU SATATAM PRAAPTAH

API APRAAPTA-VAT AVIDYAYAA

TAT NAASHE PRAAPTA-VAT BHAATI

SWA-KANTHA-ABHARANAM YATHAA

[Although the Self is the ever-existing Reality, yet, because of ignorance, it is not realized. When ignorance is dispelled, the Self is “gained” as though it were an object, just as the missing ornament around one’s neck.]

In discussing this verse, particularly the aptness of its simile, one cannot not resist asking: “How many doctorates must we give to Sankaracharya for these beautiful metaphors!”

In appropriateness this may well claim the first prize.  It has been said repeatedly that the Atman is the ever-existing Reality. It has always been there. When, after so much of sacrifice and serious Sadhana, the Jnani finally realizes the Atman, what a fool he must appear to himself! He searched and searched, for goodness knows, how many decades, and when he found it, it was in himself already!

Indeed the loss (of Atman) was illusory; and its gain, too, is equally illusory. It appears that It is ‘attained’ whereas in fact It is really forgotten; so It is not discovered but rather It is only remembered! And that idea is caught with great precision in the following metaphor… “Swa-Kantha Abharanam”:

The Missing Neck-Ornament Simile

To drive home the essence of this simile, a monk in Sandeepani (Chinamaya Ashram) addresses his disciple with this example.

Imagine a student sitting for Japa with his Japamala. Halfway through it he goes into Samadhi! It is a very deep Samadhi, and to enjoy it all the more he puts his mala around his neck and brings his head to his pillow. That is not comfortable enough, so he puts his blanket over him.

He only gets out of this Samadhi the next morning. When he gets up he is in a desperate hurry – there are only 7 minutes left and he still has to bath, but where is his mala? There is a knock on his door. 

The neighboring Brahmachari is there to remind him that he is getting late for the morning chanting class. He opens the door and says he cannot find his mala. Instead of his friend offering to help him to find it, as one would expect Brahmacharis to do, he just smiles back, as if teasing him! 

The Brahmachari who is running late cannot take this, especially when there are now only three minutes to go. The friend, still irritatingly smiling, walks closer to him, clutches something around his neck and turns it around.

The Brahmachari realizes instantly what had happened: “Oh, what a fool I have been, its still around my neck!” He is happy that he has found his mala.

Dear All,

This is one of the most famous simile in vedantha teachings and the teacher has to take aid of this simile in almost all Upanishads teaching to his students.

The distance between you the jiva and you the pure SELF is only the ignorance that you really and essentially are Pure SELF, just as the gap between one’s agony of losing a precious ornament and then finding the same on his own neck is only his ignorance that he already possesses the ornament, there, on his own neck, in his own SELF!!!!

All the years of the disciple’s stay in his master’s hermitage, 5 or 7 or 10 years, the role of his Master is only to teach the student that he is ever the Pure ATMAN, even while he is struggling to get a glimpse of this truth in the depth of his nidhidhyasana / meditation, on what the master teaches him every day, from dawn to dusk!!!

While in the path of Devotion, the God is separate and the devotee is separate up to the penultimate stage, in the path of Jnana, the edifice of Master’s teachings on Jnana is built on the foundation – “YOU ARE THAT”, “YOU ARE VERILY THE GOAL WHICH YOU ASPIRE FOR, THE PURE CONSCIOUSNESS, THE SAT CHIT ANANDA BRAHMAN!"

Love.