ATMA BODHA 37

ATMA BODHA 37 1A

“EVAM- NIRANTARA ABHYASTA  BRAHMAIVA-ASMI- ITI-VASANA

HARATYA AVIDYAVIKSHEPAM ROGANIVA RASAYANAM.”

“The impression “ I am Brahman” created thus  by constant practice destroys ignorance or avidya and the agitation caused by it. It is similar to the medicine or rasayana that destroys disease.”

When one, by intense reflection identifies the Brahman-Atman relationship, ignorance is destroyed like medicine that destroys the disease, and gets itself eliminated. Constant practice is absolutely essential because over a period of many births man has accumulated many tendencies or Vasanas and they have to be got over. Not only this, one has to get rid of innumerable attachments as well as the identification with our body mind intellect equipment. The seeker after Truth should never forget  the detached nature of the Pure Self. He should not identify himself with material sheaths and all his egocentric misconceptions  about himself.

What exactly is the reason for the bondage of man? It is the ego ( Jeeva) that brings the person again and again to bondage. Once again it is the ego tha binds him to the world of ignorance or avidya. When the duality is eliminated along with the thought “I am Brahman” in the all consuming Knowledge of the Self, what remains is one all absorbing experience of the One Supreme Self, Eternal, Infinite. The final culmination  of all spiritual seeking  is this subjective experience because the Self is not an object of cognition. In fact, it is the very Light that illumines all our experiences.

So it is only through “Gyana Abhyas” we have to eliminate all the vasanas , end the mind and experience the Self which is oue essential nature. In the same way as the medicine we take in of its own accord gets ultimately eliminated from us, so too the experience “ I am Brahman” is also dissolved in that spiritual glow. So long as we are not asleep we “try to sleep” but when we reach sleep all efforts end by themselves.

“The Self cannot be gained bythe study of scriptures, nor by the power of intellect, nor even by much hearing. It can be gained only by him whom it chgooses. To him it reveals its true nature.”  (Mundakopanishad Vi(Up III.2)

“In the innermost sheath of golden hue there is Brahman without stain and without parts. It is the pure. It is the Light of lights.. That is what they know who know the Self.”