ATMA BODHA 42

 

ATMA BODHA 42

“EVAM-ATMA-ARANOW-DHYANAMATHANE- SAATATAM-KRITE

UDITAVAGATHIH-JWALA SARVA-AGYANA-INDHANAM DAHET”

It is practically impossible to believe that you are the imperishable Soul and not the body! Clubbed up with the material world and all its silly pleasures and ups and downs of samsara , Man thinks only of the body and various associations it has developed in his mortal existence. He is so enveloped in maya or illusion that that he has no time to ponder over the reality and the importance of the Self embedded in his own heart! But the aspirant, at a time, may involve himself in a constant churning of Knowledge (Dhyana Mathana) and realize that he is the Self  but not the combination of the mere body mind stuff. It is only such constructive thoughts that can lead you in meditation with single minded devotion.

This constant churning of the fire of Knowledge is otherwise called as “Dhyana Mathana.” The means for such a constant churning of Knowledge is the process of right understanding and discrimination by your own intellect. The Sadhaka shall experience  a revelation of his own Self as Absolute Bliss! Even as ignorance vanishes. When that “ fire of Knowledge “develops into a mighty conflagration all ajnana or misconceptions  are burnt down as fuel  is consumed by ordinary fire.

Kaivalyopanishad  exhaustively describes the “ Churning of Knowledge. In olden days  for rituals and sacrifices fire was produced by  turning a wooden rod on two wooden pieces hollowed out for the end of the rod to rest. When the rod is churned in the sockets and pressed down firmly, the friction creates  heat and fire. The sloka has taken this idea in this beautiful metaphor. The lower ego and the higher Self are pressed into the “Mahamantra “ I am the Supreme Self”  ( Aham Brahmasmi). When through constant reflection it is churned properly ‘the fire of Knowledge’ is generated. Meditation fans it into  a conflagration. This destroys all our ignorance and misconceptions. “Thus the glory of a man of culture and perfection is that he has  burnt up his lower nature in the fire of his own higher understanding of life and its consummate Goal.”

 

“THE FORM OF FIRE WHICH IS LATENT IN WOOD IS NOT SEEN, NOR THAT SUBTLE FORM DESTROYED BUT MAY BE SEIZED AGAIN AND AGAIN FROM THE WOOD BY MEANS OF A DRILL,

. …… ( Swetasvataropanishad  11)