When, my dear, Atman is seen, heard about, reflected upon and contemplated on, all this universe becomes known. (Yajnavalkya teaching his wife Maitreyi)
Brihadaryanika Up. – 4.5.6
Category Archives: Topic of the month
The Self and self control
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The Supreme Self of one who has control over the aggregate of his body and organs, and who is tranquil, becomes manifest. [He should be equipoised] in the midst of cold and heat, happiness and sorrow, as also honor and dishonor.
— Bhagavad-Gita, Ch VI, sloka 7
http://ebookbrowsee.net/srimad-bhagavad-gita-shankara-bhashya-english-pdf-d356705117
Self – Presence-awareness
…what you are, really, is this shining, ever-present sense of being, awareness, presence, is-ness or whatever. The thought ‘I’ or the sense of being a person or ‘ego’ is only a thought or idea appearing in awareness. Just see that all the other binding thoughts and ideas spin around that idea of an ‘I’ – not your actual presence. Presence-awareness is not a limited person at all. It is the vast, mirror-like, awareness-space in which everything arises. This is you. This is your home.
John Wheeler, Awakening to The Natural State, Non-Duality Press, 2004. ISBN 0954779231. Extract Link, Review Link. Buy from Amazon US, Buy from Amazon UK
The Self – Projection
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What you see is nothing but your self. Call it what you like, it does not change the fact. Through the film of destiny, your own light depicts pictures on the screen. You are the viewer, the light, the picture and the screen. Even the film of destiny (prarabdha) is self-selected and self-imposed.
Nisargadatta Maharaj
Atman- mirror
1.19. Just as a mirror exists within and without the image reflected in it, so the Supreme Self exists inside and outside this body.
The idea is this: The image in the mirror has no real existence. It is a mere appearance. Only the mirror exists. Similarly, only the Self exists. Body, mind, etc have no real existence. It is only by being superimposed on the Self that they appear to exist. Just as the reflection cannot affect the mirror, so body, mind etc cannot affect the Self.
aShTAvakra saMhitA, Swami Nityaswarupananda, Advaita Ashrama, No ISBN.
Atma-j.āna, Self-knowledge (2)
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(ii) Svarūpa-j.āna, knowledge of one’s true nature. What is the nature of this
Atman? Unfortunately we are aware of only the existence of the Atman but, owing to the covering of kāraṇa-aj.āna, we are not aware of its true nature, svarūpa. According to Shankara, the true nature of the Atman can be known only from Vedantic scriptures. The Upanishads state that the true nature of Atman is Brahman. This kind of knowledge is at first only a conceptual knowledge produced by mental vṛttis, modifications. But this vṛtti-j.āna is the starting point. According to Shankara, once this knowledge is gained, all that remains to be done is to stop identifying oneself with one’s body, mind, and so on.
This non-identification, practised with the help of the ‘neti, neti ’ process,begins as dṛg-dṛśya-viveka—discrimination between the seer and the seen—andculminates in a higher type of inner absorption, known as nididhyāsana.
Sureshwaracharya equates nididhyāsana with savikalpa samādhi. Beyond this lies nirvikalpa samādhi, in which akhaṇdākāra-vṛtti, a unitary mental mode, removes themūlāvidyā, causal ignorance. When the mūlāvidyā is completely removed, the Atman is realized as Brahman. When this happens, astitva-j.āna is replaced by svarūpa-j.āna.
The popular notion that in Advaitic experience the Atman ‘merges’ into Brahman is not quite true.
The Atman remains as self-existence. Owing to the coverings of aj.āna and its products, the Atman is at first experienced as ‘I exist’. But as the coverings are removed, the Atman’s self-existence expands until it becomes infinite. The same Atman that was at the beginning remains at the end also, only its coverings are gone; we then call it Brahman.
From: Four Basic Principles of Advaita Vedanta
by Swami Bhajanananda, Ramakrishna Mission
Source: Prabuddha Bharata — Jan/Feb 2010
Atma-j.āna, Self-knowledge (1)
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This, again, is of two kinds: astitva-j.āna and svarūpa-j.āna.
(i) Astitva-j.āna, knowledge of one’s existence. If Atman and Brahman were completely hidden by aj.āna, then we would know nothing about our own existence or about other things, and we would be no better than a stone or a clod of earth. But, like the light of the sun coming through dark clouds, the light of the Atman comes through the coverings of aj.āna. It is this filtered light of Atman that gives us the notion ‘I exist’. My own existence, astitva, does not need any proof; it is self-evident, svataḥ-siddha.
This awareness of our own existence comes from the Atman in us.
It should be mentioned here that the ‘I’ or ego in us is the result of the association of the Atman, which is cit or pure Consciousness, and buddhi, which is jaḍa or aj.āna. This association is conceived as a ‘knot’, cit-jaḍa-granthi, or as a red-hot iron ball—fire stands for the Atman, the iron ball for buddhi—or as a transparent crystal appearing as red owing to the presence of a red flower near it.
When we say ‘I exist’, the ‘exist’ aspect comes directly from the Atman.
From: Four Basic Principles of Advaita Vedanta, Sw. Bhajanananda,
Ramakrishna Mission, Source: Prabuddha Bharata — Jan/Feb 2010
- Part 2 will be posted in a few days
Topic of the Month – Atman derivation
The word Atman is derived from the root Ad which means to pervade (Ad vyApane). Atman thus means the invisible reality or substance that pervades the individuated visible forms, just as gold is the substance that pervades the visible form of an ornament. This visible form in the case of living beings includes in it the physical phenomenon called body as well as the phenomenon known as the soul.
From Karma and Reincarnation, Swami Muni Naryanana Prasad, D.K. Printworld (P) Ltd., 1993, ISBN 81-246-0022-8. Buy from Amazon US, Buy from Amazon UK
Topic of the Month – Self and Self-inquiry
The Topic from now until the end of February will be Atman-Atma vichAra, Self-Self-inquiry. All bloggers and visitors are invited to post quotations (indicating source), questions or short essays on this topic.
Ego – how it arises
The immutable consciousness that the witness-self is, being reflected in the mind, and apparently limited by it, appears as the ego, the empirical self, which functions as the percipient.
Methods of Knowledge, Swami Satprakashananda, Advaita Ashrama, 1974. ISBN 81-7505-065-9.Buy from Amazon US, Buy from Amazon UK