Msg for the day

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The Self is covered over by the five sheaths caused by the power of

ignorance. It is hidden from sight like the water of a pond covered

with weeds. When the weeds are removed the water is revealed and can

be used by man to quench his thirst and cool him from the heat. In

the same way, by process of elimination, you should with keen

intellect discard the objective five sheaths from the Self as "not

this, not this". Know the Self distinct from the body and from all

forms, like a stalk of grass in its sheaths of leaf. Know it as

eternal, pure, single in its essence, unattached, with no duties to

perform, ever blissful and self-effulgent. He who is liberated

realizes that all objectivity reality, which is superimposed on the

Self as the idea of a serpent is on the rope, is really no other than

the Self, and he himself is the Self. Therefore the wide aspirant

should undertake discrimination between the Self and the non-Self. Of

the five sheaths (food, life-breath, mind, intellect, and bliss), the

gross body is created out of food, increasing by eating it and

perishing when there is none. It is the sheath of food. Compounded of

skin, blood, flesh, fat, marrow, excreta, and urine, it is most

filthy. It has no existence before birth or after death but appears

between them. It undergoes change every moment. There is no set law

governing that change. It is an object, like a pot, is insentient and

has a variety of forms. It is acted upon by other forces. The Self,

on the other hand, is distinct from this body and is single, eternal,

and pure. It is indestructible, though the body with its limbs is

destroyed. The Self is the witness who knows the characteristics of

the body, its modes of activity and its three states. It is self-

aware and directs the body. Such being the contrast between the body

and the Self, how can the body be the Self? The fool thinks of it as

the Self. The man of wise action with some measure of discrimination,

takes body and soul together for "I", but the really wise man who

conducts the enquiry with firm discrimination knows himself always as

the supreme Brahman, the Being which is of its own nature. The "I am

the body" idea is the seed of all sorrow. Therefore, just as you do

not identify yourself with your shadow body, image body, dream body,

or the body that you have in your imagination, cease also to

associate the Self in any way with the body of skin, flesh, and

bones. Make every effort to root out this error and holding fast to

the knowledge of reality as the absolute Brahman, destroy the mind

and obtain supreme peace. Then you will have no more births. Even a

learned scholar who perfectly understands the meaning of Vedanta has

no hope of liberation if, owing to delusion, he cannot give up the

idea of the non-existent body as the Self.'

 

- Sri Ramana Maharshi