Some thoughts on Atma-12

[Guest guest]

Loving SAI RAMs Dear Brothers and Sisiters,

(continued from posting no.11)

 

One member had asked me through a personal mail to my id to tell him as to how Atma can be realised. It is very much the intention of this humble self to come this topic in due course. This humble self has not elaborated this topic so far as it was considered improper to put the cart before the horse. Some of us seem to be in too much of a hurry. It is like reading the last chapter of a story first or like trying to understand the 18th Chapter of Bhagavad Gita first. We need to keep patience. We have to adopt some logic in our understandings. Let us try to decipher Atma in some greater details before we can think of Atma-Satshatkar(Self-Realization). With this prelude, let us plunge in to the topic of Atma.

 

 

On account of not exercising our discriminative faculty , the qualities of and activities of the body,mind and intellect are attributed to the stainless Atma which is SATCHIDANDA just as blue colour and the like are attributed to sky. We have seen that Atman is distinct and separate from the matter layers. It has none of the properties of matter. However, when Atman functions through the gross and subtle bodies,it manifests as existence and knowledge respectively. Those who lack the sense of discrimination superimpose the properties of these bodies upon Atma.

 

 

All external and internal activities such as physical perceptions and actions, mental feelings and intellectual thoughts belong to the gross and subtle bodies. Also the sense of doership and the sense of enjoyership are related to the mind and intellect. Owing to lack of discriminative capabilities the deluded persons superimpose all these qualities and actions of the gross and subtle bodies to the imaculate Atma. Atman is pure. A substance is said to be impure when it is mixed or adulterated with or contaminated with anything other than itself. Since Atman is all-pervading there can be nothing other than its infinite homogeneous nature. The non-discriminative superimposition of the proprties and actions of material bodies upon the Pure Atma has been compared by Sankaracharya to superimposing various attributes such as colour, concavity, mistiness,dirtiness etc. etc. to the sky. The sky, though it appears blue in colour, has none of these qualities. It is not affected by such traits superimposed upon it. Similarly, a man of discrimination realises that Atma is pure and never contaminated by the qualities of matter associating with it.

(to be continued)

With Lovin SAI RAMs,

G.Balasubramanian