The Atma - Our Divine nature - Know Thyself Part 01

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Humanity has from the earliest days tried to understand its own

nature. We have turned in every direction to find our place under the

stars. From the earliest times, people worshiped their ancestors and

nature. They created pantheons of gods and goddesses to personify

divine trails. They developed systems of philosophy, psychology, and

religion.

 

There is no end to the ways in which human beings have sought their

indentity and life's meaning, but the ultimate answer has eluded most

of us. We have sought outwardly for a goal which lies inside us. When

we search within, we have a chance for far greater success.

 

" There cannot be anything more useful than knowledge of one's own

self. What do we mean by knowledge about one's own self? It is the

knowledge of the atma (inner divinity). To know the atma and to know

one's own self is the most useful aspect of one's learning " Baba

 

It is said that in the earliest days the gods wished to hide our

divinity from us. The gods considered as hiding places the highest

mountain peaks and the deepest ocean canyons. They finally decided

that the last place human beings would search would be in their own

hearts.

 

Rarely do people look deeply within themselves, but when they have,

great saints and sages have emerged. A Saint of India, Ramana

Maharshi, recommended that his disciples ask continually, " Who am I? "

Through deep introspection, the answer inevitably emerges: " I am

divinity itself. " . Jesus Christ said to his followers, " The kingdom

of heaven is within you. " Atma, not the personality, holds the secret

of our blissful fulfillment.

 

" Your reality is the atma, a wave of the paramatma (universal

divinity). The one object of this human existence is to visualize

that reality, that atma, that relationship between the wave and the

sea. All other activities are trivial: you share them with birds and

beasts. But this is the unique privilege of man. He has clambered

through all the steps of the ladder of evolution in order to inherit

this high destiny " baba

 

Continued..The Atma - Our Divine nature - Atma, the God Within part 02