Hari OM
'Text-days' are for delving into the
words and theory of Advaita Vedanta.
We are now studying Aatmabodha. As
always, with each week, you are encouraged to review the previous teachings and
spend some time in contemplation of the meanings as the affect your life.
Please do consider purchasing the text. Remember, also, to recite the mangala charana before each study and
review the lessons before each new one.
Having
brought things down to a more immediate level with the rope as snake example,
the Guru now returns to slightly more abstract analogies.
dIpae
"qaidvTSvaTma jfEStEnaR-v_aaSyte.28.
Aatmaa-vabhaasayatyeko
buddhyaadiin-iindriyaanyaapi,
Diipo
ghataadivat-svaatmaa jadaistairna-avabhaasyate ||28||
Just as a lamp illumines a jar or a pot, so also the
Aatman illumines the mind, the sense organs and so on. These material objects
cannot illumine themselves by themselves, because they are inert.
This
shloka as a stand alone seems straightforward enough; we know that a bulb
cannot glow without the electricity contact being turned on. It's just glass
and metal until that juice runs through it. Easy-peasy?
Well
it's a start to understanding. However, the alert and attentive student who has
been following the flow of the text - and this is implied in all forms of
study, that we know and understand fully what has preceded the portion of text
currently under study - it will have become apparent that Sanskrit formations
have lakshana (inner meanings) to be cracked open from the language. Hence the
English translation fails us somewhat, for there is a tendency in this language
to take the words at face value.
The
previous shloka gives us a clue of how to gain more from this one. We learned of
the illusion of the snake appearing upon the substratum of the rope and that
this illusion occurred only within our own limited physical equipment of mind.
We are inclined to always accept that the mind and intellect are our highest
nature and thus become deeply involved in all that goes on around us. If we
pull back to the substratum within us, the aatman, we become the observer… and
the observer does not get involved. The electricity in the bulb, or the
lamplight in the pot, have no engagement with the activity which can occur
because of the light's presence. The light is never actually part of the bulb
or pot, which is why when the juice is removed, the material parts we call as
bulb or lamp do not continue to glow. They cannot shed light without the presence
of the powering juice.
Equally,
as wonderful as our mind and intellect are, they are still of the material
world (albeit very, very subtle), thus are nothing without the illumining
'juice' of the aatman, the life principle. In the Keno Upanishad we find the
shloka,
यन्मनसा
न
मनुते येनाहुर्मनो मतम् ।
तदेव
ब्रह्म त्वं विद्धि नेदं यदिदमुपासते ॥ ६ ॥
yanmanasā na manute yenāhurmano matam |
tadeva brahma tvaṃ viddhi nedaṃ yadidamupāsate || 6 ||
What mind does not comprehend, but
what comprehends the mind, know thou That alone as Brahman, and not this that
people worship here.
The 'not this' referred to is the physical being, the body, mind and
intellect and all the senses which operate within them. The material
combinations may vary in multifarious ways, but the One Spirit which is
changeless is the one glory which gives the glitter to this whole show!