Atman, (Sanskrit: “self,” “breath”) one of the most basic concepts in Hinduism, the universal self, identical with the eternal core of the personality that after death either transmigrates to a new life or attains release (moksha) from the bonds of existence.
You have all the accumulated knowledge and secrets of the Cosmos inside you. Harvest in meditative state by going beyond senses. Knowledge of SELF will dawn on to you.
Who am I? What are you? Is your notion of SELF real? How does it come into existence? Is it the sum of all your experiences and awareness? Or is it a mere notion sustained by a few persistent memories, attachments and desires? Are you materialization of few selected thoughts and memories or all thoughts and memories? Are you sustained by a few aspects of good deeds or punyam from your present and past? Do you come into existence by the association of these thoughts and memories? Do you exist without them? If you are personification of your Karma, what happens to you when you enter into deep sleep? Do you still exist then?
All the scriptures revolves around these questions to explain the Sanathana Dharma. Too many theories, too many opinions, too many controversies, too many Egos, too many beliefs and too many disagreements. What is the TRUTH?
Rishis thousands of years ago obsessed to know the secrets of existence. In doing so they followed a very unique method to minimize the interference of the mind and transcend its limitations. They silenced their minds and allowed the higher knowledge to manifest itself in their consciousness. You can do it even today.
There are two types of knowing: knowing by knowing and knowing without knowing. In the former there is desire, effort and egoism, in the latter there is renunciation of effort and surrender to silence. Higher knowledge arises from the latter.
Kena Upanishad, says that in knowing Brahman there is no knowing and in not knowing Brahman there is true knowing.
Rishis believed that the deepest mysteries of our existence were hidden in deep sleep where neither the mind, nor the senses, nor the dreams can reach? They tried to enter into this state through silence, by withdrawing their minds and senses and practicing meditation and austerities.
Yoga was born this way. The purpose of yoga is to enter into deep silence and simulate deep sleep to experience stillness in the absence of mind and Senses.
Austerities (tapas), meditation (dhyana) and other practices of yoga enabled the seers to enter into deeper states of consciousness and witness themselves in subtle states without the familiar disturbances caused by Nature. The logic they followed was simple. If you wanted to know Sanathana Dharma that exists beyond the mind, you should silence the mind and prevent its interference.
I also entered into the silence of mind, but there saw nothing but an absence of light, desire and the becoming of divine. Hence, I acknowledge the silencing of desires, but remained skeptical about the existence of an eternal and immutable Self.
True knowledge
True knowledge of the Self, and for that matter true knowledge of anything could be gained only when the mind was free from the illusions, distractions, and delusions to which it was subject. Any experience, in which the subject remained fully immersed in the object without any duality, produced the transcendental state of direct awareness, complete experience and true understanding. In this regard they came out with some startling revelations which are listed below.
- Direct experience (pratyaksha) is the basis of true knowledge.
- True experience means either you enter the essential state of the object or become one with it.
- The quality of your knowledge depends upon the quality of your experience. If your experience is complete without duality, your knowledge will be complete.
- To gain complete knowledge of anything, you must embrace the dualities to which it is subject. It means you must overcome your preferences, likes and dislikes, and cultivate sameness towards whole existence. You must be ready to merge with anything, associate with anything and enter anything. It is the perfect state of sanyasa (renunciation).
- You are limited in your knowledge and awareness to the extent you avoid or attract the dualities of life, propelled by your desires and preferences. For example if you have never visited the house of a poor person because you dislike poor people, you will never directly know what a life of poverty means.
- In your quest for true knowledge your mind and senses are the major obstacles. When you use them to know the world, you will not have a direct experience of the reality of things, but the reality which they construct for you according to their own nature. It will be almost like formulating opinions about nations and people purely based upon what you see in movies or hear from others.
Direct experience (pratyaksha) is the best means to arrive at the truth of anything. To know anything you must either become it, unite with it, enter it, or experience it without any duality. For example, if you want to know true suffering, you must experience it in its totality and become immersed in it. If you avoid it or suppress it you may escape from it, but you will not know what suffering truly means and what role it plays in your life. Direct experience (pratyaksha) is the best means to arrive at the truth of anything. To know anything you must either become it, unite with it, enter it, or experience it without any duality. For example, if you want to know true suffering, you must experience it in its totality and become immersed in it. If you avoid it or suppress it you may escape from it, but you will not know what suffering truly means and what role it plays in your life.
When you unconditionally embrace the different experiences and phenomena that life introduces to you, there is the risk of you becoming disturbed and distracted by them. Hence, it is essential to practice austerities and learn to control your mind and body. With your senses and mind firmly under your control, renouncing all likes and dislikes, you must embrace the world unconditionally in its totality to let it teach you the ultimate knowledge hidden in the diversity of creation and show the essence of things.
In the silence of the mind truths becomes self-evident
Therefore, to know any truth, you must silence your mind and senses and remove the dualities that stand between you and the object of your perception. You must become like a seer who sees truth of things in the total silence of his mind and body. In that complete silence, everything that appears in the field of his vision shines in its own bright light. For an ordinary person, it is a huge challenge because you cannot easily create that silence in you and establish choice less awareness without undergoing years of transformative effort. Hence, most people remain on the surface of the things they experience and know little about themselves or the world.
Yes, you must rise above the dualities, stop of all mental modifications, silence your senses, mind, and ego, and see the truth in front of you, without casting upon it your shadow of thoughts, beliefs and perceptions. You must experience truths and objects without being disturbed by them or attracted to them. Each time you look at yourself or at the diversity of life, you must bring freshness into your perception and emptiness into your mind. Only then, your self-knowledge will be illuminated by its own truth rather than the truth that your mind and perceptual world build for you.
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