Atma vichara is shastra vichara

When we do shastra vichara, to know the atma, we rely on the guru to unfold the meaning of words of the shastra.

Take for instance the meaning of the word satyam. Satyam is sometimes translated into english. And understood as substratum. Any english translation can be used, but it is crucial to understand the appropriate meaning of the word used. If I use the word substratum, many meanings are possible for substratum.
Substratum can mean that, the soil is the substratum of a lawn. So there is soil as substratum, and grass grows on top of the lawn. So is that the same as satyam. Answer is NO. That is not what we mean by satyam as used in shastra. So what does satyam mean in shastra.

Shastra gives example, one of which is gold and chain and bangle etc.
If you take any form of gold, say a bangle. Here the bangle is all in all GOLD. It is fully gold alone. However the bangle is still present. we cant say there is no bangle, there is only gold. No I can wear the bangle, so something called bangle IS. The bangle has no existence of its own. Bangle draws its existence from gold. Bangles existence is gold, but bangle has a certain meaning. Shastra calls the bangle, the chain, the earring as mithya. And gold as satyam. As you can see the bangle, chain, earring all are gold, all are satyam alone. You dont need to FIND the substratum , deep inside, there is no need to go underneath. If we go underneath, break down gold further, we will get atoms of gold, we wil get electrons, protons, neutrons etc.
This doesnt say anything , simply says even gold is not satyam. Gold is also mithya. So how to define satyam, what is the lakshana (unique definition) for satyam?
Simple, satyam is 'that which does not draw its existence from anything else', 'is 'self existent'.
Shastra uses another word gnanam. Gnanam means that which IS, the knower, known knowledge all the three is gnanam. The gnanam is from the root word 'gna'. Gna is the root for gnata, gnanaa and gneya all the three. The content of knower, known, knowlege is gna. This gna is conscious. Is there any source of consciousness other than atma, other than you? NO, only source of consciousness or gnanam, or gna dhatu, is you. So you are the gnanam, and you are self evident, self existent, you do not need to become evident to yourself, yo uare self evident. You are self existent, you ARE, hence you meet the definition of satyam. So you are satyam. So are you the substance of all that is here, as satyam. Answer is YES.
So is the tree you?
Yes! Since the tree is satyam. The treeness is an attribute of satyam alone. We have already seen the need for a 'self existent' ISness. And that is you alone. So you are the tree as well.
How can you say that? I cant be a tree...

Arre, when it is being said you are the tree, it is implied we are talking about you are the satyam, and tree is satyam, Hence you are the tree.
We know already that the attribute tree IS, attribute Mind IS. But what Is is satyam alone, which is you.

By being the sky, does satyam become less satyam than it is being the tree? So is there two satyams? the tree satyam and the sky satyam? Arre when you count satyam, there is only one. Advayam brahma. this is non dual.

Words have to be understood, shastra is all about shabda pramana. Words are unfolded by guru and understood by sishya, in same way as understood by guru. Which is gnanam. Which is atma gnanam.

Harhara parvati pataye
harahara mahadeva.

An ode to a sanyasi

Perhaps here
in a sound old family
I spend my years
wondering how

The saffron robed
solitary master
How does
he live without

Perhaps the earth is his mother
The sun his father
The trees are his friends
And night his lover

The birds are children
The sky his heart
The stumbling jeeva
A friend in need

Love is his job
And wonder his income
Blessing his expenditure
But incurs no loss

Truth his embellishment
Ahimsa his crown
Vaidika dharma
His passion abound

I really do wonder
From my sacred pond
His oceanic grace
Are those drops of rain.

Assimilating the spiritual vision of reality

When we say the mind, we refer to the thinking person I.

We do not refer to just some organ called brain in our head, physically located. Why? Since the thinking person is the entire human being. Without brain of course he cant think, but if his organs arent working , his thinking is affected. Even an unhealthy person, cant think well. So in general instead of saying mind, let me say the thinking person, oneself.

This thinking person, faces a problem of ignorance. This much has been established for any vedantin, that the problem of ignorance plagues the thinking person. So upanishads offer knowledge, a gift to the thinking person, a gift which makes him see his own beauty based on this knowledge. The thinking person can use the words of the upanishad, well understood as a means to dwell one ones own beauty, ones own wholeness, purnatvam.

This wholeness is not limited, wholeness by definition is not limited. In fact wholeness is ishvara.

Thus the words of the shastra, are a means for the thinking person to appreciate wholeness in every thought, since wholeness alone pervades all thoughts. 

So the thinking person, becomes an appreciate person, appreciative of oneself, and of the entire ishvaras manifestations, of all the names and forms and glories of ishvara. Sad darshana ( knowledge of truth) in the form of prayagatma ( oneself atman, chit, or I) empowers the person, to appreaciate jagadishvara, the parameshwara, in every thought and action.

Earlier if you thought of a tree, it would be just a tree, either useful or not useful to you, since the person is plagued with ignorance and seeking joy through material means, through karma.

Now if you think of a tree, you can appreciate tree, for what it is, to be ishvara. 

The reality we live in is a spiritual reality. Our thoughts are spiritual, and thoughts lead to actions, so our actions are also spiritual.

This is the vision of our gurus which he seeks to transfer to us and for that we must prepare ourself as well as dedicate ourself through:

1. Chitta shuddhi through svadharma anushtana ( purify self through right actions)

2. Exposure to shastra ( listening to shastra)

3. Shastra vichara ( dwelling on shastra )

These three help us to understand we live in a spiritual reality, and be accomplished in the true sense in life.

har hara parvati pataye,

hara hara mahadeva.

No teaching is complete without ishvara

Ishvara has to be understood, since this world has to be understood.

This 'has to be', when i say 'has to be', I do not say it because it is 'my' desire or wish, or it is some moral code to be followed, however it is a reality that every human is faced with.

We are faced with the reality, that we are ignorant. That we do not know the answer to , where did this world come from?, who created it?, who am I? etc. we do not know, and we want to know.

It is a default setting, to want to know is a default setting, every human wants to know, we cant escape it forever though we can postpone.

So if this creation has to be understood, my place in it has to be understood, the creator also has to be understood.

Jiva, jagat and ishvara have to be understood.

Vedanta says 'isavAsyam' idam sarvam. All that is here is ishvara. It is non dual, ishvara alone exists. In fact there is no difference between jiva, jagat and ishvara, it is one, non dual reality. Hence that which you want to know is yourself.

This has to be unfolded, its appears to be a brave statement, not believable, but it is true.

This is not left unto faith, it can be taught, you can be taught that you are ishvara, and all that is here is ishvara.

Shastra teaches that, our sampradaya teaches that. Our gurus have taught this alone. It can be passed on through teaching, Through guru sishya.

harih om.

The one who is ever accomplished loved and loving is the self

The self is ishvara.

Ishvara is the self.

The one who is the cause of this universe,

The one who is the creator of this universe.

The one who is present in the very creation as the very creation,

The one who accomplishes the unaccomplished with ease

The one who is the victory in every victory

The one who is desired as victory in every defeat

The one who is the loving creator

The one who is the loving creation

The one who is desired for

The one who is loved

The one for whose sake there is love

The one who is love

Is the ever accomplished self

One oneself

is chitanananda rupaha

Shivoham Shivoham

All that is here is ishvara

Non separate from ishvara

Just as an actor is every role he plays

ishvara is all that is here

And that ishvara is satchitananda svarupa

And that is none other than you.


HaraHara PArvathi pathaye
hara hara mahadevA

Vairagya DOES NOT EQUALS not having desires

We talk about vairagya being a necessary sadhanam for knowledge.
A necessary qualification.

However there is many a confusion about what vairagya truly refers to.

Vairagya is understood to refer to sometimes an ability to shun the world, or go to the himalayas etc.
A tendency to avoid luxuries etc, a sort of denial.

While indulgance is certainly a huge chain of bondage, denial is also truly speaking a bondage.

The truth is to KNOW that one is already free, however to know that one needs vairagya.

So if vairagya is not denial, then what is really vairagya?

Vairagya is a maturity in understanding of how we relate to the world as an individual.

To be objective in ones understanding is vairagya.

What does that mean here?

It means here that when we relate to the world, we fully understand that any action, any karma cannot give me 'self approval', it cannot solve the problem of 'self disapproval' and lead to 'self acceptance'.

Any karma or its result cannot lead to 'self fulfilment' which is moksha or freedom centered around self.

This is since ignorance is the cause of self disapproval and hence knowledge ALONE can solve that problem.

Knowing thus, I can relate to the world appropriately in terms of expectations I have from the world.

When I relate to someone , I need not expect HIM/HER to approve me or accept me.

When I perform an action, I need not expect that the result of the action will lead to I accepting myself or approving myself.

While I do expect a certain result from an action, that IS a desire and its very much needed.
When I type this post and submit I DO expect it to get posted in the blog so people can read it.

There is a desire to write a post and there is an expectation from that desire.

However the writing the post succesfuly in no way affects me in terms of me approving myself.

Hence I can relate to the world objectively, since I am not giving a hook to the world, to GIVE ME APPROVAL. I can relate to the world objectively as it IS. This relating in this manner is freedom. It is ishvara.

If the world is ishvara then who am I?

For this I rely on upanishadic knowledge.

Shruti makes it clear that , I am a conscious being. And this conscious being which I am, is satyam and anantam. Which means it is not limited by space, which means I does not define itself in terms of a location or a point in time.
So being anantam chit, I is also sat says the shastra.

This is a very significant statement. I which has been stripped off body mind buddhi, and identified to be a conscious being, shastra now says I is SAT. Sat implies existence itself. That which exists is existance. Now how to make assimilate meaning of sat, it is through example of pot and clay , and gold and jewels. That way I can understand the meaning of sat, as that which exists independently and on which anything that exists has to get its 'existence' from. That is sat.

If shastra says you are satchitanantham, how to now account for the universe , the jagath.

Now shastra has to come in and say, depending on sat are space, air, fire, water and earth which arose in that order. And they all combined with 3 gunas to from the jagath that includes the body mind and the sukshma sharira.

Since they arose depending on sat, they are mithya or maya.

Which includes my body mind also and all that is here.

So I am that satchitananda brahman , on which all that is here depends.

Think about it, that sat , from which everything depends, has to be chit also, has to be intelligent. Since if not, how about all the knowledge the intelligence with which the jagath is desined. So it is an intelligent conscious sat. And other than I, the concious being, is there any other consciousness.
There can only be one conciousness, since it IS conscious. Consciousness itself means to be conscious, so if I am conscious, it means I am consciousness.  And if I am consciousness, then I am sat, and since I am sat, I am also anantam. And being satyam gnanam anantam, I am the cause of all that is here.

In fact you can understand as satyam alone is chit, and chit alone is satyam, as in, satyam is intelligent and chit is existence, which mean what we refer to as satyamgnanam anatham is ONE brahman and that brahman is what you are.

All that is as jagath is due to maya shakti which is non separate from me brahman. It is my shakti. Inherent in brahman is shakti called maya. This is the shakti to create and to provide material.

Like a spider , I am looked upon as a 'all knowledge' , when seen from the standpoint of maya creation or nimitta karana ( intelligent cause). I am satyam, looked upon from standpoint of maya as the intelligent cause become ishvara.
And when looked from standpoint of my body jagath, I am looked upon as maya itself, the upadana kAranA ( material cause)
Maya is mithya. Since maya is a parinami karana ( a cause which undergoes change).
Hence I am ishvara with maya upadhi.

Same satayam gnanam anatam brahma, I am the knower of the body mind when looked at from the standpoint of body mind, I am chetana, chaitanya, concious being behind the body mind. And when looked at as the body , I am a jiva, a participant in the creation which is ishvara.

From the standpoint of brahman itself All that exists is brahma alone. Maya is satyam, clay, just as pot is clay.

Atma is a sadhya vastu

Generally the human pursuit is for achievement and success in the form of acquisition.
And it is certainly necessary for all human beings to acquire that which is of 'good' to them.
I am deliberately not using words such as 'beneficial', 'useful' etc., since I am trying to translate the sanskrit word 'kshemam' or 'hitam' and am unable to find a english word that would do so immediately, hence I am simply saying, every human has to necessarily 'acquire' that which is of 'good' to him.
The moment we say 'hitam' we have brought in dharma. The order of dharma. That which is of greatest good to a human, in terms of acquisition, is that which is acquired by means of dharma.
Anything acquired by 'stealing', 'hurting' etc. is not of good, since the human in addition to the material acquisition , additionally acquires pApA, which is in no manner 'good'. Hence in his pursuit to acquire, a human necessarily has to follow dharma, not because it is someone elses mandate ( such as a overruling god in heaven), rather since follwing dharma and acquiring, not only lets the man enjoy the acquisition ( sadhanam), however it also leads to punya, which translates into situations conducive to even more punya.

This is really the mandate of the karma kanda of the vedas. The vedas initial portion known as the karma kanda, enable man to fulfill all his kAmAs or desires, righteouslu in concomittance with dharma.

Such a human who has led a life of dharma is a ripened candidate, fit for receving that by acquiring which . everything else is acquired.

This is an 'aha' moment for most, however for a dharmic individual who has over and over strived for acquistion of sadhanAs for happiness, at some point does realise the futility of searching for 'that which he desires' through finite means.

Born in a vedic culture, he has also understood from elders, there is such a thing as moksha, which is the fulfillment of all desires at once and acquiring which, all of ones desires are fulfilled at once.

Also naturally for a human who has established that relationship of kAmI and kAmAdhyaksha, with ishvara, the person being one who desires and ishvara being the one who fulfills the desire, naturally for mosksha also, the mumukshu relies on ishvara.

Hence when a vedantic guru is present, the guru is reverred as ishvarogururatmeti. As ishvara himself in the form of guru.

The guru is the wielder of moksha shastra, that which confers the moksha , which fulfills the aspirant through 'fulfilment of all desires at once' as promised.

Now what is this moksha shastra, this is where the teaching begins.

The teachings begins by clarifying that moksha is of the nature gnana.

Why?

Desire is three fold, in every action a human desires happiness, immortality and knowledge. Basically freedom from sorrow, freedom from mortality and freedom from ignorance of any kind.

Since what the sishya is looking for , is limitless ananda. Any ananda obtained from limited means and ends , will always have a beginning and always have an ending. Since it is limited by time.
Therefore the moksha promised has to be ananda, which is in now way limited by time.

Also the sishya is looking for immortality, if I say ok, you will have limitless ananda, however only till you are alive, again sishya wont be satisfied, he will say, I want limitless ananda, I also want to be immortal.

Now guru may say, OK, I will give you limitless ananda, also you will never die, however, you wont know who you are, and what this universe is, you will simply keep experiencing happiness forever.

Again sishya will be hardly satisfied, since he is a vairagyin, for him knowledge is more important than some experience of joy, neither is he afraid of death, but no, he doesnt want to be ignorant.

Now how will the guru give all these three that he has promised in the form of some sadhanam? in the form of some object?

Is there ever such an object at all?

Is there some kamadhenu cow? Even if he gives a cow, how to remove sishyas ignorance about where the cow came from?, how the cow was created? who created the cow?
etc.??

Therefore necessarily guru has to give sishya gnanam.

However gnanam can only remove ignorance, how can it give immortality and also make the sishya limiltess ananda?

Yes it can says guru, since again the gnanam will not be about external vastu. Any gnanam to be total gnanam has to include the knower or gnata. If I tell sishya, ok I will tell you everything about gneya vastus but not about you the gnata, is that complete gnanam? No.

Ok if I tell sishya, ok i will tell you gnanam about yourself, but not about gneya vastus and what they are etc. that is also not total gnanam,

If total gnanam is gnanam of discrete objects, the objects are infinite, which means it is impossible to get total gnanam.

However, guru and shastra says it is possible, and hence sishya now has to listen with shraddha.

Now guru unfolds.

The cause of your sorrow and limitations is agnanam centered around yourself.
You take yourself to be a limited body mind and you identify with all the limitations and drawbacks of the body mind, and boast at the achievements of the body mind.

This up and down merry go round is called samsara.

However, what you take yourself to be, you are not.

You are not the body, or mind, or sense organs, you are not your hunger, thirst body, you are not the one who desires, you are not the one who acts. In fact you are the one who is the witness to all that you are. you are witness who is unchanging, you are the one who is conscious of all that IS, include the three states ( waking dreaming sleeping) as well as changes in your body mind.
That unchanging conscious witness is chit.

Also you are not just chit, you are satchit.

Sat means that which IS and which Is the truth of time itself.

What is meant by truth of time? What is meant by truth itself?

Time is changing, and time is ever present. What is present AS time is Sat. That sat is chit, you are.
Which is anantha, or not limited by time or space or any manifestations.

Time and space are manifestations. they are manifestations of the same satchitananda brahman

When it is said that something is true, it has to be always true , then only it qualifies to be as true as 'sat' in the context of vedanta 'sat'. vedanta 'sat' means anantam sat, that which is always true.

Now for us there is no object or experience to assimilate this always trueness. Always trueness cannot mean forever true, as in forever refferring to a long period of time. Since that will be infinite.

However it can mean the very content of time, it itself being that which makes time to BE time. Existence itself, which is existence when we say time IS or EXISTS. Since time IS, space IS. Air IS, water IS, fire IS, earth IS.
Sky IS, tree IS, I AM, wife IS, mother IS, god IS.

When we say IS, we refer to that which IS.

Now if we analyse any object we find it depends on something else for its existence, which means it has no existence of its own.

The table has no existence of its own, the table IS wood.
Wood IS some atoms.
Atoms is What?

what really IS? we dont know.

That IS , is satyam, that is chit says shastra, and chit is YOU.

Hence you are THAT.

Tat tvam asi.

That limitless sat, which IS the all that is, is YOU.

Hence I am that brahman satyamgnanamanatham brahma.

Chit is used to point to YOU.

Sat is also pointing to YOU, however, sat also clarifies that YOU is that sat, which is the sat of ishvara also, which is the sat of all that is here as jagat.

Hence Time is a devata, which IS satchidananda brahman.

Space is a devata which IS satchidananda brahman.

There is a human body which IS satchidananda brahman.

From the standpoint of all that is here, there IS a nimitta karanam status/intelligent cause status, which IS satchidananda brahman.

From the standpoint of all that is here, there IS a parinami karanam status/material causal status, which IS satchidananda brahman.

Hence that brahman which you ARE, alone IS, paramartha.

And all the difference is maya kalpita kAryAm, brahma or vyavaharica.

Hence you are not a sadhanam,you are a sadhya vastu. You are what you want to be.

Atma is sadhya vastu, since it is you.