Adi Shankaracharya talks about all that is truth ( Tattva meaning Truth) in Tattva Bodha:
Quality of a student who is in Pursuit of Truth
He begins the text by talking about the requirements that a student must have to learn about Truth. And the most requisite quality a student must possess, according to Adi Shankaracharya, is the ability to discretize between what is truth and what is not( Viveka:).
The Body, the Mind and the Witness
Swami Sukhabodhananda beautifully goes on to explain about the Ultimate Truth, as expounded by Adi Shankaracharya .
He says in one of his lectures.. There are three things to be kept in mind..
The centre of any person is neither his physical body ( the Sthoola Shareera:), nor the Mind ( the Sookshma Shareera:) but the Saakshi ( the witness) to everything around it.. And this witnessing aspect is the Atma..
The Physical Body
The physical body of a person is just possessed by the Atma, the mind in turn is the aspect that creates the Samsara..The Aatma possesses the body, so the body is being possessed, but the possessor is the Aatma, not the body itself.. The mind is being possessed, its possessor is the Aatma, but the mind is not the Possessor..
For instance, as can be told to a layman, The donkey is yours.. But you are not the donkey.. Similarly, the body is yours, you are not the body..
The Mind
Swami Sukhabodhananda says, that the spinning mind creates the Samsara.
The mind is constantly on the jump.. It dwells on events that occurred in the past or dwells on what may happen in the future but it often fails to remain in the present..
So what am I?
When a person identifies oneself with the mind, which is never stable and thinks oneself to be composed of just the mind and the body, the person automatically believes that he is the body.
But the truth is, according to Adi Shankaracharya, that the person is actually the Witness, neither the mind nor the body.
The Complete and the Incomplete
The spinning mind creates incompleteness... the mind can never be contended and so, the person who associates oneself with the mind or the body alone feels incomplete..
But the person who realises one's centre to be the Witness, lives in the present.. The present is always complete.. and hence the person is complete.. And being complete translates to being blissful
This philosophy is spoken about in the following verse:
" पूर्णं अत: | पूर्णं इदं |
पूर्णात पूर्णमुदच्यते |
पूर्णस्य पूर्नामातय पूर्णमेव अवशिष्यते || "
That is complete, this is complete
Remove the Complete from the Complete
And what remains is the Complete alone
The Aatma and the Paramaatma
And the Atma as defined by Sri Adi Shankaracharya is:
स्थूल सूक्ष्म कारण शरीरात, व्यतिरिक्त: सच्चिदानंद: एव आत्मा ||
Means one that is different from the physical, mental body, that which is always existant in truth and bliss is aatma.
Now the one reason why it is told that an aatma is not different from a Paramaatma is :
1) The Aatma is always a witness as is the Paramaatma
2)The Aatma doesn't have a form as the Paramaatma
3) The Aatma is truth and bliss as is the Paramaatma
So the aatma is not different from Paramatma.. So u are God and God is you.. That is Advaita for you, folks!
So how do I convert Samsaara ( the bounded world) into Nirvana ( Moksha or Freedom)?
So Adi Shankaracharya says, be the Saakshi ( witness) to all that is happening around u.. but do not identify yourself to the periphery..
So, how can one identify oneself to be the Saakshi? Remind yourself often, that the body you see is not the real you..The real you is the observer within.. Once this practice becomes a perfection, you may attain the Paramatma's anugraha to be enlightened.
This, folks, is the essence of the Upanishads, the Vedanta and all texts that speak about Advaita.
|| Om Tat Sat Iti Brahmaarpanam Astu ||
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