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The eternal Self within

CHENNAI: Bondage is due to ignorance of one’s true nature and it manifests as identification with the aspects of the human personality (body, mind and intellect), which are ephemeral. Hence one of the methods adopted in spiritual life is to discover the eternal Self (Atman) within through a process of elimination of all that are mistakenly identified with it. Sri Ramana Maharshi was a sage who used to advise his devotees to constantly question, “Who am I?” to discover the Self within.

In his discourse, Sri Goda Venketeswara Sastri said the understanding that the identification with the body-mind-intellect personality was false was fundamental to the spiritual quest. The Self is the underlying basis for these faculties though different from them. This can be appreciated with the analogy of the string that holds together the flowers in a garland. The string pervades the garland though different from it. As the ego is the root of the misidentification the solution lies in uprooting the ego. One way to do it is to consciously dispel the feeling of “I” that is present in all mental processes. The Vivekachudamani states, “Give up immediately your identification with egoism, the agent, which is by its nature a modification, is endowed with a reflection of the Self, and diverts one from being established in the Self—identifying yourself with which you have come by this relative existence, full of miseries of birth, decay, and death, though thou art the witness, the essence of knowledge and bliss absolute.”

Human fears are about the decay of the body due to old age and disease, and finally death. This is rooted in the fear of the unknown—what happens after the death of this body. It is only by study of Vedanta that one can understand one’s true nature as the eternal Atman, which is of the nature of consciousness and bliss. Old age is a palpable fear because one becomes dependent on others. It is not old age per se which is the reason for fear because one accepts it as a fact of existence, but its attendant infirmities because we have failed to train our minds to a life of contemplation and hanker after the pleasures of youth. By constantly remembering that one is essentially the blissful Self all these fears can be surmounted.

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