Moment to Speak

The self, or the ātman , is a living being and a part of the Supreme Self. It is the realised meaning of life and is eternally free, unrestricted, transcendent, and effulgent. Everything is unreal except for who you are. It transcends time, space, and causality and is everlasting and unbreakable. It is a being's everlasting essence and light, existing outside of time and space. Transmigration, or freedom, occurs for the Samsār chakra, or the wheel of birth and death. Finding one's true self—the divine and pure essence of oneself—and transcending individuality are the ultimate goals of life exploration. Every being is unique. Unique in birth, growth, decay, and death. Uniqueness is its essential identity, and real identity is its self. When a being takes birth, he comes to this world embedded with the koshas (sheath) of his body-mind-intellect system that propels him outward. The first way he feels the world outside is through his sense perceptions—sound, touch, sight, hea...

Man is in deep slumber under the veil of ignorance. Every dimension of his being is swayed by his sense of ego. The ego is the false sense of identity of the body-mind-intellect system of a being. There is an outward sense of perceptive feeling emanating from the body-mind-intellect system. The conception of "I" is transplanted into that system by juxtaposing everything in a unipolarity of objects with disregard for the subjective dimension. It makes him forgetful of his true identity, the atman, as Sat-Chit-Anand . It exists in all time dimensions—past, present, and future. It is eternal, imperishable, and not conditioned by time, space, or causality. The human being goes on to replicate himself through the cycle of ephemeral transmission of samsāra chakra (the wheel of birth and death) rather than searching for a way out to get out of that cycle by realising the self within. There is a little time in this birth, human being needs to arise and awake to search for r...

The nature of the self (ātman) is aloneness, and that aloneness is spaceless and timeless. Aloneness is consciousness of the self, a state of absolute freedom, and Sat-Chit-Ananda , or Existence-Consciousness-Bliss. In that sense, it is one with the Supreme Self, which is unattached, inseparable, integrated, and a single organic whole. It is above all the dualities and opposites of birth and death, attachments and aversion, anger and calm, joy and sorrow, happiness and distress, pleasure and pain, love and hatred, quench and thirst, and pacification and inflammation. These are all states of mind and, as such, evanescent. Aloneness in the self is kaivalya , the highest state of consciousness of the self. Kaivalya is devoid of any attachment, aversion, fear, greed, lust, anger, bondage, ignorance, and all the vices of one’s elevation in the life-journeying process. However, the created beings, upon their birth, get entangled in the attachments and bondings of the phenomenal world of...

Live life itself. Man is essentially the all-pervading eternal soul, according to Swami Sivananda . Because of his ignorance and delusions, he associates himself with the five illusory Koshas , or sheaths, that are the Annamaya Kosha (physical sheath) , Pranamaya Kosha (physiological or energy sheath), Manomaya Kosha (psychological or the mind sheath) , Vijnanamaya Kosha (wisdom sheath), and Ānandamaya Kosha (bliss sheath). He believes that he is also susceptible to these fluctuations. He considers the physical body, the Annamaya Kosha , to be his identity, and he considers himself burned when the physical body is burned. In addition, he believes that he is black. For the sake of ignorance ( Avidya ), he gets connected to his familial relations, property, fortune, etc., and assumes he possesses them completely. He considers himself to be a householder, an ascetic, a student, and so forth. There are five components that make up the body. It is very different from the true self. Ignor...

You are not the body, nor is the body yours, nor are you the doer of actions or the reaper of their consequences. You are eternally pure consciousness, the witness, in need of nothing—so live happily, an aphoristic proclamation by Sage Ashtavakra (Ashtavakra Gita,15.4., translation by John Richards, 2 nd Edition, 1996, Stackpole Elidor, UK). Meditation is based on the premise that the subjective self is eternal, luminous, self-effulgent, sentient, imperishable, existence-consciousness-bliss (Sat-Chit-Anand), and the outward objective world of matter is transient, insentient, inert, perishable, anxiety, misery, vexation, craving, bondage, attachment, jealousy, and all those appended adjunct qualities. The way forward is to turn inward to uncover the ignorance and realise the self within.  Meditation is to become conscious of your own self, hitherto covered by a veil of ignorance. It is a means of ascending on the ladder of enlightenment and realisation of consciousness, starting...

There is just one Existence, and it is the only one that is Eternal, Absolute, Infinite, Imperishable, Complete, Final, Full, Supreme, Constant, Everlasting, Real, Conscious, Undivided, Immovable, Non-relative, Non-dual, Non-limitless, and beyond the reach of a finite. The Supreme Being is the infinity of the infinitude and all-inclusive. Nothing exists outside of Him. He is the cause of all causes, and the source of all sources. He is inconceivable, transcendent and immanent at the same time. Neither the celestial gods nor the great sages know of His origin, asserts the Srimad Bhagavad Gita . Satyam-Jñānam-Anantam Brahma, or Brahmān (Absolute Existence, or Supreme Being) is Truth-Knowledge-Infinity, is a clarion remark by Taittirya Upaniṣad ( 2.1.1).  Realisation of Brahmān is really nothing but identity with the Self of all. Because the attainment or non-attainment of Brahmān is contingent on Its realisation or non-realisation. Though fundamentally identical to Brahmān , th...

‘You Alone Are Real,’ explains Sage Ashtavakra in an answer to the question, "Is this real or was that real?" raised by King Janaka, well versed in Vaisvanara Vidya , or the knowledge of the Universal Self, and father of Sita of the Ramayana , before his assembly of advisors. You are not the body, nor is the body yours, nor are you the doer of actions or the reaper of their consequences. You are eternally pure consciousness, the witness, in need of nothing—so live happily, an aphoristic proclamation by Sage Ashtavakra (Ashtavakra Gita,15.4., translation by John Richards, 2nd Edition, Stackpole Elidor, UK, 1996). Sage Ashtavakra emphatically says real is neither the waking state, Janaka as King, nor the dreaming state, Janaka as Beggar. It is untrue that King Janaka is an emperor or a beggar. You are the only real you. Because you are the truth. Furthermore, you are your true reality; you are the one who witnessed both of these states, the one who existed as pure consciou...